4 replies to this topic

[Tor6]

Browsing these forums the last week I've seen a ton of posts arguing for and against all kinds of things. Mostly about ECM but also about streak cats, lrm boating, and other hotly contested topics. The one thing they all have in common is that I keep seeing utterly infuriating defenses of ALL topics from ALL sides.

"Yesterday I played a game where the opposing team had 4-5 [streak cats/ecm/lrm boats/urbanmechs] and we rolled them! It can't be OP."

I see this all the time, and it's possibly the laziest defense of anything ever. It's not even a data point, but an out of context anecdote which might be an utter fabrication for all I know. Saying that one time you did something [without saying how many times you lost or how good your opponents were] is meaningless. Absent a lot of additional data your story about a single event proves nothing when discussing the balance of something, so please stop using it to defend your position! One or two games could be outliers. An anomoly. Or simply the result of you having an awesome/bad team and the enemy team being horrible/amazing.

"Sounds like somone is just a ******** ______ pilot!"

Not only does this make you look like a jerk (and the last thing this community needs is more jerks), but it doesn't actually dispute anything. Being condescending and appealing to the rest of the thread to ridicule someone for having the audacity to disagree with you does not help you win an argument. If anything it weakens if by making people who are actually putting forth a well thought out defense of whatever you agree with look bad by association.

"I don't like X, so anything that hurts people that like X I like." or 'The Spite Defense'

Balancing something based on spite is probably up there with sandpaper covered toilet seats in the bad ideas department. Also, if your argument in favor of a balance change is that it hurts a group of people whose playstyle you don't approve of, you've probably already lost the argument. Saying you think something should take more skill, be more involved, or require more teamwork is well and good; but attacking the users of it personally without communicating any logical reason behind your position is.. childish at best.

And the list goes on..

We all feel strongly about our preferred mechs and weapons and equipment, but the amount of uncivil discussion in topics which really need to be nothing but civil discussion is discouraging. If you're going to disagree with someone on a topic of game balance or strategy or somesuch you need to back up what you're saying with something with some statistical relevance.

Saying that 'One time I killed 7 people in a trial hunchie, therefore trials are just as good as a custom mech' is meaningless. However saying 'I regularly play matches in a trial hunchie and still do roughly comparable to my own custom one [and here's my custom one's build] would actually have some weight. Not only is the opinion based on more than one match, but it also acknowledges that the person posting it has tried BOTH sides of the argument (in this case custom vs trial) and has perspective from both. Also by letting the readers know what their custom is they can judge for themselves if its because the custom build is terrible. In order to make a compelling argument one way or another you need data, actual analysis, and to relay that with some measure of tactful and well composed text. A lot of what I read in all these balance discussion threads just... doesn't have all or most of that.

So please folks, put at least some effort into your defense of ____. Whatever you're defending clearly deserves that much.

[MustrumRidcully]

I would agree, but I was once right on something without using logic, so logic is useless.

[The Cheese]

I made a post to this effect earlier today, only with less words and more spite. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

[MustrumRidcully]

The Cheese, on 10 December 2012 - 01:49 AM, said:

I made a post to this effect earlier today, only with less words and more spite. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

I never made a post or a thread on this concept, but I always wished I could express it because man, it's really boring to read al the same excuses in each of these thread. "I did X once, so it's proof you're wrong forever".

[LionZoo]

Seems like some people are converging on the same thought. I did make this argument today: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__1576261

However, Tor6 expounded on it in a way that I did not. Thus, I gave him the very first "Like" I've ever given a post on this forum. (I'm sure it means nothing though, but the post was good in a way that I just had to "Like" it.)