[Rant] My impression of BB5 impressions

I see mainly two different styles of feedback, apart from bugs, in all the impression posts and it makes me wonder if some people understand the development cycle and challenges developers face. During the alpha stage of development gameplay features are added, modified, or removed based on what the goals of the game are and how those features work with one another. Then in the beta stage those features are balanced so they work well together and meet the overall goals for the game. The two types of feedback I am seeing fall into these categories:

  1. Balance tweaking (adjusting the cost, damage, or frequency of something in game) ← Beta stage
  2. Gameplay* tweaking (adjust how something is accomplished or adjusting how or what skills are) ← Alpha stage

The game is supposed to be a couple months from release which theoretically puts it in the beta phase of development. For feedback purposes, balance adjustments are “relatively easily” accomplished while gameplay tweaking could have major impacts to the game. And I think Snapshot is too far along in the development of the game to make such changes and still be able to see how they (the features) play, what sort of balancing is required for the replacements, and decent QA for those features within the deadline they have set.

So my questions to those making gameplay suggestions are:

  1. Is the feature so broken that it ruins the game for you or is there a way to alter the feature’s balancing that would fix the issue?
  2. Could your feature be an improvement for Phoenix Point 2?

If the only answer you have is that you want it replaced with something else it will likely delay the game’s release if the developers decide to put it in or disappoint you when they don’t.

Finally, here are two topics that have been discussed and examples of balance vs gameplay arguments.

Dash
Balance - increase WP cost to reduce likelihood of dash spamming
Gameplay - Replace dash skill with different skill more specific to assault class

Sound indicator
Balance - Show only outer sound ring instead of full ping for location
Gameplay - Add device that shows sound location on device display (i.e. sound tracker)

*It is possible that some gameplay suggestions are close enough to the current feature that it would only take minor changes to update the functionality, but that really depends more on how Snapshot has created the existing feature so I think it still is better to offer balance suggestions with possibly “future” features as a wishlist for the next in the series.

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This is the feedback that Snapshot have said they would find the most useful.

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That we are just now seeing many of the mechanics was a developer decision. We give feedback on what’s available, when it’s available.

If you won’t ask, you won’t get anything. Let the devs/UV figure out what sort of feedback is useful for them. They know more about state of the game and viability of proposed changes than either of us.
Also after seeing state of BB5 and strategic layer especially I doubt we are 2.5 months from release. If we are… well… I think the game will be fine for those who decided to wait for Steam.