351 réponses à ce sujet

[doozerdude]

Bump for those complaining about Acolyte nerf.

[DullahansXMark]

Bump. It's needed today.

[Samihazah]

Bump for common sense.

[Titus Thongger]

this man speaks the truth!

[L. Han]

To keep people talking about the game. Can you imagine if there was no balance changes? The game would die pretty fast.

[ninjawannabe]

DullahansXMark wrote...

"You just don't like being outscored!"

"It's a co-op game!"

"Tckthuhuluwapphffffuputututu!" (which is a translation of the above into an ancient and forgotten language)

These are the common justifications as to why nothing should ever be nerfed. The co-op argument is, in the small picture, a valid point. Why should you want allies to be weaker? But, thing is, there's a much, much bigger picture here, which I'll go into detail on right now.

I. The character-by-character basis
To better illustrate this point, I'm gonna use an example:

You're playing your favorite co-op RPG shooter, Galaxy of Fantasy. At launch, you had the option to choose between (Ninja), or (Bandit). Both characters are equally viable selections, as they both served different roles, but one wasn't necessarily a better choice than the other: it was merely all about how you preferred to play the game. is really fast, and has really high defense. All's good. But one day, GoF introduces the (Copper) DLC! is REALLY strong. As a matter of fact, upon release, he's so strong, that he can literally nuke anything just by attacking it. Who needs to move fast, or have high defense, when you can literally kill anything without effort whatsoever? At this point, and are merely novelty characters, meaning they're fun to play around with, but when you actually need a character to do a serious mission with, you're gonna turn to . So now the GoF development team has two choices:

A) They can buff and to the levels of . This way, they're all on even terms.
They can nerf so that he's about on-par with and . Same results as above.

Problem with option A, is that if it's selected, the game will suddenly be easier now. Difficulty means nothing! Silver mode is now a cakewalk, and Gold requires so little effort. Platinum can be done if your team is mildly competent.

If they choose B, then not only do you now have three equally viable characters to choose from, but you also preserve the game's difficulty, and by extension, the way it was meant to be.


II. The power-by-power basis

Now that all three characters are just as good as one another, we can take a look at their individual powers. In particular, let's look at . He has the skills Poison Shurikens, Speed Boost, and Immolation, and his two passives. Poison Shurikens is a nice skill, as it adds on some awesome DoT effects. But Immolation is where it's at! That skill just does so much damage and debuffs enemies so bad, it's crazy! But look at Speed Boost. Only a 15% boost in movement speed for 5 seconds if I max it out? What? Screw that, I refuse to spec into a skill so worthless! So what do I, as a player, do? Spec him 6/0/6/6/6 of course. That's what everyone does. It's the best build for him.

The development team takes a look now. After assessing that Immolation's really powerful and Speed Boost is really weak, they now have two options:

A) Increase the power of Poison Shurikens and the speed bonus of Speed Boost to the competitive levels of Immolation.
Lower the power of Immolation to Poison Shurikens' level, and raise the potency of Speed Boost to Poison Shurikens' level.

The problem with option A, is that now is the more appealing option in comparison to and . Why take the balanced characters when I can take the one with three OP powers? And so balance will need to be re-issued.

If you take option B though, Immolation becomes a much less viable option, sure, but it's still a good skill, and a very handy one at that. Only now, has three good skills to choose from, making builds much harder to decide on, making individual players think about it themselves instead of consulting the internet for that "perfect build" for the character.


In short, balance is necessary for co-op games just as much as it is for PvP games. Why have options when one thing just destroys the viability of the other things? Balance. It's called that for a reason. Nobody's "out to get you" or "trying to ruin your fun". No, we're trying to help you, actually. Open up possibilities, and all that jazz. We all enjoy the game, and sometimes things need to be taken out of power. Nerfs are necessary, just as buffs are. That's the double-edged sword of competitive balance.

Balancing weapons/characters and nerfing them are two different things.  Balancing weapons/characters means that every one of them is useful in there own strategic way.  Nerfing is of course when you weaken a character or weapon to the point where they're about as useful in combat as a kid with a Nerf gun (hense the term 'Nerfing') 

[joker_jack]

Rickets wrote...

To keep people talking about the game. Can you imagine if there was no balance changes? The game would die pretty fast.

It already heading there fast. You'll notice they are trying to do everything to not do a patch. Why do you think they are trying to comp these broken classes? 

EA is seeing deminishing returns on the mp at this late stage. It's suprising it lasted as long as it did. Look how many other games have and will come that people will flock too. 

Time to enjoy what is left of the game as the cycle windes down. Though we will stil havel a*******s who can't enjoy it and will ruin it for the rest of us. Happens in every mp after a certain amount of time. 

[greghorvath]

DullahansXMark wrote...

"You just don't like being outscored!"

"It's a co-op game!"

"Tckthuhuluwapphffffuputututu!" (which is a translation of the above into an ancient and forgotten language)

These are the common justifications as to why nothing should ever be nerfed. The co-op argument is, in the small picture, a valid point. Why should you want allies to be weaker? But, thing is, there's a much, much bigger picture here, which I'll go into detail on right now.

I. The character-by-character basis
To better illustrate this point, I'm gonna use an example:

You're playing your favorite co-op RPG shooter, Galaxy of Fantasy. At launch, you had the option to choose between (Ninja), or (Bandit). Both characters are equally viable selections, as they both served different roles, but one wasn't necessarily a better choice than the other: it was merely all about how you preferred to play the game. is really fast, and has really high defense. All's good. But one day, GoF introduces the (Copper) DLC! is REALLY strong. As a matter of fact, upon release, he's so strong, that he can literally nuke anything just by attacking it. Who needs to move fast, or have high defense, when you can literally kill anything without effort whatsoever? At this point, and are merely novelty characters, meaning they're fun to play around with, but when you actually need a character to do a serious mission with, you're gonna turn to . So now the GoF development team has two choices:

A) They can buff and to the levels of . This way, they're all on even terms.
They can nerf so that he's about on-par with and . Same results as above.

Problem with option A, is that if it's selected, the game will suddenly be easier now. Difficulty means nothing! Silver mode is now a cakewalk, and Gold requires so little effort. Platinum can be done if your team is mildly competent.

If they choose B, then not only do you now have three equally viable characters to choose from, but you also preserve the game's difficulty, and by extension, the way it was meant to be.


II. The power-by-power basis

Now that all three characters are just as good as one another, we can take a look at their individual powers. In particular, let's look at . He has the skills Poison Shurikens, Speed Boost, and Immolation, and his two passives. Poison Shurikens is a nice skill, as it adds on some awesome DoT effects. But Immolation is where it's at! That skill just does so much damage and debuffs enemies so bad, it's crazy! But look at Speed Boost. Only a 15% boost in movement speed for 5 seconds if I max it out? What? Screw that, I refuse to spec into a skill so worthless! So what do I, as a player, do? Spec him 6/0/6/6/6 of course. That's what everyone does. It's the best build for him.

The development team takes a look now. After assessing that Immolation's really powerful and Speed Boost is really weak, they now have two options:

A) Increase the power of Poison Shurikens and the speed bonus of Speed Boost to the competitive levels of Immolation.
Lower the power of Immolation to Poison Shurikens' level, and raise the potency of Speed Boost to Poison Shurikens' level.

The problem with option A, is that now is the more appealing option in comparison to and . Why take the balanced characters when I can take the one with three OP powers? And so balance will need to be re-issued.

If you take option B though, Immolation becomes a much less viable option, sure, but it's still a good skill, and a very handy one at that. Only now, has three good skills to choose from, making builds much harder to decide on, making individual players think about it themselves instead of consulting the internet for that "perfect build" for the character.


In short, balance is necessary for co-op games just as much as it is for PvP games. Why have options when one thing just destroys the viability of the other things? Balance. It's called that for a reason. Nobody's "out to get you" or "trying to ruin your fun". No, we're trying to help you, actually. Open up possibilities, and all that jazz. We all enjoy the game, and sometimes things need to be taken out of power. Nerfs are necessary, just as buffs are. That's the double-edged sword of competitive balance.

I missed out on this excellent post and thread when it was first made and there was probably lots of development in the following pages, all of which I am admittedly too much of a ****head to actually read.

1. The examples are pretty nice, but as IRL, your theoretical problems could have been avoided with pre-release testing. Omitting it results in a world of (butt)hurt, to which the BSN is the living, breathing evidence.
2. BW is a team of professionals. They exist now under the wings of one of the most successful companies in the gaming industry. Yet, they still decide to release characters like the turian ghost, or weapons like the krysae, which were sickeningly op, as I am sure was noticed by someone in said team of pros. Why were they still released? I can only tell you my theory. It is to keep people engaged. Not only by playing the game, but by the illusion that Average Joe has a say in game development. The strategy is undeniably successful. Look at how vibrant the BSN still is after 9 months. There was no worthwile content added until earth (different weapon designs and classes with the same array of powers is not worthwhile content), and look how we are still here, debating on things that do not actually make any difference.

What we are looking at is an extremely successful experiment. Do not fool yourself with thinking "you are trying to help". You are participating in a farce. 

Modifié par greghorvath, 10 décembre 2012 - 05:53 .

[HLake]

Well said. I'd like to add that "buffing all the things" can lead to huge problems on general balance: if you make the game easier than it's meant to be (remember that if anyone can just own gold in ten minutes, credits are worth less and less people will buy packs with real money, also meaning that the $$$ investment is less actractive and all the Balance team just gets sent somewhere else), you will want to rebalance the difficulty of A LOT of stuff.

Like all enemy damage, all enemy HP, and teh like, leading to huge amount of testings that COST MONEY.

It's a lot easier and less resource consuming to just nerf a single thing rather than having to change everything. We gamers might not like this, but it's how the real world works.

However, i still don't understand a lot of balance changes that were made, but i still have fun playing the game, so whatever...

[SuperChockenWuss]

Delta_V2 wrote...

DullahansXMark wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

I have nothing against balancing characters and guns, but there were a couple that are questionable

I agree. Sometimes things are taken too far. But the Destroyer nerf, for example, was fine. A slight mechanics change would fix everything that people had an issue with before (turning two-shottys into three-shottys, stuff like that), but a 60% extra clip size was just too much.

I still have an issue with nerfing a character because it was supposedly too powerful when there are already more powerful classes on the table.  And before anyone says anything, I don't think the GI or TGI really need to be nerfed.

Some nerfs are necessary, like the first Krysae nerf (though I feel the second went too far) and undoing the Piranha buff.  Those weapons were so powerful in the hands of a GI that a halfway decent player could render the game a cakewalk and leave their teammates with nothing to do.  However, I don't think any glaring problems exist today.  I have no problem going point for point with the typical GI and TGI players you find in lobbies.

who cares about going point for point, its not a competetive game, why work against each other when you can work together:wizard:

[DullahansXMark]

SuperChockenWuss wrote...

Delta_V2 wrote...

DullahansXMark wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

I have nothing against balancing characters and guns, but there were a couple that are questionable

I agree. Sometimes things are taken too far. But the Destroyer nerf, for example, was fine. A slight mechanics change would fix everything that people had an issue with before (turning two-shottys into three-shottys, stuff like that), but a 60% extra clip size was just too much.

I still have an issue with nerfing a character because it was supposedly too powerful when there are already more powerful classes on the table.  And before anyone says anything, I don't think the GI or TGI really need to be nerfed.

Some nerfs are necessary, like the first Krysae nerf (though I feel the second went too far) and undoing the Piranha buff.  Those weapons were so powerful in the hands of a GI that a halfway decent player could render the game a cakewalk and leave their teammates with nothing to do.  However, I don't think any glaring problems exist today.  I have no problem going point for point with the typical GI and TGI players you find in lobbies.

who cares about going point for point, its not a competetive game, why work against each other when you can work together:wizard:

It's not a matter of competition, it's a matter of personal selection. Sure, the and are fun to use, but if you're gonna be playing serious, you'll be wanting the because he's simply just better. Why not make the and viable options without harming the game's challenge?

[DullahansXMark]

HLake wrote...

Well said. I'd like to add that "buffing all the things" can lead to huge problems on general balance: if you make the game easier than it's meant to be (remember that if anyone can just own gold in ten minutes, credits are worth less and less people will buy packs with real money, also meaning that the $$$ investment is less actractive and all the Balance team just gets sent somewhere else), you will want to rebalance the difficulty of A LOT of stuff.

Like all enemy damage, all enemy HP, and teh like, leading to huge amount of testings that COST MONEY.

It's a lot easier and less resource consuming to just nerf a single thing rather than having to change everything. We gamers might not like this, but it's how the real world works.

However, i still don't understand a lot of balance changes that were made, but i still have fun playing the game, so whatever...

Well said. To add on to this, you know what happens when the "Buff everything!" crowd gets their way? The game becomes too easy. Then people will complain about that. So the devs would buff the enemies. However, what ends up happening is that then the enemies are simply cheapened to the point where no one wants to play anymore. It sucks to lose a competitive edge that you've grown used to relying on, but sometimes it just has to go.

[GCTR]

I guess someone outscored you so bad so you came and make this threat to try to nef something and explain it noob-wise

[Zero132132]

GCRT wrote...

I guess someone outscored you so bad so you came and make this threat to try to nef something and explain it noob-wise

...what?

[ABjerre]

While it explains 2 cases very well, the OP is a gross simplification. The game is not that simple, and the examples can not justify some peoples desire to twist the game into what they find more entertaining.

Take in to account a variety of 6 classes with 11 sub classes, all with 3 active powers that can be specced 6 different ways (assuming full points in each) on top of 2 passive, enemies with health, shields, barriers and armor - and any combination of them.

Add to that all possible scenarios a team of any combination of 4 characters can encounter on 4 different difficulties - both factoring in team synergy and innate weakness or strenghts towards sertain enemies.

Edit:
Just to clarify, i really dont care about the individual balance between characters or weapons. I used the Krysae on my Quarian Infiltrator when it came out because it was fun. For a while. I used the Piranha when that first came out because it was fun. For a while. After said while, and before they were both nerfed, i stopped using either because in the long run, i dont think it is a lot of fun to rip everything up instantly. I never complained about them and i dont complain about others using them. Not even if they are "in ma games, stealin ma killz" - if anyhting, i just find it more enjoyable getting a higher score with a "lesser" weapon.

In all this, what annoys me, is why some people think that they have some right to be complaining over somehting they find disruptive while others find the same thing enjoyable. More specifically, why they think that they are right and others are wrong.

I simply cannot understand why someone feel entitled to complaining over, and demanding ajustments to me made to the game because they find it annoying that someone else in another match is using a class/weapon/skill that they deem "overpowered".

Modifié par ABjerre, 05 janvier 2013 - 05:01 .

[krknight]

why can't i missile glitch? it's a co-op game ffs.

[ABjerre]

krknight wrote...

why can't i missile glitch? it's a co-op game ffs.

I am guessing that would be a matter between you and BioWare and EA. Its not my profit from micro transactions thats getting hurt due to it.

[krknight]

ABjerre wrote...

krknight wrote...

why can't i missile glitch? it's a co-op game ffs.

I am guessing that would be a matter between you and BioWare and EA. Its not my profit from micro transactions thats getting hurt due to it.

yeah, but all these nerfherders who take away all my fun.

[CitizenThom]

nerfers can go self-gratify.

[krknight]

CitizenThom wrote...

nerfers can go self-gratify.

yeah, who needs them when i gots my OP missile glitch build.

[CitizenThom]

krknight wrote...

CitizenThom wrote...

nerfers can go self-gratify.

yeah, who needs them when i gots my OP missile glitch build.

And nerfing the cobra missle really hit those missle glitchers hard. As always, the nerf target doesn't get affected, people who use cobra missles legitamately are the only ones affected by the nerf. Brilliant job nerfer.

[krknight]

yeah, i can't beat platinum now because they nerfed the missile glitch. it's actually hard now.

[DullahansXMark]

To re-clarify, I don't think everything should be nerfed. That's not the answer to balancing the game. It's a steady mix of nerfing and buffing that helps this game reach that state.

I'm generally against threads that call something out hoping for a nerf. Whereas I'm usually backing the threads that ask for a buff. If something is too powerful, BioWare would find out pretty quickly--whereas if something is underperforming, it'd be a lot harder for BioWare to find out.

[Bhatair]

That was long winded?