Uber how about a new aproach to Balance changes?

Even me, a mediocre player, that usually goes for big FFA and team matches, can tell you that PA need some balance changes. As it stands you basically build only 4 or 5 units, hummingbirds, doxes, tanks and Shellers (late game), maybe spinners, that makes the game feel poor. People only use boom bots and bombers for snipes.

I think uber can put their money where their mouth is by implementing small balance changes in PTE versions so that we can see what they are cooking up and give them feedback, they can also see if their changes have some unintended results as they often generate. I think this way everyone is happy, players get to see uber working on balance and Uber gets feedback and testing on their balance changes.

IMO this is much better then a huge balance changes that trows everything head over feet, but some people may argue that every balance change influences another so the only way to achieve a better balance is changing several things at a time.

Small incremental changes are best, but possibly not for the reason you are saying. Based on what I see around this forum and reddit, this game would just get worse if Uber listened to the people yelling the loudest. I'm not so sure that I want them to balance the game based on PTE feedback.

Small, incremental changes work best if they're frequent. So far, that hasn't described Uber's update process.

I'm fine with a big, fat change if it addresses the issues that most everyone has mentioned, such as Dox/T1 rushing and glass-cannon Naval.

A lot of the problems people have with dox are actually because of the way the economy works. I recommend trying @cola_colin's Expansionist mod.

Balancing the game is like a binary search: First you make big steps, but they get smaller and smaller over time.
The last steps were still rather big, we are far from being finished.

PotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotatoPotato



First they need to think out their balance, what it should look like, how it should work as a whole, what the pacing needs to be and then how each unit is going to work and what holes in the gameplay and unit roles do they want to pluck. Then after much talk and consideration and a clear plan in front of them they start with massive incremental changes. First Economy and pacing, then ground, then air, then naval and orbital. After the framework has been set and the balance is roughly where it needs to be then they go and make small changes as they tinker with the units and polish then. At least that's my experience from watching RCBM develop.

It'd be nice to hear that there is an actual plan, rather than just this seemingly random scattershot approach. It's clear that the "balance by feel" paradigm that scathis initiated hasn't really been successful.

No it isn't. Not at ALL. Dox are too versatile for their role. That's it. O'm not sure why this is even a DISCUSSION. I thought the thousands of games we've all played by now would have determined that.

The expansionist mod is a great idea, but all it does in the current meta is allow for expansion AND dox rushing at the same time. Essentially, allowing you to zerg while teching up. I'm not so sure this is a good thing. It's a new thing, to be sure - but is it a good one?

Voted for potato because it was possible.

By the way, the best what the devs could do is to look at the community made balance mods, study them, learn from them. Not copy them all together, but at least borrow some of the parts of those which are exceptional.

I'd like a PTE balancing preview simply so I can understand their balance process and learn from it myself - them being a company with more talent and manpower, I'm sure they have a better way of doing things than me.

Also so I can applaud a good change, give constructive feedback on any change, and scream loudly at a terrible change.

You always have countless ways to change the balance. Just because someone reduced the effectiveness of Dox without touching it, you shouldn't draw the conclusion that there's nothing wrong with Dox in the first place.

It's possible that the dox needs to be distilled into several units, but I have always liked the idea of having dox AA, even if that would mean giving the dox a specialised weapon for it rather then having a omni-weapon.

Expansion alone means watching how players build structures
Raiding (dox) alone means watching how players one-base rush each other within 10 minutes

Both alone are not exactly great. Now combine the two: Players build structures everywhere and fight over them. Yey action in more than one place! And because players quickly have bigger bases they don't usually die within less than 10 minutes

The dox sure is ... tooo versatile. I would try to force it more into the role of a pure raider and make it weaker in direct combat and probably remove aa from it and re-add an aa bot.
Though I do think that the strong dox is not the cause of the missing expansion play in the current balance.