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Lycus -> RE: Bringing back the balance team (4/25/2014 7:20:44)
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This is a subject that has been touched upon multiple times and I'll try to give my point of view on the matter as best I can. Firstly, as said, there was a balance team a long while back, before Rabblefroth joined the team and Ashari was around. However when Ashari left and Rabblefroth joined, the reins passed over to him and we decided to not only rely on player, mod and tester feedback, but also to use systems that traced 1v1 balance by seeing which classes were winning the most and multiple other statistics. Now it is easy to say 'bring back a dedicated balance team' or something of the sort, but the issue is that balance is an ideal that can be aimed for, however it can also be subjective. It is easy for players (even tester or moderators) to become bias towards a certain class, where everything they suggest is ever so slightly in favour of the class that they personally use or prefer, whether it is concious or sub-concious it is still likely to happen when you are a dedicated player. This is why Rabblefroth, who although he does play EpicDuel, he has been objective from the start and is a good assessor therefore as to how to balance the game from a non-bias perspective.
Now once again, I will bring up the fact (whether you choose to believe this or not is your choice), that the Developers do play frequently, as do the majority of Moderators and Testers. Playing on a Developers account or Moderators account is not easy though all the time because it leads to so many questions, and at the end of the day you cannot experience the game as a normal play, which is the whole point of them playing it. So the best way they can play as a player is to do so on alts, so they play anonymously and without being recognised. You may still see them on their main accounts (they tend to play mainly after releases on those), however most other times, they play on alts and I can tell you now, they play more than you realise. The issue is, they may be developers and experts in there parts of the industry, but that does not mean they specialise in balance. Every player posting in this section does not post a perfect solution to balance, nor a non-bias view. There may be some great suggestions, but it is safe to say that not all of them are fantastic and game fixing. In the same way, the developers when thinking like players are not going to be coming up with perfect balance ideas every time, just because they play the game and develop it. This is why they rely on player, mod and tester feedback and well as statistics from the tracking systems to formulate balance patches. Bringing in a balance team may not have the effect that it is thought it may, it will likely lead to another group to add their voices to the feedback, or another group to filter through feedback and suggest changes. Would bring back the balance team solve balance? Probably not, balance is continually changing and as Xendran pointed out, it would likely just lead to a redirection of anger with balance issues and so on.
Due to this not being a balance suggestion in terms of in-game changes and neither is it something that is up for player discussion, I am going to lock this up - however, do feel free to PM me if you have any further questions!
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