Must Every Thread Be Turned into the Complaint Department on Balance?

I think "hate" is too strong a word.

However, that's just splitting hairs. The end result is that the persons who made that mod have been systematically alienated from the forums over time.

totaly this ... seriously i despice the idea of research and upgrades in RTS ... just give me the tools to produce stuff and beat my enemies from the get go ..
this is one reason why i personaly can´t play rise of nations or empire earth the normal way in multiplayer but to start and stay in one particular age for instance

it is just a matter of fact that every player/modder/dev has his/her own idea of a ballanced unitpool ..
the question to it is how to compromise between those ideas ... after all we want a big enough community to play toghether ... but appearantly all that happens is spitting the community with mods/versions of ballances because parties are so eager with their ideas that such compromises seem not be able to happen ...

To be fair, very few people browse the balance discussion forums.

because most of the time the topics there a very specific and such there often isn´t much to talk in them ..
additionaly ballancetopics rather arise as new updates, contend and fixes are done ... so not realy suprising at least to me ..
does that warant though to throw a balancethread into general discussion just because more talk and exposure is here? ... personaly i don´t think this is such a good idea due to likely pile up of discussion and that beckoming messy to search through in the long run ...

For the record, no one on the RCBM team has been approached by anyone at Uber to discuss the mod in any way, shape of form.

This isn't about compromises, it's about a failure (stemming from seeming unwillingness) to communicate. When we aproached them we got responses like this:

I think that quote speaks volumes about how seriously Uber takes the modding scene, or at least did, at the time of writing.

Better grab a soda too, this popcorn is extra salty.

obviously without communication there can´t be any compromises in the first place, i think we can agree on that one ... yet still i see a number of forumers that DO communicate still not be willing to listen to what others like to say but simply go through their own course of balance ..

i think you read a bit too much into that ... they did integrade stuff from PAMM into the basegame after all even if it is just more cosmetical than gameplaychanging ...
obviously i don´t realy know what is the exact beef between you guys and uber ...
but i don´t think it is fair to say that they wouldn´t take the modding scene serious at all ..

For the record, Nanolathe is speaking on his own behalf here, not on anyone else's

I'm speaking on behalf of the RCBM team, TWC.

I'm not sure that sentiment is shared by the whole team - I may be wrong of course but that's not the feeling I get from having spoken to them recently.

...actually it is.

Well scathis realizes that a million different views on good balance exist. I am sure if they were to just copy RCBM you quickly would see a lot of people complaining about that as well.

That really is not the point. We don't want Uber to copy our work. We want to discuss our work with them so that we can improve both our respective visions.

From my own standpoint, I cannot agree with this.

For the record, I have been very quiet of late because, in my opinion, Uber entertainment Staff have said some inappropriate things to RCBM team members in both public and private. This does not apply to all developers, but as far I am concerned, any at all is too many.

I support the statement that some modders have been made to feel alienated when trying to develop their own balance vision.

Regardless of how others feel about it, there are clearly people who have an issue with balance. Sadly, some members of Uber-entertainment believe that this is not a question open for discussion.

I wasn't aware that I had asked him to "copy". Could you source that for me?

Sure, and I as great as that would be (for me), I wouldn't delude myself with the idea that my way is the only way.

However that doesn't mean you can't look at it objectively and cherry pick parts that you like, or at least talk about it. Instead the impression I get suggests that all the modding attempts out there are a joke.

As of late this is the kind of response we get, which is quite nice.

The Statera team hasn't had an issue with the devs on the topic of modding once that I know of. What is it you want the devs to do, communicate *what* exactly @nanolathe ?

You RCBM guys can feel free to make your own game in the PA engine. Good luck to you! I'm going to keep on playing this game and maybe one or two good balance mods.

Im not taking sides on this matter, i just have a question.

If u guys are happy with the direction or progress being made in RCBM, what is there left to discuss?

I think the real issue is that if you start talking about balance you quickly end up with at least some people joining in who have very ... strong opinions and don't really want to discuss, but simply want to persuade everyone how awesome their own idea is.
That quickly leads to communication mistakes being made on both sides, Uber as well as players, and the discussion goes down the drain from there. That's at least how the thread nanolathe linked reads to me, from skimming over it.
I agree that more discussion about the design of the balance with Uber might be cool in theory, but I am not really sure how it can work out in reality.
I do hope (assume) they read our balance discussions and use them as a basis for their own work, as that seems pretty doable and useful. That ofc doesn't mean that any ideas we write about make it into the game. I guess some essays from people at Uber balancing the game about "why" would be nice to read, especially if they would mention what influences from the community affected their thoughts. It would also allow us to directly respond to their thoughts.
But direct discussion about some specific balancing concept (especially one that is far away from how the game currently works) is probably not gonna work out very well, so Uber never tried to engage into it.

Which, ironically, results in this thread.