Just a few things

I would note that the whole Corpse vs Sokolov nonsense is kind of silly. Considering that nearly the entire time Corpse was there, I was also there, along with Revenancer. There was maybe a year after SOE Tucson closed that Corpse was alone, and then I took over fully when he left.

 

This perspective has always interested me largely because as far as I could tell it was not really demonstrable. Data didn't support it, listing runes/OP stuff by faction never showed ST having more or outrageously better runes. Some cited the +1 AP issue, but that was introduced back in the "Corpse Era." Plus, during "Corpse Era" I designed/balanced most of the ST runes anyway.

The Maljaran block was Pox's brightest days, for a lot of reasons:

1. There were 3 designers on the team, all of whom played and knew the game. Prior to that, it was not the case, and the difference was stark.
   • We also had a writer on staff
2. Having 3 designers means a lot, as we have our different aptitudes and faction understanding, creating a more diverse and interesting set of runes than one designer can put out.
   • Compare, for example, what Corpse and I put out "alone" vs what was done during Maljaran
3. There were a lot more people playing back then, and SOE was still advertising the game at that time
   • It was the first major content release under SOE
   • It had also been awhile since content was released, due to transitions, UI update, etc.
4. We had just had a big revamp with the new upgrade system that 3 designers spent months on
5. Maljaran block introduced split races, a new mechanic at the time
   • Honestly, 8 factions is a PITA to juggle, and the way Maljaran was setup meant that it was more like 4
6. Maljaran block had a massive backstory, each of the champions had 2 or more paragraphs written for them (not released to players)
   • This may not sound like much, but it does help make everything feel more complete even you guys never see that background
   • I re-introduced this concept somewhat starting with Endless Wonder, though I was not always able to include all the factions equally in the storyline
7. Those split races were also meticulously designed to work together and play in a specific way
   • They were, you could argue, the first truly "designed" themes
   • They came, out of the box, playable together, unlike other themes that you'd have to cobble together
   • That said, there was a lot of grumbling at the time from people who didn't want to play splits and felt that old themes/factions were being neglected
8. With 3 Designers, we could internally playtest (and did so daily) in a way that is almost impossible to achieve in other circumstances

I could go on, but you get the gist of it, I think.

 

Yea, I nerfed that thing multiple times.

Even now, it's one of the few runes with a POSITIVE cost modifier. Its basic design is problematic to cost.

Let's not forget Vashal, Mino Battlemage or Skeletal Lerper? Do you remember those? Or do you only care if a rune is OP when it's ST?

 

My primary role on larger design teams is Data Analytics. I don't know what data they were looking at for Treefolk, but given the low population currently, it would be hard to trust any numbers.

One of the most useful forms of looking at this sort of balance data is trend data and relative data. If something is true, looking at any specific point in time won't necessarily give you anything, but seeing how it is shifting due to changes will give you a much better sense of those changes. The other way to look at it is to contrast it to other data or slicing it, for example, instead of looking at it just as Treefolk WR, you look at it as Player's Non-Treefolk WR (or Overall) vs Treefolk WR by Tier/Rank. That will tell you if people playing at Treefolk at various levels are outperforming, underperforming, or simply matching their overall performance.

 

Vashals was mine. And it was bonkers broken on release. It was an entire theme that was broken. I would argue it was the most broken thing I released and took an additional 2 or 3 iterations to fix.

 

I admit I know some factions better than others. If you think that it would be possible to achieve a state where one knows all factions equally, then I would love to know how