Ranloth
Banned
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Of course there is a problem with balance, there always is! If a player doesn't like one change, there's your problem. Some like it thus creating an argument and no one knows who is right. In fact, that's the core of our problem.
First of all, balance in EpicDuel is subjective (based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions) instead of objective (not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts). This is the eternal struggle which will remain with ED for years to come unless something will get changed.
Let's go in depth with this. One example is Botanical Hazard and its Poison: there is a thread in this very section regarding the power of Botanical Hazard and its Poison, where people are split into two groups - "overpowered" and "balanced" - and neither knows who is right but each one of them believe they are right. So where is the problem? The problem is in people having their own opinion regarding something that is subjective and balance in the game is influenced by it. On the other hand, there were changes in the past which are objective and the main one which comes to my mind is nerfing HP (from 1 point = 2 HP to 1 point = 1 HP), and the Devs had their reasons behind it and this will not be changed to the old system.
AdventureQuest has their own standards for balancing the game. It's built on one big formulae which balances literally everything in the game, whether it's pricing, monsters or equipment. It all goes together and is balanced throughout 150 levels - until the level cap. Balance there is objective and is not influenced by the community because it can be biased, although there were few changes which ended up being done poorly and had to be corrected. One example could be promotional items that are offered in AQ which were altered twice and these were buffs since the incentive to purchase them was low and they barely stood out from normal items. Mind you, they were not buffed in power since all items have the same power at the same level but they were altered in the way where the incentive to purchase them was higher, the item gained in power but did not really get more power. It was made more useful.
Which one of those works out better for the game, subjective or objective? I would say the latter because it's not influenced by anything or anyone thus avoiding the conflict of a change being biased towards certain group of players. On the other hand, one may argue that objective changes by Devs are worse since they have little PvP experience which is semi-true since Developers have alts on which they do play from time to time. Then there are our lovely Testers and Moderators. They are players like us with experience in PvP - unlike Devs - therefore they can fill in the niche which Developers have.
Knowing that, would you prefer the balance to be subjective or objective? Developers will propose a change with their own reasons to justify it and the Testers can play it through themselves before releasing it live for all, and give feedback to Developers which is crucial since Testers have PvP experience which Devs don't necessarily have enough of. In a way, feedback can be subjective but the change made is objective and doesn't have to be changed based on the feedback - if anything, it can be improved upon thanks to the experience.
In conclusion, would you prefer the balance to be subjective or objective?* What if Devs were to propose a change a week early and collect feedback on it throughout the week before making final change? Of course our feedback would have to be justified and Developers would have their own reason to change something, but that does not mean our feedback would be right nor used when balancing something out because it may end up being subjective. Yes, there has to be some sort of feedback but making it all subjective is a terrible solution because it's biased and for that reason, the balance is not stable.
* If it was to be fully objective, there would have to be a major improvement in communication between the players, Developers and Testers for the reasons stated. Even if balance is objective, this doesn't mean it's always right and mistakes can be made where something really has to be buffed or nerfed for obvious reason(s). An example includes AQ (refer to the fourth paragraph).
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