The Unskilled Argument and the Intricacies of Balance

[NPC]

I'm getting a little annoyed with players complaining about everything and anything that always seems to come down to "buff my class and nerf everything else" or "remove this because it's unskilled and I hate it." So I'm going to lay somethings out that some people apparently don't understand.


The Unskilled Argument

Something lacks skill is not an argument for it's removal or nerf. Secondary nades lack skill, push lacks skill, dekas lack skill, clone blobs lack skill, darts lack skill, is screamed in caps about every third round of MB2 by someone. Being "unskilled" doesn't mean it detracts from gameplay, it doesn't mean it's imbalance, and it doesn't mean other people agree with your assessment.

Instead of complaining a weapon or ability lacks skill to use, maybe try and get more skilled at dodging it, learn to mitigate its effects when you do get hit, or adjust your play style or class/build to limit the it’s usefulness. Don't complain it's impossible to combat.

Everything in MB2 requires skill, go round up some of your friends who have never played MB2 and see how well they do.


The Lie of Balance

I’m going to let you on in a little secret, there is no balance in a single round of MB2. MB2 has too many variables account for: the class system, players doing different things every round, differences in skill levels, and the map itself for there to be balance. Anyone who remembers basic algebra knows, the more variables in an equation that harder it is to balance.

Classes

If the entire Imperial team is dekas and sbds while none of the Rebels are jedi and none of them brought emp weapons; the Rebels aren’t going to have a fun time will they. On the other hand, if all the Rebels bring frag grenades and rocket launchers and the Imperial team doesn't bring any push sith, while then the Imperial team is kind of screwed. These are extreme examples but I hope you are capable of understanding the point. Even one person changing their class or build can drastically affect team balance.

Try playing a round as Imperials with no sith, tracking darts, or advanced logic against a pro mind trick 3 jedi, not fun. Does that mean mind trick is overpowered? No, it means a Rebel noticed a deficiency on the Imperial side and used to it create an advantage for their team. That's what happens in a class based game, no class/build should be useful in every circumstance, they all have advantages and disadvantages that need to be played around.

Everyone’s has had that moment on Rebels when a sith ambushes a squad of gunners because all the jedi decided to go side that round. Or how about the time a wook hits his rage mode right around a corner while you're stuck in a narrow hallway. Does that make these classes overpowered? Again not necessarily, one team was in an easily exploitable position which was taken advantage.

The imbalance caused by the class system is further exasperated by just how intricate the game how gotten, the addition of new saber styles, force powers, features, weapons, and abilities, has certainly given the game new life but it also has made it harder to balance. The more variables in any equation, the harder it is to balance.

Rounds

MB2 is also a round based game. You play several five minute rounds on a map, one team or the other hits the round limit and “wins” the map. This used to be more visible with servers that changed the map on a set rotation after a team won fifteen or so rounds but the modern RTV and DOTF 24/7 servers obscure this part of the game for most new players. Competitive matches between teams is the only real holdout of this understanding.

MB2 is not a real time strategy game, you can’t scout the enemy base to see what they are building. MB2 is not League of Legends where both teams draft their classes before the round begins. You have to think about what classes and builds the enemy team brought last round and adjust your tactics, build, and/or class to give your team an advantage next round. Keeping in mind your opponents are doing the same.

Therefore

So in theory the inherent imbalance of a class based system would be offset by players adjusting their classes and builds before the next round. In theory, yes. In practice, no. Most players play what they want to play when they want to play it. I get it, you want to play what you're good at and/or what you enjoy. And not playing the class/build our team needs to counter the enemy. We are guilty of this. But this is a flaw of the players, not any particular imbalance to the game as a whole.

The typical measures used to encourage players to play to win rather than have fun are not viable in MB2. There isn’t enough of a player base to support a ranking system or a dev with enough time to waste to make one. There’s no leveling system when skins, classes, and builds are locked behind arbitrary numbers like playtime or number of rounds won. In summary, it’s a problem that there is no easy fix for because players play to have fun. While many people have fun winning, therefore they play to win the round, there are also a lot of one class players, ego scorers, and trolls more concerned with personal skill, their k/d, or ruining other people's fun then playing to win the round.

Skill

The next inherent imbalance is player skill. There is no matchmaking system, no in-game balancer, and even if there were there isn’t enough of a player base isn’t there to make it work. Player skill is made even more complex by the class system. Some of the best jedi are terrible gunners because they only play jedi. Hell even some of the best jedi are poor sith because they don’t know how to counter clones and wooks because they aren’t used to fighting them and haven’t developed the reactions and game knowledge to beat them.

Maps

I shouldn't need to explain why big open maps favor heroes and bounty hunters while smaller maps favor wooks and grenades. I'm also not explaining why the defenders having lots of cover and the high ground makes it hard for the attackers, figure this stuff out for yourself.

There is no balance on most maps in MB2 at all, nobody pretends there is. Many maps were only made for FA or Duel mode with little thought towards Open balance. Other maps haven’t been updated for several build for various reasons ranging the original creator leaving MB2 to a simple lack of player interest in the map. A map made for an FA without jedi or snipers will not be balanced in Open. A map made to balance Rebel and Imperial snipers with B19 classes in mind will not remain balanced five builds later.

If you know a map and know the positions the enemy is likely to take and what tactics they will use against you, give you a huge advantage. On Deathstar I often get two to three kills at the start of the round with a TD because I know how to bounce it across the bridges on side and the Rebels rarely know how to avoid it or push it away. Does that mean TD's are overpowered? Again, not necessarily, more likely my map knowledge is giving me and advantage which I exploit. Unfortunately most players appear to spend most of their time on DotF and don't learn other maps nearly as well.

Therefore

The closest thing to balanced there is in MB2 (outside of teams arranging competitions against each other) is a Hardcore server playing on Duel of the Fates. Duel of the Fates is the closest thing MB2 has to a balanced map (though snipers have distinct advantages). The Hardcore servers limits classes to two players per jedi/sith/sbd/clone/mand/arc, three players per sold/commander/elite trooper and one player per deka/wook. With fixed class numbers and a fixed map many of the variables of MB2 can be locked down, making the equation of balance much eaiser.

Currently (when I post this) there are two official Hardcore servers on my server list and they average less people then the FA servers. BG has shut down their own Hardcore (Competitive) server down due to lack of population. Even when we, BG, tried shifting the player base over to Hardcore servers, it only resulted in fewer players and complaints about noobs and trolls hogging the jedi/sith slots.

Conclusion

The majority of players do not want balance, they want to have fun. But what do I know? Maybe I’m talking out of my ass. Maybe you have the time, experience, and intellect to perfectly understand the interplay between all the classes, their builds, the maps, the various players, their differences in skill to truly understand balance in MB2. If so why don't you put your prodigious intellect to curing cancer or solving world hunger?

If not then acknowledge that your perception is limited. That the reason you can’t beat a particular enemy might be your fault. Let’s be brutally honest. At the end of the day, if you can’t blame lag or your teammates, you’re going to blame balance for your failures.


What You Should Take Away From All This

Stop complaining that something is imbalanced or unskilled when you don’t play the counter. Don’t complain a class is overpowered or underpowered until you’ve played with it, you've played in support of it, and you've played against it. Perception and bias needs to be acknowledged.

This is already gotten too long so I'm just going to post it, I'll touch it up later.

 

[yoinkboink]

"Stop complaining that something is imbalanced or unskilled when you don’t play the counter. Don’t complain a class is overpowered or underpowered until you’ve played with it, you've played in support of it, and you've played against it. Perception and bias needs to be acknowledged.

This is already gotten too long so I'm just going to post it, I'll touch it up later."


This is actually easier done than said.

 

[NPC]

Yeah, silly me hoping humans will think for themselves and put in the effort to understand the situation before jumping to conclusions and screaming their opinions online.

I'm just really tired of hearing that this is overpowered or this unbalanced because it can easily kill the only build of the only class I play. Rather then try to explain the same thing over and over again, I just made a thread I can point to.

 

[Antraxo]

 

[yoinkboink]

After reading through this post again, I can no longer tell if it is a joke or not.

 

[Bob-Billy]

The majority of players do not want balance, they want to have fun

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

If something does take more skill to beat than it does to use, then that makes it overpowered at a certain level. You're justifying bad balance with the argument that it is fine *if*. That isn't a valid argument. In saber styles you can counter certain styles with other styles, that doesn't make them balanced. Simply because you can use staff to defeat blue doesn't make staff or blue any less overpowered. This is the precise reasoning that leads to every open mode turning into a spam of clones/sbds/T-21s/proj rifles and people go 'It's fine, it's a team game.'

Stop it. The game needs balancing, stupid skill-less cheese like Blobs/Alt nades should be removed, other things like Lightning/Grip/Proj Rifle should be tweaked/replaced. I'd appreciate it if you don't argue against nerfing/buffing/removing things simply because things *can* be beaten under specific circumstances (and therefore they must be balanced).

I killed a lightning Sith as a soldier once, must be balanced.

 

[eezstreet]

DOTF isn't what I'd call the most balanced map, it pretty strongly favors rebels and promotes snipers and timewasters. Dekas are borderline worthless and snipers reign supreme.

Deathstar and Lunar Base on the other hand are way better, although after playing a lot more Deathstar I have to give it to Deathstar. Pretty much everything can be viable on that map. Yes, including deka spam. Snipers are useful in the long hallways and wide hangars and SBD/wook/deka are also super good in the tight chokepoints and hiding spots. If you know the map well you can also utilize environmental awareness well because there's plenty of pits to throw people down and even a TIE fighter to drop on people's heads. DOTF on the other hand is basically flat except for gen and hangar catwalk, which don't really see much action anymore thanks to the redesign.

 

[NPC]

Just let me say in-advance, sorry to pick on dekas so much but your such an easy target.

If something does take more skill to beat than it does to use, then that makes it overpowered at a certain level.

I'm not sure how stating the opposite of my conclusion is supposed to refute my points. What you find unskilled to use will likely not match up with what I find unskilled, which will in turn not match up with a third person's opinions because they're just that, opinions. Furthermore easily accessible "low skill" responses are an easy way to balance the game by giving a simple response to an enemy team over-committing to a class/build without forcing too much change onto the reactionary players.

You're justifying bad balance with the argument that it is fine *if*. That isn't a valid argument. In saber styles you can counter certain styles with other styles, that doesn't make them balanced. Simply because you can use staff to defeat blue doesn't make staff or blue any less overpowered.

What bad balance? What build is there no counter to over the course of several rounds? Yes fighting a deka without emps or jedi is almost impossible if the deka is skilled, well positioned, and supported by it's team but if your team doesn't adjust your tactics and builds to counter it in the next round then you deserve to lose. If you and your team refuse to counter the enemy spam with counter builds and tactics then you deserve to lose. If you don't want to learn other classes/builds for every situation that's fine, but the cost will often be lost rounds if nobody else steps up. That's the entire point of The Lie of Balance section of the thread. Not, "solds can beat lightning sith sometimes, lol."

I'm not sure what argument you were trying to make with the saber styles but MB2 is an asymmetrical classed based game, there are inherent counters in the system for a inferior player to combat a more skilled player by adjusting their class/build to combat a chosen enemy. There are no guarantees but sacrificing resources and advantages over one type of enemy to give resources and advantages over another is a core part of the game. Again a round of MB2 is never balanced, only taken in large blocks, like a statistic, can you even begin to infer balance because there are so many variables to account for.

Stop it. The game needs balancing, stupid skill-less cheese like Blobs/Alt nades should be removed, other things like Lightning/Grip/Proj Rifle should be tweaked/replaced. I'd appreciate it if you don't argue against nerfing/buffing/removing things simply because things *can* be beaten under specific circumstances (and therefore they must be balanced).

Not sure if you didn't read my post of if you're misunderstanding me. The purpose of this thread was to lay out in a reasoned manner why MB2 is a pain to balance. Why your perspective of balance will not match up with everyone else's. I'm advising the community to carefully consider changes before suggesting them. You might find it difficult to deal with an ability but have you tried countering your class without that ability? I'm saying nobody has the full picture of all thirteen classes across all the maps while giving credence to differences in skill and map knowledge. That our observations are tainted by perception and bias. Therefore we need to be cautious in adjustments. Every tool in the toolbox is somebody else's favorite toy and every string pulled shifts the entire web.

For every glowstick wielder complaining about flinch there's a gunner complaining about damage reduction. The loudest voices in an argument are rarely the correct ones.

This is the precise reasoning that leads to every open mode turning into a spam of clones/sbds/T-21s/proj rifles and people go 'It's fine, it's a team game.'

Let's start examining different perceptions right now. You claimed that Open has degenerated into "a spam of clones/sbds/T-21s/proj rifles" yet I see commanders with E-11's just as often as T-21's. Heroes are nowhere near as dominate as it used to be. I see sbd's less then dekas and I see dekas once one out of every ten rounds. Clone is seen more then one out of seven players on Rebels but that's to be expected considering what I'm about to say next. That jedi and sith still make up between a quarter and half of the server. Clearly jedi and sith need to be nerfed because they must be overpowered because so many people play them or at least all the other classes need a buff to make them more fun right? Especially that slow and boring sbd that any competent jedi can slaughter in their sleep with a careful application of crouch slashing.

You also said "Blobs/Alt nades" are "stupid skill-less cheese" but I don't find that to be true. In fact, some of the most skilled gameplay I saw in the last year was a clone managing to tie down four Imperials at once with a clever combination of blobs, emps, and bounce shots. Alt nades are a sacrifice of the much more powerful primary explosion, I think there's a lot of skill in calculating whether you need to use alt attack to gain an advantage right now or if you can afford to wait for a bigger return on investment later. Not to mention no competent jedi/sith would give you a clean shot at them with a grenade.

Strange thing perceptive, it's always shifting depending on the light.

So what makes my observations better then yours? Nothing, I don't play jedi or sith often, I almost always only play on BG RTV, have my perspective, and biases. Nobody has meaningful statics to support their argument because the our ability to collect statistics is limited to server logs and our own observations. Not that the devs can or should waste time digging through server logs looking for insight. Which doesn't matter because MB2 doesn't has the player base to support meaningful statistics in the first place. So we're stuck with flawed and incomplete perceptions.

DOTF isn't what I'd call the most balanced map, it pretty strongly favors rebels and promotes snipers and timewasters. Dekas are borderline worthless and snipers reign supreme.

Deathstar and Lunar Base on the other hand are way better, although after playing a lot more Deathstar I have to give it to Deathstar. Pretty much everything can be viable on that map. Yes, including deka spam. Snipers are useful in the long hallways and wide hangars and SBD/wook/deka are also super good in the tight chokepoints and hiding spots. If you know the map well you can also utilize environmental awareness well because there's plenty of pits to throw people down and even a TIE fighter to drop on people's heads. DOTF on the other hand is basically flat except for gen and hangar catwalk, which don't really see much action anymore thanks to the redesign.

I actually agree with you but the presence of numerous DotF 24/7 servers and their continued high population has made it clear we are in the minority and like a politician I pandered to the majority. Though I disagree that the gen and hanger don't see combat. Generator mandos for live, suck it @Gumba .

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

What you see often doesn't mean the most effective. I have fought competitive teams, and have seen the highest level of every class, if not played at that level with every class. Certain strategies become completely unviable the higher level you go. Without class restrictions at the highest level, Rebs is almost exclusively going to be Clone spam with a couple of pulses, and a single Jedi for supporting/wallhacks. Whereas on Imps, it'll be T-21 spam, a couple SBDs, and a Sith with lightning/wallhacks. Some weapons and strategies are FAR more favorable than others, which makes them imbalanced.

Something easier to use, but having the same potential output, is going to be stronger than something harder to use, that accomplishes the same thing.

Look at E-11, and CR2. Compare the goal of flinching a Sith. CR2 is way easier to use, and has even better results, so therefore it must be overpowered in comparison to E-11. Compare them against gunners, higher rate of fire = more opportunities to deal damage in a short amount of time. Better suppression, better utility, on a generally better class as well. You don't lose anything by swapping to CR from E-11 (except minor accuracy, which is a give or take at high level), but you stand to gain a lot. By this conclusion, we can deem that CR is overpowered in comparison with other weapons, because it is easier and can accomplish more.

I agree, knee-jerk reactions are awful to balance on, and most new players shouldn't comment on balance problems. However, you shouldn't ignore them.


(Also, DotF, Deathstar, and Lunarbase heavily favor Imps. Jedi Temple, Coruscant chase, and most other maps heavily favor rebels. I think the most balanced map in the game is Commtower.)

 

[NPC]

What you see often doesn't mean the most effective. I have fought competitive teams, and have seen the highest level of every class, if not played at that level with every class. Certain strategies become completely unviable the higher level you go. Without class restrictions at the highest level, Rebs is almost exclusively going to be Clone spam with a couple of pulses, and a single Jedi for supporting/wallhacks. Whereas on Imps, it'll be T-21 spam, a couple SBDs, and a Sith with lightning/wallhacks. Some weapons and strategies are FAR more favorable than others, which makes them imbalanced.

Nice perspective, I can tell you right now mine is different. I can send you my theory crafting from BG if you want.

You know what map often degenerates into Imperials split between T-21 commanders, sith, and sbds while the Rebels go for clones, jedi and wooks no matter how many players are on or what skill level they play at? Smuggler. Now are you sure it's the "level" of players that makes certain strategies non-viable or is it playing with fewer people in battles that almost always come down to firefights in the throne room because the map was designed with twenty plus players in mind so the defenders always decide to camp. But what do I know, it's all just my perspective.

Considering most players do not play competitive, why should the devs calculate open balance off of it? Maybe the devs should, perhaps the devs should just cut the nonviable classes and focus on clone/commander/jedi/sith/sbd/arc. Maybe we could have a truly balanced game with such a small set of classes. But as I thought I pointed out, most players are uninterested in balanced, especially if it comes at the cost of their fun.

Look at E-11, and CR2. Compare the goal of flinching a Sith. CR2 is way easier to use, and has even better results, so therefore it must be overpowered in comparison to E-11. Compare them against gunners, higher rate of fire = more opportunities to deal damage in a short amount of time. Better suppression, better utility, on a generally better class as well. You don't lose anything by swapping to CR from E-11 (except minor accuracy, which is a give or take at high level), but you stand to gain a lot. By this conclusion, we can deem that CR is overpowered in comparison with other weapons, because it is easier and can accomplish more.

That is a terrible comparison because MB2 is a class based game. At best you can compare CR 2 clone and an E-11 3 elite trooper. While in general I would agree the CR 2 clone with blobs is stronger, the E-11 3 elite trooper will have points left over for grenades and rally which depending on the rest of the team, the map, and what the enemy brings can easily be the stronger choice. For instance on Deathstar, as Rebels, if I go main (tie hanger) I go CR 2 clone but if I go side (bridges) I take E-11 elite trooper with a frag because in the close distances and easy cover from the doors I find the E-11 better then the CR 2 not to mention the utility of the frag.

Though if I'm playing elite trooper I would bring the A280 for most other maps.

Shall we compare pulse grenades and thermal detonators next?

 

[LanceOfLonginus]

NPC raises really good pints and I respect the stand-back thoughtful approach he's trying to impart.

On the flip side there's a stark difference between: "Highest competitive level". "standard open play", and "duel servers" these mentalities are so widely different that it's impossible to compare them.

Starting at "Highest Competitive level":
Well first thing's first about competitive, it's structured: Every clan match I've ever been in, or tournament has had these simple rules: 5 players on each team, 1 player per class. And often they nix Deka and SBD from gameplay. (This has spanned from the grand COR tournament 5+ years ago to today). So any "stacking" of classes is immediately rendered inert. And most recently I've seen SBD allowed into gameplay and deka still kept out.

It's also worth noting that "highest competitive play" strips any element of "fun" in favor of "what works" I personally feel it's cheap to secondary a gunner, but in competitive play you do it every chance you get because it works. So while I enjoy the gun duel between two competent gunners, a duel isn't ever something you aim for in competitive, you always want to exploit, and what better way to exploit someone than when they can't fight back (KD)

This style of gameplay is also catering exlusively towards defensive by it's very nature of singular objectives. Hack 1 panel, destroy 1 generator, etc. etc. This means that ultimately the defenders only need to care about 1 location, and from that concern can pick the greatest choke point between themselves and the opposition. In this style of gameplay it's true saberists are exclusively wallhacks explaining team movements, it also means that your jedi is at an all time premium of importance because no other class can call out enemy movements so readily, or push grenades/explosives/aggressive movements.

In competitive teams are optimally ready to play off each other's strengths for unavoidable combos, examples being:
Coordinated aggression off of explosives
Coordinated aggression off of knockdowns (sometimes instant kill, others massive damage)
Coordinated defense by pinning down multiple locations with split focus

"Standard open play" is a beast of entertainment. People are going to do whatever they want, sometimes that's win, other times it's play a class build they thought about before booting up the game.Open lacks structure, but that's OK. I often find playing offensively is far more prominent in open than it is in competitive matches, given the general chaos of the server at large. If you're aggressive during chaos you can "set the tempo" and dictate roughly how things pan out. In this gamemode everyone should be expected to play however they want, unless you know your teammates you should expect little to nothing of them except that they'll try to fight the enemy (and sometimes that's even shaky!) That's part of the beauty of open too, it's chaos, Sylvar, S O L D I E R, gargos,and countless other youtubers have given us great laughs on the sheer absurdity that is open standard play, and that's fun to both witness and be a part of.

and finally "Duel servers" dueling is it's own beast, at this rate MB2 might as well treat the saber vs saber system and saber + rest of the game as two separate entities. The saber system is great in it's own microcosm, I'm sure there are tweaks to be made but ultimately it's a beast of it's own that is independent of the entire game curiously enough. The statement is self evident in how many renovations it has had while MB2 Open and competitive has remained the same beast for as long as I remember. Dueling and it's form of balance doesn't accurately apply to the rest of the game, so it's worth keeping it separate both in concept when thinking over MB2, and in playing. In duels you are focused on an admittedly very vast mechanical system without the interference of everything else. It's very simply 1 v 1, on the same platform (saber system). This is fine for it's own microcosm, but duelists should realize that when they move to any other structure they're adding in countless other mechanics and factors that change the way they have to act. Gunners from both side join the fray, and saberists will not duel fairly. instead aiming for backwhacks.


And that's just broad strokes...

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

Is this thread a response to something? I don't really get what are you adressing.

 

[GoodOl'Ben]

I agree completely with NPC. From a player's perspective, it should be about finding tools to win and using those tools to win. Gitting gud is the only way to thrive as a player. After playing Starcraft for quite some time, I managed to adopt this mentality. None of my losses are the fault of the game. It is my inability to adapt, adjust and optimize.

However, it can be argued that something is poor game design if it creates undesired gameplay. This pops up when we look at snipers & map design for instance.

Is a sniper-heavy meta undesired? If so, what can be done to shift meta away from it? Adjust maps that feature shooting galleries? Nerf snipers themselves and ruin the sniping fantasy? Introduce tools for other classes to combat sniping? Improve existing counter-measures? A mix of the aforementioned?

This is more of a worry for game designers.

The best feedback that a player can give is "It is not fun that everyone plays sniper Hero/BH on this map". Then we can check if that is the case or was this just a perceived issue rather than an observed issue. Then we can look through the map and see what is actually the case. We'll notice a slight favoring of snipers, but perhaps that is okay for the map in question as long as it's not excessive? If we receive feedback on multiple maps that everyone plays sniper, then it becomes more of a class balance/design issue.

As a player, I'd say there's very little wrong with the game design as it stands. I have fun and I feel like I am given a wide array of tools to succeed. I'd say it's not fun that many of our maps feature long travel times, hard objectives and very hard-to-breach chokepoints.

This is an area I want to amend more than class balance or design.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Nice perspective, I can tell you right now mine is different. I can send you my theory crafting from BG if you want.

You know what map often degenerates into Imperials split between T-21 commanders, sith, and sbds while the Rebels go for clones, jedi and wooks no matter how many players are on or what skill level they play at? Smuggler. Now are you sure it's the "level" of players that makes certain strategies non-viable or is it playing with fewer people in battles that almost always come down to firefights in the throne room because the map was designed with twenty plus players in mind so the defenders always decide to camp. But what do I know, it's all just my perspective.

It is the level of players. The number of players doesn't really matter beyond 6v6. Anything below 6v6 and individual skill starts to matter a lot more, rather than class composition and coordination.

Considering most players do not play competitive, why should the devs calculate open balance off of it? Maybe the devs should, perhaps the devs should just cut the nonviable classes and focus on clone/commander/jedi/sith/sbd/arc. Maybe we could have a truly balanced game with such a small set of classes. But as I thought I pointed out, most players are uninterested in balanced, especially if it comes at the cost of their fun.

You can balance a game for all levels. The method of doing this is to make sure that weapons have boons and drawbacks that are relatively equal to each other. A weapon that is easy to use must not be as powerful as a weapon that is hard to use. There is no need to cut any content (Except for things that shouldn't really be there in the first place, and serve no purpose. Like blobs), when you can simply balance around them. You need to pick a class that is most balance to draw your median line, then balance the rest of the classes around that. You have to have some level of uniforming to the classes, otherwise they will be impossible to balance around each other, and have wildly different purposes/viabilities. Every class should be viable in every situation to varying degrees, and skill should always be the deciding factor, not a rock paper scissors game determined at the class menu.

That is a terrible comparison because MB2 is a class based game. At best you can compare CR 2 clone and an E-11 3 elite trooper. While in general I would agree the CR 2 clone with blobs is stronger, the E-11 3 elite trooper will have points left over for grenades and rally which depending on the rest of the team, the map, and what the enemy brings can easily be the stronger choice. For instance on Deathstar, as Rebels, if I go main (tie hanger) I go CR 2 clone but if I go side (bridges) I take E-11 elite trooper with a frag because in the close distances and easy cover from the doors I find the E-11 better then the CR 2 not to mention the utility of the frag.

Though if I'm playing elite trooper I would bring the A280 for most other maps.

Shall we compare pulse grenades and thermal detonators next?

Clone has 2 lives. The closest comparison is Commander. Clone has far greater life than Commander, with higher armor as well. Clone has a superior weapon in the form of CR2/3 (Discounting T-21, which is also overpowered). Clone has the same level of CC (If not better, due to various reasons and also the insanely long AoE CC from Ion) as Commander. Clone has far superior mobility in the form of sprint. The only advantage Commander has is with dodge and area-denial incendiary (Which is near useless at high level anyway).

Frag grenade servers 2 purposes: The first and obvious purpose is to bounce off of walls/around corners to disperse enemies (You aren't going to get many kills with a frag at high level, but it serves as a utility). The second purpose is for a cheesy gimmicky kill on a class without quick getup (Which is useless at high level, but annoying in pub games). The second function of the frag is broken, it takes 0 skill to use and is unavoidable on the opponent's side of the matter, granting a free kill based exclusively upon what class is hit by it. It serves absolutely no other purpose or utility. Therefore alt frag function should be removed, as it is beyond pointless and just cheapens the game play experience. Conc nades should be a less-than-lethal CC solution, but should be nerfed in damage or in CC as to how easy and powerful they are in normal games. Obviously by nerfing grenades, you would need to buff Soldier's other aspects, to make them more viable in other ways (Because at the moment, solds are basically just walking grenade holsters)

Thermal Detonator shares the same purpose as a frag, only less effective. Pulse Grenades are fine, and are exclusively used to counter SBDs/Dekas in high level, they don't need to be nerfed but it is important to note the tactics developed for use of them and how effective they can be when balancing other aspects. Such as the tactic of attaching a pulse nade to a friendly wookiee who is fury-charging at the enemy. If you nerf one aspect of the game, you may empower another, so you must always keep these things in mind.

 

[Cake']

Secondary nades lack skill, push lacks skill, dekas lack skill, clone blobs lack skill, darts lack skill,

I stop'd here

 

[Antraxo]

I stop'd here

Damn these clones and they silly blobs!

 

[GoodOl'Ben]

skill should always be the deciding factor, not a rock paper scissors game determined at the class menu.

Skill is currently a very strong deciding factor. A high tier single-life soldier will wipe the floor with any low tier player of any class.

Even further I would say that rock paper scissors is very much valid design for asymmetric games. This breeds variety and makes more things viable.

Let's make an example:

Droideka is a strong defensive tool. It can suppress an entire area. This will require a counter-action from the enemy that might not be otherwise necessary. In this example we will pick M5 pulse launcher ARC. This in turn warrants a Sith pick from the enemy so he can guard the Droideka against pulse spam. The Sith pick warrants a Clonetrooper with blobs to shut down the pushes of the Sith for specific time windows. The Clone pick warrants a BH pick to force the Clone to only take quick pop-blobs rather than more brash offensive blobs where they have longer time to aim...

Basically the desired end result is that we reach a wide variety of classes and build configs being represented. Each having this softly designated roles of being the answer to a specific situation, while still being generalists enough to handle most situations with a moderate success rate.

I think this is nicely present. Whether players understand to make use of this is of course up for debate. Negligence of this results in several lost rounds.

A key example of this is Overwatch. Initially Quick Play allowed all heroes without limits. This often resulted in the team with more variety and synergy picks winning while the one that just had everyone play as Genji lose flat out. Blizzard introduced a 1-per hero rule and the game quality in Quick Play increased greatly.

So far we haven't elected to coddle our playerbase in a similar manner. Should we?

 

[Gumba]

So far we haven't elected to coddle our playerbase in a similar manner. Should we?

For the love of god don't take Overwatch as an example of skillful play.

 

[GoodOl'Ben]

For the love of god don't take Overwatch as an example of skillful play.

I am not. I am making it an example of the importance of synergy/counter picks that stems from RPS aspects. A team with pure Genjis was shit tier when faced against a team that had a standard comp. Blizzard received a lot of complaints about Quick Play being too random and introduced 1-per hero to ensure players were at least slightly forced to find compromise and be somewhat sensible in character picks.

MB2 is currently like Overwatch Quick Play was. No mechanics in place to nudge players towards valid team compositions. People can go full-Deka against a team that has a pulse-dedicated ARC and a couple of Jedi and Clones. Then the dekas generally proceed to complain about shitty RPS without understanding that all they needed to do to counter said mechanics is to have someone play as a class that helps mitigate this RPS mechanic.

I find that it's great that we are not coddling our playerbase and let them organize their team comp however they please. However, I can understand if people desire more structure. It does make a balanced round easier to achieve since we can remove player stupidity out of the equation in terms of team composition creation. This is what Blizzard did. They acknowledged that the general playerbase is not smart enough to build even remotely good comps, so they added a limit to push the players in the right direction ever-so-slightly.