Brawler Archive

Spaz, I'm writing this in the spirit of constructive criticisism.Despite my often sarcasm filled replies I honestly want to help. It seems to me that the correspondent job is not exacty what you expected. While the devs made it clear what they were looking for in a correspondent you don't seem to have a clear idea what the brawler community expects from you.

Correspondent is perhaps the wrong word for what I think you should be doing. I'd prefer an advocate. Someone who will not only take my concerns to the devs they should also argue convincingly on my behalf. I want someone that is squarely on my side. I believe a correspondent needs to be proactive in gathering information for the devs. The almost daily patches ensure that the play balanceis constantly changing. A change made in a seemingly unrelated area may benefit or harm us. While the devs are tuning theplay balancethe issues need to be re-examined from time to time if only to make sure that what the devs are working on isstill relavent. Doing so willbe of great value to both theplayers and the devs.

I must also make known to you what I see as shortcomings in both attitude and job performance, both general and specific. Your work ethic is sub par. Although correspondent is a volunteer position maintaining a high visibilty on these boards would be to your benefit. Since youpost sporadically the perception is that you don't care and aren't listening. You are our voice, our link to the devs. No one expects to hear from the devs frequently or to recieve direct replies. We do expect to hear from you, even if only to say " Stillno news from the devs ". That you have posted a threadto check for new issues is a good start but this should really be a weekly feature.Ensuring thatbrawler issues and what the devs are working on remain in sync is the primary reason for the correspondent job.As for you attitude there are two specific problems and one general one. Generally You seem to have a very elitist bent to your posts, especially when asked to do anything you don't agree with you act very put upon. Your constant denial of any wrongdoingor culpability in the VK cert fiasco damages your credibilty. There is no reason to believe that if you hadn't said anything the VK certwould have happened. Considering how quickly the T-21 rifle nerf was reversed there is little reason to believe the devs wouldn't act quickly on this issue if it was bought to their attention how deeply this affects unarmed brawler.

A second attitude problem I see may be more of a paradigm ( point of view ) difficulty. In several posts you display a prejidical attitude toward smugglers and commandos because they are " just passing through" brawler instead of being dedicated brawlers. Although you have never directly said anything to such an effect many of your statements indicate this is a view you hold strongly. Why do I find this so troubling? I feel that you may be attempting tonerf unarmed so that such "unworthy" professions don'tgain viable melee skills because they aren't dedicated enough in your opinion. I also feel that you are justifying this decision by thinking that it won't matter to dedicated unarmed brawlers because they will go on to TKA. Your apparent derision is displayed every time you belittle the concerns of unarmed brawlers. On a related note, the brawler profession is unarmed heavy because of the lure of TKA combined with beingaprerequisite forsmugglers and commandos. You say that unarmed is only 30% of brawler but from my purely informal observation I would guess 50% or more have some unarmed skill. Smugglers and commandos are part of our community. they work just as hard for their skills as any unarmed brawler. These professions, though not brawler elite professions, deserve a working skill. I have heard many smugglers and commandos say they are doing unarmed only because they have to and don't intend to use the skill ever due to the useless damage levels.

This is my opinion, some may agree, others may not. I encourage everyone to post your views on what the correspondent job should be and any comments or suggestions on how Spaz is doing the job.

Thank you for your patience.