I think this game/forum has a problem with balance.

This is a copy past from a reply I made to one of the threads here. After making both of my edits, I've realized I think this is an issue that needs its own thread to be addressed. First, the copy- pasted reply.

I mean, this reminds me of that time we had two threads complaining about their factions being bad (fs and kf, though fs was just one guy). Because now we have two people, both claiming their factions are horrible this rotation (UD and SL). If two whole factions are horrible in one map rotation, then there are some insane balance issues going on here that would be ridiculous if they hadn't been addressed by now... and this seems highly unlikely to me. So, IMO, it would appear that people are just overreacting. Because if they aren't, the problem isn't the map rotation, its the designers for making 1/4th of the factions in the game horrible in this kind of rotation... and that's not even mentioning that people still think KF is horrible too, regardless of map rotation.
EDIT: Oh and theres also the thread claiming IS is being nerfed to the ground and needs love. Thats, what, half the factions in the game that people are claiming are horrible? (UD, SL, KF, IS). Thats ridiculous.
Second Edit- If anyone needs me to cite all the different comments/threads claiming these factions are bad I can, but I hope my reputation is decent enough that you'll take my word for it. Just so I don't have to call out anyone for having bad judgment.

Now, does that mean this rotation doesn't have problems? No of course not (if there really is a map with more nora fonts being close to either player thats bad). But if everyone's claims about their factions being bad were true, I'm not sure anyone would even play the game.

(end of copy/paste)

So, as I said in the edit I can post all of the replies/threads making these "my faction is bad" claims if you don't believe me, but I'd rather not call anyone out.
By my count thats four different factions (IS, KF, UD, SL) in the span of a month that people are claiming are bad and need buffs. I mean, thats insane. If everyone making these claims was right, I have no idea how this game survived.
It seems pretty obvious to me that all of these factions don't need buffs. For the sake of simplicity, lets assume none of them do. So, what should we as a community do about this? Obviously banning/swarming with negative comments any thread that makes these claims would be ridiculous. However I'm not sure of a better solution. Do you guys have any ideas?

 

It's important to note that this game breeds faction-specific players, due to the sheer number of runes in each faction, so these people are very vocal and supportive of their own faction, oftentimes to the point of being blind to the larger picture of the game as a whole.

So, these people see nerfs to their faction and immediately voice their opinion, ignorant to the balance of the game.

This is especially common in the specific faction forums

 

I won't deny this, however that doesn't get rid of the fact that this is a bad thing. I mean, I don't see any obvious negative results, but surely this hurts the communities attitudes? Or hurts how Sok and friends percieve what needs to be nerfed/buffed, at least as far as relying on players for info? Is there nothing to be done?
At the very least we could make a thread pointing out this problem as a sticky in each faction thread.

 

Pretty much this.
I first used the soft approach, with lots of well thought and lengthy replies. Didnt really solve any issues regarding what you brought up. Then I used the hard approach, by bashing players and generally encouraging anyone not "qualified" to not make balance suggestions, etc. That didnt work out either, and in fact it made me feel bad, as you guys are aware.
I'm using a third alternative now, that I feel will work out very well: I will say what I think in depth, and not engage conversations thereafter, because its pretty consuming. We will see how it works.
Either way, its just the nature of the beast and we cant really do anything about it, except try to filter what is relevant and what isnt.

 

At this point, it's understood that these biases exist and are usually being accounted for. Certain players have, over time, proven themselves to have better/worse eyes for balance, and their opinions are weighted more/less, though sok has mentioned before that he looks into various complaints from nearly everyone, regardless of who the are.

 

I suppose I just see it as a particularly bad problem because this is the only game where I've seen it be this bad.... even in hearthstone the heroes that were called for as needing buffs/nerfs were usually somewhat the same in everyones view. There were outliers, but considering the community ratio to here that would be expected.

 

Yeah, we've got some pretty strong opinions regarding our factions, it's a large part of what keeps us together as a community

 

IDK why. Perhaps it has something to due with the "me not having a playstyle is insane" problem pointed out by Syrius... But personally I don't have much attachment to any faction. I mean, I've gone from FW to leoss, and have thought about doing everything from a leoss/UD BG to a charge based IS/SL BG.

TBH if not having a playstyle stops me from having huge faction loyalty I'm somewhat happy about it XD.

 

Yeah, I think it has to do with the amount of runes released by now. I don't think a new player could make a competitive bg in each faction unless he is willing to pay a lot of money. I know this is what happened to me, I decided when I joined that I would F2P the game and could only really get stuff from ST.
On HS I didnt have that barrier and its why I already have 500 ranked wins with 5 factions, and yeah, Im not really attached to any.
One more reason why I think nuking the runes or establishing a set rotation would do wonders.

 

Well, nuking the runes certainly wouldn't solve the problem, it would just delay it until we have a ton of runes again. Then we would have to nuke them again... and I don't like that cycle.

Establishing a set rotation isn't a bad idea, though we have to be careful- IK in magic the gathering the format with a set rotation is actually the most expensive (standard). Unless your talking about pauper or vintage, both of which are kind of to be expected to have their respsective costs.

 

Well, I wouldnt know about Magic formats, but I think the one they implemented in HS is pretty cool.
You have a "basic set" which never comes out, and then you cycle out an expansion after 1 year of its release. Would it work? Dont know. Is it feasible? Probably.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot about the one HS implemented. I suppose if that one is working out we wouldn't have much to worry about.

 

And all my decks flicker in and out of runnability while I tear out my hair. Pls no

 

You're just saying that because UD is OP right now


zealot

 

Gimme back my CD1 beckon

 

If any faction is op it would have to be ST, SP, or FW. Possibly FS. Based purely on the fact that as far as I know no one has complained about them needing buffs in the past month .

 

Ironically those are the top factions.

Complaints don't equal power. Because generally scrubs complain because they have less ability to play around things and adapt, so they'll lose to more balanced stuff than others. Also because these factions are underplayed compared to SL/UD/IS, which have massive playerbases.

 

UD is actually looking pretty good with the current maps in rotation