Balancing And Meta - The Finals
The balancing in meta in any game with PVP is going to be a tricky topic balancing decisions that are right for one group of the player base are often the incorrect decision for another group as an example if we look at the unranked and low ELO player base where teamwork and coordination, isn't always on display you will see stuff like light being picked more often because it is great at disrupting individuals that are isolated and away from their team this class also plays into the role of being a player who doesn't stick with the team which kind of makes sense the heavy class isn't picked as much because the strength of the Shields and the ability to initiate, can come at a price when you have low Mobility, this Mobility gets even worse when your medium doesn't provide you zip lines A core aspect of this class is being able to be the front line for your team, in contrast.
High ELO lobbies, where light is less common but is seen a lot of play in very coordinated teams that often understand the scouting role and potential that light brings to the team if everyone can play off of it, and teams typically default to the safer and easier pick of double heavy and a medium or double medium and a heavy, which, on that note, you see much more Heavies in top player compositions because of its sheer power to both dis-insane DPS while also providing the team with a defensive wall and strong initiation.
Double this up with a pocket heel, and you have two tanks on a leash. If we decide what to balance here with Nerfs or Buffs, it may not line up with helping both parties. Embark, in my opinion, has always made steps in the correct direction while sometimes being slow or slightly off-track. It shows me that with time we will get to the right destination, but let's discuss the elephant in the room first with the fcar, a weapon that may have been the most complained-about weapon in the game in terms of balancing.
It's remained Supreme in the medium class for essentially the entire time the game has been live, and I've always been on the fence about how I balance it personally. I'm hoping to make this an open dialogue with Embark, the community as a whole, and anyone in between the developers who listens to the community, and that's a gift not every gamer gets when it comes to their favorite games.
I want people to think critically about stuff, put the time and effort into understanding both the game and the specific things you want to see balanced, and hopefully reflect on how it can affect the game as a whole with the An issue with lowering its DPS or damage values is the fact that it's 20 bullets.
This can quickly make the weapon really bad, and it will also deter a lot of newer players who often ask for a higher magazine, which a lot of people had asked for very early on in the game's lifespan. Suggestions that can benefit both parties often make much more sense, such as buffing things up to be at the same power as the F car or lowering the fire rate of the F car.
That way, its magazine size still has the same kill potential. It also becomes easier for casuals and newer players, potentially putting it more in line with the rest of the rifles. Now, this is just an example of how we can approach suggestions. I'm not saying that this is the correct solution.
Another topic is heaviness. Now I flex and play everything equally, so I have no biases. Coming into my preferences on what class I'd like to see buffed or nerfed in, this class has seen an overwhelming amount of nerfs with little to no buffs, yet it is still dominating top lobbies and The meta build for the glass has not changed since day one; only recently have some people been experimenting with adding the barricade to it or the anti-grab instead of C4, but the core of having a mesh SA2.
Sometimes Lis Gun, the RPG, and Dome Shield are basically always the same to someone who enjoys the heavy It can be kind of disheartening to see Nerf after Nerf after Nerf in the class that you love, even if it is a fair thing to do. I personally would like to see harder Nerfs and bigger buffs because often we see stuff like one damage less or one damage more or a tiny little RPM change on a lot of weapons, and it does nothing to actually change the meta.
I'd rather see a weapon get gutted and then brought back up to its glory, or a weapon buffed too much and then needed to be toned back, than see a patch where nothing changes. There's also the fact that the heavy class tends to be a class that not a lot of people actually like; it was voted on my YouTube channel as the least fun class, and I think there's a round of decisions when it comes to things like balancing for casuals, low ELO versus balancing for competitive players, and if you were to take, for example, the RPG.
Nerf it so that it's not as potent and has a high ELO of about 90 damage, then you give them two of them and add the ability to rocket jump while also removing the self-damage or potentially putting it at like five or 10 damage. You're going to get a game that newer players are going to find much more enjoyable.
The experienced players are not going to be so frustrated with the power of it, and then we also get a skill gap on the gadget where high-level players will eventually master the tech of rocket jumping and be able to pull off some insane stuff. Newer players are going to have something to learn and enjoy that is fun while also not making the mistake of killing themselves with the RPG, which does happen a lot.
There's tons of things in this game where we can take that approach where we can make stuff more fun and more viable and balance both the casual and the competitive sides of it. That's just one example I've thought of, but there are tons of things in this game where we can take that approach, and on the note of change, most people were expecting the new weapons to really shake up the classes.
And the types of people we run into in games, It just didn't really happen in the rankings; it basically feels the same as season 1. The heal beam and mesh dominate every game, and we are luckily seeing light become more viable and no more Recon spamming is also a very nice thing. It feels like we're getting closer to being more balanced.
Meta will always exist, no matter what competitive game you play. People who master it will find a meta, and it will slowly take over. It's hard to avoid this, and I'm not saying we will ever get to a point of perfection, but there's this illusion of choice that players feel when picking up ranked in the finals.
