Another thought regarding the whole Nerf thing is if a certain piece of equipment must be NERF'd then why not do it with a bit of story instead of the way its currently done.
Taking EVE Online as an example although this is not specifically aimed at EVE or CCP.
For example powergrid on Dominx battleship is too high instead of logging on one day to find your powergrid has shrunk for no apparent reason and your previously used equipment that used to work no longer works anymore. Simply alter the blueprints so all new Dominix's will not have this advantage.
Eventually all the non nerf'd Dominixs will all get destroyed. You could even come up with a semi beleivable story like "Due to safety issue's some Dominix's where found to become unstable in heavy combat therefore Galentee Shipyards Inc has taken the bold step to make sure these work horses are safer for our customers etc." A little imagination... You could even make the old dominx type ships in this example actually become unstable ( semi random fault ) to encourage existing ships to be taken out of service. Of course it would only be fair to offer an upgrade/refit for these crafts to retify any issues but better and more beleivable than the current methods.
UC
Thursday 8 November 2007
Nerf the Nerf, better alternative to the Tech II Nerf Bat?
Often in terms of balancing, developers of MMO's often reduce/tweak either character skills or character equipment or both. This balancing if it effects a player negatively meaning a ship or skill becomes less effective then this has become known in the community as NERFing.
This NERFing is often very annoying for a player who has invested time and in game currency in this equipment. Often after a NERF this equipment/character is then underpowered or simply not fun to play anymore. I have a suggestion on how to deal with this in a different way....
I was thinking the other day about how Eve's economy works. Eve's economy is often refered to as a player driven economy, which is dynamic in nature. Ok here's the thought. In the real world an arms race between differing factions generally leads to better more sophisticated technology. For the underdog this usually means countering what the other side has done to at least eliminate the advantage of an opponent and perhaps try to gain the advantage in some way.
What if in a dynamic universe in an MMO of the future perhaps EVE, Nerfing becomes a thing of the past and technology effectively evolves as part of the natural order of things between rival factions etc.
An example of this might me perhaps I.e a Caldari ( Eve Race ) Raven ( Caldari Battleship ) is found to be lacking in some way against some other EVE racial battleship say the Galentee Dominix for example. So the Caldari Navy comes up with a slightly modified design for this ship the Raven becomes a Raven II or the original raven can be refitted etc. In this example there are only two ships involved effectively the ship or piece of equipment thats at fault does not get nerfed this would be the Galentee Dominix in this example. The other races equipment evolves to balance against this advantage. In the real word this happens all the time in military. Think about the invention and use of submarines then sonar to counter then Stealth technology etc etc.
The point is Technology evolves.
I believe that this is a much more realistic system to employ in a game. However it would probably dictate the use of realistic design and physical contraints in the design of the ship models etc i.e mass , thrust , sig radius etc etc. The point is no more nerfs. Technology just
evolves to counter these advantages... The really cool part could be in my mind is that a dev for each of the factions which are at war with each other each get a turn to make improvements tweaks etc.
There could be of course general improvements in technology in game to allow for better technologythat effect the ship modeling engine. I.e for example Galentee engineers figure out how to get more thrust from there new engine using newely discovered materials.
Effectively the background story line could influence how each race evolves in game. These background story changes allow everyside to take advantage of newer technology...
I can see this sort of idea perhaps being integrated into a future MMO at inception.
Anyway interesting idea or madness? You decide.
Uncle Cyrus.
This NERFing is often very annoying for a player who has invested time and in game currency in this equipment. Often after a NERF this equipment/character is then underpowered or simply not fun to play anymore. I have a suggestion on how to deal with this in a different way....
I was thinking the other day about how Eve's economy works. Eve's economy is often refered to as a player driven economy, which is dynamic in nature. Ok here's the thought. In the real world an arms race between differing factions generally leads to better more sophisticated technology. For the underdog this usually means countering what the other side has done to at least eliminate the advantage of an opponent and perhaps try to gain the advantage in some way.
What if in a dynamic universe in an MMO of the future perhaps EVE, Nerfing becomes a thing of the past and technology effectively evolves as part of the natural order of things between rival factions etc.
An example of this might me perhaps I.e a Caldari ( Eve Race ) Raven ( Caldari Battleship ) is found to be lacking in some way against some other EVE racial battleship say the Galentee Dominix for example. So the Caldari Navy comes up with a slightly modified design for this ship the Raven becomes a Raven II or the original raven can be refitted etc. In this example there are only two ships involved effectively the ship or piece of equipment thats at fault does not get nerfed this would be the Galentee Dominix in this example. The other races equipment evolves to balance against this advantage. In the real word this happens all the time in military. Think about the invention and use of submarines then sonar to counter then Stealth technology etc etc.
The point is Technology evolves.
I believe that this is a much more realistic system to employ in a game. However it would probably dictate the use of realistic design and physical contraints in the design of the ship models etc i.e mass , thrust , sig radius etc etc. The point is no more nerfs. Technology just
evolves to counter these advantages... The really cool part could be in my mind is that a dev for each of the factions which are at war with each other each get a turn to make improvements tweaks etc.
There could be of course general improvements in technology in game to allow for better technologythat effect the ship modeling engine. I.e for example Galentee engineers figure out how to get more thrust from there new engine using newely discovered materials.
Effectively the background story line could influence how each race evolves in game. These background story changes allow everyside to take advantage of newer technology...
I can see this sort of idea perhaps being integrated into a future MMO at inception.
Anyway interesting idea or madness? You decide.
Uncle Cyrus.
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