Game balance is an ongoing and dynamic process. It is often the case that in systems as complex as large-scale MMO games actions have unintended consequences once they interact with other actions in the game world. Though i think your frustrations are shared by essentially everyone who has ever played an MMO, I think "nerf day" is a necessary evil. If you want to maintain a balanced game environment you may need to make retroactive changes to items and abilities within the game world. Further, I think that expecting a dev to be able to anticipate every possible change that will need to be made is, sadly, a pipe dream. It just isn't possible.
I think nerfs are here to stay.
I think what Castwell was meaning was that new areas often have high drop rates of "rare" items at first, but those drop rates become much lower after a certain time. If through nerf (or "adjustment"). So the first players who reach that content enjoy high drop rates and get all "the good stuff (tm)", while the late comers have a much harder time getting the same items. This may be done to entice people to try the new content, but I totally agree that this should not happen. Same chances for everyone is what I hope for in Pantheon.
Out of curiousity, Does anyone know what the beta testing is like for expansions? I know one of the things we have talked about quite a bit on the forums here is how beta testing will allow for learning about the balancing of classes, items, skills, etc. I have never heard about how this is done for expansions. I would imagine the amount of people in the beta testing for expansions is a lot smaller and the amount of time less resulting in more balancing issues.
That's all fair. To be honest, I don't have the slightest clue how things work in modern EQ, but Verant's EQ didn't put items and abilities in the game with the INTENTION of nerfing them later. It was just a side effect of unforseen consequences. I would imagine any new project that Brad is involved with would operate similarly.
The EQ1 team doesn't put items and abilities in the game with the intention of nerfing them later, they do a lot of stupid crap but most of the nerfs are due to unintended consequences, goof ups on itemization, broken mechanics, etc. Unfortunately it sometimes has to happen. DBG's Q&A team is gone or almost completely gone, they rarely have time to act on any of the feedback we provide during beta testing or live, it's unfortunately the drawback of having such a small development team.
This is where having a large pool of quality testers can help greatly. I'm guessing Sony only has a small in-house group of 'testers' going through new content and such a group is inadequate to truly do anything other than surface testing. Hopefully VR will be paying attention to the testers and making notes about the quality of their testing so later on when expansions come out those players can be called upon to provide thorough testing.
Vandraad said:This is where having a large pool of quality testers can help greatly. I'm guessing Sony only has a small in-house group of 'testers' going through new content and such a group is inadequate to truly do anything other than surface testing. Hopefully VR will be paying attention to the testers and making notes about the quality of their testing so later on when expansions come out those players can be called upon to provide thorough testing.
Well, for one thing its not Sony anymore. They sold to some Russian venture capitalist who seems to be milking it for access to hard currency.
Mekada said:Romulus said:Well, for one thing its not Sony anymore. They sold to some Russian venture capitalist who seems to be milking it for access to hard currency.
Colombus Nova is an american group, no? Where did you get that it's Russian?
Interesting. Someone had told me that. Doesnt seem like Russians lol. I will check that out.
From Wiki - Columbus Nova is the U.S.-based affiliate of the Renova Group of companies, one of the largest Russian strategic investors in the metallurgical, oil, machine engineering, mining, chemical, construction, housing, utilities and financial sectors.
Honestly I haven't kept up with Day Break Games news stuff to even know this til now. I knew they split off from Sony and made their own company, but that was it.
As far as nerf days, what I've seen happen with almost all expansions in mmo's is that respawn and drop rates are up pretty high at release to accomidate all of the players, but then gets lowered once the main population is through with it. This would give way to high end players having an easier time to get rare loot as well. But you don't want those fast respawn rates forever, or players going through the content later on will get overwhelmed. Just as you don't want the respawn rates at a normal level for release or there won't be enough mobs for the player base.
skribe said:That's all fair. To be honest, I don't have the slightest clue how things work in modern EQ, but Verant's EQ didn't put items and abilities in the game with the INTENTION of nerfing them later. It was just a side effect of unforseen consequences. I would imagine any new project that Brad is involved with would operate similarly.
Agreed -- by no means would be make an item with the intention to nerf it later.
But, as some others have mentioned, MMOs are complex, we are only human, and we will make mistakes. We don't want to nerf, we know people don't enjoy nerfs, but we also know this: leaving something broken or seriously imbalanced in the game hurts the integrity of the entire game and makes a worse game for everyone. I would rather upset a few people who got a broken item then leave it in and eventually negatively impact the fun of the entire community.
I have no idea actually really what a 'nerf day' is. If we find something broken, and it's severe, we'll bring down the servers and fix it. If it's not as severe, we may wait for a scheduled update or something.
Aradune said:Hieromonk said:
Thanks :) I am very familar with what nerfing means, have done it many times, have received the hate mail and nasty posts :)
I'm just not as familar with 'nerf day' -- is this just a game update with a bunch of nerfs implemented all at once?
Yeah, usually the first big patch day after launch of the new expansion. A month or so after the launch. It fixes a bunch of stuff but it also stealth nerfs the drop rates, named spawn rates, and depending on how conspiratorial you are experience rates, your skills and stats and dps etc.