>>Oh for Christ's sake, it's not as if I hadn't been playing
>it
>>for a decade before I imm'd and stopped playing mortals
>>regularly. My area knowledge might be rusty but ... oh ####
>>it, I'm not having this conversation again.
>
>I find it important that if you are making changes to PK
>mechanics, you should experience them first hand (Nep being a
>good example of that, even if he cheated his ass off). Your
>edge and empowerment (strip skills part) changes were widely
>criticized by the playerbase. And from your explanations for
>their reasons it was obvious that your reasoning was form the
>meta-game and statistics and "the higher good", you did not
>experience those changes first hand as a player.
>

The reality is that literally no coder in the history of CF has had the time and desire to play test every significant change they make. That's why they consult staff who do, read and consider player feedback, observe gameplay from all sides via snoop (which tends to weed out a LOT of the bias that players have), review data and trends, and so on.

And all of this is on top of, again, years of understand of how the game works (which isn't to say anyone is incapable of mistakes). But I've all that already.

I don't think the fundamental point you're making is wrong, but I do think you're exaggerating what I or anyone else (e.g., Zulg, Valg, who I don't believe played many/any mortals as coders) lack in perspective or understanding. Plus, I wouldn't subject myself to the attacks that guys like Nep have had to endure for anything, so if I do play test something I'd never claim it anyway. There isn't enough vodka in Russia, if you know what I mean. And I think you do.