I understood perfectly what you meant, which is why I responded with this:

The issue is NOT that people don't know how to make a mod...the issue is that a mod would not solve the problem, which is that the balance issues are severely degrading from the MP experience...as I have explained this time and countless others, mods don't resolve issues for MP, because you just aren't going to get all or even most MP players to agree on one set of changes...

You have modders complaining about the game balance...and you seriously think the problem is that they don't know how to mod???

Are you actually reading the balance discussions?  Countless specific and thoughtful suggestions have been made for SttC, SB mobilization, Wail, the Maw, and countless other things people have had problems with...people are giving very constructive feedback and have been doing so for several months...but you make it out like these threads are all just troll threads with people complaining, and that simply is not an accurate evaluation...sure, there may be some troll posts, but most threads related to balance as a whole have been very serious and very constructive....

The OP was edited. It basically had a good intent as far as expressing a love of the game, but I think there's a basic misunderstanding that it needs to be "defended" or that people who would like to see balance improved somehow dislike the game. Seleuceia already explained well that there have been many serious, thoughtful balance discussions for Rebellion.

The game isn't in a bad place, it just still needs some refining. I would argue that people who do not see this, do not know how to play the game optimally. To make an analogy, it's like if there's a game of wheelchair basketball that everyone enjoys. A couple teams have a cloned Michael Jordan from his prime on them though. Team A with MJ play him with his shoelaces untied though so he doesn't really perform that well - he's slower, sometimes trips, etc. Team B however, see that by tying his shoelaces, he totally dominates and isn't confined to a wheelchair. Team A will of course argue that MJ is fine and that we should all just play him with his shoelaces untied. Games need to be balanced for a high level of play as the standard, not a sub-optimal one. This can be tricky sometimes but it's part of the art of making a good game great. 

tl;dr: Nerf Michael Jordan!!

Everybody just calm down.

Jim, there's no need to rant about ranting. There's no need to be sorry about what you posted either. Just explain clearly what you mean. I'm not really sure what bitching or complaining you are referring to exactly but, as already said, there is a big difference between trolling, complaining, and balance discussions. Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish - I'll grant you that. But trolls generally don't have "exact specifications" they are expecting the devs to cater to - they're just trolling. Most people are not just whining or complaining when they don't like the balance, they are going into great detail about why it is unbalanced, giving replays as evidence, building consensus, discussing possible fixes and changes, and being constructive in their criticism, etc. For online play, modding a change and then hoping everyone else will adopt it is not a realistic solution. Meanwhile, tons of people play the game online and off and enjoy it, but that doesn't mean it still can't be improved. There are still lots of mini dump crashes, a couple major balance issues, etc. I agree none of this should result in being insulting towards the devs personally but I'm sure there's still room for constructive criticism and hoping for more open communication and feedback.

I feel like if I ask this, someone is going to kill me, but what is OP?  I though it meant overpowered.

That makes sense.  And no one killed me.  Cool.  Thanks.

hmmmm... I didn't know this either.  Always thought it was just overpowered

OK, again I apologize, I should have been more specific in my wording.  My original post was not meant to attack people that are legamitely trying to fix and balance the game as best it can be.  I applaud them.

It was a ranting in frustration after reading thru a bunch of answers to posts that just seemed like people whining and complaining and saying all sorts of shit about Rebellion without adding anything constructive.  Lately there seemed to be a lot of it.

In my defense, I've been busy recording a new CD the last few days, and I apparently the last couple days I missed several discussions about this very topic.  If I had read those posts I probably wouldn't have posted mine, but I got kinda mad at what appeared to be a bunch of people trashing what I thought to be a great improvement... and I ranted a bit.

I wouldn't mind it taking longer to get to the Titan. Maybe require another upgrade of some sort or something.

While perfect balance is difficult to achieve - do realize that nearly all of the balance complaints revolved around jumping orkies, Wail of the Sacrificed, Titans making subcapitals obsolete, bomber spam as the only optimal lategame fleet, or Strip to the Core.  And Stripped seems to have been brought to a fairly reasonable place - maybe not ideal, but guess what - people don't seem to be complaining about it anymore!

Perhaps that goes to show that if the devs take comments about those other four things seriously and make meaningful attempts to fix them, people will stop complaining about those too!  Please don't assume people are being unreasonable unless you have evidence to back it up.

Finally....someone gets it....

I would assume:

...probably in conjunction with the OP's 10,000% fixation.....

Goddamn hippies...

Pick all you want... I'm proud to be a hippie musician....