Response to some Dev Stream #20 (get out your reading glasses folks)

Ok so here is my rant after watching the Dev stream #20 that was posted today. There are 2 things that I take objection to that occurred in the community questions phase. The 2 questions that were asked that got me bothered are the Deadlands Map Colonial “imbalance” and the second was the reoccurring complaint about AI defences that shoot people.

First of I want to talk about the Deadlands “imbalance” issue. I agree with the dev’s response about the maps needing to be a bit imbalanced. I really find it hard to believe that any player on foxhole has the tactical knowledge to evaluate if a map is truly imbalanced towards one faction or another. I would really like to know what criteria the people who complain are using to justify such statement because if you are just looking at the map screen and comparing the nodes locations in relations to others is by no means a good evaluation on how a map is balanced, there are so many factors which dictate the importance of a location on a map. The terrain, the enemies battle plan, the skill of the enemy force, the knowledge of all locations on the map all play a role into what cities on a map are important. The importance of locations on a map are always changing over the course of a battle on a map. People who say the maps are imbalanced in their current state are mindless IMO is someone wants to have a discussion with me to debate map imbalances I will gladly take the time to listen to the specific locations you think are imbalance enough that it could potential sway a war in one way or another. With the questions being specifically about the Deadlands Map having a Colonial Bias, I really don’t know what rock the person who asked the question has been living under but I have been in many battles where the Colonials have lost Deadlands and very few matches where the Colonial have won, so I would like to know what this imbalance that I have been missing is because this really means every time the Colonials Lose it means they really suck lol. In continuation as soon as one faction controls one more town over the other faction the map becomes imbalanced until the losing faction can figure out how to turn the enemy back so technically every map become imbalanced at one point or another towards the winning faction. So I ask the question to the person who thinks there is a problem, “What is the Solution?”, because to me the only way to fix this is to only have 2 towns. Each faction starts a town with everything you need in to fight a battle and the winner is the one who can figure out other was to overpower the enemy which kind of ties into my other thoughts about foxhole in its entirety.

Now to address the second question/comment the ever reoccurring “AI defences need to be removed” “AI makes foxhole to PVE not enough PVP” - for everyone who keeps complaining about the AI defences stop facking whining, as HB stated in the devstream the purpose of defences is to help a team defend an area that they captured so the players can go somewhere else to battle for more of the map and not have to worry about leaving actual players behind to defend an area against possible attack. If you think collection scrap is boring, what heck do you think is going to be like for the people you have to tell “oh hey, do you mind standing here at this bridge and make sure no enemy get passed, even though not enemy might ever come?” AI defences allow you to free up fighters to actually go take more ground on the map. I think the current AI is underpowered after all the nerfs they did to it already. As HB stated it does not take a lot of time for a group of 3-5 intelligent and organized players to really do some damage to AI defensive lines that do not have thinking humans to help protect the area. AI structures by themselves are very stupid and easily out maneuvered by intelligent people. AI structures force individual soldiers to group together and get organized with other players to either fight other groups of organized players or destroy AI defences and flank the enemy advances, if you remove AI completely as soon as a faction has less players then the enemy the team with less people does not have a chance. The other issue with not having AI defences is that when you reach a max player limit on a server assuming that both teams have the same level of Skill and access to weapons on the map you reach a stalemate situation. AI defences allow a team to utilize the AI defences as essentially more gun to up their player count. Forget everything you hear in history books about valiant battles where the victor is outnumbered by the enemy. The actions are very rare instances, the majority of battle are won by overwhelming force the key to winning a war is by trying to never fight a fair fight, do everything you can to try and tip the favours of battle in your direction. If you are evenly matched in numbers you can increase your chances of winning by using AI gun to tip the battle in your favour. The issue I take it AI defences the Spam that happens with them but alas this can only be fix as player gain more knowledge of the game mechanics.

In closing my thoughts are this, my opinion are my opinions you can agree or disagree and I’m ok with that. I understand that people are entitled to state their comments as there is a potential that something is brought to light that would change the game for the better. But I get really frustrated when people spew low effort posts about the things that thing are wrong with the game and don try to drop a solution to the problem. I think Foxhole as it stands is a great game aside from a few glitches and bugs the game mechanics and content are solid. This game in my opinion based on content and game mechanics is completely balanced for both Factions. The fate of every battle is solely reliant on the factions ability to outperform the opposing faction a lot of people complains about imbalance I thing stem from the issue with the humans that play the game the griefing, the locks, the whining, the me first attitude. When Markfoot talked about the main idea of this game is not to be an FPS, the focus was on making a game that required a group of players to come together and work together to achieve success. In foxhole the individual is an outcast relegated to wandering the map getting slaughter by AI defence and getting pissed off because he can run and gun. If you are this kind of person foxhole is not for you, please find another game to play. Foxhole is for the group the bond in the brotherhood of battle, you do what is needed to be done for the team, not yourself. A team that works and fights together on a larger scale then the opposing team is the faction that carries the day. A team the can have players enter the game and ask where am I needed most and do that task even if they don’t want to those are the teams that win. So keep in mind that when you post a comment complaining about an aspect of the game take a moment to really think about what you are going to say and ask yourself is this really a problem, what is a possible solution to the problem, how will fixing this make the game better for everyone and not just yourself.