I don't know. For the most part I abandoned this because the only time I ever saw certain balancers using anything other than their standard one-handed gear was to nerf said items. I used to defend Tydeus to the end with his changes, which started with changes in the right direction. I believed in those changes.
I come back for a few days every month or two, and all I see are steady decreases in quality-of-life changes made to riders, archers, ranged anything, polearms and - even now - the two-handers taken off their high perch. When people ditch their shields in favor of an even higher swing speed, when most of the population of a dead server is swinging espadas, scottish side swords and other one-handed fuckery, when all I see are people breaking their S-keys until their opponents get tired of chasing, then pull a crossbow on them; that's when I decided that this mod lost its charm.
When I think of cRPG, I think of the golden days, where the servers were bumping, people were cursing and laughing together and at each other over shenanigans, and stuff was grossly unbalanced. And yet somehow, the game remained fun. Not this cesspool of filth comprising the systematic deconstruction of classes one by one.
It's not about the balancing, it's about the balance of that balancing. Call me biased, but riding has taken nothing but constant nerfs over the past couple years. I've tried to stay true to riding because it was fun. It wasn't the most useful thing in the game, and if our victims were even conscious when playing with half a functioning brain, there's no hope for us in a 1v1 save the best riders.
My most vivid memory of the moment I lost faith in this game was when I logged in to see Tydeus riding with a great lance. I was amused, given I was seeing Tydeus even in a saddle, I wondered how he hadn't fallen off the damn thing yet or speared himself on the lance trying to lower it. I asked him if he's changing his tack, and the response I got was something along the lines of "using a class to figure out how to nerf it." Of course, I immediately ignited and I vaguely recall the snarling, weeping and gnashing of teeth that followed. I realized I only ever see certain classes played by a balancer when it's heading for the gallows. That's been what drives the Remnant's excursions into cRPG: To see who's going on the chopping block next.
I don't care what it is. Because no one cares what your excuses are. All people care about is our perceptions, our own truths, and how we perceive things. I'm fairly positive that most people can agree that for the last two minor patches, one-handers have warranted at the very least a reconsideration, given their overpowering popularity (for obvious reasons). Yet we continue to see other classes getting hit.
The biggest disconnect that finally lost NA was between the management and the community. You lost sight of why you were doing this. You looked at numbers and animations and all these different mechanics, wondering how the community continues to dwindle when more attention should have been paid to who you were catering to.
To me, personally, you made the game everything you wanted it to be. A haven for one handed users. BobtheHero was unique and his skills with a mediocre class made him special; now his style of one-handed, no-shield fighting is disgraced. Nothing can keep up with the raw speed and animation advantages one class, and classes used to counter what a fair fight could not were pummeled into the ground. Your excuses and reasoning don't matter, because I speak as a rider and polearm user. I guarantee you other classes have their own qualms.
Your job wasn't purely to "balance the numbers." it was also to keep sight of us, the player base, and be attuned to our needs.
This is why NA has crumbled. Because we're not actually interested in your stupid numbers and balance. We're interested in hanging out with our friends, complaining about stupid shit and playing a game that supports more than 10 of us on the same team. We don't give a shit about horse nerfs, we don't give a shit about two-handed stabs. We don't give a shit about agi/str builds. We played because it was fun.
Your nerfs should have encompassed several even nerfs across all the classes per patch, not condemning one for months until you could bring another down to its level.
You dirty fucking lesbians.
