Why should balance mean nerfing?

[VDAC.2137]

Nerfing seems to me a very negative way to go about balancing; I am never happy to hear a spec I don’t play is nerfed and when of my favorite specs is nerfed, or worse, drastically altered so I have to regear and change how I play or abandon the class entirely, well, that just sucks. And it seems to me to create toxic hostility on the forum if not elsewhere, with everyone crying for someone else’s class to be nerfs and others quite understandably upset by that and feeling the need to defend their spec for fear the complaints will be listened to.

What if instead any balancing that was really needed was done by buffing? I’m happy for my teammates to perform better and who’s going to complain about a boost to their own abilities? GW2 does many things different than other MMO’s — why couldn’t this be one of them?

Power creep! I’m sure would be one of the responses, but why is this such a bad thing? Periodically buff enemies as needed as well. I’d MUCH rather find out that a fractal/raid boss has a new attack or now deals more damage than have a spec I enjoy get crippled.

Might it all be the same in the end? Perhaps, but to me at least the psychology would feel so much better.

[AlexndrTheGreat.8310]

Horrible idea. Things need to be nerfed because they’re too strong in a given situation. It much easier and far more logical to bring that 1 thing down than bring the entire game up.

If everything can only get buffed, the game becomes a horribly bloated, disgusting mess. That class doing a bit too much damage? Can’t touch it, gotta bring everything else up. Now we all do too much damage? Gotta buff up everyone’s hp. We’re all too tanky? Make all the mobs stronger. Now you go from everyone doing, for example, 30k dps and having 15k health, to doing 500k dps and have 300k health, and nothing’s changed in the long run.

Nerfing is a fundamental requirement for balance. It sucks sometimes but it’s true.

[JTGuevara.9018]

Is this post serious?

Nerfing is a fundamental part of balance. If we just blindly buff everything in response to something else, nothing changes! Powercreep is bad because it dumbs down the game and makes things too easy to play. Sure, for pve it's fine. It's good to kill mobs faster, but for pvp/wvw, powercreep is a catastrophe.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

The word "balance" implies that things can go either way. Studios generally aim for some sort of baseline, so that they can also balance past and future content, without having to compare new builds/specs/etc against everything in the game. If they only added strength, they'd also have to work to make foes tougher or the content would eventually become cake for everyone (not just the top 2% of the community).

[VDAC.2137]

Perhaps I should specify: I don’t mean that if a skill/trait/whatever does too much damage it shouldn’t be reduced. When PoF came out and one of the new ranger pets could do a ton of damage, I don’t think anyone complained about that being nerfed! It is the changing of how traits and classes fundamentally work that I (and I had assumed others?) dislike most. For instance, the changes over the past year to Chrono and Druid have made those specs undesirable to me now and I’ve seen others say the same of both Druid and Daredevil. And now I see so many posts calling for blood on Soulbeast and others, I hesitate to invest in gearing or learning the class, at least not until it’s been neutered to everyone’s satisfaction or whatever...

I play PvE and no, I don’t want to plow through everything. I don’t even care if I can kill stuff faster or survive easier on one class than another — I’ll adjust what I bring to that encounter based on that. I want options and they don’t have to be equally good for all situations. Honestly, I don’t need buffs either and would be perfectly happy if they would leave such things alone but I knew WvW and PvP players would hate on that for sure.

[Trise.2865]

Two words: power creep. It's very real, very present, and very problematic.

[LucianDK.8615]

yep, chainbuffing things leads to powercreep. Diablo 3 is a cautionary example of it. They keep buffing, buffing and buffing. and its at truly ridiculous numbers now. player gear is powered through the roof, then they have to buff enemies to even more ridiculous levels.

[Sugar Min.5834]

@LucianDK.8615 said:yep, chainbuffing things leads to powercreep. Diablo 3 is a cautionary example of it. They keep buffing, buffing and buffing. and its at truly ridiculous numbers now. player gear is powered through the roof, then they have to buff enemies to even more ridiculous levels.

The exact opposite can be said for this game, like...

....Yep, chain nerfing things leads to power lack. Guild Wars 2 is a cautionary example of it. They keep nerfing, nerfing and nerfing. And, it's at truly ridiculously weak numbers now. Players gears and skills are nerfed through the ground, then they have to nerf mobs and LW bosses to even weaker levels, but still many players got tired of changing gears and professions every few weeks and only to be nerfed again in a few weeks time. So players left or took a break from GW2, and gem store sales took a break too and NCSoft may have to go for another round of corporate restructuring just to save the game. The cycle repeats till....

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

the changes over the past year to Chrono and Druid have made those specs undesirable to me nowThe game is not balanced for you (or for me). It has to work for the larger audience. Sometimes, the thing that we like are the overpowered aspects, so when those are nerfed, we feel it more.

[mauried.5608]

GW2 is a level capped game , which means that fixing balance problems cant include power creep, otherwise all thats happening is that the level cap is being artificially removed even though everyone is still L80 they are doing far more damage than they originally did.Its close to impossible to ever have a completely balanced game and because of the obsession of players in this game of killing everything ASAP and finishing events ASAP, and everyone being fixated on dps , nerfs hit far more than buffs do, so everyone hates them especially when it includes their favourite characters.The only other solution is what WOW does , where the level cap just keeps increasing forever.

[Tinker.6924]

Because nerfing a few skills in 1 prof is way easier to do as buffing many, many skills in many profs. Tweaking all those Cooldown times, durations, synergies, on top of raw damage/healing values... not so simple to do without creating other, worse imbalances.

And ultimately the nerfs achieves the exact same result as the buffs.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Two words.And alot to learn.

Power Creep

[VDAC.2137]

Okay, so no buffing either. How about just leave specs alone except for truly egregious outliers? If certain specs work better for certain modes, so be it. Maybe your favorite class gets a better elite spec next time.

I have quite a few alts but play and invest in those that I enjoy and can contribute to the play modes that I enjoy. Small tweaks don’t concern me so much as major reworks and huge nerfs (like the 20% nerf to all to pets for Druid).

I don’t mean this to be just one more thread of complaint but rather to ask if there might be better solutions. If it was just me who didn’t like this, no big thing, but I see sooo many threads of people either at the point of leaving because their favorite spec was nerfed or demanding their nemesis be butchered for them. Maybe it is unrealistic for me to wish it could be different. :(

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"VDAC.2137" said:I see sooo many threads of people either at the point of leaving because their favorite spec was nerfedI think you'd find that people who are leaving because their favorite build was nerfed (or their nemesis was buffed) usually are ready for a break for all sorts of other reasons. The balance patch is just an easy one to point to.

To your larger point: "leave specs alone except for outliers" is a non-starter. Good balancing looks holistically, using the individual skills & traits as tools with which to paint the big picture. It would be like trying to tune a violin by only adjusting the string that is most out of tune.

People seem to get emotionally attached to their favorite prof or favorite build, which is understandably human. All the same, it's unrealistic for any of us to expect the devs to do the same.

[VDAC.2137]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"VDAC.2137" said:I see sooo many threads of people either at the point of leaving because their favorite spec was nerfedI think you'd find that people who are leaving because their favorite build was nerfed (or their nemesis was buffed) usually are ready for a break for all sorts of other reasons. The balance patch is just an easy one to point to.

To your larger point: "leave specs alone except for outliers" is a non-starter. Good balancing looks holistically, using the individual skills & traits as tools with which to paint the big picture. It would be like trying to tune a violin by only adjusting the string that is most out of tune.

People seem to get emotionally attached to their favorite prof or favorite build, which is understandably human. All the same, it's unrealistic for any of us to expect the devs to do the same.

I suppose so... I’m skeptical about all this being necessary, especially outside of WvW and PvP. Yes, I do get attached to professions and the way a spec plays — I mean, that’s how I pick which to invest the most time, money and mats in. And now I guess I’m avoiding committing, especially to anything that’s meta because that’s most likely to be next on the chopping block, no? Better to play them after they are neutered as I won’t miss what I never knew... Well, for now I have a bunch of mostly geared meta builds that I somehow don’t get around to playing... In the mean time, I work on leveling my thief, since I’m told they’re already six feet under so hopefully they will be safe...

[b k.1648]

There's already been way too much buffing instead of nerfing over the last few years. To deal with the power creep, a pretty near universal nerf wave wouldn't go astray.

[derd.6413]

to prevent power creep

[Skyroar.2974]

@Mil.3562 said:

@"LucianDK.8615" said:yep, chainbuffing things leads to powercreep. Diablo 3 is a cautionary example of it. They keep buffing, buffing and buffing. and its at truly ridiculous numbers now. player gear is powered through the roof, then they have to buff enemies to even more ridiculous levels.

The exact opposite can be said for this game, like...

....Yep, chain nerfing things leads to power lack. Guild Wars 2 is a cautionary example of it. They keep nerfing, nerfing and nerfing. And, it's at truly ridiculously weak numbers now. Players gears and skills are nerfed through the ground, then they have to nerf mobs and LW bosses to even weaker levels, but still many players got tired of changing gears and professions every few weeks and only to be nerfed again in a few weeks time. So players left or took a break from GW2, and gem store sales took a break too and NCSoft may have to go for another round of corporate restructuring just to save the game. The cycle repeats till....

I don't know what you're talking about. Guild Wars 2 is an egregious example of power creeping. PvP has been ruined by it. WvW has been ruined by it. The amount of DPS a group can deal nowadays is about twice as much as a few years ago, and that is very noticeable in older content like dungeons or Orr, that used to be challenging once upon a time and now everything dies too fast even by random pugs.

What you're describing has nothing to do with "chain nerfing", but with underlying problems with GW2's attribute/ gear systems. You'd have the exact same consequences through buffs. If, for example, Anet were to decide tomorrow to buff Assassin's gear through the roof, every single player using berserker stats would need to re-gear. If Anet buffs an existing spec's dps to the roof, every one would have to change to that profession to stay in meta. Buffs, like nerfs, can promote gear or profession changes.

[Tails.9372]

I know the examples are about fighting games but many things also apply to balancing in general so it's still relevant.

[Arzurag.7506]

There should be a solid ground across all classes, not equal but nearly the same in all aspects. This can be achieved by carefully tweaking numbers and mechanics, though it requires a certain amount of game knowledge and competence, which the current team doesn't seem to have.

Anyway, any plea for more balance will be futile because balancing doesn't net any money, only when there's a huge drop in players, Anet might be tempted to try to balance properly.So, let's not login into the game for a few months straight, tho that only works if like half of the playerbase does it.

[Shiyo.3578]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

the changes over the past year to Chrono and Druid have made those specs undesirable to me nowThe game is not balanced for you (or for me). It has to work for the larger audience. Sometimes, the thing that we like are the overpowered aspects, so when those are nerfed, we feel it more.

I don't think anyone likes the changes for chrono and druid except the developers.Mesmer in general is pretty much bottom tier in every game mode except for mirage doing 45k on like 3 raid bosses due to confusion being an awful, awful, AWFUL designed condition.

Druid is pretty much just a tempest +1(barely) due to frost spirit only. Really boring.

[VDAC.2137]

@Arzurag.7506 said:There should be a solid ground across all classes, not equal but nearly the same in all aspects. This can be achieved by carefully tweaking numbers and mechanics, though it requires a certain amount of game knowledge and competence, which the current team doesn't seem to have.

Anyway, any plea for more balance will be futile because balancing doesn't net any money, only when there's a huge drop in players, Anet might be tempted to try to balance properly.So, let's not login into the game for a few months straight, tho that only works if like half of the playerbase does it.

I’d rather the specs be left alone even if that meant less balance, but I’m clearly in the minority on that. I’d much rather that dev time be spent on new content and only fix things that are obviously unintended like the one PoF ranger pet I mentioned or the brief period when thieves could do a bizillion damage by spamming some skill. I’ll take variety in build options over all this “balance” nerfing any day.

[VDAC.2137]

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

the changes over the past year to Chrono and Druid have made those specs undesirable to me nowThe game is not balanced for you (or for me). It has to work for the larger audience. Sometimes, the thing that we like are the overpowered aspects, so when those are nerfed, we feel it more.

I don't think anyone likes the changes for chrono and druid except the developers.Mesmer in general is pretty much bottom tier in every game mode except for mirage doing 45k on like 3 raid bosses due to confusion being an awful, awful, AWFUL designed condition.

Druid is pretty much just a tempest +1(barely) due to frost spirit only. Really boring.

So true. :'( Both boon Chrono and Druid already sacrificed their personal DPS supporting everyone else. These nerfs are not balancing and reduce fun for everyone, at least in PvE, which is all I play for a long time.

[Tiviana.2650]

I dont see how anyone can think its balanced when the meta exists. Thats not balanced that a few professions that hold all the cards making them top dog year in year out. Sorry but real balance is something you will never see, thats balance when all professions are viable for the same content. The problem of one class for game content as the chosen one is a bad design. people say they hate chrono jail well yes because they never designed variety in other classes to have builds to do that job. So the meta exists when you have a proff that is the only one that can do the job. It closes opportunity for other classes and it stagnates variety. Personally i think thats the games biggest flaw, its the narrow meta.

And im not just talking about mesmer, this is just a example. There are other meta classes, but for sake of a tldr i just mentioned this.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Shiyo.3578" said:I don't think anyone likes the changes for chrono and druid except the developers.This is the point I made above: people don't like nerfs to their favorite class or build. It's human nature

Good balance cannot possibly care about that. There's no way to get a game from "these two classes are must-haves in nearly any recommended scenario" to "these two classes are among many options that are highly effective," without a lot of players in the #feels-bad-man camp.

Mesmer in general is pretty much bottom tier in every game modeSnowCrows current benchmark has power chrono as #2 and #3 for small hitbox.

However, note that their definition of "bottom tier" is 25k DPS (bench, not necessarily in real time). That is still really good compared to where builds where back in the day. "Bottom tier" is a lot better than PvE needs it to be.

---

Again, I'm not claiming that ANet is good at balancing. Nor that the game is better balanced now (let alone well balanced at all).I'm saying: it's not as simple as we like to make it seem. Good balance doesn't look at how people feel about any single class or build. It has to consider the entire game, in all its modes, with all sorts of players.

For me, the only consideration is: can I find something I like playing that can perform efficiently. And the answer is: yeah, there are even more opportunities now than there used to be. (And yes, I'm also sad about particular builds and nerfs, some I'm still annoyed about that took place 5-6 years ago. I suffer from the same foibles as anyone; I have my favorites and I get attached to them, too.)