Why imo the use of L2P is not constructive.

I have asked to see the stats across all levels of ability, rather than just the top 150 or 250, no response yet though.

When they publish them what level of winrate difference would you consider to be balanced Inverse?

Hypothetically say the stats were published for Brit 1v1s in the sub rank 5 and sub rank 10 categories. What level of spread specifically would you consider acceptable?

No actually it is not. A balance issue remain exactly the same weather it is reported by a person ranked number 1 or person ranked number 1.000

Oh yes it is! I will prove this with a simple question:

Why do we see a bazillion balance rants every day from players who are around Rank 500-1000, but players like Jesulin, Luvnest or Jove rarely even post balance rants (if I remember I haven't seen either of them post one)?

good points.

yep, the blame goes around. Many, many complain threads in COH2 Central should be in Strategy Task of State Office, asking for help instead.

Surely the top players would be more likely to exploit imbalance than report it?

I have no idea who the top players are but my suspicion would be that competitive players who can't quite make the top X positions would be the ones moaning and whingeing about balance.

Clearly if taking the most successful players only into consideration they rather like the game balance as it is, else they wouldn't be winning.

when i lose a game, the first thing i ask myself is "what did i wrong" and in 99% of cases i find a specific unit that came too late / a micro error / floating resources etc.


don't know whats so difficult about that

Surely the top players would be more likely to exploit imbalance than report it?

I have no idea who the top players are but my suspicion would be that competitive players who can't quite make the top X positions would be the ones moaning and whingeing about balance.

Clearly if taking the most successful players only into consideration they rather like the game balance as it is, else they wouldn't be winning.

That's not necessarily true. Just because you don't hear the top players doesn't mean they don't talk, I know you don't mean this in such a blunt way but the gist is the same. Plenty of top players stream the game and use this as an opportunity to complain or whine or whatever, and often they do it to vent or discuss with Twitch chat, a far more intimate audience than a whole forum. Or they make off-hand comments now and then in matches or such but these are mostly out of frustration. The difference being is top players are more likely to be in contact with Relic in order to feedback directly. The top players are also only factored into Relic's balance data so they don't need to make a point as often as a lower level player.

Another is simply skill, what a lower level player calls imbalance (let's say Maxim spam), a higher level player can beat or counter. High skill level often means balance complaints are fewer, though when they occur they are taken more seriously.

You are right about the ones whinging the most about balance are often those who fail to get to the top and you are correct that some, only some, prefer the balance stays as it is, not naming names but a certain pair of players, spammer/abuser and no-techer respectively, come to mind. But if you get into following the high level scene of players you quickly find they find many aspects of the game as frustrating as any other, the most recent being Ostruppen spam completely turning certain matchups on their head.

when i lose a game, the first thing i ask myself is "what did i wrong" and in 99% of cases i find a specific unit that came too late / a micro error / floating resources etc.


don't know whats so difficult about that

Its really simple.

Some people don't accept the fact that its them that sucks, not the balance.
These people will put the blame on anything and everything but themselves.
Simple mentality case of which prime example started this thread.
lolcake, sierra, early alex and many others all fall for that category of "player".

No actually it is not. A balance issue remain exactly the same weather it is reported by a person ranked number 1 or person ranked number 1.000

Sure, if it's a valid issue. But a rank 1000 player is more likely to think a skill issue is a balance issue than a rank 1 player is, because the rank 1 player is going to understand the game better than the rank 1000 player 99% of the time. If the best player in the world thinks something is problematic, I'm inclined to believe him because his bona fides have been established. If a rank 1000 player thinks something is problematic, it's far more likely that the problem is simply a lack of player skill and not a true balance concern because he lacks game knowledge that could inform his opinion. That's not always the case, obviously, but in my experience it's true the vast majority of the time.

I have asked to see the stats across all levels of ability, rather than just the top 150 or 250, no response yet though.

When they publish them what level of winrate difference would you consider to be balanced Inverse?

Hypothetically say the stats were published for Brit 1v1s in the sub rank 5 and sub rank 10 categories. What level of spread specifically would you consider acceptable?

It's not about winrates or anything like that, those kinds of stats need to be aggregated across the entire playerbase because you need a huge sample to see anything useful. And winrate stats are very good at telling you a problem exists but very bad at telling you what the problem actually is, or how you would go about fixing it. For those answers you really need players who have a very deep understanding of the game.

Surely the top players would be more likely to exploit imbalance than report it?

I have no idea who the top players are but my suspicion would be that competitive players who can't quite make the top X positions would be the ones moaning and whingeing about balance.

Clearly if taking the most successful players only into consideration they rather like the game balance as it is, else they wouldn't be winning.

This is some pretty unfounded cynicism. CoH is unique in that tournaments require players to compete with multiple factions, which eliminates a lot of the faction bias you see with automatch players who just spam single faction games. Tournament players have to play both sides, so they really don't have a reason to want one faction to be stronger than all the others. Furthermore, the only reason top ladder players have ridiculous win ratios is because the playerbase is too small to consistently provide quality matches at the top. As you get higher in the ladder, the number of players at or above your skill level drastically decreases, which in turn increases the likelihood of you getting matched with someone significantly below you in terms of skill. Balance changes would do very little to change win ratios at the top of the ladder.

Your problem is you think automatch, and specifically the ladder, means something. The truth is, it really doesn't. Once you're good enough to beat most players most of the time, it turns into a game of who can grind the most matches and get enough points to climb the rankings. Tournaments are the real indicators of skill because they force top players to perform consistently against other top players with multiple factions; most of the players you see with crazy ratios on the ladder have ratios far closer to 50% in tournaments because tournaments force you to play good players consistently and automatch doesn't. Top players are tournament-focused, not ladder-focused, and only one player can win a tournament.

During the 2.602 development period, all but a small handful of people contributing to discussions and ideas were tournament champions or consistent top tournament performers. As someone who was a good ladder player at the time (top 50 or so), it blew me away how incredibly basic my game knowledge was in relation. It's something you can't really fully understand or get behind until you've experienced it first-hand.

Some people seem to be using the "L2P" term very often is balance debates. Imo the term is rude and nonconstructive.

...

Imo "L2P" as response is currently overused and should avoided.

Its definately a bad way of putting it, but in balance debates it does have a place. Its pretty easy to copy a working build order, but not everyone can play good enough to make the units fulfill their role.

When used outside of balance discussions however I think it really is inappropriate. You still sometimes see someone asking for help with how to counter something and getting simple "L2P" replies, while hes actually just asking for tips on how to L2P.

As a sidenote, like Inverse mentioned, in tournaments players have to play both sides. Since we do not have mirrormatches, I really wish more people played both sides. Would open up a lot of biased eyes.

Its definately a bad way of putting it, but in balance debates it does have a place...

You have to argue that with the moderators of this forum who wrote:
L2P - Learn to/2 Play. Often used as an dismissive insult. Use on the forums is discouraged and may prompt moderation.

You have to argue that with the moderators of this forum who wrote:
L2P - Learn to/2 Play. Often used as an dismissive insult. Use on the forums is discouraged and may prompt moderation.

Thats exactly what I meant that its a bad way to put it, saying L2P is bad, but delivering the message "you may need to improve your skills", is not.

L2P as a singular is offensive and not constructive. I'm not going to invis a post because it is just "L2P" but I know the post itself will not help. Only time the sole "L2P" response becomes problematic is when it gets spammed by the same user. Constructive critism is what the site thrives on.

Oh yes it is! I will prove this with a simple question:
Why do we see a bazillion balance rants every day from players who are around Rank 500-1000, but players like Jesulin, Luvnest or Jove rarely even post balance rants (if I remember I haven't seen either of them post one)?

Because of simple arithmetic(?) there only 3 (Jesulin, Luvnest or Jove) and several hundred members of COH2.org and if each one of mention made 1 thread of balance you would 3 made from top players and hundreds of non top players.

Or maybe because Jesulin, Luvnest or Jove don't like posting in COH2 balance threads because it full of hostility and toxic comment.

For a better response check Swiftsabre response 3-4 post above...

Sorry , but when player from top end of skill level see that somebody is creating thread about unit and unit is fine , only he have some arrors in his play and this leads him into incapabilit to counter that build then it is L2P.
l2p without any other conscructivity should be avoided. Players should always firstly tell the other one why is he mistaken and then say him about l2p and how to imrpove for exaple

Sure, if it's a valid issue. But a rank 1000 player is more likely to think a skill issue is a balance issue than a rank 1 player is, because the rank 1 player is going to understand the game better than the rank 1000 player 99% of the time. If the best player in the world thinks something is problematic, I'm inclined to believe him because his bona fides have been established. If a rank 1000 player thinks something is problematic, it's far more likely that the problem is simply a lack of player skill and not a true balance concern because he lacks game knowledge that could inform his opinion. That's not always the case, obviously, but in my experience it's true the vast majority of the time.

An issue razed by a top player is more probable to be more valid that is true, (if one want to prioritize he should check it first), but that does not mean that if a rank of player is not high the issue razed is not valid so it better to focus on the issue and not the person.

In addition L2P comments are nonconstructive and discouraged according to forum rules.

I'm not sure if there's an english phrase for: "Stupid answer for stupid question". People don't bother writing a long essay explaining cause 95% of the time people are already entitled to their own opinion. You can see from the way people answer or how they open up their thread.
To further expand on this point: if someone ask for help on how to deal with X unit or strat i'm sure it would receive better answer than "OMG this unit is so OP, why does lelic doesn't remove the unit from the game!"

There's a difference between balance and gameplay/design problems. Most of the posts on the balance section belong into the State office section.
The difference between those 2 is basically the ease of use. I'm gonna give a couple of examples:

-OKW change of income was/is a balance problem. This is why medium tanks and heavies got their price increase as a temporary bandaid.
-Requiring to activate the AoE heal on the ambulance every 30s. At that moment, it was the only faction which require constant babysitting when the rest would do so passively. It didn't improve gameplay at all.
-Dodging a nade is L2P. Having a nade with no damage dropoff is a balance problem.

Swiftsabre pretty much nailed it. People who respond to a post (no matter how seemingly biased/idiotic/synonym of your choosing is with just "L2P" it does generally come off as mean spirited and unhelpful. This should be avoided.

However if you post a thread and the majority of people disagree with you and say its a L2P issue with explanations why then its on you as the OP to use that information to improve your game. Simply put just don't make threads assuming people will agree with you and then get angry when they don't.

Sorry , but when player from top end of skill level see that somebody is creating thread about unit and unit is fine , only he have some arrors in his play and this leads him into incapabilit to counter that build then it is L2P.
l2p without any other conscructivity should be avoided. Players should always firstly tell the other one why is he mistaken and then say him about l2p and how to imrpove for exaple

1) Forum rules do not make such a distinctions...
2) Roughly what percentage of L2P comments come from Top players? 1%? 5%?
the majority of them seem to come from a handful of people who actually are not top players
3) Brings us to the most important problem, who decides that someone is entitled to use the term L2P or not...

I think half the problem is there are 1v1 players arguing with 4v4 players about balance issues. There can be a small balnce issue in 1v1 and it can escalate through team game and by the time it gets to 4v4 can be quite a big balnce issue. It would probably help if there were two seperate balance forums one for 1v1/2v2 and one for 3v3/4v4.

An issue razed by a top player is more probable to be more valid that is true, (if one want to prioritize he should check it first), but that does not mean that if a rank of player is not high the issue razed is not valid so it better to focus on the issue and not the person.

In addition L2P comments are nonconstructive and discouraged according to forum rules.

Like I said, of course it's not constructive. But while mediocre players may stumble upon legitimate issues from time to time, the vast majority of issues they complain about are really not issues at all. Nobody has the time to sift through every single ridiculous suggestion looking for the one or two that might be valid; it makes much more sense to focus on the players who are far more likely to have valid complaints (specifically top tournament players and a few select others), because those players also likely have the game knowledge to suggest solutions, or at least discuss them in a reasoned manner.

You can't blame people for dismissing suggestions from mediocre players out-of-hand; there's just too much crap out there to sift through, and most people just want to complain or blame something other than their poor play. The ideal solution is for Relic to consult with a hand-picked group of top players like they did with the 2.602 patch in CoH1. Unfortunately, that hasn't seriously happened since Peter left.