i personally like drastic changes, it makes things more interesting even if things go terribly wrong. it’s also kinda funny. it would also change what is good and bad more often instead of constantly being stuck with zooka and pencil.
minor changes only would be a good way to make sure nothing gets overtuned or underpowered, but it’s pretty slow and right now, they don’t make enough small changes for it to actually work super well
it’s probably best to have big and small changes. if they make a big change to something, they have an entire community of players to test it out and give them actual data if it was too good or too bad. after that point, it would be a good idea to make the small changes and get whatever they’re changing to a near perfect spot. with how long these games have been out, they have a lot to work with when it comes to how big or small of changes they need to make. i think they might just be more focused on making the rest of the entire game, that part is pretty important. this is probably why previous patches were kind of lacking (side order). this is also probably why each game has had like an extra year or something just for balance patches.
there was a drastic change to cooler that took it from being something you don’t consider to being a good option in inkjet meta to being absolutely necessary on your team. this might be contradictory to what i said about liking drastic changes, but the thing is, they didn’t do the next step of toning it back down. overall, the best way to balance the game is probably a mix of drastic and minor changes, but they aren’t able to focus on just balance so they aren’t able to make the perfect changes all the time. there are problems with both by themselves, but i think together they work a lot better.
had this one in the drafts earlier i just completely forgot to actually hit the reply button my bad