There is an unspoken collaboration between the developers and pro players. Especially when it comes to balance changes, the developers consult pro players, value their feedback, and take their reactions seriously. But in the end, they still make the final decisions on their own, and sometimes those balance changes turn out to be very wrong.
That’s why I think this relationship should be formalized. A council of 5–6 volunteer pro players should have 50% decision-making power over balance changes. Honestly, I find this inspiring both for the health of the game and from a democratic perspective. Pro players would, in a way, act as representatives of the community.
No. Pros are out of touch and only ever consider game balance, not civ flavor or historical accuracy. Their involvement has actively made the game worse.
If the devs wanted better balance, they could already easily do it. They purposely leave small imbalances intact to make things interesting and keep the community engaged. What they do is just shift these negligible small imbalances periodically. These small imbalances and balance changes favor streamers as well, because that’s what gives them new content.
Yes, but they’re independent. As all the various professional players have stated.
Don’t go overboard. It seems a bit far-fetched to me. Especially since, at the other end of the spectrum, I see players who are convinced of things that aren’t true.
That’s true, or at least the whole balancing process should be more transparent.
Professionals have dedicated years to this game, and many started playing it as children. No one who wasn’t passionate about this game would have devoted years to it. I’m sure many pro players love history and the game’s atmosphere. Also, balance adjustments aren’t where you need to focus for more history and game atmosphere. You can request different things from the developers for that.
Hmm, depends? I watch Ornlu and Admiral Wololo from time to time and they were vocally dissatisfied with the addition of 3K. Other streamers I checked were ambivalent.
I firmly disagree with the premise of this topic. Frankly, I think the pros have too much influence on balance as it is, if only slightly so.
By that standard I, a 1200 Elo player, am just as qualified as they are to decide how things should be balanced. You can be passionate about something and still be completely wrong. <politics>. Evidence of this is their insistence that Georgians are or recently were overpowered, a completely nonsensical take.
No, the pros are no more qualified to make general balance decisions than any one of us. They may be able to tell when something is not balanced, but practically all of them would not be able to tell if something will, or will not, be balanced.
This needs to go back under the rock from whence it came. Democracy and expertise do not mix.
Pros only make up a tiny faction of the player base. Whatever is best for them is not automatically best for everyone.
It the Pros would be the only ones deciding on the balance then many civs would be super unbalanced in lower ELOs making those super not fun to play. There would be many strategies that could only be beaten with pro level micro.
You gotta remember that half of the players are below 1000 ELO. And the argument that civ balance doesn’t matter in low ELO is provably wrong. People will quit the game if they realise that they need to be a pro to beat a certain civ.
Yeah, you said as if devs were “that good” nope they are affraid of making another champi warrior mistake or etc…
There is a problem with only pros making the decisions. Because you have to satify the needs of low elo mid elo and high elo players too.
I agree with you that pros actually know mostly the most abut the game balance, but at their elo rating, so the should not be ignored, but you need to think about the majority even more.
If i make a hard to use unit good, pros will definitely abuse as much as possible, but it might seem as a bad to average unit in 1000 elo hands. So its not that easy.
I am an 1300-1400 elo player and i understand alot of what pros are saying, but doesn’t mean it works in my hands aswell.
The Dunning-Kruger effect at its finest. Up to 1600 Elo TG / 1800 Elo 1v1, you see the most absurd and nonsensical things.
What 98% of players want is ease of use. It doesn’t matter whether a bonus is +30% or +35% in itself.
If I may give a chess example for those familiar with the game: the Benko Gambit. The theory suggests it is risky and advantageous for White. Yet, until one reaches the highest level, Black tends to perform better.
The example I mentioned above.
Let’s suppose that Player A adopts a strategy that works 98% of the time in practice but is theoretically a losing one. Player B must have a counterstrategy at their disposal which, even if it isn’t perfect and isn’t what a professional would do, must be capable of levelling the playing field. I repeat: level the playing field, don’t gain an advantage.
That’s why, for example, making Conquistadors more vulnerable to skirmishers was a good idea. Although converting them would theoretically be ideal, you still have a Plan B that’s easy to implement.
Well ease of use is great, but you need to make balance too, so there is not a certain path you can take with civilization that others have no simple usable counter against except you are hardcore micro god. example: units that rely on monks to counter them will be op in low elo.
My previous post is a bit long, but that’s what I was saying earlier. It’s good that a strategy can be effectively countered by one that requires a lot of skill; the important thing is that there’s a simpler, less effective Plan B as an alternative.
How to use skirmishers instead of monks against Conquistadores / Arambai etc.
the proposal is about balance changes. civ flacour and historical accuracy have no place in this.
the pro players have helped us get rid of nonsense like flemish revolution (or at least it was nerfed enough that it might as well not exist) and the proposed 2 extra vil start for the Chinese.
I agree that the devs only listening to the pros is bad, but it’s still better than them no listening to anyone.
