@thomashiatt said in Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team:
Even if something is overpowered it is fine because everyone is free to use it, and attempt to find counters to it. And if something is underpowered it is fine because people can just not use it, or try to find ways to make it viable. When you successfully use something underpowered it is funny and you feel good. Not every unit has to be competitively viable, meme units are great. Using overpowered things is also fun. Having overpowered and underpowered things is more interesting than everything being normal and viable. You will get to see different factions played and different strategies used if there's a rotation of underpowered and overpowered things. Not every unit has to be good at the same time.
It is also not entirely clear if something is truly good or bad, the janus was considered trash for a very long time but now it is suddenly considered borderline OP, yet it hasn't been changed in a balance patch since 2017 as far as I know.
S tier: Unit being unique, fun, and viable
A-B tier: Unit being two of those
C-D tier: Unit being one of those
F tier: Unit being none of those
Of these, making units viable is the easiest as it simply involves converging the general gameplay to the mean. I almost never see anybody post any examples of a unit that fits all three of these. It’s hard.
Especially since even doing something that hardly changes the game to increase sum faction uniqueness (jamming on uef t3 air or sparky suite change) gets seen as insane busted adjustments. Just look at the threads I had to defend those in, these things being seen as insane just involved sheer dissonance and it still was like pulling teeth.
Frankly to do any real work in increasing uniqueness, I’d argue that balance team should be ignoring initial pushback against ideas like that. The thing this thread is kinda trying to discourage.
Use dreamers for uniqueness. Use feedback for fun. Use competent players for viability.
Unique: Giving UEF T3 air jamming
Fun: Remove it from ASF to preserve game sim speed
Viability: Balance the costs and mechanic against stealth