Why you shouldn't nerf in ARPGS

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CliveHowlitzer wrote:

You don't quite understand how game design works. In a long running game like Path of Exile, balance changes WILL be made. You are just going to have to learn to live with it. If you think it is fine to just leave everything as is, you'll eventually succumb to power creep and a broken mess of a game.
You also talk about how PoE isn't competitive at all, but it definitely has a competitive edge to it, especially when the race seasons are ongoing.
You also speak of just saying if skills are underpowered, people should just use the overpowered ones instead. Why should they? What if they would like to make a build revolving around one of those underpowered moves?

Anyway, long story short, balance changes have to happen. It is also always better to bring very powerful abilities in line with lesser ones, rather than buffing everything to the sky. Otherwise you just end up with a cycle of buffing moves, buffing monsters, buffing moves, over and over again.

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NotRegret wrote:

When this game first started in open beta shock nova dealt like 4x5 times the damage it did now, had no dead zone, and a much larger aoe. It was like todays discharge but you could get the gem just from killing hillock. No other spell compared to it and none probably ever will.

Are you saying we should still have the old shock nova?

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Kiluvaras wrote:

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CliveHowlitzer wrote:

You don't quite understand how game design works. In a long running game like Path of Exile, balance changes WILL be made. You are just going to have to learn to live with it. If you think it is fine to just leave everything as is, you'll eventually succumb to power creep and a broken mess of a game.
You also talk about how PoE isn't competitive at all, but it definitely has a competitive edge to it, especially when the race seasons are ongoing.
You also speak of just saying if skills are underpowered, people should just use the overpowered ones instead. Why should they? What if they would like to make a build revolving around one of those underpowered moves?

Anyway, long story short, balance changes have to happen. It is also always better to bring very powerful abilities in line with lesser ones, rather than buffing everything to the sky. Otherwise you just end up with a cycle of buffing moves, buffing monsters, buffing moves, over and over again.

Just because some people prefer to play an "underpowered" build doesn't mean that the strong builds need to be nerfed. Everybody has access to those builds so idc what's there to constantly whinge about. Like with cast on dmg taken now, every moron can afford the gem for a few chaos or lol just finish act 3 and get it for free but nah, let's cry about it so that u can screw over somebody else who is doing better than u. Classic PoE thinking.

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MperorM wrote:

I can understand nerfs in competitive games like starcraft and dota, but I really don't see why things should be nerfed in poe for an example.

If something is good, and people like using it, then why nerf it? Many people have spent much time making a build around a skill, just to have it nerfed. This makes their char useless and people will feel that they have wasted their time. Since this is the case, why do ggg nerf stuff? People who have made builds that doesn't use the skill aren't gonna gain anything if the skill gets nerfed. Nothing. If they feel that their build is bad compared to the other build, then they can just use the skill themselves. Nobody is saying that they are not allowed to use it, and by nerfing the op skill their build is still going to be as bad as it was before, just not as bad as compared to other builds.

Nerfing things is Anti-fun and only makes sense in competitive games, which POE isn't. so why nerf?

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Manfred_von_Wolfstein wrote:

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MperorM wrote:

I can understand nerfs in competitive games like starcraft and dota, but I really don't see why things should be nerfed in poe for an example.

If something is good, and people like using it, then why nerf it? Many people have spent much time making a build around a skill, just to have it nerfed. This makes their char useless and people will feel that they have wasted their time. Since this is the case, why do ggg nerf stuff? People who have made builds that doesn't use the skill aren't gonna gain anything if the skill gets nerfed. Nothing. If they feel that their build is bad compared to the other build, then they can just use the skill themselves. Nobody is saying that they are not allowed to use it, and by nerfing the op skill their build is still going to be as bad as it was before, just not as bad as compared to other builds.

Nerfing things is Anti-fun and only makes sense in competitive games, which POE isn't. so why nerf?

This argument is used in every game ever, competitive or not, in opposition to nerfing, and in none of those games is it a valid reason to not nerf.


It's like me taking one of the billion or so generic, tacticool FPS games out there and saying "Hey guys, lots of people like to use this clearly OP gun, so why nerf it and ruin their fun? If people don't like getting pwned by it they can just use it themselves. If you nerf it, you'll make all the time they spent unlocking attachments for the thing worthless." While in a sense this is true, it will quickly make the game stale and tactically stagnant because everyone and their grandmother ends up using the same equipment setup and playstyle. When a game stagnates as such, gamers start to head for greener pastures. FPS developers understand this, so they try to keep things as balanced as possible via patching and repatching as their title's metagame develops, regardless of the inevitable bitching by a vocal minority. The same thing applies to PoE; if something is clearly OP, community opinion becomes "all builds that do X must have Y item to not be crap," and precious few people will deviate from that paradigm once it's established. The metagame stagnates at that point and people get bored and leave. For the health and longevity of the game, OP items must be brought into balance.

You could argue the case for only ever buffing other things to bring them to par with the OP item, but that creates a sort of runaway effect where all kinds of stats and figures must constantly be inflated in correlation with the buffed item/skill base to allow the game to provide the same challenge as before. It becomes a chore and a mathematical nightmare, and takes developer manpower away from other important tasks.

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Hornet85 wrote:

This game is meant to be challenging, not casual fun.

There are other games out there where you can easily beat without much challenge, but this isn't what PoE meant to be.

Therefore, anything that gives the player a huge advantage should be balanced accordingly. Otherwise, it takes away the challenging aspect of this game.

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MperorM wrote:

I can understand nerfs in competitive games like starcraft and dota, but I really don't see why things should be nerfed in poe for an example.

If something is good, and people like using it, then why nerf it? Many people have spent much time making a build around a skill, just to have it nerfed. This makes their char useless and people will feel that they have wasted their time. Since this is the case, why do ggg nerf stuff? People who have made builds that doesn't use the skill aren't gonna gain anything if the skill gets nerfed. Nothing. If they feel that their build is bad compared to the other build, then they can just use the skill themselves. Nobody is saying that they are not allowed to use it, and by nerfing the op skill their build is still going to be as bad as it was before, just not as bad as compared to other builds.

Nerfing things is Anti-fun and only makes sense in competitive games, which POE isn't. so why nerf?