On casuals and access to hardcore information: as noted, you notice when the imbalance really hits, like being tossed from a group or getting rolled by Warlock. Our City of Heroes group was a mix with varying degrees of hardcore, so folks knew who to ask about things. Pete had three level 50 tanks, so ask him about that. Adam always know the most powerful things for every class, so ask him for a recommendation before rolling an alt; even if you have your heart set on Radiation, he can tell you which secondary will complement that for your playstyle. Zubon memorizes numbers effortlessly, so ask him about how the math works out. (Seriously, before Issue 5 changed them all, I literally knew every defense/resistance number in the game. I could have been using those neurons for something valuable!)

The problem is that balance changes like nerfs are applied to the most popular classes while the ones played the least often receive buffs. This just tends to encourage flavor of the month gaming as players change classes after each monthly patch. I think it would be better if developers adjusted class balanced based on real power rather then popularity.

As it is now most MMOs end up with classes which are overpowered because of constant buffing, but are never really popular because of things external to the gameplay. The one example that comes to mind is the warlock in World of Warcrat, which a lot of people don’t play because of the whole demon summoning thing. Yet if you ever run into one during PvP you can’t help but think they’ve been buffed a little too much.

Perfect example: Last time I played I was doing work, so would wait for a scenario to pop, jump in, play, win/lose and get back to work. We had a string of 3 solid wins in a row with a class mix. Started up a couple groups to keep the “team” going, as heck, we had it figured out and were on a roll.

The next three matches we got destroyed, with the same team that was busy doing the destroying in the previous matches. The first three matches- were we that good, or the other team that bad? The second three matches, did we play terrible or just meet better opponents? Who knows. Felt balanced though =)

Side note, the three matches we lost, there happened to be an abundance of Squig Herders (4-6) compared to the three we won, where there were only 1-3 each time. Surely this proves that Squid Herders are way overpowered and need to be nerfed, right now.

Ask over on the guild forums, I bet you get some better answers. Sometimes the best advice is literally: “take it easy and ENJOY the game”.

That comes from 4 years of playing World of GreedCraft

The casuals don’t read patch notes, min/max, or even know which class is FotM. Unless what they play is amazingly broken (pet classes during the PW for example), they won’t notice they are 5-10% less effective than others. They won’t quit or re-roll because in the last patch one of their heals got 10% weaker, because most likely they won’t really notice it’s weaker.

Also, about the PvE/PvP breakdown, in a PvE game you have limited group sizes (raid or instance), and you don’t want to bring along a ‘weak link’ to a tough encounter, so you exclude the gimped dwarf healer. Now that casual has a very direct, in their face ‘you suck’ brought to them. In RvR, the more the better, even if it is a sub-par dwarf healer. Better to get weak heals than no heals at all, right? Only in scenarios is the number of players limited, and everyone can queue for those, even gimped dwarves :)

I think this will be the case with WAR. They have basically said they aren’t going to do a lot of tweaking to characters because the intentionally made some classes weaker than others, but I don’t think that will take the fun out of playing a particular class or in WAR’s case, Career. It’s all in what you find fun basically. Not everyone wants to be the hard hitting tank that can last 10 minutes toe to toe, some people like playing glass cannons or squishy healers. I’m sure it there is a career that people just aren’t having any fun with or one that is way over powered, they will fix it no matter what their current company line is.

But as someone that has gone thru years of playing MMO’s, getting hit with the nerf bat is part of playing the game. You just wait for the foam to settle to see how hard they really hit you. I have a friend that has been playing a rogue in WoW. He keeps getting nerfed every time a new patch comes out…but he still plays the rogue and he still has fun.

It’s a game created for the enjoyment of the player. If you get nerfed or find yourself playing a weaker character than originally thought, then you just accept it or move on to another toon, as long as your still enjoying the game over all.