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Buffs > Nerfs
worddog
Member
I LOVE the rock paper scissors class design.
If every class has a direct counter than every class is relevant. But my hope is that when a class turns out to be OP (which they will) that instead of nerfing a class, they instead buff the class that counters it.
Magic casters are a problem? More silences and mana drain effects for the classes that counter them.
Tanks can't be killed? More percent health damage and and armor penetration for the classes that counter them.
I think this would incentivize more class diversity and lead to more interesting gameplay.
If every class has a direct counter than every class is relevant. But my hope is that when a class turns out to be OP (which they will) that instead of nerfing a class, they instead buff the class that counters it.
Magic casters are a problem? More silences and mana drain effects for the classes that counter them.
Tanks can't be killed? More percent health damage and and armor penetration for the classes that counter them.
I think this would incentivize more class diversity and lead to more interesting gameplay.
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In your example above, if the OP class is so OP that classes that are supposed to beat it (or be a good match for it) are having trouble, you then have the option to either buff every class in the game and then also every mob to maintain PvE difficulty, or need the class in question.
It needs to be a case by case thing, with the understanding that buffing is a better option if available.
I'm more so talking about mechanics. Like if a class is so OP that the class that counters it is having trouble, give them more tools like silences and stuff.
If the actual numbers are just ridiculous to the point they're a PVE issue than yeah a nerf would make sense. I just don't want to see mages get weaker teleports or casters get smaller AOE heals.
I personally prefer giving people non-class tools to counter an OP class. L2 had a problem with a class that had a mass stun ability on super short cd. In the next few patches the devs introduced an upgrade to the most popular gear set that gave 50% res against stun. The classes themselves weren't really changed (outside of other balance changes), but that OP stunning class become a fair bit weaker against the people that he demolished previously.
After many years of watching the outcomes of this philosophy, I believe that nerfs are better than buffs in complex games almost all of the time.
What I want is 'reaction to outliers'.
If the outlier is too strong, nerf, too weak, buff, as one would expect.
There's also the 'scattershot rebalance everything' approach which tends to upset EVERYONE but only for a short period of time.
I mean, "silences and stuff" work in PvE as well.
If a mages teleport is OP due to it being strong, then weakening it is probably the best option.
To some degree sure like if someone can instantly kill 100 players with a single ability than yeah you'd have to nerf that.
But I think if the power is more nuanced it's better to allow players to deal with the threat rather than remove the threat.
The devs should appoint important employees to adopt a class each and PLAY THE GAME. Between themselves they should make fair adjustments.
The player feedback (post launch) should play little role as it's 100% of the time just QQing.
The reason this is done is because it produces the least disruption possible. The more you change, the more likely you are to mess up other parts of the balance, or forget to change things without realizing it. The best answer from the perspective of a single player of a class might feel like "buff instead of nerf", but the best answer from the perspective of the health of the game is always to make the smallest possible change that will resolve the problem. "Mage Teleport now has +2 second cooldown and covers 5% less distance" is far healthier for the game as a whole than "rebalanced all movement abilities", "adjusted AoE ranges for all bosses", "adjusted CC cooldowns for all mobs". Small changes have massive impacts. It's a lot easier to adjust one ability than to recalculate everything in the game. This isn't an exception, it's the rule. Things can only be "unbalanced" in comparison to other things. Everything's normally connected.
I think the real sweet spot that ur describing is when you can impact your own success through skill *usually*, and you can live the ultimate fantasy *sometimes*. Things are bad when you play perfectly but it's not enough, or you don't even have to try. It's ok if you have bad matchups that are harder than others or even 9-1 matchups, but they shouldn't be frequent.
And CCs are anti-fun.
That's fair, but maybe CC should be restricted to class counters.
Like CC that only works against certain classes that you're meant to directly counter.
They basicly need to pick a skill/class that is the anchor and the goal is to get everything on the level of this anchor skill/class/item if it to good compared to this anchor it needs nerfed if it to weak it needs buffed to be on these level of the anchor item/skill
tbh DPS shouldnt get hard CC or limited CC (like rogues stun from stealth) but they shouldnt get any stuns/knockdown skil that completly lock out opponents, hard CC skills should go to the tanks/support rolls.
Dps can still get roots/slows/silence but not thing that completly lockout a character unless very specific requirments met that can also be counter like rogue cheapshot from WoW stun when attackign from stealth.
More so like normal abilities just have added CC against some classes, but work normally otherwise.
I can't tell if this is worse than the BDO 'do different multipliers of damage against different classes' or not.
It makes my head hurt either way though.
About that... no.
Let's all just hope Intrepid are better developers and are able to balance classes without needing to explicitly make abilities do different things to different classes.
I mean, I think many of us would agree that if this is the way Intrepid need to go to find balance, there will be better games out there.
The less CC, the better. Roots are essentially a complete lockout for melee classes. I remember Blizzard trying to fix that on the Rogue for example, giving them a ranged finisher. Deadly Throw or some such. It didn't work.
If you want to stay within the realm of Blizzard, you need but look at the latest release of Overwatch 2. Overwatch 1 was pretty much dead. You got endless CC'd. The second iteration that released recently. Whilst there are still some balance issues (as to be expected given the nature of the game in question) the vastly decreased amount of CC makes the game a lot more fun. (Launch problems aside of course.)
Not too big a fan of this idea, to be perfectly honest.
If you need CC in order to make class balance work, you've got bigger problems imho.
BDO is/was another good example of why overuse of CC's in combat & endless CC are bad. Also frontal block (Lol every skill goes through it if on the slightest angle/Skills that go through/over e.t.c.) & why things like super armor skills are OP AF.
As you can see I prefer Dots over CC's & i'll get to why at the end.
Tanks = Short stun.
Ranger = Short root if equal movement speed to other classes, if faster then nothing.
Mages = Short bind (*cough root).
Healers = no - just Cleanse. Play your class properly!
Support = Ideally not, but does depend on class & support type.
Melee = Wouldn't you rather have a engage than a CC?
If a class has a heap of CC's, its not fun & only Shi**ers who like to be Shi**ers & play like Shi**ers play them. As seen in every MMO to date without fail.
Yeah I think we are roughly talking about the same thing. I just hate seeing patch notes with graphs of all the classes all lined up just all roughly the same. It's hard to capture "feeling" of a class fantasy over just "this is the optimal class dps and they are all roughly the same, so thus balanced"
To me that does not mean balanced. That means boring...
Exactly. They should want to capture a particular feeling in each primary/secondary combo, and for it to feel rewarding when you get your "Time to shine." It can't happen ALL the time cuz then it'll be standard and boring. It should require some skill or setup, but it also should pay off when it works. If it doesn't pay off, it needs a buff. If it happens too often or is too flexible and you ALWAYS have your time to shine, it probably needs a nerf.
roots are not a complete lockout for melee, there are skills that can be used while rooted, defensive buff range skills such as javalin throw which pull targets to you and so on. you still have control of your character.
And overwatch 2 just moved hard CC skills to tank classes which is what i suggested anyway sooo yeah, Short TTK time also play a roll in the reduction in Hard CC since you can delete somone in less than 2 seconds when they cant negate attacks when ur CCed where in MMO TTK is usualy much longer than 2 seconds so CC isnt as impactful.