Profile of Napalm

Non-doc late heavy tanks for all sides will help ballance team games.

Yep. It would also make this game more colorful. Commanders could be selected on their fun factor rather than 'It MUST have armor or we are screwed late game'. It just has to be done right.

Mouthing off your customers because they got heated? You're the man now, dog. I see this approach being really successfully in the future. I don't need to really argue this much anymore. Relic is not my brand, nor my image. If Relic wants to be seen in this sort of light, all the power to them. I'm sure internal HR policies say otherwise though.

Required reading.

Hmm BaerBaer we must duel.

Reserved for President Napalms address.

If there is one thing I've learnt it is that nobody likes constructive criticism. In some cases people cant separate the differences between constructive criticism and hate. The trigger point of the latest round of community "hate" was by a developers in game actions against a customer. It was over a small issue in my opinion but speaks to a larger issue with the way Relic is being managed.

At this point in the titles life cycle we are a year after launch, one DLC released with another in the cooker. Issues that were identified after release are still prevalent. Why? Doubting me? Take a trip down memory lane and look at this fine example of a thread. How many issues identified in that thread have been addressed? How many of you say with confidence, right now, that there has been marked improvements in the following areas since launch?

Bug Fixes
Patch notes quality
Patching schedule
Communication
Game Balance

None of these issues can be really "fixed" by any one employee of Relic when they don't have the proper support network in place. How does poor ol' Noun and tell management hes doing a kick ass job? Now, before I get jumped on for being a bitter bear here is some free advice that I normally charge clients tens of thousands of dollars for.

Relic needs to establish key performance indicators for things that are important to the games success. Learn more about key performance indicators here. In normal people words, KPI's are used to measure the success/failure of something in a way that is based on factual information. Let's go through some examples.

Bug Fixes
This is one of the easier ones to establish a measurement for. I believe community member Siberian has a bug counter at 28 so we'll use that as an example. These needs to be tracked, prioritized, and action taken on them. Once the total number is established, 28 in this case, status can be reported on during each patch cycle. It's a win win, the community gets to see progress (14/28 addressed!) and the Relic employee get to communicate to his boss that he/she is doing a kick ass job.

Patch Note Quality
I'm tired of having to seek out the undocumented changes because the patch notes aren't complete. To establish the baseline we could take a look back at the past 4 patches and take a average number of how many items were missed in the patch notes. Lets use 7 for an example. Every time a patch is released and the community double checks Relic's work, we can let them know if they've missed to mention something in the patch notes. Any identified issues that are less than 7 is a marked improvement. This can be reported on every other patch cycle. It's a win win, the community gets to see progress (Hey guyz, last patch we only missed one item on the patch notes! It used to be 7! How kick ass are we?) and the Relic employee get to communicate to his boss that he/she is doing a kick ass job.

See what I'm getting at? By measuring things based on factual information we can remove opinion.

Patching Schedule
I'm unsure if Relic wants there to be a established patching schedule but if there was one a KPI could be written for it. How many patches were on time?

Communication
Shout out to Noun and Cynthia_RE. Communication is key so the community does not feel neglected. There could be a couple KPI to measure communication. Got to establish some goals first!
- It is the goal of Relic to do 3 Twitch casts a month.
- Is it the goal of Relic to do 1 forum post a day.
- Update facebook once a week.
Again, can be reported on during each patch cycle (Hey guyz, if you missed our THREE Twitch casts make sure to check out the reply here) and it's a win win. Community sees progress, Noun and Cynthia_RE get to tell management they've met their goals and are super kick ass.

Game Balance
There are a couple measurements that can be taken here to judge success/failure of balancing. I know Relic has a data analytic staff member so maybe they'd be able to pick up some raw numbers.
- Average numbers of users searching for a game based on faction
- Win/loss ratio for a specific faction
- Win/loss ratio for a specific faction broken down by game mode
All just ideas. Again, can be reported on during each patch cycle (Hey guyz, 1v1 game mode is super amazing right now. We have a tie for win/loss ratios between all the factions) and it's a win win. Community sees progress, PQ BC get to tell management they've met their numbers and are super kick ass.

TLDR: Set KPI's for things important to the community. Report on them regularly to show progress. Most of the issues are a management problem as they do not have a proper frame work in place to show success/failure.

Sorry, I think I interrupted Dusty's line to mean nobody cares about the 4v4 game mode. That grinds my gears!

This community is pretty on edge lately, me included.