Originally posted by haratu

I am pro nerfing, even when they nerf my own character. A lot of people think that all the balance should have been sorted out in the beta, or that nerfing classes is a sign of an incomplete game. The reality is that as an MMO progresses it adds to the game and as a result the developers find tha tthe added content leans more towards one class over another. The problem with a nerf is that once you do it then you have to make sure it is balanced again and so forth. I think people are often so against nerfing is because they are so hardcore that they have a system for their character and dont want to change it. To me this is just lazy and unimaginative, in fact I often find such people are not very good at playing their classes because they are unadaptive and can not adjust to varying conditions in battle.

A fantastic example of the hugely negative response from a nerf was the swith in WoW from original to Burning Crusade. Before the release of the expansion Warlocks got a huge bonus across the board, they were incredibly over powered, the developers realised their mistake very quickly and nerfed the Warlock which recieved huge amounts of hate. What most of these people failed to realise is that the warlock was still mroe over powered than before they got the bonus, they stayed over powered, but to a lesser extent. In fact ti was not until 2 years later when Wrath of the Lich king came out that they were given a nerf at all.

Nerf haters simply see that they get hurt and ignore that the nerf is actually usually made logically and effectively. The developers are not out to hurt you. They are trying to make the game more playable for everyone.

Finally: in the real world not everyone has an equal oppurtunity, MMOs are often trying to replicate life and if they wanted to be real then a wizard would clean the floor with a soldier.

 

 

That makes sense. Part of the fun in an MMO is learning to adapt when you get more powerful, or when you get a new skill or spell. The only thing though, is occasionally the nerfs make a playstyle that you enjoy, less balanced. So, even though you can still play that way, you are alot more limited. It doesn't have anything to do with being lazy or not wanting things to change from time to time. It has more to do with being shut out of a particular style of play, where options are actually being taken away.

I think that in my play time of MMOs, there are two nerfs/changes that have annoyed me at first, but after like, a month, I no longer care or greatly notice.

These two changes were in WoW:

Hunter agility and what it does - there was a huge overhaul of what agility did for hunters in preperation for +Attack Power items. For this, they decided to reduce the AP gained from Agility to ranged AP from 2 to 1. That's half. Survival hunters were greatly pissed off, since they had +15% agility talents, and that did little.

Additionally, they increased the critical strike chance and, I think, dodge chance of agility for hunters.

So all these survival hunters, that used to be great for PvE due to their still ridiculously high AP, suddenly had lower AP (stable damage) and had much higher critical strike chance. With this change, Survival Hunters were generating much more threat than they were previously, due to an additional amount of threat gained from critical strikes alone (not including the actual damage they were also doing)

That, for me, was kind of lame, and I didn't really like the idea of "Attack Power" items, but obviously, over the last two years, people have gotten used to it.

The second change I only noticed just recently when I started playing a warrior... they've taken the interrupt off of the Thunderclap ability. This wouldn't matter so much, and indeed, it didn't matter that much, but I was fighting some caster NPCs wondering why my interrupt wasn't working, when I looked over the tooltip and it wasn't there.

Bah, completely changed how I looked at casters as a low-level warrior.

So, even that small spell change from having an interrupt to losing it, changes how someone will play. I died like, four times, doing a quest against casters, each time I could have lived if I'd had an interrupt like I used to.

Oh well, oh well...

Originally posted by Blazz

I think that in my play time of MMOs, there are two nerfs/changes that have annoyed me at first, but after like, a month, I no longer care or greatly notice.

These two changes were in WoW:

Hunter agility and what it does - there was a huge overhaul of what agility did for hunters in preperation for +Attack Power items. For this, they decided to reduce the AP gained from Agility to ranged AP from 2 to 1. That's half. Survival hunters were greatly pissed off, since they had +15% agility talents, and that did little.

Additionally, they increased the critical strike chance and, I think, dodge chance of agility for hunters.

So all these survival hunters, that used to be great for PvE due to their still ridiculously high AP, suddenly had lower AP (stable damage) and had much higher critical strike chance. With this change, Survival Hunters were generating much more threat than they were previously, due to an additional amount of threat gained from critical strikes alone (not including the actual damage they were also doing)

That, for me, was kind of lame, and I didn't really like the idea of "Attack Power" items, but obviously, over the last two years, people have gotten used to it.

 

The second change I only noticed just recently when I started playing a warrior... they've taken the interrupt off of the Thunderclap ability. This wouldn't matter so much, and indeed, it didn't matter that much, but I was fighting some caster NPCs wondering why my interrupt wasn't working, when I looked over the tooltip and it wasn't there.

Bah, completely changed how I looked at casters as a low-level warrior.

 

So, even that small spell change from having an interrupt to losing it, changes how someone will play. I died like, four times, doing a quest against casters, each time I could have lived if I'd had an interrupt like I used to.

Oh well, oh well...

Yes, I've seen that as well. In fact a good bit of the "balancing" that goes on in WoW is because of Caster(of various types) howling and oceans of QQ's.  Remember the first few months after the deathknight class(anti caster) was introduced? You could hear the casters howling out to LEO. ^^  It was much worse than when retrib pallies got buffed up.  Now both classes have been nerfed to hell and back. But deathknight worse than pallies.  Blizzard can never seem to keep its hands off of the various classes for very long. They are eternally tinkering and "balancing" some class or another.

IMO i dont have a problem with minor nerfs. Its just when they dont tell you about them that it gets annoying. The major nerfs lead to something like what happened in the early days of WAR, when every class got nerfed, then re-adjusted, nerfed, re-adjusted. It just frustrates the user. well it did for me. Anyway my point is that if they inform the player base that X nerf is taking place at X time,  and list the reasons why, i am sure that most people wouldnt be upset. Of course you are going to have a few that will be extremely vocal in the forums but thats always the case no matter what.

This has to be one of the best columns I've read on this site.  It hits on a number of factors that I think are important.  What I wish is that MMO companies would become good at getting meaningful data from a representative sample of the gaming population before making significant changes.  There is a science to this, and I've seen it done very poorly with extremely unfortunate results.

Another thing I'd like to mention: one comment suggests that buffing can open more of a pandora's box than nerfing.  I'm not really sure that's true.  Changing the mechanics in any way (positive or negative) will have a ripple effect, and I'm not sure that buffing is more dangerous.  What I often think is that devs are too "fixed" in their approach (e.g. do we decrease damage or increase damage resistance).  Sometimes I think that lateral thinking is what's called for, and once again the player community can be a good source of brain-storming.

Take SWG for example.  Don't worry, I'm not going to mention the NGE (well I suppose I just did, but that's the end of it).  Armour was a problem in the pre-cu days.  Why?  Everyone was wearing the same kind.  It worked okay, so mechanically I suppose it wasn't a catastrophe, but all the other armour in the game (besides composite) was rarely used.  All this armour gone to waste and everyone in the game wearing plastic.

How did SOE decide to solve this?  I believe they used a combination of nerfs to composite armour, and they introduced armour certification.  The fallout?  People were upset when their expensive suits of armour were devalued.  Others were upset when they were simply unable to wear their armour because they were suddenly not certified to wear it.  This, in my mind, was a real problem with players.  They logged on one day and found themselves in the middle of nowhere in their underwear, literally.  The armour certification seemed extremely arbitrary and punitive.

Other ideas (suggested in by players) included making other forms of armour equally useful, making different forms of armour better for different situations (the game had some of this at various points), and changing the way buffs interacted with armour encumberance.  All of these ideas were somewhat lateral, and could have addressed the armour imbalance without stripping players down to their briefs or lessening the usefulness of things they had already crafted or purchased, often for large sums of ingame cash.

Another example of missing player input occured more recently when City of Heroes decided to completely revamp their PvP system.  There were imbalances to be sure, but the NCsoft solution was very one dimensional.  Some powers were simply rendered unavailabe in the PvP zones.  Others were nerfed to the point of being utterly ineffective.  Healing others actually became a detriment to them because it diminished their ability to heal themselves, and trying to immobilze others actually caused the caster himself to become immobilized.  Talk about a ripple effect.

All of the imbalances had numerous possible solutions that were generated by a well-organized and well-informed PvP community, but nerfs and power removals were chosen, and most of the player input was ignored.

This brings up another issue: time pressure.  I think getting meaningful feedback from players and coming up with solutions to imbalances takes time.  Devs have often commented on extremely tight time-lines.  I think this pressure sometimes leads them to make hasty decisions and implement changes that require less of a time investment in coding.

The result of rushing out these attempts at balancing the game?  Well here I think the Pandora's box analogy fits very well.  Instead of finding real solutions that will increase players enjoyment of the game, we have quick fixes that have very nasty ripple effects and very often have players feeling ripped off or somehow punished.

I really wish that MMO gaming houses would allow time for good research, lateral thinking, good communication, good testing and real solutions.  I think the companies that take the time they need to do the job right have experienced profound benefits with regard to subscriptions too. 

I think taking the time needed to polish and balance a product before release can make a lot of this discussion moot as well. 

There's two points you've mentioned that I have to bring up as troubling to me as a player (and hopefully one day as a game developer).

~Nerf versus Buff~

The problem when one class, power, item, or skill is overpowered to another is that often developers leap to nerf rather then buff. Let's use an example of Guild Wars, the game I'm currently playing. In a 1 on 1 competition, a Dervish/Assassin will lose to a Assassin/Dervish. Why? Because the Assassin gets critical strikes as a basic ability, which lets them hit harder, and use skills to have a 75% chance to block for cheap (energy cost).

If the developers were looking to change the system 9/10 times I believe developers will nerf powers to make players weak. It's a fundamental philosophy in MMOs where players should always be weaker, especially to the hand crafted enemies the developers create.

And while you say that developers do not nerf certain class just because they're playing them, there's plenty of evidence out there which would point you otherwise. If in a meeting the developers discuss changing systems for everyone, the one they're going to think about last is the one they have the most fun with.

Since you mentioned city of Heroes. On several occasions developers were asked what characters they played, and it was the biggest overpowered types of arch-types and powers currently in the game (like FF/Robotics). So much so that lots of people laughed. Yet when was the last time you heard a developer playing a 'Broadsword/Dark Armor scrapper' honestly? Almost never.

The other side of nerfs are epic powers. Not only do developers seem to refuse to buff versus nerf, the entire concept of Epic level characters seems to be taboo. As a GM I have found nothing wrong with letting players go 'hog wild' and feel superhuman from time to time. I think that's one of the reasons people play MMOs. If you find the right combination that lets you fight 50 enemies without breaking a sweat, it's a rush.

Again though, developers seem to dislike their custom creations being treated like fodder, and it's not long after a 'build'  of specific powers/abilities becomes popular that there's a nerf. Which is why many avoid telling the developers what's broken. This miscommunication makes tense situations even worse.

~A question of balance~

The big problem I see with this issue of nerfs, is what I think comes down to risk versus reward. If people are leveling too fast, or dominating the game too much, I can almost imagine Marketing saying "The game is not grindy enough, please nerf skills so people are forced to play longer" and I can understand it. The game is ment to make money.

Let's look at GW again for sake of simplicity. If I'm farming (killing the same enemy again and again) a particular green weapon (useful) the best way to do it is with 8 real people (whom may or may not give it to me). If use a solo build, or a set of powers to allow me to easily fight the enemies to maximize my chance, developers see that as a reason to nerf. "Person X is too powerful, change these powers"

I could use 'heroes' (npcs I control), and 'henchmen' (npcs that sort of listen to me) the fight is not any easier, and decreases my chance of getting that loot to next to nothing. The risk of playing high end content or raids, or hard dungeons, and the rewards players recieve from developers is not equal. This means that players who spent 8 hours of their life on a worthless chest is already upset.

So you take these ordinary annoyed players, and then stack on a nerf "Playerset is too powerful to our concept, so we're changing the skills" most players usually become irrate. It's not so much the nerf mind you. It's the effort, and time, after a player has bought the game lost for little or no reason. In more extreme cases a player who likes their player and has a style, can no longer play that character.

In the end, it's often developers versus players. Developers can and will change the game on a whim and the players often have no way of saying it's bad unless being emotional on the forums. Even then, the chance of that actually changing something is slim to none. Did the exhaustive debate on how Enhancement Diversification change any of the associated enhancements? No.The developers went ahead anyway, even though it cost them a lot of players.

Nerf swings, not communicating to the community, and even refusal to buff all share something in common. It means the developers ego is superior to the love of the game, and so the game suffers. There are no developers out there that really really care about the player base. They don't try to change the game based on polls or in game meetings. It is "We are God, you will pay us to enjoy suffering". It may not be said as direct as that, but that's the feeling out there.

Nerfs are an unfortunate way of putting the 'peasents' in their place.

Originally posted by Elikal

If developers did their job in development they would not need to nerf, but later they compensate their own failure on the back of the player. Imagine you buy a car and 5 months later after you drive and enjoy your big horsepowers the creators of your car come to you are take out some of the tech and some of the power with the argument "it is unfair to be faster and more secure with your tech gadgets than other drivers". I mean, wouldn't you be fucked up too?

When a company nerfs it means only one thing: they totally borked it and now the gamers have to pay the price. How about: we gamer have patience with your tinkering with our characters when you have patience with us not paying while the game is under "paid beta"?

Often nerfs are just a sudden paradigm change. For instance, EQ2 Paladins were nerfed about 2 years after EQ2 launch. And I thought WTF? And they changed a good tank with some heals to a half-baked healer who also might tank. It was changed ALL THE DAMN way around and for why? Just because after TWO YEARS SOE had the idea to make Paladin a healer instead of a tank. Great.

Or some Companies who recently launch games (*cough cough*) and ONE DAY after Beta realize they have too little content and swing a nerf over ALL POWERS to compensate the lack of content. Man, I can quote so many examples of messed up nerfing, it isn't even funny to be right. Nerfs are made often after games run for years and years? How can it be after a game runs and people played that over and over SUDDENLY some Dev thinks "oh wow, thats OP"?

 

(For someone who is aligned with Cryptic and the nerfs of the powers... man you have some guts to defend nerfs. I really have bite my MF tongue not to just YELL something REALLY BAD. *fumes*)

 

EDIT: And in comment to the poster below me: yes indeed, does it occur to the Devs ONE TIME, that gamers invest into their char and their powers? We build those chars over months and years and suddenly some dev finds no other way to justify is prolongued employment by juggling with powers? Can you honestly tell me many companies just not give in to whining? I have seen it too many times that gamers whine and whine about OP class X and when they whine enough companies swing the nerf to calm their gamers. No man... starting the nerf bat is ALWAYS a loose-loose cycle for all involved parties.

Name ONE game that has never had to have its professions/classes/whatever balanced.... Name ONE. You're talking about MMORPGs not singleplayer games. What your saying is pretty much like saying patches = failed development. Get a clue

Originally posted by Elikal

If developers did their job in development they would not need to nerf, but later they compensate their own failure on the back of the player. Imagine you buy a car and 5 months later after you drive and enjoy your big horsepowers the creators of your car come to you are take out some of the tech and some of the power with the argument "it is unfair to be faster and more secure with your tech gadgets than other drivers". I mean, wouldn't you be fucked up too?

When a company nerfs it means only one thing: they totally borked it and now the gamers have to pay the price. How about: we gamer have patience with your tinkering with our characters when you have patience with us not paying while the game is under "paid beta"?

Often nerfs are just a sudden paradigm change. For instance, EQ2 Paladins were nerfed about 2 years after EQ2 launch. And I thought WTF? And they changed a good tank with some heals to a half-baked healer who also might tank. It was changed ALL THE DAMN way around and for why? Just because after TWO YEARS SOE had the idea to make Paladin a healer instead of a tank. Great.

Or some Companies who recently launch games (*cough cough*) and ONE DAY after Beta realize they have too little content and swing a nerf over ALL POWERS to compensate the lack of content. Man, I can quote so many examples of messed up nerfing, it isn't even funny to be right. Nerfs are made often after games run for years and years? How can it be after a game runs and people played that over and over SUDDENLY some Dev thinks "oh wow, thats OP"?

 

(For someone who is aligned with Cryptic and the nerfs of the powers... man you have some guts to defend nerfs. I really have bite my MF tongue not to just YELL something REALLY BAD. *fumes*)

......

Could not agree more. And regarding CO I stopped to play only because of this attitude. Every single f. week they have messed totally with game. Like day & night. Game has (had for me) great potential .... after few weeks of gameplay was already on second place for fun factor, could become even first in time .... but after another "mother of nerfs" I simply had enough. One morning after this nerf I was in very good mood, barely could wait to continue .... then minute after logging ... world crashed on me. Game over. In seconds I lost completely interest. And I'm sorry because game was great and I love lore.

As I already posted in other forums when i quit pretty bugged Aoc or War I was already sure i will return in few months ... this is the first game where I'm pretty sure I will never return. For me they have effectively killed the game.

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by Elikal

....

If developers did their job in development they would not need to nerf, but later they compensate their own failure on the back of the player. Imagine you buy a car and 5 months later after you drive and enjoy your big horsepowers the creators of your car come to you are take out some of the tech and some of the power with the argument "it is unfair to be faster and more secure with your tech gadgets than other drivers". I mean, wouldn't you be fucked up too?

 Name ONE game that has never had to have its professions/classes/whatever balanced.... Name ONE. You're talking about MMORPGs not singleplayer games. What your saying is pretty much like saying patches = failed development. Get a clue

In CO this has nothing to do with perfecting (as I understand balancing) ... has to do with criminally messing up and  has only to do with incredible incompetence. They are standard how not to design and redesign any game, not only mmo.

Mr Wachter is a self confessed nerfer, lets get him! :)

You can’t expect the balance to be right at launch, you can expect issues to be addressed in a timely but not hasty fashion. That’s all we ask, and if you get it wrong but correct your nerf in time that’s fine too.

The WoW nerfs really pissed me off. in fact I canceled on them. I did go back though to play my druid.

I had a Prot pally....Spirit nerf killed his ability to solo in caster gear without going oom...still could solo, but not nearly as well.

Smite build Priest.......800 spi.....worthless

Frost DK Tank........worthless

The only toon that wasn't adversely affected was my Druid......Who could out dps my other toons however I set them up in kitty build.....outtank my Pld and DK even if they were from pre nerf....and outheal my priest. 3 gearsets and I can tackle any role in the game for 50g......and my god bear tank now is the best there is.

What I think should be happening instead of systemwide and blanket nerfs' classes should evolve to meet the imbalances that pop up after launch unless it is a totally broken mechanic. like give them specific skills to counteract other classes. that way any nerf dosen't affect the entire ecosystem.

Another gripe I have is balancing clases based on PVP....it's stupid. All it leads to is every class being microbalanced so there is no concrete reason to choose any class over another. look at CoX and CO for prime examples of vanilaness from balancing.

Class balance should revolve around a group oriented approach like FFXI. Every class had their specialties and were all needed and usefull in a group. Paladin's are WTF hard to kill, Warriors were extreme damage dealers. Black mages COULD kill anything. Monks were nearly unstoppable, and Thief's/Ninja's dodged everything thrown at em.

PVP(Ballista) was absolutely awesome because everyone was usefull in their own way. Black mages and Rangers were content running away bombing everyone in sight while praying they didn't get killed by a ninja, or rushed by a Monk/pally/warrior. Rdm were happy making life irritating with status effects....U get the point. All class balancing does is mask the fact that the devs are taking the easy way out and just make everyone a part of the status quo.

Life would be more interesting if developers let classes just be awesome at what they do without having to tweak everything so Priests can kill warriors (And no I don't have a Warrior anywhere other than FFXI). PVP balancing sucks, it's the root of the problem IMO.

Edited for grammer ^^

I seriously do not believe buffs are better than nerfs because where does it end?  I mean, if X class is too powerful and you buff Y and Z to compensate, what happens if discover you over did Z's buff and now it's too powerful?  Do you buff X and Y then?  And what if by buffing everyone you trivialize encounters?  Do you then buff mobs to compensate and be back at square one again?

I hate nerfs as much as the next guy but I can definitely see how it can get out of control fast if you buff everyone else instead of nerfing one class.

Originally posted by Verkain

I seriously do not believe buffs are better than nerfs because where does it end?  I mean, if X class is too powerful and you buff Y and Z to compensate, what happens if discover you over did Z's buff and now it's too powerful?  Do you buff X and Y then?  And what if by buffing everyone you trivialize encounters?  Do you then buff mobs to compensate and be back at square one again?

I hate nerfs as much as the next guy but I can definitely see how it can get out of control fast if you buff everyone else instead of nerfing one class.

 

My point exactly. Buffing multiple classes leads to many more potential errors, than just nerfing one class.  Its simply the nature of the design flow process. That being said I REALLY despise nerfs.  It demonstrates a flaw in the design/testing/application process. But its all too possible in a real time production environment. Thats why its VITAL to keep PvE and PvP dynamics separate.  The overwhelming majority of the nerfs I've seen, are to correct PvP "problems"... Be they real or perceived.  I swear, some times it seems that Dev's do some of this,  just so some of the more hysterical of the whiners will shut up for a little while.

If PvP and PVE are separate, then changing one has little to no impact on the other.  What would it be like, if Blizzard could micro manage their classes for PvP as much as they wanted, without nerfing the hell out of the PvE game, time after time, after time?

---

Originally posted by Toothman
No Developer can possibly emulate the million and one weird things players do in a game.  If they could we would still be waiting for Ultima Online to be released.   So nerfs are sometimes needed.  Period, paragraph.  Its all a matter of HOW they release them.

---

The players have figured out how to do this. Its called simulations. The developers of the game should be able to come up with the BEST combat simulations possible, since they have access to all of the internal formulas used in the game. ITs not hard to write simulations that try the million and one things a player or group of players could do.

WoW theorycrafters have been doing combat simulations for a long time now, from simple spreadsheets that will go through a minute of combat, to long running simulations that will do literally 1000's of HOURS of combat.

Very interesting article. It's good to hear the other side of the story.

I agree with the people saying nerfing is often a better option than buffing all the other classes. If one class has an advantage over all other classes, of course they need nerfed. If one class has a clear advantage over just one class then buffing the other class may be the option.

I've been on the receiving end of nerfs lots of times. While it's frustrating at first, I eventually enjoy the challenge of having to adapt to be as good as I was pre-nerf. In 9 out of 10 cases I usually do adapt. Overpowered class players tend not to focus as much (even if they don't realize it) because their class is easy to play. So when they're nerfed; rather than upping their game to compete, they feel they can't do what they did before using the same amount of effort and complain or quit.

Of course 1 out of those 10 times, the nerf was unjust and it's not just the players refusing to adapt.

I'm of the opinion that every class should have its anti-class so if there's a class I can't beat I just accept they're my anti-class.

Mage > Warrior
Warrior > Archer
Archer > Mage

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by Elikal

If developers did their job in development they would not need to nerf, but later they compensate their own failure on the back of the player. Imagine you buy a car and 5 months later after you drive and enjoy your big horsepowers the creators of your car come to you are take out some of the tech and some of the power with the argument "it is unfair to be faster and more secure with your tech gadgets than other drivers". I mean, wouldn't you be fucked up too?

When a company nerfs it means only one thing: they totally borked it and now the gamers have to pay the price. How about: we gamer have patience with your tinkering with our characters when you have patience with us not paying while the game is under "paid beta"?

Often nerfs are just a sudden paradigm change. For instance, EQ2 Paladins were nerfed about 2 years after EQ2 launch. And I thought WTF? And they changed a good tank with some heals to a half-baked healer who also might tank. It was changed ALL THE DAMN way around and for why? Just because after TWO YEARS SOE had the idea to make Paladin a healer instead of a tank. Great.

Or some Companies who recently launch games (*cough cough*) and ONE DAY after Beta realize they have too little content and swing a nerf over ALL POWERS to compensate the lack of content. Man, I can quote so many examples of messed up nerfing, it isn't even funny to be right. Nerfs are made often after games run for years and years? How can it be after a game runs and people played that over and over SUDDENLY some Dev thinks "oh wow, thats OP"?

 

(For someone who is aligned with Cryptic and the nerfs of the powers... man you have some guts to defend nerfs. I really have bite my MF tongue not to just YELL something REALLY BAD. *fumes*)

 

EDIT: And in comment to the poster below me: yes indeed, does it occur to the Devs ONE TIME, that gamers invest into their char and their powers? We build those chars over months and years and suddenly some dev finds no other way to justify is prolongued employment by juggling with powers? Can you honestly tell me many companies just not give in to whining? I have seen it too many times that gamers whine and whine about OP class X and when they whine enough companies swing the nerf to calm their gamers. No man... starting the nerf bat is ALWAYS a loose-loose cycle for all involved parties.

 

Name ONE game that has never had to have its professions/classes/whatever balanced.... Name ONE. You're talking about MMORPGs not singleplayer games. What your saying is pretty much like saying patches = failed development. Get a clue

I played Everquest for around 4 years. 2 as a Necromancer and 2 as a cleric and I don't remember any nerfs to either of those two classes. In fact, there were never any major overhauls or class updates that completely changed the way those classes played. And I don't recall ever hearing about any of the other classes needing or getting nerfed/buffed every few months.

Something to consider.  While I have quit MMO's that nerfed my character, I've never considered leaving a game because I felt another class was too OP'd.

If i really beleived that, I just went ahead and rolled a character with the OP build. (usually to find it nerfed just about the time I got to max level)

So the question might be, unless a class is just horribly broken, perhaps the best thing to do is leave it be?

Of course sometimes you just have to make changes, I recall in DAOC when it first released archers classes were just too powerful, and had to be scaled back some.  (and who can forget early clerics which people referred to as Chain Wizzy's)

So I guess there's no way to avoid nerfing entirely, but perhaps changes should be made only in extreme circumstances.

The nerf bat swings and much as we don't like it will continue to swing. Sometimes mind you I say sometimes it is needed but  many times it takes a once wanted and useful class and makes it blah we don't want you in our group anymore.

Example: WoW Death Knights. People complained that this class was OP. It was a Hero Class it was truly supposed to be a bit on the OP side.  After the nerf a class that could tank/dps has become a class that is hard to get into raids or groups and if you were a tank forget it because you struggled with issues before because your HP's were not going to match that of a Pally or Warrior tank which made it harder on the healers. But they still had a place and the good ones could still find tanking spots. Now since the mighty NERF BAT  has been swung the tables have turned and if you say you are a DK/Tank they don't need you. Granted I believe one of their big mistakes was starting this class at level 55. Too easy to play it and have a 80 in no time. Believe me there are way too many DK's and far too many that have not taken the time and effort to learn the class. 

From what I am reading and hearing the Pally is about to get the NERF BAT. In many ways I would agree that the Pally in WoW is OP but just like the DK or the Warlock before them or the Mage before them. (The list goes on) If you over swing that BAT then you are going to have another class like the DK that no one wants anymore. The Pally is probably over due to have some tone down. Be careful with that NERF BAT.

I suppose in thinking about it that many Dev's don't go home and play the game they work on all day. However, I would guess that during the day while at work they are on that game. (Hopefully) Okay they may not be playing it like a player would and grouping and raiding like a player but at the same time they should be doing some of this in order to get a real feel for the game and what is going on.

With that being said maybe the Dev's don't go home and play WoW and maybe they don't have a preferred race choice but if they are paying attention they have to realize that between the Horde and Alliance there is some big things that give the Horde advantages in PvP and make the Alliance less of a PvP success. The racial in the Horde are much better and useful for PvP while the Alliance racial are for the most part pretty useless in PvP.  I also have found that many of the staff and members of the team play Horde.  So that leads me to believe that they like it like that. Where is the balance there and why has the NERF BAT not struck and fixed things to make them more balanced where PvP is concerned. Maybe if it was then PvP would rise a bit for those who don't find it balanced nor fair. I mean they put an ugly race on Alliance and a pretty one on Horde to try and balance it up a bit with kids because kids are not real inclined to play an ugly toon. Not sure it worked all that well.

So yeah I think swinging the NERF BAT should have a real explanation and not an evasive one. I also think you need to be careful and not go from one extreme to the other.

Ive always found that Developers have problems balancing games in 2 ways. The Who and the How.

First the Who. If 1 or 2 classes are OP, they almost NEVER Buff Up the other classes to come in line. They most ALWAYS Nerf Down the OP classes.

The Second is the How. What ever Power/Spell/Ability they decide to "balance". They NEVER adjust in small increments (say 5% at a time), they ALWAYS swing the nerf bat like some special kid in a tard rage and crush anything and everything they can hit.

No matter what game I play, when I hear Devs say they are "rebalancing" XXX my finger invariably moves to hover the /Cancel Button. Its like a natural reflex now.

Nerfs must be tough to get right.  In a few cases I've heard of nerfs that took seriously OP classes and turned them into something completely useless.

Ken

To me WOW and WAR were the worst at swinging the nerf bat. Everytime they patch there was a nerf. I agree that some things need to be fixed here and there but its all about who can get over whom in pvp it seems. If people learned to play thier classes it wouldnt be such an issue.

(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH looks to pvp against Rayman!)

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First the Who. If 1 or 2 classes are OP, they almost NEVER Buff Up the other classes to come in line. They most ALWAYS Nerf Down the OP classes.

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I would like to point one or two things out when it comes to devs and nerfing.

Nerfing is ok - as long as its done professionally.  And it has to be consistent - both over time and over classes.

Lets take an example of the big guy.  WOW.

Many players are aware that some classes have turned up to be "overpowered" and BLizzard has gone hard in with the nerfing bat.  WOTLK hit DKs and Palas pretty hard.  But that does not tell all the story. 

First off - Who didn't know that a Class that would have both tankinga and high damage in all 3 specs would be overpowered ?  All but BLizzard right ?   And who didn't know that a high dps spec with healing abilty would be overpowered ? Yes - again .. all but Blizzard it seems.

But ... The thing is - it was overpowered in ONE part of the game - that is PVP .   And for that the PVE players that played these classes were paying big time.  This has happened time and time again with WOW.

The other issue is that very often - things are nerfed very suddenly... while other things... when needing the oposite direction - are not dealt with for months -or even years. 

Again - good example of this would be Ret paladins who were, like the devs put it - thought off as lvling spec in TBC - and patch after patch after patch - nothing was done to correct multiple issues that came up.  It directly showed the lack of intrest the developers were showing in their own game design.

But then came WOTLK and things turned 180°.   Even without testing - nerfs were thrown in regularly on Ret palas to balance PVP (and again without thinking of PVE) - or even off other pala specs that got hit even harder cause of the changes..

IN the previous expansion- alot of classes had been hugely overrepresented in PVP for entire duration of TBC - like druids who dominated the Arena healing without anything beeing done to balance it. 

Now... I played alot of classes in WOW - so I can compare the treatment and how the lack of intrest from the developers were really obvious when it was time to act on buffing - but did it in a flash when it needed a nerf - without testing and seeing the effects of other part of the game.  And thats only one class and one spec that has taken the full swing.  

Thats not how things should be done - and it came to the point where I desided a game that had such development team  - does not deserve my sub. 

What I've never understood about nerf's is a game is based on systems designed by the devs (more often than not) with some sort of progression in mind, with that being the case why nerf when you can simply bring people and things up.  I guess in maybe a few instances it may turn out better for the devs on the labor end since nerfing sometimes involves one particular class as opposed to bringing all others up more but as stated it's a slippery slope and why take chances.

The thing developers need to realize is that players are " customers" . It is like this: When you buy a car, the automaker then comes to your home after you have been driving the car for years, after you have made  your own customizations of your automobile and  truly considered this " your car" they decided they were going to gut the engine, replace the interior and make it into an entirely differnet car that you had no desire to drive.  You wake up the next morning and the car you loved is gone and your left with this other thing in your driveway. This is what the nerf is like. We buy a game, invest years and money into this game, then they gut the game changing everything you enjoyed about the game and you get no reinbursement. Of course players have a right to be upset, they cannot get their time or money back from the developers making the decision to nerf the game.  Instead of nerfing anything they should add to the game to balance it, allow players to keep what they enjoy and add more to what they enjoy rather than taking anything away.

Players develop their characters according to game content, if that game content is changed, it could null  all of that players work, the player cannot get that time back they spent devloping that character, and I do not feel devolpers take this into consideration before they " update " their games.