I think we all awared that any mmo needs to fix the game problem due to imbalance or whatever reason. And it is binded by EULA as well. It seems that Nerf becomes a legal cheat uses by every companies.

There are many different methods to balance the game but there maybe only one method if it is class balance which causes too much damages. 

Whether you like it or not, if you want to continue playing then you have to suffer the game company nerf your virtual property.

The nerfs included reduced damage output, makes your damage with longer colddown, adds timer to use it, makes it more complicated to use than before, makes you more vulnerible, makes your armos or weapons less effective.

For whatever reasons, I think it makes me feel like a gambling online casino nerfs your in game money just because you have too much gold so now it is time to balance the poors by reducing the riches value.

If online casino have such EULA then there is no purpose to gambling again. While game companies balancing their game but the meantime, they have sacrified customer's virtual property. If a company continuously put aside customer's right because they have EULA, I think this will never be a good company no matter how good they produce their product.

I think WOW's success is based on ignoring customer's virtual property continuously. LOTRO also did one big nerfs just before a smoothier release for Lorthrien.

I expected one day the law will compensate the customer due to game company's own reason. It is possible to calculate how much time you spent in game to gain that stats something like that. 

While game company uses nerf to balance their game, I think customer also needs to have one way to balance ourselves. 

The law shouldn't protect only one side as if the game company always have the right to do what they wanted and customers is like pigs, chicken, fish to get caught and killed legally in this world. 

All nerfs updates are for the good of the game and very welcome. Imbalanced game would not go on for very long. To whine about nerfs is futile and stupid since balance is something we want.

When you play a class based multiplayer game, then you must accept that there will inevitably be situations whereby class balance becomes an issue. There are two ways that a developer can react to this when it happens:

1. Ignore it.

This road only leads to one very obvious destination; a huge surge in the number of people playing the "overpowered" class. It screws up PvE (why would you want to gimp your group with an underpowered class?) and PvP (why would you want to play a class that can be facerolled?).

2. Fix it. (or try to)

The nerf/buff cycle that we're all used to and needs no explanation.

I prefer the latter. It's a bugger when your class gets the occasional bonk with the nerfbat, but it beats the hell out of getting stuck playing a class that you enjoy but is gimped or having to make the decision to switch to the overpowered class whose mechanics you might not enjoy as much.

Originally posted by Larry2298

I think we all awared that any mmo needs to fix the game problem due to imbalance or whatever reason. And it is binded by EULA as well. It seems that Nerf becomes a legal cheat uses by every companies.

There are many different methods to balance the game but there maybe only one method if it is class balance which causes too much damages. 

Whether you like it or not, if you want to continue playing then you have to suffer the game company nerf your virtual property.

The nerfs included reduced damage output, makes your damage with longer colddown, adds timer to use it, makes it more complicated to use than before, makes you more vulnerible, makes your armos or weapons less effective.

For whatever reasons, I think it makes me feel like a gambling online casino nerfs your in game money just because you have too much gold so now it is time to balance the poors by reducing the riches value.

If online casino have such EULA then there is no purpose to gambling again. While game companies balancing their game but the meantime, they have sacrified customer's virtual property. If a company continuously put aside customer's right because they have EULA, I think this will never be a good company no matter how good they produce their product.

I think WOW's success is based on ignoring customer's virtual property continuously. LOTRO also did one big nerfs just before a smoothier release for Lorthrien.

I expected one day the law will compensate the customer due to game company's own reason. It is possible to calculate how much time you spent in game to gain that stats something like that. 

While game company uses nerf to balance their game, I think customer also needs to have one way to balance ourselves. 

The law shouldn't protect only one side as if the game company always have the right to do what they wanted and customers is like pigs, chicken, fish to get caught and killed legally in this world. 

 

 

As much as I'm REALLY annoyed by nerfs(don't get me started on Blizzards endless nerfing of the Death Knight class...)

It is *their* IP and they can do what ever they can get away with, with it.  By that I mean they are only limited by how many players they are willing to lose in the process.  The *only* recourse a player has is to leave if they disagree that strongly. This is not the age when UO was pretty much all there was. There are many, many other MMO's that one can play.  I'm always amused by people who attempt to drag government and The Law into such matters. You do realize that government and its Law disrupt and distort just about everything they get their corrupt hands on? Do us all a favor and just find another game to play. Its better for you, and everyone else.  Its what I do when I get tired of a companies mistakes and short comings.

I don't quite get what the OP want's to say. Nerfs are bad and should not be allowed or something? That makes no sense. Companies change the game because they assume it is for the better of the game (or their wallet, which is in the end about the same).

Why are you angry about something that should be good for the game?  If your character can kill the final boss of an mmorpg with a single hit in a fraction of a second, and then the company says "hmmm, maybe that is not right, let's change it that way that you need several dozen people and a fight that takes a hour", would you complain? Would you really consider it better to kill the thing with one hit?

I mean the dungeons are at first often made too hard, to give the people who feel elite a chance to show off how great the are that they can clear it nonetheless. And then it gets nerfed so that less hardcore groups can go through there as well. Now, what would happen if it would be the other way round? If at first everybody and his grandma could clear the newest raid dungeon within a day, and then a week later it is made more difficult? It would be far worse than the other way round. People complain that those who came early got easy loot, while those who weren't so quick now have to face a more difficult dungeon, and so on. So the way companies do it (dungeons more difficult at launch then slowly tuned to the level that seems right) is the only way it makes sense.

And about pvp changes? Companies keep tweaking here and there. There can never be a total balance in pvp, so they have to keep making changes, look at the situation, change some more, to try and balance it out carefully.

All that, as said, is for the good of the game (and the companies wallet), and so complaining about it is just plain dumb.

Yes, You should expect nerfs to any class based MMO especially if it has any kind of PvP element. Balancing is required to make sure that no one class is owning everyone else in PvP. The problem is that people find combos of skills or just new ways of fighting with a class even years after a game is released that unbalances the game in their class's favor. When this happens the devs have to rebalance the classes to compensate so the game remains fair to all. What sucks is this can have the annoying side effect of throwing the PvE aspects of the game out of whack.

Bren

If game companies going to balance their game and it might be different from some people paid to play the game. It's no doubt that it's you decided to continue it or not. But the customer side needs to be protected because there are two parties in this matter, the game and you.

So I think when a game company going to nerf customer's virtual property, the game company has the right to do about the game, the customer have their own right to leave the game. There is something leftover in between is the payment.

I think if the game company going to change the customer's stats, their armor/weapon stats then the customer should have right to get money back from the date changed if customer choose to leave the game. Such alternative will be balanced between game and customer. Because we don't want to see the game company has so powerful shield with their own EULA. 

If there is more clear law binds on EULA then there will be a known rule and fair rule to get balance either the game company or customer.

Now that, these things is totaly went one side. Gaming industries generates so much profits and they do not have problem to give customer more choices. So I think the customer deserves such balance to have the rest of money back of the subscription if he decided to quit since the date the game company nerfed his/her own virtual property.

But if it's a F2P then I think the nerf is not a subject because you buy the in-game merchandise and it belong to you, so it didn't matter nerfs or not because the game is free. 

However, in a civilized world, there should be a law to protect consumers. It don't matter if you are a fanbois to any game to accept to be nerfed or not, in your real life, you are binded by laws. And the gaming industries also needs a better law to protect consumer paying monthly fee to the game company.

Nerfs happen. A good player learns to adapt and excels through the nerf. A bad player Rerolls or rage-quits.

No I don't see players getting compinsated for their characters getting nerfed.

Originally posted by Remii718

Nerfs happen. A good player learns to adapt and excels through the nerf. A bad player Rerolls or rage-quits.

No I don't see players getting compinsated for their characters getting nerfed.

Nerfs do happen, its just a fact of life<shrug>. It takes a LOT of talent and imagination to be creative enough to put down the nerf bat and deal with imbalance differently. Thats why we so seldom see it.  As the old saying goes, "if the only tool you have is a nerf bat, every problem looks like a nerf target".

I'd not say that one is a "bad player" for leaving a game. This IS all about entertainment. If you are no longer enjoying a game, you should leave and find another.

Interesting the OP should use casino's as an example, since they adjust the payouts of the slot machines all the time based on how much people are winning.  And its a known fact the payoffs are better when there's competition between casinos.

But I digress.

Nerfs (aka balancing) are not done to punish players, they are done for the benefit of all players and the welfare of the game in general.

I recall my first MMORPG was Lineage 1 and my first character was a mage.   At the time I joined, there was a spell (at level 40) that let mages summon anywhere from 3-5 pets (bugbears) which was random, and could be recast until they sometimes had a dozen of them.  This made the the class the FOTM, and it was horribly overpowered, esp in PVE.  (PVP wasn't that bad, people just killed the mage and ignored the pets)

This made the price of the spell books (which only came from npc drops) really high, and I recall saving up like 100M Adena to buy one. Being a noob, I never saw the nerf coming.

Less than 3 weeks after I got my bugbear spell they nerfed it so that you could only summon bugbears based on your charsima statistic, previously a little used stat that few people put any points into it.  So when the balancing ended, I could only summon 2 pets based on my current spec. 

I could have tolerated it if they had allowed me to respec my character to include less spell damage and more pets (you could still get up to 5) but they made no such provision, and ultimately I left the game over the issue. (the lack of respeccing, not the nerf itself)

Since then I think the Dev's always watch what class I play and make sure to nerf it as soon as I reach max level.  Probably everyone feels that way sometimes since most games periodically balance all classes (or skills) from time to time.

Balancing is a fact of gaming, and they'd be worse off without it, but I do agree it can be frustrating.

As to taking legal action, no can't see that being a viable option, if you don't like what they do, just leave and play something else.

We do not have a God-given right to play MMORPG's.  (though it seems some folks think so some times)

Originally posted by Larry2298

I think we all awared that any mmo needs to fix the game problem due to imbalance or whatever reason. And it is binded by EULA as well. It seems that Nerf becomes a legal cheat uses by every companies.

There are many different methods to balance the game but there maybe only one method if it is class balance which causes too much damages. 

Whether you like it or not, if you want to continue playing then you have to suffer the game company nerf your virtual property.

The nerfs included reduced damage output, makes your damage with longer colddown, adds timer to use it, makes it more complicated to use than before, makes you more vulnerible, makes your armos or weapons less effective.

For whatever reasons, I think it makes me feel like a gambling online casino nerfs your in game money just because you have too much gold so now it is time to balance the poors by reducing the riches value.

If online casino have such EULA then there is no purpose to gambling again. While game companies balancing their game but the meantime, they have sacrified customer's virtual property. If a company continuously put aside customer's right because they have EULA, I think this will never be a good company no matter how good they produce their product.

I think WOW's success is based on ignoring customer's virtual property continuously. LOTRO also did one big nerfs just before a smoothier release for Lorthrien.

I expected one day the law will compensate the customer due to game company's own reason. It is possible to calculate how much time you spent in game to gain that stats something like that. 

While game company uses nerf to balance their game, I think customer also needs to have one way to balance ourselves. 

The law shouldn't protect only one side as if the game company always have the right to do what they wanted and customers is like pigs, chicken, fish to get caught and killed legally in this world. 

 

 

There is no such thing as perfection, as there is no such thing as balance. Everyone struggles FOR it, but no one has a unified idea of what it is or how to do it.

Balance/perfection are terms with no clear achievability because they are ideas, and those vary from person to person.

Is the ideaology of fantasy/magic like that of Physics (constant) or like Meteorology (probable)? Should it be? If so where is the line drawn?

In regards to MMO's, my experience is that which is spammed the most, gets the most (remembering EQ classic Necromancer days/forums) balancing/nerfing is helped/hindered mainly with this. Others, like Guild Wars, goes through "Flavor of the Month" builds. Bob finds a badass way to use the system with X skills and technique. Bob posts said build, or others figure it out by watching Bob. Bob's build spreads like a virus because of it's simplicity or exploitation of original idea of skills. Soon most players are using Bobs' build. Skills are nerfed to remove spread or viableness of build. Bob finds another badass way to use the system with X skills and technique... and it goes on.

So what is right? What is wrong? Again, words that depend on an individual point of view. My best advice, is if you like MMO's, find the one best suited for you. There are plenty out there, ranging from EZ-MOADE to Unforgiving. Fantasy to Realistic. Updated frequently or untouched.

So to best answer your thread question? It's best to expect anything, especially if it's their idea to begin with.

The very things being whined about are the things which make games fun.

Balance reductions (not "nerfs") keep the game balanced, which ensures your decisions matter (of what power to use, what class to roll, etc).  Without balance games become repetitive and boring.

"Nerf" is a word used to describe "going too far" with a balance change, although it tends to be overused to describe any balance reduction whatsoever.  Nerfs are bad, balance reductions are necessary.

It depends on the situation, but it is much easier for the developer to lower the abilities of one class or a quest line rather than buff all the others.  If the developer does not act there is a good chance the rest of the playerbase will just up and leave.

Take DAoC.  They were doing well and they brought out the Trials of Atlantis expansion.  It gave players doing a complex quest line enormous advantages over players without it.  Instead of fixing the problem by nerfing some very overpowered abilities via this questline, they did a few minor changes.  The end result was a huge wave of cancelations by the rest of the players from which the game never recovered.

Players won't stand for overpowered features.  They will act with their feet if nothing is done about them.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

It depends on the situation, but it is much easier for the developer to lower the abilities of one class or a quest line rather than buff all the others.  If the developer does not act there is a good chance the rest of the playerbase will just up and leave.

Take DAoC.  They were doing well and they brought out the Trials of Atlantis expansion.  It gave players doing a complex quest line enormous advantages over players without it.  Instead of fixing the problem by nerfing some very overpowered abilities via this questline, they did a few minor changes.  The end result was a huge wave of cancelations by the rest of the players from which the game never recovered.

Players won't stand for overpowered features.  They will act with their feet if nothing is done about them.

Question then: Why didn't those who wanted the advantages, go do the quest line to gain it? Was it available for all classes?

Hes talking about Master Levels and each class was restricted to a choice of 1 "path" from a pre-determined (based on class) choice of two. So in answer no .. you class determined which master level paths were open to you.

I am assuming hes talking about Reaver-Bombs and the like which were very annoying. We adapted to it but it did set off a whole new nerf / adjustment cycle.

The thing about nerfs is that in adjusting "something" it usually screws up 3 or 4 other things. That the nature of what i call "bolt-on" MMOs. They have a core ruleset, Usually based on PvE that things are balanced around. Of course when you "bolt-on" another aspect like PvP these abilitys take on a whole new light. Players are remarkably good at finding the best way to utilize the tools at thier fingertips and it really does not take long for groups to crunch the numbers and find out whats best. (I'm guilty of this I admit - although I dont roll FOTM's I always look to get the best out of my character)

A nerf to one thing, say block rate in PvE is too high on your main tank class .. has ripple effects all through the game. Raid MoB are suddenly untankable and insta-gib your MTs. PvP is a nightmare for them now because of vastly reduced mitigation. This is where the nerf / buff cycle fails utterly. A small change to balance issue X ends up causing issues Y and Z.

I have some hopes for the upcomming game Alganon since the Devs there have said that all skills / abilitys will have 2 functions. A PvE usage and a PvP usage. This means balancing a skill for PvE wont impact the way it works in PvP 1 bit .. this seperation of utility is something I've been looking for in an MMO. I think it will make balancing alot easier for the Devs and reduce the nerf / buff cycles drastically. If they pull it off right.

Goes back to me wanting all aspects of gameplay unrelated. Raiding, PvE, PvP should all be seperate aspects. DAoC made a real mess of this with Realm Abilitys and Trials of Atlantis. Realm abilitys have a massive cross-over effect in PvE (even though the sole way to gain them is RvR) and ToA artifacts and Master levels (Pure PvE game aspects) had a huge bearing on RvR (the PVP aspect of the game)

Alot of my PvE friends hated the Realm ability system since it forced them to RvR to compeate. Many quit the game. ToA caused the same reaction for alot of the PvP crowd .. being forced to PvE was'ent what they wanted.

Keep aspects seperate, PvP rewards/gear/abilitys should only impact PvP .. same with PvE gear/rewards/abilitys and Raid gear/rewards/abilitys. It would make the games easier to balance as well if it was split into spheres with minimal cross over. AoC started with this route with the heroic def / att stats on raid gear. Its something I feel they did right (one of the few things I'll add)

Thats not to say as a PvP player you cant raid .. just that if you did it would be at entry level until you had gained the raiding gear/abilitys etc to progress. Different progression curves.

 Companies are god in their game, they make the rules, don't like it? don't pay/play it. but i do agree with you tho',  nerfing is easier for companies then giving new abilities/strengths to compensate with overpowered features in a game... 

Are we talking about Wow? This game has been nurfed to death. Not the individual classes or proffesions but the leveling!! I can't believe I haven't heard more from the level 80's that spent ton's of hours making it to that level and now it may take... a tiny fraction of that time to make it to 80... it all started at level 60 ofcourse but now noobs make it in a fraction of the time!!! OH JOY...

In a PvE game it is hard to buff everyone to the level of the overpowerd class. So if only 1 or 2 classes are overpowered, then it is better to nerf them.

I am for the slow incremental nerfs, nerf a bit, throw it live, nerf a bit more.

But I actually haven't seen any mmo's that work this way. They always swing the nerf bat hard, most of the time overnerfing, so these classes eventually need to be buffed again.

Another approach is to update the game content in smaller packages instead of large expansions or patches. I think EVE does this to some extent. And currently Ryzom does this, but thats probably because they are not up to speed yet :p

Anyway, taking legal action against fixing the game one way or another would be pretty dumb. Besides that, if they don't swing the nerfbat, somewhere down the road the devs will make a certain change that most vets don't like and the mmo dies. I always thought EVE Online was the big exception, but now with Dust514 that may change as well.

 "In a PvE game it is hard to buff everyone to the level of the overpowerd class. So if only 1 or 2 classes are overpowered, then it is better to nerf them."  

its not better to nerf them, its EASIER and FASTER to nerf them instead of buffing the rest,  pvp/pve buffing/debuffing(aka nerfing) is an entirely other thing too

Originally posted by Wraithone

Originally posted by Ozmodan

It depends on the situation, but it is much easier for the developer to lower the abilities of one class or a quest line rather than buff all the others.  If the developer does not act there is a good chance the rest of the playerbase will just up and leave.

Take DAoC.  They were doing well and they brought out the Trials of Atlantis expansion.  It gave players doing a complex quest line enormous advantages over players without it.  Instead of fixing the problem by nerfing some very overpowered abilities via this questline, they did a few minor changes.  The end result was a huge wave of cancelations by the rest of the players from which the game never recovered.

Players won't stand for overpowered features.  They will act with their feet if nothing is done about them.

 

Question then: Why didn't those who wanted the advantages, go do the quest line to gain it? Was it available for all classes?

I'm interested in the answer to this too.

Sounds kinda like bad difficulty vs. reward balancing.  Disproportionately large reward-per-effort/difficulty?