But you run the same risks of making an “oops” when you Nerf a particular class. Say you go and change the way some class defining skill works, in PvE because in PvP it is getting alot of complaints (or vice versa), and in the process you break that class defining skill for PvE AND PvP.

They can no more predict the far reaching changes a Nerf on one class might have than they can an improvement in another class (well if the design teams would get their heads removed from their nether regions they could..but I digress).

Nicodemus has a good point that the game SHOULD be balanced when it is released, unfortunately the developers at this point and time really have no say in the matter if they want to keep getting any funding from their publisher. So they rush their game out well before it should be, and it ends up unbalanced and missing features (features that are occasionally on the box..but not in game when you buy it).

This isn’t a restricted to just MMOG’s either. In the last 6 months almost every single PC game that I can think of has had a patch released either BEFORE the game even hits the shelf or less than a week after. If that doesn’t scream rushed I don’t know what does. If you have to release a patch to fix a broken game before it even hits store shelves..you shouldn’t have released the bloody thing.

PS I like City of Heroes. My biggest beef with them is that I cant run around in CoH with my bad guy from CoV.

There is a dramatic difference between “balancing” and “nerfing”. Balancing is the implementation of minor adjustments and tweaks. This is perfectly fine, and should be done.

Nerfing on the other hand, is dramatic, and has broad effects, usually detrimental in one or more ways. Nerfing is the result of lazy designers and developers, games that are rushed to market by the publishers/marketers, and lack of thorough testing and play testing.

Part of my complaint here, is that nerfing occurs after the game has been released, and in some cases a lot of time since launch has passed. The problems that led to the nerf should have been dealt with early in the design stages, or if it was overlooked by an inexperienced MMO team (quite common), it should have been discovered during internal alpha testing, or in beta testing (especially during latter beta stages).

Balancing makes things even, streamlined, efficient, and appropriate within the context of the world game and mythos. Nerfing is more like surgery with a spork.

I also don’t think that player ingenuity should be penalized. I am sure that when Grog figured out that he could put a sharp rock at the end of a stick and then throw it to kill the wooley mammoth, all the other guys (Oog, Narl, Keel, and Vunk) that were still using clubs were upset and felt that Grog had an unfair advantage. But Grog doesn’t deserve getting his eyes poked out and his legs broken to make things even.

This gets back to the game world though. Developers use the excuse “well, we didn’t see THAT coming, and we didn’t expect users to do x y and z, so we will have to nerf that whole thing now”. I think this is baloney.

Either the player was smart enough to come up with some strategy or combination that is logical, works within the confines of the system and is powerful, or there is some oversight in either the design or implementation. In the first case, things should be left as is. Sometimes some people are more powerful or smarter than others. That is the way things should be (side note, read “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut if you think that everyone should be equal).

I dunno. I guess what I am trying to say is that there should never be a need for nerfing to occur, and there should absolutely never be a cause for repeated nerfing to happen over the life cycle of a game. If the design is clean, tight, and tested, only minimal balancing will be needed. If the design is haphazard, fragmented, bloated, and done quickly, then expect a lot of changes, bugs, and nerfs.

It is time for the MMO industry to adopt the same best practices and methodologies used in other industries for design and development. Just because you can patch an MMO at will doesn’t mean they should need to be patched often.

In general: nice essay, Nicodemus. You are so right.

Point taken.

However, if he understood that an MMO is not a static environment, then he wouldn’t have advocated for the developer to release a game and leave skills untouched.

The problem of making other classes more powerful to “match up” to an uber powerful class is that it’s difficult to predict what such widescale actions would do to game balance as a whole. Like a scientific experiement, it’s easier to change just one variable in order to make predictions as to what will occur in practice. In this case, the “one variable” is the class that gets nerfed.

“Maybe you think I’m making excuses for players’ lack of skill, but that isn’t it. If a certain spell, skill, or class is overpowered because a bunch of people have figured out a way to make it nearly invincible, then it should be nerfed. I’m talking about situations in which other players have found no equivalent way to match or counter such tactics. In this case, there will be a large number of players who are at a disadvantage and they will enjoy the game less. An MMO developer generally works towards the enjoyment of the most number of people.”

Again why not simply improve those other classes instead of nerfing one class…and destroying the time and fun invested by those people. In the same amount of time they take to develop a nerf for one class they could improve another class, release those improvements in an update, and move on to another class to improve. All it does is take a little more time.

“Maybe it’s not fair to the people who have developed those skills. I understand that point of view. However, good game designers know that games must be balanced for an enjoyable play experience.”

Again he hasn’t said the game shouldn’t be balnced, but why should it be balanced by Nerfing instead of improving?

From my own observations in various games the biggest catalyst for Nerfing is PvP. It is VERY hard to balance for PvE and PvP what works fine in PvE can end up being too powerful in PvP, and suddenly a class that works fine for a lot of people who don’t do PvP is at the top of the Nerf list. I’ve honestly begun to think the only way the two can be balanced together is if they are treated as completely different games with entirely different rule sets for spells and equipment, but no developer has been brave enough to really take that out to it’s fullest extent. Anarchy online tried but failed (don’t do as much dmg to plaers, nanos work differently etc. ) it doesn’t help that their game engine is ollllld and mass PvP turns into a bit of a cluster. I think their next expansion is going to take it even farther though as they are introducing whole new PvP (Mechs witch can completely change your stats depending on what mech you have). that way they can start balancing the PvP with a completely different ruleset (I hope anyway)

An MMO is not a static world, filled with static and unchanging players who use the same strategies over and over again. In an MMO there are certain things that you can design at the very start, but until the game is implemented amongst and used by the players, designers are never completely aware of emergent techniques that players develop in order to use their classes to the fullest, sometimes to the detriment of enjoyment by other players.

Maybe you think I’m making excuses for players’ lack of skill, but that isn’t it. If a certain spell, skill, or class is overpowered because a bunch of people have figured out a way to make it nearly invincible, then it should be nerfed. I’m talking about situations in which other players have found no equivalent way to match or counter such tactics. In this case, there will be a large number of players who are at a disadvantage and they will enjoy the game less. An MMO developer generally works towards the enjoyment of the most number of people.

Maybe it’s not fair to the people who have developed those skills. I understand that point of view. However, good game designers know that games must be balanced for an enjoyable play experience. If you make a mission too hard or too easy, the experience is either frustrating or boring. If you give too much power to a certain skill or class, then the experience becomes a tool to abuse other players or gain unfair advantage.

At any rate, the point of my argument is that an MMO is not a static world, and no one should expect a developer to take into account all the creativity and the shrewdness that the players are capable of. If you wanted a static world where skills don’t get nerfed and the game is never rebalanced, then there are plenty of console RPGs to play.