It has become an mmo industry standard to til the soil every 3 months with a slew of arbitrary nerfs that completely undermine all player progress in the game but simultaneously release a list of equally arbitrary buffs that serve to distract the player base with a new shiny carrot. Once a year, when the mechanical foundation of the game resembles a dry-rotted rubberband, the developers announce a complete system overhaul to "fix" the game. This results in a mad rush of disenfranchised players flooding back to the game to join the sisyphean trudge just in time to have their head counted before quarters end. As a learned side-effect from this system, players flock to the forums like seagulls to a sandwich. They post about their favorite nerf and buff ideas in the hopes that the three month catastrophe skips over their house.
After the recent Community Streamers playthrough of the Fortress of DeViare there has been a lot of buzz in the forum community about nerfing rogue based on its performance in the video. And while that discussion can be a robust topic all on its own, I wonder about Pantheons response to the general clamor for knee jerk nerfs. What kind of frequency can we expect from nerfs? Will they be doled out reluctantly or frequently? How do you the community feel about a world whose intrinsic value is constantly changing? Is Pantheon's Dev team actively trying to avoid the situation in the first paragraph? What can we all do to avoid it?
I feel like the world of Pantheon can't maintain the intended scope and wonder and meaning if the value of the world is constantly being upended. Moss can't grow on a rolling stone.
-Gottbeard-
Happens in a lot of games because hubris prevents learning from history, and iterating meaningfully with the community requires different tools, a lot of effort, or both.
I fully expect the nerf-buff cycle to continue even stronger in Pantheon, given the public design goals revealed thus far and MMO history since 1995.
1) Don't strive for some unobtainable 'ultimate balance'. People are going to play classes even if they are not "the best"
2) You can modify a class power structure when you increase level cap and add new abilities. You don't have to change existing stuff unless it's way out of wack.
3) It also depends on how much the game is based around specing out characters. If the power is really tied to the base abilities and not necessary decisions made by players, you can always make small tweaks to the abilities without causing players to feel like the class has completely changed due to rerolling.
4) Have a long testing cycle, which is something Brad believed in.
Seeing as how we are still in pre-alpha with only a couple of classes in action at that moment (and some without their full toolkits), the tuning of classes will be an ongoing task all the way through launch. I wouldn't read too much into a lot of talk about nerfs or buffs at this point. It is a part of the sausage-making process.
Chogar said:As to the devs preventing Rogues from Crowd Controlling... I do not see that happening at this time.
I see nothing but change happening at this time. Classes are still being fleshed out. Once we get into Alpha we can expect huge swings in effectiveness of various abilities across all the classes, maybe even abilities added or removed. Class balance is one of the major reasons to do an Alpha. They're not likely to remove rogue CC but they might tone it down a lot, might buff enchanter in other areas if their CC is roughly equivalent, might do a whole lot of things we can't even predict yet.
As for the buff/nerf Circus of Fail at release... who knows? VR has said that they're not super concerned about class balance so much as how fun each class is to play which might mean they don't plan to keep pulling the rug out from under us post-launch. We all know that imbalance will relegate even a super fun class to the sidelines in raid guilds if their group slot is better used on a different class. VR might change their minds about class balance if they see some classes consistently underrepresented in raids.
It's all a giant ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, wait and see
If it turns out that Rogues are top dps and also can lock down 2-3 mobs all at the same time, it may not be such a bad idea to reduce some of that CC ability and spread it to other classes so they get invited to groups. If there is a wizard for example that just brings high dps and then also a rogue that brings in high dps and cc, then why have a wizard at all? Its going to be a very fine balancing act to spread skills and abilities in such a way that people will want many different classes to be in their groups and that group makeup will be successful.
Still way too early to be calling for no nerfs when the classes are still so fluid and still baking and what we are seeing now is no where near the finished product.
Given the work I have seen from VR on thinking and planning ahead, I do not see a post launch nerf cycle, common to other games. My own feelings is this might be more an issue on pvp servers. Class balance in pvp is a different animal. I was impressed with Minus' Rogue play and Bazgrim's and Roenick's Shaman play. I'm hoping each class has a good main focus and a secondary ability much like what we saw from the Rogue and Shaman. There was good healing and damage/buffing/debuffing going on with those Shaman. Those happen to be two classes I am very interested in, but I also will try Cleric and Druid. I also don't see people calling for Rogue nerfs at this time having a leg to stand on. We're in Pre-Alpha. We haven't seen VR's plans in anything like a full blown state. I think VR knows the world they want to make and from everything they've said they will not compromise their vision even to attract investors, I don't see them doing it for some whiners on forums.
Getting something right first time when that something is as huge and complex as an MMORPG must surely be near impossible. It takes hundreds or thousands of people actually playing to get a decent idea of how something that complex really works.
If you want to look at it as nerfs and buffs *shrug* that's up to you I guess.
Me, I have happily coped with balancing, fixes and improvements in many of the games I've played over the years.
As someone who doesn't obsess about my gear, stats or abilities, I literally can't recall a single problem with it.
If you think devs are *intentionally* making major unnecessary changes simply to maintain interest then I understand some concern, but I don't see why we would assume that of VR. I also can't remember this from another company, but maybe, as I say, I've just never been that deeply concerned with that level of detail.
TL;DR: Nothing I've heard from VR would suggest this might be an issue. They appear very deeply thoughtful about the game and, though currently focused on developing core systems, they have often referred to valuing and lookin forward to getting players testing the game so they can balance it.
Deathwish said:If it turns out that Rogues are top dps and also can lock down 2-3 mobs all at the same time, ...
This (bolded part) is not the case, since the rogue cannot dps while keeping multiple mobs stunned/mezed. Their stun/mez depends on their combat resource (opportunity), which they can only build up slowly during combat. In order to repeatedly stun multiple mobs, they have to stay out of combat in stealth, which causes opportunity to regenerate over time (but only with maxed out mastery for stealth!). I think it would be really helpful if the next streams could limit the amount of mastery points to what's realistic for a given level. Then we could see better how the spent points affect the effectiveness of a class.
Regarding the topic: I hope that the alpha and beta phases are long enough that enough balance data can be collected, and balance can be adjusted if neccessary. In production, changes to class balance should be rare and only happen if some game-breaking problem was found.
If you could plan for stability you wouldn't have patches at all.
Anyone watching pre alpha thinking there will be balance are out of their minds. There won't be balance any time soon. They have not even made all the classes yet. Pre Alpha is like "whose line is it anyway"
While I agree with the OP's basic point that it is not a good idea to constantly change things around for the sake of making changes - I also note that it *is* a good idea to keep an eye on things and make changes periodically when you see that things aren't working as intended. Or even if things are working as intended but too many of your customers do not like the results.
One reason for excessive changes in many MMOs is the accursed in-game store. Not just the obvious - the desire to sell "premium" races and classes. But the endemic developer focus on "whales" many of whom spend large amounts to be better at pvp, raiding or both. So it often seems that the developers care about little other than what high-end raiders or pvp players (depending on the game) want and frequently rebalance things that are working fine for everyone else if they do not work perfectly for high tier pvp or raids.
All Gods willing this is one area where the focus on grouping not raiding or solo, the pve emphasis, and the lack of an in-game store (at worst a store limited to cosmetics) will save us from some of the excesses of other MMOs.
Of course we're going to see a never ending cycle of nerfs, adjustments, overfixes that then fixed again, etc because it's the nature of the MMO world. Also, VR is, as they love to say over and over, is a small team. That means few people wearing lots of different hats and because of that far more things will slip through the cracks. Oh, sure, some Alpha testers will diligently put in bug reports but many more will seek out exploits and keep them for future use. Then there are the times, many times in fact, when developers just don't want to hear the feedback about a particular mechanic, or item, or spell or ability thinking that how they created it was just fine...only to find out later the testers were right.
Trivia time! The term NERF is actually from an early 1970's toy line of foam sports gear (footballs, baseballs, etc) that you could play with inside the house. The word NERF stood for Never Ever Ruins Furniture.
I think they'll find a good balance between the classes by full game launch, maybe make a little tweak here and there to refine things as they're further tested. Imo they've been very thoughful with everything so far and for such a big issue like class balance I have faith they're not going to boom meta swap after they've got it largely sorted like I know a lot of other games do (very fair concern imo!). Pre alpha a super volatile stage of devleopment i would guess, so we might see big changes in the short term, many classes still not playable so can't even measure what to balance hehe. Still, good problem area to be aware of and some fun discussion in here! :D
A couple anecdotes...
The devs of the first MMO I played liked to talk about how mcuh they loved and listened to their community, how constructive feedback would be taken into account. However, despite thorough evidence from rigorous testing by the community the devs would still ignore that and nerf/buff in exactly the wrong way. This was proven out over and over again yet nothing ever changed for the better.
Another MMO I spent far too long playing would sometimes ask for feedback but usually would just react to whatever was going on in the forums, nerfing and buffing based on tears from favored classes. All this in direct conflict with what others were saying. Never did the devs do their own testing and number crunching to come up with appropriate changes. Often a class would get buffed to ridiculous levels just because the dev making the changes loved that class and convinced the rest of their team it was the right thing to do.
Other MMOs had similar though less dramatic histories but every last one would drop nerfs and buffs where they didn't belong instead of fixing core mechanics and algorithms. VR is none of these companies and deserves the benefit of the doubt when they say they want to avoid all of this. But we should also be wary. One or two nerf/buff-happy game companies does not a pattern make. But when 100% of them do it there's probably a pattern, and one that may be impossible for VR to avoid.
This game is not designed for all classes to be "balanced" against each other. It is rock, paper, scissors. Some classes will be great at some things and not so great at others, while others will be great at other things and maybe not others. This isnt a pvp game so worrying about classes being balanced with each other shouldnt really be a concern. Just pick the class that you enjoy and play it, and let others play and enjoy their class. Not a difficult concept in my opinion.
I think there is a massive difference between Pantheon and other MMO's. Pantheon is still under development. It's still in Pre Alpha meaning classes still need to be adjusted and tweaked. This process wont stop until launch most likely. Nerfing the rogue CC in a pre alpha stage MMO is wildly different than nerfing a rogue in a final/complete MMO that has 6 months to a year of play time. It's not just classes that are going to go through iterations and changes, but this entire game will have tweaks and adjustments along the way during development. I wouldn't call a class adjustment a nerf until release.
Great respones everyone. Just to clarify some points in an effort to streamline the discussion. Firstly, It was not my intention to have the discussion become entangled with the iteration process of pre-alpha. This is more a call to discussion on the post launch modus operandi regarding the frequency of mechanical changes within the game.
And secondly, I am not campaigning for a world with no balance changes. I am calling on a discussion for the frequency and scope of balance changes post launch.
Thanks everyone, looking forward to reading more responses.
-Gottbeard-
Balancing will always be a needed process for any live game undergoing continuous updates. Once the game enters its launch and post-launch state the frequency of tuning is really just going to depend on what issues need to be addressed.
I don't care how often balance changes occur as long as the balance changes occur when needed and don't completely invalidate classes from their intended role or just content in general. I would also say that when possible I think that buffing other classes or the environment is the way to go instead of choosing to heavily nerf a class. The thing with Pantheon is that that there is also the concept of trade-offs, so when something needs to be nerfed the tradeoff aspect is something that could be evaluated and tunned.
Personally, I don't think it is healthy to create a situation of seasonality either intentionally or unintentionally when performing balance changes. Classes should be designed with a specific niche in mind for group content and any balancing done should reflect and promote this concept of class dependency. For example, if one class drastically steps out of its role and starts heavily infringing on another class's niche some kind of balance change needs to happen by either buffing the other class or somehow nerfing the one that is infringing.
Can you call something a NERF when the game is currently in PreAlpha?
I imagine they will look at a ton of information when Alpha and Beta happens to finetune the various classes. If youre looking at PreAlpha videos for how any class performs (be it good or bad) youre just being silly.
This has to be the most underrated post ever. It has been a long standing history that Devs dont think past pen and paper. Nerf's not only hurt game play but also hurt the player base. It seems nobody can really sit down and imagine what it would be like in a world of spending hundreds of hours prefecting your character then the very next day you find out your cut in half.
DO the math Devs, dont allow for wild changes 5-10 yrs down the road.
One of the worst ones, Stats, opps forgot we have no room for improvements... Items, gave too much.... 2 top end MMOs of all time both did it.
What did they both do? /nerf everyone