[QUOTE=Anti;453649]It’s not just Echo data that we use to balance the game, we have a number of ways of evaluating the game and its balance before making changes, these are:
[ul]
[li]Anecdotal player feedback (i.e. forums and IRC)[/li][li]Structured player feedback (i.e. surveys, Q&As)[/li][li]Observation of people playing[/li][li]Playing the game ourselves[/li][li]Echo stats[/li][li]Heat Maps[/li][/ul]
We consider all of these when we make changes.
In the case of the Medic it’s not just play time that has driven our changes, it’s just the most obvious example. As some of you have stated we’d expect to see more Medic action than other classes, but not to the extent shown above.
As we stated much earlier in the alpha DB’s Medics are supposed to fill a support role, not be the best soldier on the battlefield. Not only was the Medic being played more than we expected it to be but we’ve seen he’s clearly the best combat class right now, and players tend to focus on fighting with him rather than supporting their team.
Some examples prior to the patch:
These Kill per Minute rates for the main weapons of recent weeks put the Medics SMG as the second most effective weapon in the game, by quite a margin. Obviously MG1 and the Sniper Rifles need looking at too, but in fairness to Dazzler he can’t heal himself 
That higher kill rate could just be down to the Medic staying in the game longer due to his self-abuse of med packs 
However accuracy and head shot % also show the Medic SMG as probably the best gun in the game.
Now average accuracy values like that could be heavily dependent on who is using which gun, especially in a small player pool like this, so they’re not super valuable. We do have more detailed charts though to investigate this further, that look at the distribution of accuracy for each player with a specific gun.
Distribution of Accuracy
Series 1 = SMG 1, Series 2 = AR 1
Distribution of Head shot %
Series 1 = SMG 1, Series 2 = AR 1
Here you can see that the average accuracy across all players is higher with the SMG than AR, as is the head shot percentage, albeit not by a lot. this means regardless of player skill or who the player is the SMG appears to be more accurate, before you even figure in its higher than average RoF.
In this case the combination of our own play, player feedback, observation and data suggested the combination of very good gun and Medics mostly self healing is why they’re so heavily played. The class isn’t doing what we wanted it to do and ultimately isn’t balanced well enough.
This is why we made the changes we did. As with all changes these are just a test at first, based on what we’d seen previously. We’ll now observe these changes, get more feedback and gather more data and in the end we’ll see what effect they have and if it’s right for DB.[/QUOTE]
So you have a high amount of comp players who play medics, probably some of the best shooters this game will see (some proven in the world) and you’re balancing the class from the stats of those players? Players that have over a 45% LG in Q3. You’re grabbing feedback from private IRC channels and forums from players that are far below average and using it to balance your game? People that have no understanding of balancing what so ever?
You should evaluate your decision making process as I find it a bit absurd, you can’t gather any accurate data with 40 - 50 people playing a fraction of a day. Of the 40 - 50, 25% are probably comp players which most people know is a grossly inflated representation compared to released games.
We’ll see how long this “test” goes. I find it somewhat appalling that you will force us to test things that don’t make sense, however, you won’t test things a majority of us would like to see implemented (ex. sprinting while reloading + specials + cooking nade.)
I’ll provide more feedback on the other changes when I can play a game on NA servers and on a map that is less painful than experiencing the holocaust first hand. Canary feels like you’re playing in a curved toilet paper roll.
) may be experiencing a short contrast shock between the patches - give a bit time to get used to new nades and really test it. I haven’t observed any 
