@MazorNoob said in Balance Thread Guidelines Feedback:
Bad take on beetles aside, that's a good point. I recently posted in the beetle thread showing that beetles are built in very few games (and backed it with data) and received a couple replies to the tune of "they are good, people just don't know better and that's why they don't build them". I'm worried that showing that a unit is very rarely built would never be enough to satisfy guidelines (i.e. a moderator would lock the thread using an argument like this).
That's the problem that comes with relying entirely on statistical data, especially since FAF itself is hardly a large enough pool of players to continuously be testing things and assume that the meta as it is would be the whole range of optimal tactics. There are several examples throughout FAF balance change history where people didn't realize something was broken until several months into a patch just because people didn't abuse it as much as they could. People are metaslaves and generally lazy.
Reminds me of Yudi learning about ground assisting hives near two quantum gateways as the most efficient way of making RAS boys from some random dual gap dude and then that method spreading to the rest of high level FAF from there.
There's also the problem that you have a burden to explain why "a unit is very rarely built" means a unit is bad and what exactly the correct proportion of it being built is. Does the sparky need to be built as often as a t2 engie to be good? Half as often? Quarter? Why? Why does this being under or over mean anything about sparky?
You also need to qualify the data pool you're using. If you get some random assortment of 10k games over a set interval, even if you control these games to remove all single team games, that will still be what? 100 games with an average rating of over 1800? Why does it matter if the guys playing all welcome wonder 8v8 are not making firebeetles? Why does it matter if we rarely see RAS sacus in ladder?
There's a lot of qualification work that needs to go into making the information you posted in the beetles thread to be worth considering if you want to make it the crux of your analysis.
By the way, I do think the information you posted is interesting and a nice starting point for a discussion or adding onto a discussion, but I do not think it's any sort of solid basis to demand adjustments from.