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Asking for nerfs is not asking for balance


Supreme.3164

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There is a huge difference between asking genuinely for balance and....constantly and vehemently asking for nerfs . The main point to remember is that those looking for balance are searching for healthy competition to test themselves and by contrast those who are only able to ask for nerfs day in and day out , simply speaking are really not looking for any challenge.

While balance issues will always be present in a MMO, it is also true that a problematic class/spec is not necessarily a balance issue , not every spec and class should be a "walk in the park" to deal with and this may be an extreme statement but ...a healthy competitive environment is one lacking "rock-paper-scissor" sort of balance, the same one promised by the devs...the same one still missing from the game

If you look at each nerf thread for each class and you summarize all the nerf requests in a single list, you realize that the name of the class is the only thingpeople did not ask to remove.And the questions remains : how professions A-B-C..... supposed to fight yours?; when it comes to remove things...everybody a dev....they are : platinum+, legendary, gods, AT winners....basically game designers minus the actual professional title and experience; if we then ask these "devs" how to balance each class..they will answer with : "I am not a dev"........

I'll be honest; to me it seems that people really play a MMO like it is some single player RPG with multiplayer where they are the heroes and the whole game is populated with NPC : defeat is not possible,it's unacceptable and nothing can get close to their "power level"

The devs "mostly" ignoring the PvP/WvW forum comes as no surprise, would they consider every single nerf thread....there would be no GW2, there would be no game to load on the server because everything would have no sustain and would do no damage.

Although I do believe that Anet would be more open to communication if the playerbase would be more honest with itself : have the courage, integrity and honesty to recognize the strengths of their class...before pointing fingers but right now every thread prove otherwise....hypocrisy runs rampant , dishonesty is the norm.

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I mean, you have to understand that many ppl aint calling for heavy nerfs just cuz some1 outplayed them, they got killed by counterbuild or because their build is not in meta and some1s is.No, they are just tired of talking to a wall called ANet company that neither communicates, nor keeps their promises. Build diveristy? Yes, nice, bunker meta where over half classes cant kill the other half, amazing. "Hotfix" patches every 2-3 weeks with bigger patch coming from time to time? No, not really, now even bigger patches aint coming too often.You dont have to (cant) make balance perfect. Some specs will underperform, and some slightly overperfom, happens. But when over 3/4 of what left of sPvP community yells that something is broken, each match has like 2-4 ppl abusing this build, then maybe theres something in it xDYes, there are Q_Q babies that keep yelling that either teef OS them, or Mirage (kek) spams 20 confusion per second. But after just month of playtime you can see which thread is Q_Q and which is constructive criticism. For example holo. 3 years of being A-S tier in everything, after latest update players in first 2 weeks (!) noticed that nades, EE and flashbang are not right. Wheres hotfix? Any message from fellow cmc? Anything? Theres none and I could tell you why, but Id get censored as usual, so Ill stop. Instead Ill leave a quote:

"Grenades holo is the type of innovation we like to see from players." -CMC

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@"Widmo.3186" said:I mean, you have to understand that many ppl aint calling for heavy nerfs just cuz some1 outplayed them, they got killed by counterbuild or because their build is not in meta and some1s is.No, they are just tired of talking to a wall called ANet company that neither communicates, nor keeps their promises. Build diveristy? Yes, nice, bunker meta where over half classes cant kill the other half, amazing. "Hotfix" patches every 2-3 weeks with bigger patch coming from time to time? No, not really, now even bigger patches aint coming too often.You dont have to (cant) make balance perfect. Some specs will underperform, and some slightly overperfom, happens. But when over 3/4 of what left of sPvP community yells that something is broken, each match has like 2-4 ppl abusing this build, then maybe theres something in it xDYes, there are Q_Q babies that keep yelling that either teef OS them, or Mirage (kek) spams 20 confusion per second. But after just month of playtime you can see which thread is Q_Q and which is constructive criticism. For example holo. 3 years of being A-S tier in everything, after latest update players in first 2 weeks (!) noticed that nades, EE and flashbang are not right. Wheres hotfix? Any message from fellow cmc? Anything? Theres none and I could tell you why, but Id get censored as usual, so Ill stop. Instead Ill leave a quote:

"Grenades holo is the type of innovation we like to see from players." -CMC

There is no objectivity behind the suggestions, no consideration for what goes behind a profession and what is sacrificed to achieve something. The decaying build diversity is a direct consequence of indiscriminate nerfing done to please the masses ...that can never be pleased anyway.

You tell me that "pl aint calling for heavy nerfs just cuz some1 outplayed them"....are you 100% sure about that?

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@"Supreme.3164" said:You tell me that "pl aint calling for heavy nerfs just cuz some1 outplayed them"....are you 100% sure about that?

Yes, as I said there are ppl like that, those make Q_Q threads. But there is also plenty of ppl that know what theyre doing, create thread where they mention whats the problem and even how to fix it (!). Its not hard to guess which one boio got outplayed, and which one just sees whats the problem. Random first example from the top:https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/111581/flashbang-a-top-tier-mistakeYou dont have to lose to some1, to see that this or this thing is boosted and should be nerfed straight up

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@"Ronald McDonald.8165" said:When you have the top PvPers in the game playing Holo and complaining they have to play it (but don't want to anymore) because of how overtuned it is, you know you have a problem.

Top PvPers as you define them are the main culprit beyond meta stagnation , their interests do not align with the rest of the community. Every time I watch their streams all I hear is :"remove this and remove that" so that their favorite class may prosper ; the only ones I dare to say who have ever shown a genuine interest in the well being of the game are : @Vallun.2071 , @Chaith , @Phantaram.1265 and @Helseth.

I am not advocating against nerfs, they're necessary in due time but.....when those nerfs destroy the identity of the class then I can't agree with them. Regardless of everything each class should be fun to play and that doesn't seem to be a major concern for this community and apparently the devs themselves

Ofc they all play some class...everything else has received mostly unreasonable nerfs where they were not needed

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If I wanted ez mode game then I would be already making topics screaming "BRING BACK PRE 25th FEB BALANCE N O W!!!".Nerfing = Balancing as well, I really don't get yours "lmao lets just give this x skil 450% more dmg of abc class so it can compete with that 790% dmg from afk class" mentality of self proclaimed players that seek "challange", get real.Game is in a state that still need nerfs and mere +5% here and 10% there won't do it.February patch was a good start, but meme-net didn't follow with nerfs for rest parts of the game, which is sad.This whole circus balance could've been avoided if only A-net decided to release HoT elite specializations in very weakened state and then buff them up to the core level slowly, but here we are, 2 powercreep x-packs that still won't be fixed unless they fully invest their resources into balancing.

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I'm glad at least a few people get it. Nerfing every build that rises to the top may eventually lead to balance, but you'll be left with a dumbed down, slowed down game that hardly resembles Gw2. I've seen what unchecked power decay can do to a game. It didn't make the game more balanced. It created rock paper scissors gameplay where one class could completely counter another because options that one class to handle another have been methodically stripped away.

If not for the removal of Knights amulet, we may have seen a few power builds making adaptations that allow them to handle Nade holo burst. Unfortunately, people complained about it and got it removed. Now if you want to run some extra toughness to prevent EE and Grenade Barage from chunking most of your health, you're either stuck with the much squishier Demo amulet(-700 toughness compared to Knight), or you're out of luck.

Condi builds are less restricted. We've seen a few eles running the BLAM weaver build which uses Rabid amulet specifically to deal with nade holo, and I've personally started running a condi Druid build which uses Rabid amulet. Druid has enough cleanse that it does not have to worry about it's low vitality, and it takes advantage of the meta holo's limited cleanse.

Constantly taking things away might help with one build, but then you'll be left with fewer options to handle the next OP build that inevitably comes up. It might feel vindicating in the moment to see the build you hate get the nerf bat, but it's important to consider the long term consequences. It's obvious from reading various posts here that most people don't think that far in advance.

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Both buffs and nerfs can lead to a more balanced game state. The job is up to the balance team to play and observe each class and decide how they want it balanced with in the game state, and with a clear vision and design of the class in mind. Problems arise when the devs are not playing nor observing the classes and builds near enough to make proper balance decisions let alone decisions that keep in line with the original vision or design for the class. What happens now is devs balance toward vocal qq'rs but can't out right use their suggestions in most cases cuz how professional would that look? So u get nerfs and buffs that are near the mark but off base at same time. Through all this in time the vision/intended design for the class gets malformed into something not even close to what it initially was intended to be. Look at class descriptions within the game, those were anets vision for the classes and what the design was sopose to reflect, how many still sound like the class u picked? 1 - the design team needs to actually be actively involved with the balancing of the game, not this we can only change numbers BS that we get often and 2- balance team needs to start balancing with a clear vision and design for each class and not to just please the more vocal qq'rs. They listened to their community with feb patch and now pvp modes are less populated then ever. They need to have their vision and follow it, depending on players for balancing for the tiny support they give pvp as devs regarding balancing attempts is going to end this games pvp.

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@Ghos.1326 said:While there is some truth to what the OP says, the funny thing about it is that applying a nerf to something overperforming can balance it out. So in a way yes, calling for nerfs constantly, if that's what it takes to achieve balance, can result in balance.

Yeah maybe lmao in a world where players dont just constantly call for nerfs on classes they just dislike fighting or classes that they have trouble fighting, unfortunately this is the case the majority of the time.

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@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Ghos.1326 said:While there is some truth to what the OP says, the funny thing about it is that applying a nerf to something overperforming can balance it out. So in a way yes, calling for nerfs constantly, if that's what it takes to achieve balance, can result in balance.

Yeah maybe lmao in a world where players dont just constantly call for nerfs on classes they just dislike fighting or classes that they have trouble fighting, unfortunately this is the case the majority of the time.

This is also true. The anet employees gotta watch carefully on what's good, constructive feedback vs clear bias, which sometimes can be hard to spot out. It's unfortunate too that it's actually quite common here. FeelsBadMan.

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The problem isn't that people ask for nerfs. The problem is how they do it, and how bad the forum is generally for feedback collecting. By that I mean:

  • A person get killed by a build. Probably multiple times. Some of these people won't think about what they could do differently, what killed them and how, why did that thing hit that hard, is the enemies build a hard counter, is there a way to outplay it, etc... So they hop on the forum, start a thread, and instead of asking what they did wrong, or what causes that build to work, they just point the top 2 damaging abilities, or the one that caused the most annoyance, and come up with stupid nerf ideas, without even knowing what makes that build work. I bet half of the nerf posts would disappear, if the original poster took 2 hours to duel the problematic build.E.g.: People left and right ask for grenade nerfs, because they see that grenade barrage hit them for 8k+. Majority of these people doesn't realise that grenades hit hard only on holo, because of the consistent high might holo generates. If their wish came true, and nade gets nerfed, holo will jump on the second strongest kit, and keeps abusing constant 20+ might.

  • An another thing these people usually doesn't ask themselves, when they ask for nerfs, is "What will the profession be left with.". Some things are annoying, or even overperforming, yes. But those things keep the profession in play. Take them away, and you get an unviable mess, that does something, but far from effective in anything.E.g.: Look at LR weaver. Some people ask for LR damage to be removed. With that, the last semi-viable weaver build would disappear, as they would have nothing left to play around.

  • Another thing is, people doesn't take 2 minutes to fact-check themselves, so we have threads like "grenades should be reflectable", or comments like "grenades weren't nerfed at all" while Barrage got nerfed in February, and once again since then, and 3 abilities in the kit got nerfed as well.

  • And the most problematic in my oppinion: Spiteful people. There are users on this forum, who admitted that they do not care about balance at all. They are on a sacred crusade, to turn their most hated profession into an unviable mess, so they don't have to see them ever again. I even sometimes see these people do 1 on 1 skill comparison, while conviniently leaving out some facts. Or they throw in that "this and that is OP", they get an answer to counter it, they ignore it, then they go on, claiming that noone can answer them, so they are right. This is straight up ignorance, and it happens way too often.

  • Add other things to this pile, like people not knowing how to use the forums.I.e.: People starting new threads, despite four others are already existing with the same topic. People using clickbait titles, that makes forum harder to use. People start topics, with actually zero information value. People start to argue, going totally offtopic, and totally flood the thread, making it harder to use for those, who actually wanted to give real feedback. (Honestly, majority of the threads die, by two or three people arguing over 30-50 replies. Either agree to disagree, or use the private messages, they are a thing for a reason.) And my favourite: troll threads. While I find them funny, they are still useless for the devs.

Obviously overtuned stuff exist, and nerfs should happen, as well as buffs for underperforming things, but in my oppinion, instead of jumping on the forum and cry for nerfs, people should point out annoying and overtuned things, then listen to the responses from people that main that build. That way we could start a constructive discussion, or fix l2p issues. Of course, we will have hard biased people, who will claim that XY is fine. That is up for the devs to decide.

Conclusion: Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the devs came out and said fair and square: "This forum is a mess, it is imposibble to collect feedback here, have fun with your petty arguments."

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Nerfs can be beneficial when done in creative ways that simultaneously buff and nerf specs.

They're called Tradeoffs, and it's an idea that Arenanet played around with for a while and then just stopped which lead to some elite specs having drawbacks that others just don't.And that's sad because Tradeoffs are the solution to power creep because they target the main problem: Elite Specs, and without just nerfing or removing them and calling it a day.Think Berserker getting increased damage at the expense of sustain, or Mirage getting 1 dodge but having that 1 dodge be a mirage dodge.

Nearly the entirety of the Feb 25th patch and this 'balance' agenda to remove or nerf literally everything and anything has; for the most part, been kinda pointless.The changes do not make the game more exciting to play or watch, and the ability for players to express themselves uniquely through their class and its gameplay has gone down because build diversity has drastically shrunken.Also, the people who pretend like the patch just magically solved power creep don't understand what power creep even is.

The patch also created a unique form of patch-culture where people feel like they can ask for something to be nerfed or removed, and it probably will be. When it isn't, they throw a tantrum. "X is too strong! You nerfed everything else, now nerf X!"They aren't going to stop, but you're just feeding them by giving individual people what they want.

Anyway, great post. I've posted this video before, but this is a really good short analysis that covers the topic much more intelligently than I ever could:

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@"TrollingDemigod.3041" said:If I wanted ez mode game then I would be already making topics screaming "BRING BACK PRE 25th FEB BALANCE N O W!!!".Nerfing = Balancing as well, I really don't get yours "lmao lets just give this x skil 450% more dmg of abc class so it can compete with that 790% dmg from afk class" mentality of self proclaimed players that seek "challange", get real.Game is in a state that still need nerfs and mere +5% here and 10% there won't do it.February patch was a good start, but meme-net didn't follow with nerfs for rest parts of the game, which is sad.This whole circus balance could've been avoided if only A-net decided to release HoT elite specializations in very weakened state and then buff them up to the core level slowly, but here we are, 2 powercreep x-packs that still won't be fixed unless they fully invest their resources into balancing.

Do u know game is now way more easy than pre february batch right?

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Gw2 PvP is in its cancel culture phase, but it's the nerf edition. So give the mob what they want and nerf, everything that's viewed as problematic without question. Some people don't realize there's always going to be a top and bottom classes, even if they're all in the dumpster Just because classes are uniquely different from each other at their design core. So the moaning for nerfs will still continue even after you gut everything. Just let it happen and accept the nerf wars.

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@"Multicolorhipster.9751" said:Nerfs can be beneficial when done in creative ways that simultaneously buff and nerf specs.

They're called Tradeoffs, and it's an idea that Arenanet played around with for a while and then just stopped which lead to some elite specs having drawbacks that others just don't.And that's sad because Tradeoffs are the solution to power creep because they target the main problem: Elite Specs, and without just nerfing or removing them and calling it a day.Think Berserker getting increased damage at the expense of sustain, or Mirage getting 1 dodge but having that 1 dodge be a mirage dodge.

Nearly the entirety of the Feb 25th patch and this 'balance' agenda to remove or nerf literally everything and anything has; for the most part, been kinda pointless.The changes do not make the game more exciting to play or watch, and the ability for players to express themselves uniquely through their class and its gameplay has gone down because build diversity has drastically shrunken.Also, the people who pretend like the patch just magically solved power creep don't understand what power creep even is.

The patch also created a unique form of patch-culture where people feel like they can ask for something to be nerfed or removed, and it probably will be. When it isn't, they throw a tantrum. "X is too strong! You nerfed everything else, now nerf X!"They aren't going to stop, but you're just feeding them by giving individual people what they want.

Anyway, great post. I've posted this video before, but this is a really good short analysis that covers the topic much more intelligently than I ever could:

While it's true that tradeoffs are very integral in balance, it's also untrue that only nerfing something is pointless. The one time it would be pointless is if it truly did not need to be nerfed. Otherwise, a nerf without a buff is perfectly feasible.

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