Should we still discuss balance?

I think that with dynamic front lines, stealth is better. Instead of lowering the risk of being caught, is almost guaranteed, which can result in some great raids. Who's going to focus on what isn't there? I know I'm not that paranoid

*reads threadtitle*
Is that realy a question?

Uber was complaining about us harassing them about balance issues, so I decided to ask the community whether or not we should continuously bug them about a specific balance. I'd say the responses have been quite informative.

Uber (actually, just Brad and Scathis, and some Metabolical, mostly driven by Mavor being discontent with the community) has been whining that our feedback is overly negative. Honestly, I have no idea what the hell they mean - I'm critiquing their illogical decisions by combating them with logical arguments, as is Nanolathe, KNight, MadSci, brianpurkiss, custard, WrongCat, stuart.....etc.

If they are insulted by this, they need to man up and take responsibility by responding and not reacting to our feedback.

We should bug them because no problem can be too obvious. Don't take it personally, Uber Dudes.

It's not so much what was said as how it was said.

I don't freaking care HOW it was said. I understand rudeness and manners and the like, but you have to able to discern that when a majority of your community blows up in your face about something, you probably DUN SCREWED UP.

Funny
Wasnt there a thread were brad and garat basicly said "go for it"?

Your opinion is ******* ****.
*Ahem*
I mean, I respectfully disagree.

Pride is the root of all evil. If something is said in arrogance, the truth will be that much more difficult to uncover.
Edit: You say you do not care, and then you concede that manners are important. This implicitly means that you went back on your earlier claim. I thank you for changing your mind.

I think so.

The love of money is the root of all evil

If you walk into a conversation with the understanding that:

A) The other person's opinion is laced with a bias inherent from their upbringing, environment, and decision-making process
B) That person's opinion is grounded in a truth somewhere. They may not see it, but a resourceful, thoughtful mind will be able to extricate the truth from their opinion.

Then you can flush out arrogance and bias rather simply.

Something else: Having a concrete goal to strive towards REALLY helps - that way you have a context for everything you see and do regarding it. Balance currently does not have that goal, which makes most of the balance changes blind stabs into darkness.

The theme "greed is the root of all evil" is actually from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, more specifically The Pardoner's Tale, wherein the pardoner weaves a grand tale of greed with many falsities to persuade the other pilgrims to give him their material wealth, which he says he will use for the good (charity), but has absolutely no intention to, using the very line in question to swindle them.
That people have actually taken the tale at face value without any critical literary analysis is where we get the concept of people actually being serious when they say that greed is the root of all evil, at least, from a historical perspective, and where the idea grew people made tales to corroborate the theme.

You are correct in that we must be aware of our partner's possible biases and dispositions when our aim is to change their mind, such is rhetoric. I also believe that there is some modicum of truth in almost all viewpoints, however abused or marred, and that seeking common ground is an admirable rhetorical goal.
Some don't take to kindly to being analyzed, though, or openly discussing things, which is sad, and they close themselves as soon as they perceive you attempt to convince them of anything to the contrary.
But...
Imagine a world wherein personal bias is a negligible effect to discussion. Such was the colleges of the middle/'dark' ages, oddly enough, they were the times of some of the most rigorous debates that the world has ever seen, where the professor would serve as the mediator in their formal causative structure, and be expected to have a thorough defense if anyone challenged, the students as well. This is the world I would strive for. No ideal is too high, unless of course it is intrinsically impossible!

But, here is my conundrum with Uber Entertainment. I see people speak of balancing formulas, and Uber sees their peers use rigorous mathematical analysis to balance games, and... Balance hasn't really gotten any better (edit: I mean the balance of the peers, not Uber per se). Aye, of course, data is (edit: sometimes) necessary to solidify the feeling that something is not as it should be, but note that the feeling that something is overpowered usually precedes the confirmation, most especially when it comes to the general populace of people.
Balance is, at the end of the day, a fundamentally qualitative thing, rather than a quantitative thing. Since a comprehensive understanding of qualities is often difficult to come by these days, it makes sense that Uber might try to cut out the middle part, and as soon as the primitive intuition of being imbalanced is detected they might attempt to point to what might make something overpowered or underpowered and adjust it.

In the end, I think people who are strictly mathematical in their analysis of balance are missing the forest from the trees, they don't see the bigger picture often, and many times overlook possible solutions, whereas balancing solely from feel makes the forest painting into a muddy watercolor, and they may not hit the precise thing needed to be balanced.
I regularly see the vices Uber talks about when people in forums (in other games, thankfully) use numbers to push a ridiculous premise which the rest of the base goes along with, but that ought not blur the mathematical trends which often complement thorough analysis of qualities. The middle way is the best method, and it seems that very, very few do that. I feel Uber is generally closer to the middle than the ultra-formulaic and plodding tone which most other balancing teams start out with, it's just at they're on the other side of things, something which we as consumers and observers of the industry are simply not used to seeing.

If we don't discuss balance, who will?
We're beta/alpha testers, for crying out loud. That's kind of the point.
That and debugging.
Everyone here has spent upwards of 50 bucks on a belief that the game will be worth it in the end, and they have the right to make sure it reaches that point. I mean, most games have discounts for early access, but not this one. Not criticizing that, but we spent that extra money for a reason.
Not saying that everyone did that, but some people did.
So, in short-
YES, discuss game balance. I think Starbound has killed my ability to feel empathy for game Devs complaining about 'hostile' communities, so can't really feel all that bad for Uber complaining/deleting some of the threads that might have been not overly positive in their tone.

Balance is one of the trickiest parts of making a game, and usually in other older games you will see a community patch that *balances* the game...(look at Battle for Middle Earth for instance). Because pretty much in every game (especially RTS) the community has more free time to play the game, and is much...much...more skilled. with PA this is strongly the case, so it would be good for the community to tell Uber what seems rather weak and/or to strong, since the community has a better grasp of gameplay from what i have seen so far

Balancing an RTS game cannot JUST be about the *balance feeling* - there has to be a mathematical reason behind it, too.

What I'm getting at is there needs to be an appropriate balance between math and feeling in the arena of balance. Right now we have an over-statement of feeling. In addition, we have no generic *goal* to strive towards - what are vehicles intended for, what are bots intended for, etc. It doesn't have to be ridiculously specific like the RCBM document was - we just need something to work towards, instead of just "working".

My understanding was that initially we did just start with basic goals and had just built upon them by the time we were ready to have the document open for viewing, plus we already had a good understanding of what our goals were so it was easier for us to start building them up.

Mike

Of course! Just as well an RTS game cannot be balanced by mathematical reason alone.
I believe we have an over-reliance on feeling, yes, HOWEVER, quantitative understanding of the game's balance in itself is not a worthy goal. The intention must be to qualitatively understand, with intuition (feeling, and the immediate apprehension of some primitive fact via the intellect) informed by data. Data does not inform to the truth, nor does mere feeling, rather, they coalesce to form a better understanding of the enigmatic art that is balance. Balance is not mathematical, nor is it wishy-washy vagueness.

I suppose the only difference between our viewpoints is that we are trying to emphasize different things as more important.
But, I sense another difference. There seems to be a false dichotomy of either 'feeling' or 'math', by the proclamation that there needs to be a 'balance' of them, meaning they might sometimes take away from the other, therefore are sometimes mutually exclusive. I deny that, for underlying every analysis of sense experience is some framework, usually assumptions and axioms, which molds the two together to form conclusions. One is not rejected while the other taken up. It is all about the interpretation of said data, and you are correct that a goal helps us interpret the data to a point. However, I still feel like that's missing the forest from the trees a little too much. The disposition I would ask is to more carefully examine our underlying axioms and assumptions and state them all openly before delving into balance discussions. I don't really have any examples because I'm a major armchair general who doesn't want to think about things so hard, even though I've done this much thinking already.

No, you're right, I'm just trying to push my agenda at this point. Let us experiment for the moment, then!
It does not seem that Uber is trying to give a specific goal for the two most contentious factory groups--bot and vehicle--rather that they're giving each unit roles. The role of the Grenadier is obvious, no need to speak of that, so too the Combat Fabber, and the Inferno and Spinner. The ONE in question is the tank. It's obvious they wish Dox not to be a front line unit, but rather a raider. The thing that makes me doubt the T1 Tank's role is that it's questionable that we have only one major front line unit which is the stock standard of all engagements, and I assume that Uber doesn't want that. Of course we're assuming a lot of things, but still... I think most of us would rather see Dox as a front line unit as well.

Hey, Uber, tell us what your goals are with each unit so we can get angry at them and tell you how dumb it is!

There's really no excuses for being a **** to Uber. Saying they need to man up is like saying what they feel is wrong. Which is actually a very terrible thing to say to anyone...

They are just making a game, their game. Devs don't "owe" us anything except by law the things written on kickstarter page. Nothing more. They didn't promise your happiness. They don't need to listen to your "sense". Heck, they don't even have to make sense if they don't want to.

How many thousand times you guys need to repeat your opinions and arguments like a broken record before you realize this?

After you've attacked ones ego hard it is extremely difficult for him to do what you told him to do due to self defense mechanism. Basically, being a **** makes it just harder for the devs to do what you wish them to do.

Yes, absolutely. Unfortunately, a few people went over that cliff a LONG time ago. I'll tone it back.

It's worth noting that when giving feedback on anything, the actual content of your feedback is arguably far less important than the way your feedback is conveyed.

The content is typically one or two objective points backed by some subjective analysis. For example, the RCBM guys recently implemented a unit which could kill just about anything else of the same metal cost (oops). If you look at that thread, there is some polite and useful feedback provided which enabled them to make a swift change to address some of the concerns.

Always take people's feelings into account when feeding back. No matter how terrible the outcome may appear objectively, someone has taken the time to think up and implement something in a particular way; you're telling them that they're wrong.

TL;DR - It ain't what you say, it's the way that you say it.

Such is the folly of human nature.