(voted other)
Honestly, become MUCH more transparent.
Right now, Relic is essentially acting as a mystery box; it's like this:
1. The community asks for stuff
2. Wait a month or two
3. Fix 1/10 things the community asked for
4. 9/10 random stuff
It just feels like there's very little connection between Relic and the community; biggest example being the last two major patches.
First, the community states that Brits are weak (they were), and the AEC was a notable candidate for improvement. Relic then over-buffs the unit, pushes the patch live, and leaves it in "unit eraser" more for about a month.
Now we have the current patch, where the fixes seemed like a good step forward, but didn't address everything. Regardless, the patch came out, broke a ton of stuff, was then partially reverted (before a weekend, no less), and then left (now we're waiting). And all of that could have been avoided with a 'beta test' patch. Release the patches on Thursday in BETA (i.e. that optional DL thing on steam), let people test them, and then review that feedback. If everything is good, release the patch on Monday/Tuesday, leaving 3-4 days to fix anything that slipped through the beta. If things are broken, well then it's just a beta patch. The live version is fine.
Then there's the question of actual game design and changes. Even with relic's weekly stream, it's REALLY hard to figure out what their actual "end-game" goal is. What is OKW supposed to be; a Volks-shrek blobbing faction with powerful late-game tanks? Or is this just a symptom of the current meta overriding the faction's design? Same goes for pretty much every faction (SOV Maxim Spam? USF Dual-upgrade blobs? Etc.). In the ideal world, where perfect balance is a thing, how are these factions SUPPOSED to play?
Then there's the whole "overbuff/overnerf" thing that's going on. What is the intent behind some of the massive stat changes in some patches? I understand that the AEC was overperforming, but were changes to the main gun, cost coax, burst and RoF really needed? That's five changes to fix one problem - that's a lot. On the other hand, the 222 change was done (IMO) correctly; it was weak, so they buffed ONE stat. If its still weak, they can buff a (single) different stat. If its now too strong, they know EXACTLY why it's too strong (HP change too great); only 1 stat needs to be adjusted to get the unit to the right place.
Once we have a good idea of what relic actually wants to do, and what their thinking is behind certain things, we can move forward much more efficiently.
I completely agree with this. We don't need new content, unless that is used to balance the existing factions or to justify dev time to balance existing factions.
We certainly don't need a new game either. The game itself is still pretty damn good it is the faction design and balance that needs attention, as well as (as stated above) the reasoning behind Relic making the decisions they have.
Relic should be able to answer three questions for each faction, unit and commander and preferably openly, so we know what we are dealing with?
1. What was the intent with designing the unit/faction/commander as it currently is?
2. Is the unit/faction/commander effective in the game considering its likely counters?
3. Is the unit/faction/commander balanced compared to others of a similar cost?