A couple things I also want to clear up about meta stagnation and high level players being a cornerstone of that problem.
FAF is not similar to many RTS because the strategic variety is heavily centered around map variation. The general meta of gameplay provides you with a toolbox which in turn must be correctly applied to the blueprint of the map/faction/player you are facing. People drastically underestimate how complicated you can make the game with “relatively inert” general meta. Back in the good old days Blackheart and Petric would spend a week sandboxing with one another to just get 5-7 maps worked out at a level they are comfortable with. They would do this and come up with a totally different build on maps people had been playing for a year or two on ladder. Farm and I could spend up to like 20-30 minutes talking about a map during teamgame tournaments. If you want strategic variety play maps and setups that encourage it. And no, 5v5 map gen slop is not gameplay variety just because it’s on a “new” map generation. It’s comfy and chill in its own way though which isn’t a problem.
Beyond that, I’d like to say things aren’t as simple as the high rated players that want to keep things the same vs the devs that want to shake up the game. I am probably one of the biggest advocates for bigger adjustments to the game yet I’m also one of the biggest opponents to many of the recent changes Jip was talking about and also one of the named toxic troll mumbo jumbo goons. Which I just find funny considering what I’ve done for FAF (had to divide my old role into 4-5 new ones after all).
But changes I advocate for have been blocked for what I saw as no coherent reason ie telebilly after the bug fix for it. This was by the proponent of “meta shakeups” here. I proposed the addition of Cybran absolver. I wanted jamming given to UEF t3 air while still advocating for adjustments to UEF spy plane to make jamming more viable since we can’t add it to ASF. I also tried to give ideas on what counter-intel Aeon and Sera could utilize. Same with trying to make mongoose/hoplite more viable by enabling them to shoot from transports. I want to remove false choices from the game, that’s what I work from. UEF teleport was a false choice, as in the current Aeon one. Mongoose was mostly a false choice. ACU drone is a false choice. Sometimes things are a false choice because they are too strong and sometimes it’s because things are too weak.
And don’t get me wrong, there is some asinine pushback from balance team sometimes. The fact it took like a month or two to argue about whether sparky being able to build radar and facs would “break the game” was nuts. But my margin for what would break the game is much wider than some of the conservative dudes on balance team but it’s definitely way tighter than Jip’s.