I don’t think some of you people understand how those (surprising) balance changes were pulled out, so I think I’ll have to try to explain how was SD’s mindset when they created all those changes. Hopefully this patch note will appear a little more logical to a few of you.
The veteran’s feedback is not the only thing that matters. Casual sentiment is an equally strong thing, as well as data analysis. This means that it’s pretty much important to balance the game both at a high level of play and a low level of play. If a weapon or a character is fine at low level but too strong at high level of play there’s obviously an issue, but there’s also an issue if a weapon/character is too good at low level of play and not good enough at high level of play. A weapon too good at low level of play will only frustrate low level players away : you don’t want that to ever happen if you want your playerbase to grow.
Following the feedback and data analysis gathered, the dev team concluded the following issues :
- Shotguns were too much of a newbie wrecker and useless as soon as your teammates start to be rather competant, which is an issue that has been reported multiple times on those forums in the past as well, and a recurrently reported issue.
- Burst rifles and Dreiss were still too good at high level of play. Most of the Dreiss and Burst players were able to finish a fight extremely quick without the enemy being able to fight back due to their very low TTK. This was a recurrent complaint as well.
- SMG-9 was looked as the worst SMG by vets due to its lack of a niche and lower than average stats.
- Bolt Action Snipers were seen as utterly frustrating to deal against by most players, as well as fairly low effort by most veterans. Especially MOA. A very common complaint in the Discord server.
- Semi-Auto snipers didn’t felt right for the vets after the precedent changes, and still felt kind of too rewarding for high level players.
It is worth mentionning that the staff have to take into account a few restrictions. Those are the production requirements. Those production requirements can pretty much prevent some changes from happening. For exemple, shotguns can only have up to 12 pellets per shot due to UE3 limitations, preventing the dev team from adding more pellets to shotties as a balance change if it’s ever suggested. Production requirements can take a lot of shapes and prevent some balance changes from happening. They have to build around them.
Once the dev team is able to determine the issues, the real work starts. They will try to bring up balance changes that will tune the weapons in the desired ways. Those balance changes will be heavily playtested and monitored by the PTS, who also suggest balance changes as well. This is the testing and iteration phase. The last step before releasing actual design changes.
Most of the balance changes you can find on the OP have been suggested, playtested and validated by the PTS themselves, which contains for the most parts veterans of the game. Because the vets are overall much faster to react, aim much better and have a much better gamesense than casual gamers, some stuff can come out of PTS in a state that more average players can’t handle correctly. This is pretty much the reason why Javelin came out in such an overpowered state for most players. This is the exact proof that balancing for players who are new or aren’t that much good at the game is a strong necessity. This also shows that contrary to a sadly popular belief, SD does balance around the vets. Maybe a bit too much.
I also want to explain to all of you that complaining without mentioning any way to solve your issues, doesn’t help SD in any way. You don’t deliver good feedback through sarcastic complaints. If you truly love your game and want it to progress, you have to be constructive. It is fine to be against a change or find something OP or underpowered, but if you don’t suggest ways to solve the issue and only bother writing some sour, sarcastic or angry comments, your feedback has little to no purpose.
I hope this post explained thing better.
