It's honestly remarkable how any game that receives even mild criticism for poor balance instantly attracts a flood of troll replies across every platform. And yet, almost none of them contribute anything meaningful to the actual discussion.
I feel like there are too many varying yardsticks as to what constitutes "good balance", especially in games with broad array of mechanics. And players will tend to decide for themselves what is "good balance" based on their own gameplay preferences (not that it is a problem when it comes to one's own enjoyment/experience), such as covertly self-defining win conditions.
For example:
1. Someone would define the game's objective as "to subjugate the entire prison as quickly as possible without getting sullied", and hence their parameters of "balance" will be based on that; they will likely perceive the Passives mechanics as "unbalanced", because it punishes the objective's required micro-level maximization (in this case, the combat), where engaging in close & exhaustive battles - instead of being rewarded - are very likely to be penalized with impositions of passives that progressively inhibits combat stats.
2. Someone would define the ultimate objective as to just "subjugate the entire prison eventually", where this would then also dictate their paramaters for "good balance"; they will perceive that the game gave them reasonable period after unrest to develop the macro-level gameplay (via Funds and Edicts) before it starts penalizing, be it with Riots or the eventual daily Control decline.
These are just the two examples i can think of for this game, and i'm sure many of you guys are more well-versed than me with the game's mechanics so as to recognize and expand on the idea that i'm gesturing towards.
The problem starts when they use their own yardsticks to define what ought to be the "good balance" for the game. I believe the meta-dissent that my above example tries to allude to, is what brought the discussion into an impasse of constant arguing; they insist on their own ultimate objective of the game (the meta-subjectivity), and proceed to judge the game's balance based on how well it conforms with the parameters required of their self-defined objective (the objective derivation of the ad hoc telos).
I feel like the best solution is to faithfully infer (or just outright ask) how the Dev himself wants the game to be played, and then derive the parameters of balance based on that. This way, the judging can be done on the game's own terms, instead of what we the players make of the game. So the assessment would be to scrutinize whether or not the Dev has successfully implemented balancing that supports his own defined objective of the game.
DISCLAIMER: i'm not an expert on the game. I was merely observing that there is a striking similarity between the perpetual disagreement happening in this game's discussion with the perpetual disagreement occuring in real world matters. I believe the root cause of both impasse might be identical.
EDIT: Hey, i remember you. You were the guy that replied to my comment in this thread a year (or two) ago, when i asked about how to level up Karryn's Charm. Warm greetings.