people seem to forget very fast how bad the balance used to be
Yeah it was rough for a long time.
A few notes to consider:
1) Balancing the game at a 1v1 level is easier because there are less variables present. A specific unit can be considered in isolation, not necessarily working in tandem with another faction's unit
2) Relic would set the "scope" of the incoming patch. That is, what units could be changed, or what the focus of changes would be.
3) Community feedback was solicited. Oftentimes a community patch would have 4-6 iterations in the Steam workshop for players to test and give feedback. This is one reason why the vanilla game would remain the same for months after changes were first announced
4) Arranged teams have an inherent advantage over non-arranged teams. This is true in any game IMO. The availability of voice chat makes talking with your mates so much easier than having to take the time to text in game. There is only so much that any studio can do to make things easier for randomly assigned teams.
4a) Having separate arranged and random cues is a bad idea unless there is a huge surge in active players in team games. Even with these relatively healthy numbers (I remember the dark days when the peak players was at around 2,000) a separate cue would make wait times extremely long.
5) Balancing the game around the arguably poor faction design of the USF/OKW/UKF was difficult. The factions had unique mechanics but often lacked non-doctrinal tools to deal with all situations one would find in automatch. One effect of the balance patches, community-run or not, was to eliminate some of the unique features of each faction. For example, USF howitzer and M8 Scott no longer fire directly, instead always fire in an arc; OKW mechanized truck no longer makes you prioritize between munition and fuel gain; OKW veterancy levels are toned down so it takes them longer to unlock all abilities and bonuses than before.
There are still some things I'd like to change, such as the general bias of German infantry to be most effective at long range, meaning that they are less micro-intensive because a player can simply attack-move them and trust that they will remain at peak efficiency for a few moments, allowing them to put their attention at another unit somewhere else on the map.
Overall, I think the community patches have kept the game alive. Even just two patches/year keeps the game fresh along with changes to the map pool in all modes. The changes haven't all been good but there were definitely some that improved balance and made some units or abilities less difficult to handle.
Canada
United States
~TAB~ GBPirate
pjho458
Chank Bulkhead
Relic Entertainment
