@All - Guys, most of you are drawing conclusions where you lack knowing the facts to make them. You assume too much and know too little. Instead of interjecting yourselves in the conversation with insults aimed at me, just go to the back row and take a nice warm cup of stfu. I will not address all comments, I will limit my replies to those of value out of the current 67 in order of merit and to the others that need addressing. Thanks to all others who posted something relevant to the topic that I do not address directly.
@Mach You made the most intelligent posts by far. You get the point about the black box, the backroom deals. You appear to appreciate that the best balance comes from increasing gameplay optionality based on having imbalances whereby advantages over the entire spectrum of choices neutralize each other. The balance teams over the years have often missed the greater picture of the balance between economy and military, offense vs defense but I suppose I'm not telling you anything that you don't already know.
Your worry about unserious candidates succeeding is understandable but I do not think that the process would have to allow unserious bids that do not address FAF as a game in its entirety to be put up for the final vote. I know some are trying to pull this into the ridiculous, but it can be done in a professional and serious manner. The goal is to advance the game, not accelerate its demise.
I doubt that more than 5 people in this community have even tried to put together models to establish relationships between different aspects of the game when thinking about the balance, let alone put together a balance mod to test their assumptions but I think it is as good a time as ever to up the quality of the game.
@arma473 BHEdit was a carbon copy of the pre-august 2016 balance mod also known as 3650 with maybe a handful of small changes to stats. Superior Setons Balance Mod, also a carbon copy, had more prospects to improve gameplay in my opinion but didn't go for very long I think.
EvilDrewBalance as you call it existed starting End 2016 out as pre august 2016 balance, developing into pre august 2016 balance EDI, bringing many improvements to the game myself and then by adding in other improvements from other mods such as EQ later morphed into FA RTS. I just don't have the will or time to keep updating it every time a patch comes out and breaks all kinds of stuff. You can see several of my own improvements in almost the same iteration in today's game. Some were implemented in a failed form due to lack of proper understanding by those responsible at the time, however if you did the research you would know that many of my improvements and changes were adopted years later from when I pioneered them without credit given. Could I prove in a court of law that they were plagiarized, UI don't know, but why would I really care to even try that. Anyone looking at it objectively would notice a pattern leaning to such a conclusion when seeing it happen 5, 10, 15 times. Some of the best fixes though due to their level of complexity I assume and other unit relevancy enhancements to increase optionality did not spill over. I presume because no one cared, very sad for all of FAF in my opinion.
Sheeo told me years ago I could not have my balance mod ranked when I asked after EQ got ranked which limited my balance mod's potential reach, people often don't want to play unranked constantly. They want the reflection of their progression. So the mod path has always been impractical.
@Wheelie Why I wrote this... Well I could have just watched you and your group continue to fail the community and just looked away and ignored all the comments that I read from people having meltdowns wishing the bleeding would stop, but the truth is; I had to do it because somebody had to do something and looking to my left and to my right there was no one who was going to say what needed to be said.
You say it maybe would be more useful to start a proper discussion. Well I was open to give it a shot and bring many of my improvements to the game on Github but I got these types of replies like the one SpikeyNoob referenced. What would anyone conclude who gives a flawless mathematical demonstration and receives an answer decrying the methodology which is logical and sound as "criminal" and blasting out conceptually and factually false statements about T3 Pgens and T3 Mass Fabs vs RAS SACUs. Who would compare a RAS SACU to Mass Fabs and Pgens and not just the RAS upgrade without the SACU cost when specifically adding that the SACU has all these other benefits. It is called double counting. I can't help people who get the equation wrong and then refuse to listen to someone whose analytical skills are superior. He may decry that he is the balance in a Faucian fit because he carries the title - fine - but that does not make any claims relating to the balance of the game true and this is where a major problem lies.
"First of all, calculating the income of T3 mexes without mass storages is just criminal. A similar is true for mass fabs without their adjacency to T3 pgen. If you calculate the efficiency of a 2 T3 mass fab + 2 T3 Pgen grid you will see that they are more efficient than RAS SACUs. On the other hand, RAS SACUs have BP, are less volatile, can move, don't take space, can fight etc. " https://github.com/FAForever/fa/issues/4365
This is not the only incidence of double counting/double buffing/double nerfing we have seen over the years where only 1 targeted change should have been done, even the last patch has some of the same problems. So is that really me being unwilling to have a proper discussion?
You see Wheelie you are in the wrong about this, portray yourself as the victim and accuse me of being the person you are seeing in the mirror. We all do this from time to time so I wont hold it against you.
The question I ask myself is: Should I waste my time trying to collaborate with people like that? No, I will not avail my time or material to a group of people who from my point of view lack the wisdom to recognize its value. Tools can do a lot of good if used correctly but can be very harmful in the wrong hands, especially in the hands of people who do not grasp the underlying concepts.
@Femboy Yeah, WTF have I ever done to contribute... I guess nothing since some links on the old forums broke and for the people on this forum the rest has disappeared in the archives for no one to ever see again, but wait! Look, some of it still works, https://forums.faforever.com/index.php and look you can still download the Pre August 2016 Balance mod EDI in the vault and see the date of the last version 38 and contrast it to http://patchnotes.faforever.com/.
Who came up with the idea to reduce T3 air speeds and slow down Sam missile projectiles and implemented it fully functional in his mod?
Who came up with the idea to change the target bones on units when lazer weapons would lead in particular fast moving units missing them and implement a fully functioning solution achieving 99% accuracy? (Something Jip started working on I think last year because developers on Slack back in the day didn't like my solution for whatever reason and thought leaving it as broken was a better course of action) / (Even in the last patch the Rhino was changed to having projectiles because it misses, something that could have been fixed and left as lazer weapon many years ago)
Who came up with the correct assessment of how to fix the imbalance between T2 subs and T3 sera subs by changing the intel settings when the facts said the T3 sera sub was just as good based on HP DPS and cost but yet kept losing?
Who came up with the idea to increase torpedo damage on Wagners, Bricks and Othums when they were immaterial aspects of the game?
Who posted on the forums that T1 transports should have a dummy weapon to use Ghettos properly?
Who came up with the idea to reduce the number of TML missiles per launcher?
Who had the idea to put a minimum range on TMDs to stop them spinning as they get hit?
Who discovered that Salems while on land would be missed by some units firing at a bone outside their hitbox?
Who identified that the crash damage on T2 transports was less than on T1 transports?
Oh and one more I can think of off the top of my head . Who came up with the idea to reduce the sonar on torp bombers first as part of a more extensive navy intel rework to increase the viability of subs? A change that was implemented only on the torpedo bomber after being seen first in the Pre August 2016 Balance Mod but missing the point so basically achieving nothing since T3 sonar covers the entire pond on many 20x20 navy maps.
Will you go check any of these facts or doesn't it fit the narrative you have embraced?
So when you ask what have I done to contribute to this game just ask yourself who conceived of and was first to implement those things in the game that materially improved it? Yeah, you're looking at him. Did I ever complain or protest those changes being implemented? No. So get off your high horse, pack your bags and get out of my face.
@IndexLibrorum The difference between several suggestions and the entirety of a set of changes getting implemented can be the difference between the overall idea behind the changes working or not working. If I did an extensive navy rework f.ex. and they then said 'yeah, we like half the changes let's do this but not that', the chances of many of the core concepts underpinning those changes would not be observed in game and it would not achieve its goal of enhancing gameplay to the intended extent. I have tried to read through all of ComradeStryker’s posts which I have seen before but to me those are mostly small proposed changes that do little to affect the game overall. Anyone can get small changes approved when they are obviously needed. That is not what is being discussed here.
@FTX You are the one who demanded that sparkies get to build radar even though they have an onboard radar and who for whatever reason cannot think about putting 1 T2 engineer on a transport with 5 sparkies to make factories+radar. You think because you get preferential treatment that you need to defend the status quo. That might work for you but doesn't work for the other 98% of the community. Had I or anyone else been in control than the ones who you play with all the time, your proposal would have been instantly dismissed.
Regarding how this would work in my opinion:
Candidates suggest how to reshape the game according to their vision and specify what they would change in a detailed changelog and explain why they think it would improve the game.
I am not even against a jury of reputable and impartial persons (i.e. not you) to disqualify candidates who make proposals that are clearly not serious. Someone who just says they will reshape the game to Astro with no details would just be excluded. It is all about laying out a feasible plan and delivering on it. I don't know why you come up with the most extreme possibilities and present them as the norm. I think people with good ideas and good intentions would put together something serious.
@SpikeyNoob Your reasoning is logical but false. Yes I felt insulted by said person but no, this post has nothing to do with that. My active contribution to the game is only available under certain circumstances which were not present from a certain point onwards, so I withdrew my content out of self-respect. That's it.
