UPDATE 23/01/2017

Hey guys, Ronimo Dave here, the balance document has been redone! Hopefully it will be more accessible now as the old document became kind of cluttered. Please read the DOs and DON'Ts at the top of the document before using it (we no longer use the google suggestion system to prevent color clutter). Otherwise the document's purpose stays the same. We are still in the process of setting over all older suggestions of the old document but feel free to suggest them again in the general discussion comments.

New Document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p3nA0ydQsG_6GL3YPsUyVDVLDcb4HGoOogP-GEV3Cpk

Let me know what you think. Curious on what the document is all about? Read the original post by Doppelganger below:

As you would have noticed recently or before, Jasper is currently busy with the HMS/Galactron and that heavily impede his inputs regarding balance.

So, I asked him directly a way to maybe lower the amount of work and allow the community to participate directly to balance discuss and suggestion, and then, naturally, a simple solution appeared to me.

Old Document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ohw58BCXtEMC5GaN-KN1C0vYcPkgpuHBCZX7Wg3BO-c/edit?usp=sharing

You may have guessed it, it's a document specially made for storing balance proposal over time that have been proposed during all these weeks, or even proposed before, but which Ronimo couldn't give any opinions/input about it.
This is meant primarily to help Ronimo to focus easier on balance issue/changes, etc...

After a very long discuss with Jasper, here is the plan with that balance document :

content

If you took a look at the document, you'll notice that 4 category are present :

► Balance regarding each nauts, which cover naut's diversity, naut's balancing (UP/OP/broken upgrades/mechanics), etc...
► Map balancing, made for pointing out map's flaw and broken interaction with the cast (AKA derlp on starstorm for example)
► Stall/push/clear balancing, which revolve around treating about the stalling in all his form (freezing game, unstoppable pushes...)
► General balancing, that can cover lots of stuff (starting solar, solar items, utility row, etc...)

Input rules

The link above allow everyone here to post commentaries on the gdoc. However, each inputs are under some form of rules to avoid some problems ; Each input (idea/solution/flaw included) have to be explained clearly, the change for them detailed at best and if possible, add links from balance subforum to support the input or pictures (the latter however, must not exceed a set size to avoid overloading the doc.

Input keeping

You may have guessed it, a single person managing this entire project would create a lot of problems (take down the objectivity of the doc and so his main purpose).
So Jasper and me came with a solution, which is to choose 4 people from the balance subforum that will manage every single inputs/presentation/ and put them into the doc (read "not comments anymore") after discuss through the doc in comment of the input.

However, if some inputs may require it, in addition of this thread, others thread with a [GDOC] tag can be created to discuss the input in a simple way (if the point discussed is for example really huge/problematic), the moderation of those thread will be done by forum's moderator, but the final input will be added by one of those 4.
Communication is vital for those 4 to avoid disagreement. I and Jasper also, will moderate the chosen 4 in order to ensure the fiability of the doc and the credibility of the chosen 4 (keep in mind that it's not because we don't trust you, it's more like a guard rail.

In the case that one of the chosen 4 go to far, we will dismiss him from his role and choose someone else to replace him.
Also, we'll monthly rotate the group of 4 by 2 by 2, in order that everyone have the possibility to contribute.

Conclusion

As far as you could have seen, this community document is primarily made for helping Ronimo a lot in his balancing. You may think it's possibly unrealistic, but honestly, if that "experiment" succeed, we could manage the long-term change easier and allow Ronimo to spread their balance patch easier.

I hope you'll support us on this.

Doppelganger.

Current moderators (Dec. 1st 2016)
Ronimo Davey
Devmon
Slevens
Gameinsky
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Discord français d'awesomenauts

Doppel has laid out his plans to be me beforehand, and I'm very excited to see what comes out of this. I've been wanting to try out another format to get a better overview of everyone's stance on balance. So when I was approached to get onboard with an experiment in this direction I jumped at the opportunity.

Needless to say I will be closely monitoring the progress on this document. My hope is that it will nicely capture the the current view on balance. And depending on the developments here and in the doc I hope to be able to use it as a basis for my next balance proposal list. Combined with notes I've made on these forums and our conference calls, of course.

Apart from putting in your suggestions we will also need to find people willing and able to moderate it's contents. But I'm sure we can find suitable candidates here.

I'd rather have a group of top competitive players to do the balance job.
Most ppl here aint even L1 or only play like 3 nauts, so they automatically have a completely different balance perspective. Then there are ppl who are unable to be objective or ppl who suggest a * of changes at once and go overboard with the numbers because they just dont have any clue what balance actually is.

Build diversity for almost any upgrade row cant be reached in the current state of the game, thats also what ppl have to understand. (It can only be reached by either moving all dmg & hp to base and make the upgrades pure utility or by nerfing all dmg upgrades to a point where they are equal to utility/cc's + not being affected by scaling. This would make them nonsense anyway.) So in the end we will always have 1-2 mandatory items at least on dmg abilities which isnt bad. The thing is that we then need like 4 entirely different "unique" upgrades to shake up the gameplay by quite a bit. (Hydro Smash is a good example but its just too weak atm.) Everything leads to 1 question, are we gonna screw diversity for balance? Upgrades kinda lost their impact of a playstyle with the introduction of the xp system anyways but that just made it so boring imo. The game was so much more fun when we had the choice of adjusting the way how we wanted to play. (Rift Rae, Snipe Rae or AA Rae) No selfdmg explo Clunk was fun! I think we just need to bring such things back (Even with the xp system its not that hard to change the titanium hat to a flat amount that also scales.)

Cant we just remove Starstorm, AI and Sorona from the queue and improve the fun maps to make them even more fun? Thats honestly one of the main reasons why I dont enjoy playing this game.

I think the point is that anybody can make suggestions so you get a wide variety of solutions/changes.

Though Jasper is going to choose 4 people to moderate the document to filter out problems you pointed out.


Also it is wrong to think that just because someone isn't good at the game that they don't understand game balance on a fundamental level.
(There's correlation but it's not 100%)

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My concise guide to balancing

Lets just face it - I dont have trust in 4 ppl from the balance forum. There might be 2 or max 3 qualified ppl imo. Otherwise, what could happen? Why am I worried?
Better than L7 Devs balance... I suppose.

All suggestions should be based in solid arguments, regardless of the skill level of the person making the suggestion.

For the initial group Doppel and I would like to ask Gameinsky, ┌ᾮ┘, eddster and Devmon to moderate the suggestions. If they are willing and able.

Keep in mind that we want to swap out 2 people every cycle.

This is an attempt to make balance suggestions more userfriendly to manage for both the community and us at Ronimo.

Ok seems fair, I'm quite active so why not?

I'm in quite close contact with doppel so he will hold an eye out on me

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My concise guide to balancing

Is there a discord we can use or something? That would make things considerably easier

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My steam profile: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198055582507

Check out my streams: twitch.tv/the_eddster27
Make sure you follow the MS Paint off!

We'll use Awesomantium discord for all the moderator + me and Jasper.
So we could interact easier with each other.

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Steam

Discord français d'awesomenauts

who are the moderators?

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my crappy discord: https://discord.gg/TGFpteg