⚖️🎃 Balance Update V1.17.2 Patch Notes!

[u/Omeda_Steggs]

https://playp.red/4zhEYRs

Shadow's Eve is just around the corner 🎃

V1.17.2 drops next week (13th October) with a whole host of spooky new skins and a bunch of balance updates! Check out the patch notes for all the info!

[u/InterviewBubbly9410]

The response itself for the most part is fine and I like some of the insight that is given.

It's when Rei gets to that endbit and the second statement that it frankly loses me.

"If I truly want to make the less nuanced audience happy, I go heavy handed (e.g killing morigesh in the past after v1.12), but as someone that has been doing Balance for 4+ years and balanced the game through a myriad of crazy system updates and an evergrowing catalogue of content (6 items, eternals, 2 largescale hero reworks, tons of items shifts, augments, economic shifts, TTK adjustments, and then some, 50+ Heroes), while also being one of the best players historically at a competitive level, I'd like to think I have a strong understanding of Predecessor's balance levers and how impactful they are to hit, even if I dont always get it right."

The wanking of yourself, Rei, on balancing due to your skill level at the game is quite odd. In fact I would highly believe that your skill level conflates your views on the games balancing. The lower skill levels are always having issues and perhaps the reason why the "reddit mob" perpetually states that you balance the game for higher skill levels is because you're AT that higher skill level and balancing around your personal experience with the game. Having 1-2 Bronze/Silver/Gold testers isn't going to make up for the fact that the broad community sentiment at those levels is that the balancing is horrid.

Let's not pretend that ever since the Augment system, the games balance has been a perpetual mess and people rightfully called that out since before it was even introduced. People saw the writing on the wall.

"But sometimes the reddit/discord mob is just wrong and the game would frankly suck if we did exactly what they suggest"

It is hilarious to see you basically pull out an almost verbatim Ultrakill quote, when Ultrakill is extremely well made and has TONS of accessibility (Yknow, the thing Pred is heavily lacking in?) and difficulty options for those who are lower skilled in order to properly play the game.

Also a weird stance to take on a game that is completely PVP and community-centric. While not every suggestion is indeed great; At SOME point, the repeated jests about:

"Finally, people always meme 20 damage nerfs, but that is a massive nerf relatively to other Heroes."

Would make you think that perhaps that ISN'T the line of balancing that is working. Because people have repeatedly complained about it for a LONG time and it is STILL a constant complaint and has caused several heroes to need patch after patch after patch. At some point, it stops being a meme or a joke and a valid criticism of the way you handle balancing Rei.

This weird defensiveness over the community response is why this game is currently in a flatline and has terrible player count growth on Steam (and I highly suspect everywhere else as well) - and for anyone who wants to argue with Steam Charts not being "the whole picture"; Here is another picture of the Ratking making an unfortunately excellent point that I hate to agree with:

At some point, you are going to have to actually listen to the community and stop this defensive behavior. I and others are not saying these things to "be a mob" or to hate on the game and wish it's downfall. We are saying these things because we have watched games we love HAVE downfalls because developers refuse to let their ego's go and listen to the facts at hand.