If the game were nerfed ...

[Tulasi]

To nerf or not to nerf, that is the question...


If you nerf, some people will lose interest, this is inevitable. Also, the "supermyths" will always be there and never be reachable.

If you don't nerf, more and more areas will have to open up to allow for more and more supermyths.

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Lets be the devils advocate, a solution that can solve this, but will probably be hardest to implement (thank the Gods I'm not the one who would have to code this ):
- Staged nerf... From approx rising hero start up to, say middle in the range between legend and myth, reduce the power from current 270% down to the intended 100%.
- Reducing recovery bonus from it's current (lets just call it 100% for eez) 100% down to zero over a span from veteran to titan/champion area.
- Reduce the benefits of quickness in General or just make it much harder to get a high level of haste, for example reduce all haste spells potency, no item giving more than a certain low level of haste, (even) smaller cumulative effects from multiple objects, make highest haste imbuement the best speed-increasing boost you can get, including spells, and still not make it too good.

Results would be that growing to mid-sized legend would go slower, but still give you a little bonus in damage up to that point, but gradually, letting those who are growing still can gain some size, but it will flatten out, and has to be done in such a way that a smaller players special should not outdo a larger players special in damage from same guild of course, but this is left up to the coders to solve
Secondary result would be that being careful with dying becomes more and more important the larger you get, as well as there being a chance of reducing the size of supermyths, should the players wish to take them down


Before anyone bitch too much about how this won't affect me, well, I recently had two deaths, which would be a lot harder to recover from if this is implemented during the two weeks I'm now being unable to keep up grinding to a high level, so there is a chance it will affect me, and being as close to the top of the reduction-span on the specials, that would affect me as well, and speed is one of my favoured things, so yea, again - full effect.

It's an idea, it might be the best solution, but it will also allow for the game to even itself out over time (perhaps a very long time, but..).


Tulasi Waylan the White

[Cherek]

1) It seems that players who have gotten HUGE with their increased abilities would be forever ahead of the rest of us.

Yup, I think is the biggest problem with a nerf.

Now, that everyone gets weaker I think in general is good, since it means the game becomes more challenging again. So in that aspect I would be for it, but, it will also mean it's near impossible for any small / new player to catch up to the already big players, further increasing the player size gap. I strongly believe changes and tweaks to the game should do the complete opposite if anything, and make it easier for new players to catch up.

A nerf like this would be similar to for example removing half the quests in the game, giving new players access to only half the QXP old players have. That would be completely devastating and unfair of course, and I don't think we'd ever consider doing that. And a nerf like this would basically do exactly that, since making specials/spells only do 37% damage of today is likely to basically halve the XP/hour rate for all players. (Roughly estimating of course, but it will have a huge effect.)

So IF we do this nerf, something else has to come with it to not make it so unfair. For example, double the growth rate up to myth, or something along those lines... but that comes with a lot of potential issues too of course.

[Celemir]

I say fix the error, so all guilds are on the same playing field. If specials feel to weak after this, you can always consider upping the combat aid given to all.

[Dhez]

In my opinion, whichever changes want to be made should be made fast, so everyone can decide what they want to do with their lives. There are currently too many changes being made too rapidly, too many things to adapt to, too much uncertainty. This may or may not be making players feel that it is not the right time to invest due to everything being so uncertain. It feels like one of those dreaded waiting periods where you were interviewed at a company and they said "We'll let you know by Monday", and then it's Tuesday, Wednesday, and you're unsure if you should quit your current job or not, if you should call or not, if you should keep looking or start looking for routes to work.

Whichever changes want to be made should be made as fast as possible. Delaying the decision is causing tension and distress. Change what needs to be changed and then focus on not making any more big changes until these ones have been digested and all the details ironed out.

If the game is to be redefined, then redefine it, and then we will examine how it is, and decide what to do with our lives. As it stands, this feels like investing in Argentinian pesos.

[gorboth]

In my opinion, whichever changes want to be made should be made fast, so everyone can decide what they want to do with their live. There are currently too many changes being made too rapidly, too many things to adapt to, too much uncertainty. This may or may not be making players feel that it is not the right time to invest due to everything being so uncertain. It feels like one of those dreaded waiting periods where you were interviewed at a company and they said "We'll let you know by Monday", and then it's Tuesday, Wednesday, and you're unsure if you should quit your current job or not, if you should call or not, if you should keep looking or start looking for routes to work.

Whichever changes want to be made should be made as fast as possible. Delaying the decision is causing tension and distress. Change what needs to be changed and then focus on not making any more big changes until these ones have been digested and all the details ironed out.

If the game is to be redefined, then redefine it, and then we will examine how it is, and decide what to do with our lives. As it stands, this feels like investing in Argentinian pesos.

Dhez, I can sympathize with your aprehension and ill-ease at these moving pieces, but this is the price of our efforts for community involvement and Administrative transparency. It means we give people an opportunity to consider the problems we, as developers, are responsible for, and ask that you consider them with us. It does not mean we move fast and try to slam something through because it is uncomfortable to be faced with uncertain outcomes.

G.

[Drazson]

The following is a mix and match from a conversation I had with another player, possibly including their words. I hope they don't mind

People come to genesis for different reasons. [...] Well, my reasons(for playing) are not supported currently and I want them to. Thus, I prefer we vacated some size/combat/grind reasons from existing so that people like me with different reasons can stick around.
[...]
Regarding the content, fighting is equally narrow a spectrum of the game to anything else the game has implemented. Us rangers having [abilities, secrets and ...actual secrets referred here] and idk what else should realize it more than others. It's not exactly surprising to me but I don't like how people have concentrated on the fighting part of the game so heavily (almost exclusively if we're honest) that they suddenly believe it's the only thing the game exists for. It's even an insult to the numerous wizards who have coded so freaking much to create the donut. Sure, it's a problem ingrained by now. Both the game's development (to a lesser extent, but still) and playerbase have evolved based on that crazy assumption, that fighting is the only thing there is in the donut (I would have to guess that happened in the last ~10 years or else nobody would ever think "let's code the rangers! Let's give them this ability! Oh and that, that makes sense, it will be useful!").

Just thought-provoking for me, thought I should post it here. *shrug*
I did cast the A option

[Hektor]

I have always believed inflation to be a major problem for Genesis. I would like to see more soft caps and more diminishing returns, especially for players well into myth. Ie - continue to strive for STATS and XP, but expect the actual rewards (hitpoints, poweryield on specials etc) to become less and less. I also think making the nerfs less affecting of playersizes smaller than around hero is a good way to go.

In short - I am in favor of this band-aid and would not stop playing.

I think Mim sums it up fairly well. I started just after the CON nerf in the early 90ies. There was alot of complaints from the biguns, but since it was across the table - it was understood and they went on with our lives - and Genesis.

Gorboth, while I understand change is rapid and needed in order to still have a good game and prepare for the waves of newsters, please remember that you asked for opinions - not for opinions that you could shoot down just to support your argument - when I read into Dhez' note - I think Dhez presents a very good point.

Make the changes needed fast and efficiently and perhaps then give us some rest before the next major revise so we can all try and adapt to the new normal.

Right now I wouldnt even know how to advise a newbie on most things Genesis, because some of the basic assumptions (EQ as example) of the game are getting (a well deserved and interesting but potentially major inflation derivative) major revise. This nerf is another aspect on that - basic assumptions changing,

On a sidenote. Specials was 70% of all damage and two handed/dual wielding combat (strength and weapon stats capped in most specials - making white hits and two handed combat w dex as primer) far superior to all two-handed weapons in Genesis for as long as I can recall up till the new combat system of ca 2010/2012?
The new combat system was supposed to mitigate that with skills and two handed weapons stats (with the strength modifier in particular) meant to be a much bigger part. It seems a flaw was found that made it work much less than intended - interesting how things change and evolve

[Zugzug]

I will try to touch on a few points. FYI, I did not vote, because at the end of the day I think that decision (whatever it will be) will be ultimately made "upstairs" regardless of what the vote results in this forum post will say/show.

Regarding nerfs to old/huge players - I agree. Look at anyone who has benefitted from cheating/bug exploits of the past. You know, the 9x qxp multiplier, people with 10+ million quest xp points and quests not done, etc. The game is not fair to newbies who will never achieve the same level of qxp. At least the brutality effects are now capped, so the difference is not as pronounced. For reference, when I came back to Genesis last year, I was a somewhat violent titan and I was in a guild that (I suppose for our past sins) had their special (impale) nerfed into oblivion. I am guessing that the proposed nerf to specials will have the same (reverse) effect of taking old impale and making it equal to BDA 'slash'. Perhaps even worse. I cannot predict the effect this will have on playerbase, but there will always be people who are unhappy and will leave as a result.

Also, to note, it was quite obvious to those curious that 'dps' builds were much better for rapid growth than 'tank' characters. Just as it is sort of obvious right now that there is one guild that perhaps isn't getting caid correctly - Gorboth's ogres. If people say that Dragonarmies are punching above their caid limit, a mid-level myth going from dragonarmy to ogres suddenly is able to progress quicker and kill in areas where he/she could not kill before. With the proposed specials nerf, white hits will become ever-more important, so this proposed change will further throw the 'balance' of ogres out of whack.

Then, if we are on topic of white hits becoming more important, a look at weapons variety across the board is also in order. Look at swords vs. knives, or swords vs. polearms. 1-handed and 2-handed varieties (lore aside, if all semi-decent weapons are 2-handed, the weapon class cannot be effectively used with a shield)

'Supertanks' guilds will lose a small fraction of their offensive power (they mostly do white damage anyways?) so will benefit hugely from this proposed change. As will guilds that have tank rotation in combat. Also, guilds that can use two weapons at the same time (more white hits).

In my opinion, approaching this issue in the order "let's fix specials and then maybe sometime later we will tweak everything else" is the wrong approach here. Because Genesis is enthusiast-driven, any change has to be perceived by players as 'permanent' - that is the wizard(s) who say they will address the resulting unexpected effects can just disappear or lose interest.

To close, I will say this as well - whenever I hear that 'game cannot be balanced for guild/race combinations' - I quietly laugh. Just what resulted in this whole topic started (someone being crappy at math? not seeing the full picture?) - any proposed change without extensive testing by standardized wizard-created characters of different sizes and guild combinations will result in more of the same. I am sure that it would be possible to create an instanced location where time will flow at 100x speed and set up empirical tests to see if the math 'checks out' or if something is out of order. Too much to ask for? Source player community for help. And when (inevitably) people will scream "guild secrets" just remember that a lot of mortals already have wizards, so they end up knowing more than a player (in theory) should anyways.

[Thalric]

I voted for a nerf.

I think that those most likely to leave are the huge players, and if they do, there are less of them to catch up to for the rest.
I would love to see more teaming and more guilds being used in good effect.
As it is, so many people run around solo, since it pays off the best.

[Arman]

I voted for the nerf. I'm wondering if SU is effected by this bug though? They haven't been recoded, yet their fling is extremely powerful.

SU were recoded.

All guilds are affected by this bug, regardless of whether they were recoded or not (so for example, ogres are).