Challenge to the Balance team

[santiago4ever]

1. Yes this belongs in the 1.3 balance forum.
2. Yes I am aware of NDAs, I don't expect replies from the balancers.
3. No this is not a flame of the balance team efforts to balance the game, others are doing a swimmingly good job at that in other threads.

Here is what I would like to see. It is quite simple.

Balancers. Create a new account, Balancer1 Balancer2 and Balancer3 or something so that we can see who you are. Then start autoing, now don't just go pick the race you are best at. PICK RANDOM!!!

Play 100 or so autoes as random over a weeks time. I would prefer if you actually made it to top 100 with them so we could track your progress easily.

Then sit down in a group huddle or whatever you guys do and take a serious discussion about game balance. I am sure you will be enlightened about most imbalances that currently exist. :notadd:

P.S: I am really exciting about watching replays from the WCG, it will be a blast to watch 20+ mirror matchups... cause we all know they are the most exciting ever... I bet that will boost WA sales a whole lot.

P.P.S: I am so looking forward to what gap in chaos gameplay a late CC specialist unit will fill... really I do ^.^

P.P.P:S ok those P.S: and P.P:S was really offtopic and I apologize for them. Now out there and auto 1v1 balance team damnit!!! Reap what thee has sawn and all that.

[Metavirulent]

If they really do that and play random, the ork expert will get highest ranking hands down. Since they thought that 1.3 is balanced he sure is the best player by far.

[santiago4ever]

Seriously though. They had 3 players in top 100 1.2... they should have no problem playing random at a competative level, letting them watch all the ugly aspects of this game ATM...

Heck I play random and is top 50 now...

[TBS]

apparantly some testers are in the top 100...however they wont tell us what their names are for obvious reasons.

[santiago4ever]

I am pretty sure I know 1 of them atleast. Altough they could be smurfing too since I haven't seen him play for a while and isn't top 100 now...

[fuggles]

I'd love a note saying, yup, we're undercover. I'd laugh so loud if one of them was charlie!

[TBS]

that would be rather perverse - posting on the forums complaining about balance decisions that he himself was responsible for. I think we can safely assume that Charlie is not on the official balance team :p

[Chris]

I know Biffy and Excellion(spelling?) were on the balance team but biffy hasn't autoed since 13/5/2005 and Excellion's account is blank, so they're either not playing OR they are playing under different handles because people found out they were on the balance team.

[savagedave]

I think we can safely assume that Charlie is not on the official balance team

Be one hell of a ruse if he was!:jig:

[Vertigo]

so they're either not playing OR they are playing under different handles because people found out they were on the balance team.

And by "found out," you mean they posted in these forums under the same handles they used on the ladder. No real detective work needed on our part, I'd say. :)

[$gtPopp3r]

I remember watching a replay, excellion (eldar. surprised?) vs Santi....

:D

you should have asked for a re switching races right then, Santi ;)

[santiago4ever]

Aye I was tempted... but I couldn't quite place his name... I knew I had seen it before so I went on a name search in this forum and found him ^.^

Would have been interesting to see how good he really was instead of getting the nice lesson in "I have good enough micro to make the guard rush works on one of the most horrific chaos vs eldar maps"

[jeantend]

look like the balance team should recruit some new tester :mad:

[$gtPopp3r]

btw, it would be nice if they just explained how they intended to balance things, i.e. sth on the lines of "against gs rush, you just have to build 2 x and 3 y and use them like z".

I mean, we're obviously too dumb to figure it out ourselves, so they might as well explain the game to us. Would increase their credibility far more than just saying "it's balanced.".

[HaXxorIzed]

The balance team is a load of tosh. They said it's balanced and we'd figure it out, we see no results and a load of hodgepodge. The real balance team should probably be

TMG|Ichi/TMG|Charlie (Don't get me wrong charlie, but you're good and all, but ichi is calmer.)
Ari/Xar/jiav/whatever.
TMG|Korbah/Santi/Thor/Foree
TE|Eclipser. He seems a reasonable eldar player, if a bit naieve. Nevertheless, he'd be there to prevent overnerfing.

[Master Azrael]

getting "top" players in the balancing team is really not an option

[santiago4ever]

care to give a reason why?

[General Blaze]

ER, Master Azreal? Apparently, you DO need top players to balance a game. Heck, ALL games have internal balance teams who are top game players.

[$gtPopp3r]

he argued the same in my thread, saying top players play to win thus would unduly favour their own race.

this disregards that it is a balance TEAM....

[iamthedave]

The balance teams of RTS games are as bad as FPS teams. There are legends about the Halo developers and how utterly insanely good they are, and the entire of Blizzard's workforce is banned from WCG as relating Starcraft. You can't have random spods making up a balance team, you know!

[jeantend]

for me the problem is not the balance team, but that they need 6 month long to make a balance ; if they would do fast patch with little modification, and if their is a problem they would change it fast some week latter... but here they want make us believe that they are going to make miracle, what is impossible, and waiting month long for a next patch wich ll be as mutch imbalance than the last one (cause they think they ll find the perfect balance, where they could make only little change if they were making fast little patch), make us all tired...

[TBS]

fast patches are too expensive and so arent going to happen.

[Metavirulent]

I think balance changes that only fiddle around with numbers are not too expensive. If coding or bug fixing is involved then things may be a bit different.
I'd assume that they have a patch tool that can generate deltas that will be executed by your client. With the whole chain tried and tested, the logistics process should be very affordable.
I mean it won't be for free but compared to manpower cost of development...

[jeantend]

on impossible creatures for the insect expansion, they made a beta test with people in the top 100 ; why not making the same system to test the DoW patches ?

[goshawk]

Didnt at one point a winner of a competition get to play a player from Relic and got whipped is this true and any replays if so?

[General Blaze]

That was Fenris X2, I believed.

[Dr. Badman]

I bet the Relic balance people in the top 100 are Eldar WS abusers... :rolleyes:

[santiago4ever]

more like guardian rushers ^.^

[Vertigo]

Still stinging from that whipping, eh, Santiago? Can't blame you, I saw that replay. All I know is you did better against that than I would have.

[santiago4ever]

I think I can beat that strat most of the time now actually... but still don't think it's quite fair that I must play flawlessly to do it, and also if he does a WS opener instead I am bananas.

[fuggles]

A proper challenge would be a "relic VS"... night. Relics team opens it doors to us all and has a proper night of fighting 1v1, 3v3 whatever. That would be a much better way to make our point to them.