Changing numbers won't fix the maps

Suggestions
1

I’ve noticed most of the balance changes to do with maps involve changing the values of ticket reinforcements and cap times. Now, we could fiddle with these all day long to match the ‘statistics’ that apparently drive game balance but this will not fix the core issue - that the maps are poorly designed. If I can shoot into the enemy spawn from the first point, that’s poor map design, and giving attackers more tickets will just prolong the farm and make people leave. If they can’t even get to the point or get to a suitable rally spot, giving extra tickets will make zero difference.

As player counts and their levels change, so will player performance on maps, resulting in an endless cycle of rebalancing cap times and ticket numbers. It shows a trend with the development style of the game that was exemplified by the rally nerf - devs don’t examine particular situations, rather apply a blanket nerf as a result of viewing everything through mathematics.

Games aren’t just mathematics. Each point should be examined on a case by case basis, and maps should be redesigned and points should be moved. Simply changing numbers may make the balance slightly better (or in some cases, worse) but you can’t fix a poorly designed map this way.

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The rally nerf isn’t a great thing to cite, per the devs own statement on the matter, the changes seen by players were the result of a bug, and they reverted it quickly thereafter since it was never intended to work like that anyway. The intent was specific to certain points, mainly non circular ones, they just goofed on the implementation.

As for the rest, I agree partially.

Yes, some maps need more significant tuning than what can be achieved by messing with cap time and reinforcement count, and yes relying too heavily on this particular tool can lead to a bad experience for players, but that doesn’t mean its a bad tool.

These sorts of changes are really useful for accommodating small differences between the performance of factions, ups and downs from changes to the player base, and dealing with other smaller scale imbalances that crop up. They’re cheap, quick, and predictable, and they don’t require players to relearn anything, so its clear if they worked pretty much right away. They also don’t need a whole lot of detailed analysis to get right.

But for bigger stuff, like maps having too little cover, or an overly effective gray zone camping spot, etc. then yes, its time to break out more direct tools, like adding or removing cover, shifting cap zones, or moving the gray areas. I don’t think this should ever be a super common tactic, since if you remove all the pain points on every map, you actually kill a lot of what makes them distinct, and you force players to relearn maps all the time, but for sure, there are times where it should be done. (Looking at you normandy swamp)