Originally posted by Axehilt

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?

I answered that. Scroll up :p

<EDIT> A c'n'p from my previous post -

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.
 

No we should want to feel powerful if we want but the devs are the creators of the game and have their wants/interests for the game.

They are also held to the owners/higher up folks of the company with the IP.

If devs would start trying another direction maybe things would be different.

Try focusing testing weakness instead of how powerful something could turn out. They'd only have upwards to go.

Try realizing having everyone powerful can be a balance in itself.

Try realizing single player games have strong heroes in them and that's what we'd like to get close at.

Lastly customers can deliver companies and devs a message about that if enough choose to leave games like those.

Nerfs are always going to be a part of the game - the devs may try to test changes on test servers, etc, but there's no way for them to consider every possible effect of their change ahead of time. I understand that people would prefer to have other classes buffed up instead of 1 or 2 classes nerfed, but really that's not a better solution. It would take a lot of time to buff all the other classes up, then when that was finished, they would have to buff up the mobs so content wouldn't become ludicrously easy. Making all those changes would inevitably lead to more balancing, and all that balancing on balancing would take away from new content and expansions being added to the game.

The best way to avoid nerfs would be to extend the testing periods of any new changes, and to find a way to bring the OP classes into line without going too far and making them worse than the other classes.

Originally posted by Larry2298

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.

Can I start my protest of a legal solution now?

The way I see it the developers are providing a world and the mechanics. On top of that that the players have no property associated with the game. The last thing we need is gamed worlds screwed up by the developers being afraid of making changes due to legal repercussions. We have enough of that trash ruining real life.

I welcome nerfs if they are done fairly and it is an actual solution to the problem.

I have a funny theory: players wouldn't complain as much if classes were never nerfed, but buffed individually, and nerfed as a whole equally.

Let me explain: imagine the scenario where you have 3 classes: Warrior, Mage and Paladin. Mage is overpowered, Warrior is fine, Paladin is too weak.

Now imagine that in a first step, developers buffed the Paladin class a lot and buffed the Warrior class a little bit. As a result, the three classes are now roughly balanced. But this obviously leads to inflation.

Now imagine that in a second step, maybe months later, ALL classes at the same time get hit by the nerf bat equally, to cancel the inflation problem. For example, all classes do X% less damage, or have X% less hitpoints/manapoints.

In the end, the result would be similar to achieving balance by tweaking classes individually ( nerfing some, buffing others ), except that now I suspect players would consider it to be fair...

No one likes getting nerfed, so I say one solution to every Change. If a class is being changed majorly FREE RE ROLL to any class you want to after the major patch is applied. Then it saves the argueing, and people getting pissed off.

i only dislike the nerf bat when it's overused.  Sure it's nice knowing those blasted *insert class here* aren't gods anymore but if the bat is swung too much you never know whos capable of what.  It gets a little crazy at times.  Ultimately the worst nerf move of all is gimping a class in PvE due to PvP reasons.  I love it when i feel powerful (one of the reasons why i enjoy MMO's tbh) but it really kills the mood for me when a nerf comes along and suddenly my awesome dual wielding dps guy can't take on 3 guys at once, he has to stick with 1...and rest afterwards. 

I have a more fun theory, players wouldn't complain so much if so many of them weren't whiny, greedy, selfish and/or actually understood anything about running an MMO.

No company every makes a change just to intentionally piss off part of their customer base, not one. Balancing changes are made because the company sees a compelling reason that the change is needed for the overall health of the game. Any company that ignores that would rapidly end up with a very very broken, unplayable and unenjoyable game.

Now, obviously, they don't always get it right. Mistakes are made in the "rebalancing" just like they were made originally, plus players are endlessly creative in finding ways to break systems that the devs missed. However, that's why it's an ongoing process.

The better companies maintain open channels of communication on upcoming changes, have some serious test server activity and generally don't act in a rapid, high-handed or overpowering mannner; others (like say good 'ole SOE) are  a bit notorious for the surprise mass nerf attack method...but every company needs to do it for the good of the game.

PS

and NO it cannot always be handled by adjusting everyone upwards...that leads to MUDflation and either older content or the entire game just becoming idiotically trivial in difficulty....

Originally posted by ericbelser

I have a more fun theory, players wouldn't complain so much if so many of them weren't whiny, greedy, selfish and/or actually understood anything about running an MMO.

No company every makes a change just to intentionally piss off part of their customer base, not one. Balancing changes are made because the company sees a compelling reason that the change is needed for the overall health of the game. Any company that ignores that would rapidly end up with a very very broken, unplayable and unenjoyable game.

Now, obviously, they don't always get it right. Mistakes are made in the "rebalancing" just like they were made originally, plus players are endlessly creative in finding ways to break systems that the devs missed. However, that's why it's an ongoing process.

The better companies maintain open channels of communication on upcoming changes, have some serious test server activity and generally don't act in a rapid, high-handed or overpowering mannner; others (like say good 'ole SOE) are  a bit notorious for the surprise mass nerf attack method...but every company needs to do it for the good of the game.

PS

and NO it cannot always be handled by adjusting everyone upwards...that leads to MUDflation and either older content or the entire game just becoming idiotically trivial in difficulty....

Well... Some changes are "needed" more than others. Usually, nerfs...err..."balances" are done because of howling and whining in the forums in regards to PvP. Nerf Shaman! Nerf Retrib Pally! Nerf Death Knight, Death Knight is OP!! Its an endless cycle. Thats why a good idea would be to separate PvP and PvE skills. That way when you "balance" for PvP, the changes don't cascade into major changes in PvE. One of the games coming out this year that changes the impact of a skill, depending on the target(PC/NPC) is Alganon. It will be interesting to see how that works out.

One of the running jokes in regards to making the determination of what class gets what "balance" is that someone at Blizzard stands with their back to a wall, that has a list of all of the classes and their abilities. They then throw a hand full of darts over their shoulder(without looking)... Thats the classes and abilities to "balance" this patch...

As for SOE being a "bit notorious" for non communication(read sneaky antics) thats like saying that the north pole gets a bit cold during the winter... I've seldom(with the exception of a few Korean companies) found a company that gives its customers the mushroom treatment nearly as much as SOE does.(Mushroom treatment... Keeps them in the dark and feeds them shit...)

I'm all pro gamers rights in front of company abuses sometimes, but I don't think you have a case here... Assuring the game success through rebalancing the classes will be of higher interest than your right to keep your paladin's abilites untouched. And consider this, the company could not nerf your paladin and instead rise the other classes, then what... you'd need a law saying that all classes should be rised equally. But how any layer/expert can keep track of that? Very impractical and anyway pointless imo.