Profile of FestiveLongJohns

This is one of the most broken bugs in the game and needs a hotfix.

if relic really doesnt want spam to exist then they can do what they did with the later DoW expansions and just set a hard cap to certain units. as long as effective units exist, you'll see them in quantity.

im not condoning brads decisions, but i think as a community we need to step back and reasses what the term 'abuse' really means.

I agree, and generally am of the opinion that if the unit made it through testing to live then you shouldn't be shamed for using it. In this case however, I called it "abuse" because he obviously knows the community sentiment regarding the kubel, and was poking the angry bear for a reaction. I guess it's just a word that I used for lack of a better term.

On the other hand, it also feels like this is largely a case of butthurt rather than actual harm.

Relic being the employees and us being the customers, I agree that it's more important for them to behave reasonably ... it's their job and we're just playing a game, after all. On the other hand, I don't like how Relic employees misbehaving is being represented as the ONLY problem here, when it is very clear to me, at least, that harassment in general is also an issue.

Obviously the community members behavior was inflammatory, but IMO this whole thing stems from the fact that Relic(Brad) is using ranked automatch as a testing ground for balance issues. I'll go ahead and give Brad the benefit of the doubt that he was testing the Kubels performance in a competitive setting(at the cost of an extremely frustrated community member) rather than actively trolling for a reaction, although his comments in the replay thread suggest otherwise.

I guess I could see automatch being a good competitive environment to evaluate a units performance, but when you represent the company (and the specific department) that is responsible for obviously imbalanced(or at the very least extremely frustrating) units, and then you abuse the strength of the unit by both trolling in game and in the replay thread, you're going to come off as both incompetent and rude.

People found their scapegoat / whipping boy for their balance concerns, and heres the dramatic resulttttt

This has nothing to do with finding a scapegoat and everything to do with a Relic employee using automatch to both test abusive strats and then rub salt in the wound by baiting his opponent (aerohank). The in game troll is one thing (do you still feel that kubels are over performing?), but to visit the replay thread and continue to fuel the flame is (while admittedly hilarious) really, really bad PR.

I totally understand that it's a balance devs job to min max units and push the most abusive strategies to their limits in order to identify how a unit is performing, but is live automatch really the place for that? When people have ranks at stake, getting trolled with an abusive strat by a Relic employee and then subsequently trolled in the replay thread in which his opponent was obviously very frustrated makes it seem like Relic is both aware and complacent with the current balance issues.

This has actually happened once before already. Take the truck pushing crushing issue for example. This was something that was brought up from the beginning of the WFA alpha, there were numerous threads about it. Nothing got done. WFA goes live, people are up in arms about it, it's a super hot topic, people are mad. What happens next? A Relic balance dev and their (from the casual players point of view) "elitist pr0 balance testers" *cough* Ciez *cough* are streaming games in which they abuse the shit out of truck pushing crushing just for some cheap laughs. Just ask sepharim if he remembers. Well played Relic, take the most abusive and frustrating gimmicks and advertise that not only are you aware of them, but you're willing to further infuriate an already frustrated fan base for your own amusement. So...fucking...sad.


The reaction to taxman was warranted, but highly unprofessional. You can't stroll around with "RELIC" attached to your name and call your customers assholes, that's just asking for trouble.

Dusty you backing him up in this casual manner only makes the situation murkier, considering that you have some sort of relationship with Brad, and your attitude toward the whole thing kind of mirrors his own, you should probably distance yourself from all this, for Relics sake.

Thanks Cynthia for creating this thread, hopefully some good comes from it.

EDIT:

After making this point I feel that I should clarify that I don't think that Relic collaborating with the experienced members of the community for balance feedback is a bad thing. I don't want this situation to cause Relic to recoil from interacting with the community, I just feel that they should be a little more sensitive and realize that your place in the community is as a Relic employee and not just a member of the #rekt train The fact that this is being addressed by the community rather than Relic is just embarrassing.

New cast is up, this time a 2v2 now! Check it out