You recently stated that "Right now there is class imbalance, factional imbalance and gear imbalance but we have people working on that all day, every day". Well, sorry: result of this every-day activity is not visible in the game. From the balance point of view EC at the moment is still a total mess. This is not a rant about this or that faction. There are serious issues that should be prioritized immediately. Do you even play your game together with the players? Do you read their comments when the match is over? How can you leave EC in this state for so long? How can you let in the game a weapon that can cause AOE insta-kill, either good in close quarter or shooting from half map? This is not rocket science: it's not balanced and it's not a case if TT rules do not allow to have an army of soldiers carrying that weapon. That's literally destroying the game experience. How many times do we still have to scream here to draw your attention on melee? This is not about a specific weapon or a certain faction: it's bugged, and the system needs to be adjusted. Some animations are too fast and the proper counter cannot be performed: Orks Strong Attack is an example, but also SM sword Fast Attack. How the hell do you expect the RPS system to work if some classes / weapons have brutal advantage and some others do not even stand a chance? How do you expect players to have fun is the proper countermoves cannot even be performed because a certain animation is too slow and another is too fast? Besides this is bugs, bugs, bugs and still bugs. I'm talking about durability that goes to zero because you manage to d-bash an enemy, or Orks that cannot perform a Fast Attack after d-bashing, Eldar that still can oneshot with a sword, but there is much much more. WAAAAAAGH! as a skill is a super cool idea. But have you ever realized that it causes Orks to lose the fight whenever it triggers while they are defending a Fortress? In maps where every ticket matters the Orks special skill does not allow them to be revived. As WAAAGH! kicks in tickets drop at the speed of light. Seriously, who the **** designed this?! I could go on but I do not want to turn this thread in a nerf / buff weapon / faction thread. That's not the point. I am sad, really. I know you were forced to release the game even if it wasn't complete, and I know it wasn't your decision. But this does not justify macroscopic issues not being fixed.
This patch broke orks again. Look at the world map. We're now losing to every faction. Switching to chaos until orks aren't gimped anymore.
What if they truly aren't capable of balancing this? What if they programmed themselves into such a corner through design choices made in the past that they can't just change certain behaviours of the game without breaking a whole lot of other stuff they do not have the resources anymore to fix? Think about why melee is so overpowering right now: It's the maps. They would have to be redesigned from scratch. The current maps are completely melee centric for the most parts. Their copy n paste design modus operandi that you can see everywhere made sure it's a problem everywhere. They've designed themselves into a corner and can't really get out anymore. The whole game right now is so driven to the edge in terms of TTK that there's precious little wiggle space to play with in terms of balancing. It's probably like balancing a pen on your finger. Even small changes result in dramatic effects (just see current state of the Dire Avenger which is back at the stage where melee just rush him head on through his fire when dealing with LSM or CSM). Orks fare no better from what I hear down the grapevine. Long story short: Even if they wanted to, they probably can't. If balance is to come, a whole lot about the game, FAR deeper than just some numbers on a weapon or armor, has to change. And change costs money. And thus, I believe, this game is pretty much on a stumble along till it drops face forward into the dirt journey. Maybe they throw out the Termis to get some last minute jumpins and that's it. EOL.
I can't agree with you on the effects being invisible - they are not. Things are still far from working as intended tough.
It'd help if they'd stop going on "vacations". Seriously, they KNEW the game was in a horrible state when they launched, yet they have hardly been working to fix it, either due to constant 3 day weekends, or the aforementioned "vacations".
The game isn't changing quickly, because there are at least 6 different wrungs of decision making management that anything a game dev wants to change has to work its way up on the ladder before anything can actually be changed. The guys at the bottom want to fix what's broken, but their hands are tied until the bigwigs at the top give them a thumbs up or thumbs down, and the top guys don't actually care whether the game is good or not, they care whether or not they're making money, and that's about it.
