7:12 am, October 4, 2013
212
Nerfing Vs. Buffing, a discussion.
/!\Caution/!\: sizeable read.
I would like to have a discussion with you all on skill balancing and about nerfing vs. buffing.
it came about after i'm seeing all these complaints about heartseeker. if i should take an educated guess, i would think anet would simply nerf the skill in order to appease the masses.
Opinion:
My opinion is that one simple nerf can decrease the amount of viable builds.
the arguement is that people abuse the most cheapest tactic and so therefore it needs to be nerfed. the problem with that is people will move to the next cheapest tactic that then takes the #1 spot.
so the only thing you accomplish from nerfing a skill/build is people flocking to another cheap build, while making another build useless, further limiting choice.
Example:
this happens alot in fighting games. for example, in the game marvel vs. capcom 3, the best character in the game arguably was dark phoenix. alot of players used her and even had a backup team that consisted of phoenix.
then she was nerfed in the next mvc3, and 90% of those players dropped her...
then the next flavor of the month character was wesker (which was not a problem character but when used in xfactor lvl 3 with no glasses could **** an entire team in less than 20seconds)
it was only until people learned how to play against wesker, was he not so powerful anymore, you started to see him less and less.
now the current top tier character everyone is using is virgil, etc. etc.
A comparison...
i see the same thing happening in guild wars 2. i think we should not be so quick to nerf skills. as time goes on people learn how to combat the tactic. instead of looking at dark pheonix as an example, we should look at how wesker was dealt with.
wesker wasnt nerfed... people learned how to counter him. they found better characters and countered him effectively.
in the same way, as time goes on, people will find bigger and better builds that will make things like heartseeker + haste obsolete. its like time itself will nerf the build.
Comparative conclusion
Dark phoenix represents the on-reaction nerfing of something powerful due to people complaining
Wesker represents something being a newly found powerful tactic, but over time becomes less viable due to people finding new counters and better options.
Virgil represents the next flavor of the month that people abuse due to the former powerful tactic (i.e. dark phoenix) being nerfed.
How do we then get fair balance?
i think the best way to balance is to not nerf 1 skill, but to buff all of the other skills to compete. sadly, this takes more time and is more difficult to achieve, but in the end i feel it lets people be more creative and try newly-buffed skills and branch out to other playstyles.
nerfing skills only corner people into using what works. which might only be 1 or 2 viable builds per class, which afterall, anets philosophy was "20 or more viable builds per class..."
let me know what you think.
I would like to have a discussion with you all on skill balancing and about nerfing vs. buffing.
it came about after i'm seeing all these complaints about heartseeker. if i should take an educated guess, i would think anet would simply nerf the skill in order to appease the masses.
Opinion:
My opinion is that one simple nerf can decrease the amount of viable builds.
the arguement is that people abuse the most cheapest tactic and so therefore it needs to be nerfed. the problem with that is people will move to the next cheapest tactic that then takes the #1 spot.
so the only thing you accomplish from nerfing a skill/build is people flocking to another cheap build, while making another build useless, further limiting choice.
Example:
this happens alot in fighting games. for example, in the game marvel vs. capcom 3, the best character in the game arguably was dark phoenix. alot of players used her and even had a backup team that consisted of phoenix.
then she was nerfed in the next mvc3, and 90% of those players dropped her...
then the next flavor of the month character was wesker (which was not a problem character but when used in xfactor lvl 3 with no glasses could **** an entire team in less than 20seconds)
it was only until people learned how to play against wesker, was he not so powerful anymore, you started to see him less and less.
now the current top tier character everyone is using is virgil, etc. etc.
A comparison...
i see the same thing happening in guild wars 2. i think we should not be so quick to nerf skills. as time goes on people learn how to combat the tactic. instead of looking at dark pheonix as an example, we should look at how wesker was dealt with.
wesker wasnt nerfed... people learned how to counter him. they found better characters and countered him effectively.
in the same way, as time goes on, people will find bigger and better builds that will make things like heartseeker + haste obsolete. its like time itself will nerf the build.
Comparative conclusion
Dark phoenix represents the on-reaction nerfing of something powerful due to people complaining
Wesker represents something being a newly found powerful tactic, but over time becomes less viable due to people finding new counters and better options.
Virgil represents the next flavor of the month that people abuse due to the former powerful tactic (i.e. dark phoenix) being nerfed.
How do we then get fair balance?
i think the best way to balance is to not nerf 1 skill, but to buff all of the other skills to compete. sadly, this takes more time and is more difficult to achieve, but in the end i feel it lets people be more creative and try newly-buffed skills and branch out to other playstyles.
nerfing skills only corner people into using what works. which might only be 1 or 2 viable builds per class, which afterall, anets philosophy was "20 or more viable builds per class..."
let me know what you think.