Disclaimer: I’m not advocating power creep or buffs to any particular class… just sparking a discussion
Edit: By “power creep”, i mean buffing currently unviable options while leaving existing “powerful” options.
My view is that power “creep” can actually make the game more FUN.
In my opinion, fun is often linked with achievement and self-efficacy. For example, I love being able to jump away with Rocket Boots which was previously not possible.
However, I did not enjoy the times where I died because I no longer had a stunbreak on my Elixir R.
If every class had their “useless” utilities buffed to give them their capabilities to counter existing commonly-used utilities, what would be the consequences? If would give different builds advantages over other builds but then there would always be situations where someone else is running that a skill counters you.
Rather than introducing nerfs, improving other “useless” skills to allow for counters would promote build diversity and active play (i.e: you may have Stability but i can remove it if I sacrifice some condition damage in a team fight by taking a viable version of Mines instead of Bomb Kit)
As it seems the majority of “balance” suggestions on this forums (i.e Bear Document etc…) focus on “shaves”, i’d like some views on why “power creep” is bad.
(edited by chungiee.8764)
It should be avoided.
Case in point: GW1
There are certain aspects of professions that are weak, and certain aspects that are too strong. However bringing things to the level of “too strong” doesn’t make for a better game.
If I create a skill that one shots everyone, I could give everyone a one shot skill as well, but then the game just turns into 1 shots and is boring. Or I could acknowledge that something is stronger than it should be and tone it down not just so that things are equal but so that overall you have a better experience playing the game.
It should be avoided.
Case in point: GW1
I’m rather glad you said that. Mind explaining what happened in GW1 PvP?
I was very casual GW1 player doing PvE and really enjoyed playing “OP” builds on paper (i.e: Imbagon) but didn’t exactly carry me through the harder content.
There are certain aspects of professions that are weak, and certain aspects that are too strong. However bringing things to the level of “too strong” doesn’t make for a better game.
If I create a skill that one shots everyone, I could give everyone a one shot skill as well, but then the game just turns into 1 shots and is boring. Or I could acknowledge that something is stronger than it should be and tone it down not just so that things are equal but so that overall you have a better experience playing the game.
Sure, I understand that argument but skills don’t “one-shot” everyone.
However, taking your example – if everyone was given a “one-shot kill” button but was also given a “prevent one-shot kill” button, wouldn’t that promote more active play ?
Buffing underpowered utilities to be equal to the ones being played is not power creep by definition—characters are not potentially any more powerful than they were before, they just have more options
Powercreep is not about buffing underpowered options, it’s about balancing the entire game through buffs only.
It makes the game a lot less funnier.
Buffing underpowered utilities to be equal to the ones being played is not power creep by definition—characters are not potentially any more powerful than they were before, they just have more options
Well this is the type of “power creep” i am suggesting. Keep the “upper limit” the same but bring other options up to it without nerfing that “upper limit”.
There are certain aspects of professions that are weak, and certain aspects that are too strong. However bringing things to the level of “too strong” doesn’t make for a better game.
If I create a skill that one shots everyone, I could give everyone a one shot skill as well, but then the game just turns into 1 shots and is boring. Or I could acknowledge that something is stronger than it should be and tone it down not just so that things are equal but so that overall you have a better experience playing the game.Sure, I understand that argument but skills don’t “one-shot” everyone.
However, taking your example – if everyone was given a “one-shot kill” button but was also given a “prevent one-shot kill” button, wouldn’t that promote more active play ?
Then you’d have the mass pvp version of Dive Kick. The game would be oversimplified.
Buffing underpowered utilities to be equal to the ones being played is not power creep by definition—characters are not potentially any more powerful than they were before, they just have more options
Well this is the type of “power creep” i am suggesting. Keep the “upper limit” the same but bring other options up to it without nerfing that “upper limit”.
I think they are just extremely careful about it. Case in point is thief venoms; they know they are borderline viable and have been giving them the tiniest nudges in power for the last few patches. They are trying to the creep that would come from accidentally making them too strong.
Other utilities are so poor that they become very hard to buff “slightly”. Nearly anything you do to, say, thief traps would potentially break them—they are not meant for damage and their CC effects are already some of the longest in the game (well venoms now have the longest immob), plus they have the benefit of being able to pre place them so the cd’s can recharge. If they suddenly became useable they would certainly be too strong.
Tl;dr anet is doing what you suggest but slowly
Tl;dr anet is doing what you suggest but slowly
Actually the huge, nasty condition meta we just had and are still recovering from happened relatively quickly. Then they compounded upon it by adding another condition to the game when conditions were already OP.
It makes the game a lot less funnier.
It makes the game funnier, but allot harder to take seriously.
Having stupidly strong abilities tends to appeal to casuals and people just looking to mozy on through some games every now and then since there typically is a decent skill floor with one-shot kills and other extremely strong abilities. That and the shear amount of rediculous things going on keeps the game from getting stale.
(at least if mildly well done, so unlikely for GW2)
(edited by garethh.3518)
Just look at the current cheese builds in PvP. Powercreep does not makes the game funnier, imo.
Maybe for the casual pve side, it might do, but that can be fixed simply by making casual mob encounters easier.
There are certain aspects of professions that are weak, and certain aspects that are too strong. However bringing things to the level of “too strong” doesn’t make for a better game.
If I create a skill that one shots everyone, I could give everyone a one shot skill as well, but then the game just turns into 1 shots and is boring. Or I could acknowledge that something is stronger than it should be and tone it down not just so that things are equal but so that overall you have a better experience playing the game.Sure, I understand that argument but skills don’t “one-shot” everyone.
However, taking your example – if everyone was given a “one-shot kill” button but was also given a “prevent one-shot kill” button, wouldn’t that promote more active play ?
Do you really want to play a game where its over in one button press all the time? A stalemate of "I have my 1-shot protection " vs “I have my one shot”. Balancing something doesn’t mean that the situation will be attractive. If I made two people step on nails it would be equal but they’d probably both hate it.
There aren’t one-shots running around but the whole thing of power creep is that it heads towards being out of reason until it finally is.
Just look at the current cheese builds in PvP. Powercreep does not makes the game funnier, imo.
(at least if mildly well done)
Anything done badly will be bad.
GW2 was tweaked badly, so its’ power creep ended badly.
(edited by garethh.3518)
Is this even a question? I’m fairly certain nobody would actually enjoy playing a gank-or-be-ganked game.
Nerfing is negative and the majority of players DO NOT LIKE IT.
Its funny when another persons class gets nerfed and they start crying. Not so funny when its yours. Really, players abandon games completely, usually after bad mouthing the game wherever possible if you nerf there favourite character/build.
I, myself have 8xlvl 80’s, 1 of each class but atm I will not play my Ranger fullstop because of nerfs and I will not play my Elementalist in PvP.
Powercreep may be viewed as bad by some players but it is a positive action and avoids completely alienating some players. Tiny powercreep over the medium to long term is no bad thing, in my opinion.
Really, players abandon games completely, usually after bad mouthing the game wherever possible if you nerf there favourite character/build.
Have you played any other MMO?
Nerfs happen in every MMO to most every spec… yet people are still playing them for PvP.
Sure it doesn’t make people happy to get nerfed, but if it’s a justified and well done nerf of something that actually helps gameplay (read any LoL patch notes) people get by, they keep on keepin on.
(edited by garethh.3518)
Except that there is no such thing as “good power creep”. Power Creep is already and deliberately a word with negative conotations.
Power creep is the consequence of continuously buffing strong options or strong builds (that do not need to be buffed) to be on par with even stronger (= overpowered) options. There’s a limit that, once crossed, game balance goes crazy and everything becomes mindlessly overpowered, and power creep pushes towards that direction. PvP turns into a shallow and unfun instagib game, and PvE’s content becomes trivialized.
Besides, buffing can be equally frustrating as nerfing on a reversed scenario. You’ll get happy when it happens to your profession, but you’ll “start crying” when other professions get buffed enough to make them generally stronger than the profession you play with.
should be avoided
case: WoW
they kept buffing classes which eventually brought game to state where every class had absurd amount of CCs and way too high dmg; i could keep someone CC’d for entire minute if i wanted to and i also could drop someone to 0 within 3 sec
arena became very very very boring and annoying, positioning, CD managment etc. didn’t matter anymore, it was all about who can mash all their keys faster
Except that there is no such thing as “good power creep”. Power Creep is already and deliberately a word with negative conotations.
???
That makes no sense, can you reword that if you just typed it wrong or something?
PvP turns into a shallow and unfun instagib game, and PvE’s content becomes trivialized.
Buffs don’t make a game shallow.
Game design determines that all on its own.
Intagibs…
Well, allot of games like time halo and other first person shooters end up being insta-gib fests… yet they are EXTREMELY popular, yet they can be extremely funny to watch.
Sure GW2 isn’t a FPS, but it’s also not a MOBA, that doesn’t mean that the perks of each genre are bound to it.
(edited by garethh.3518)
Buffs don’t make a game shallow.
Game design determines that all on its own.Intagibs…
Well, allot of the time halo and other first person shooters end up being insta-gib fests… yet they are EXTREMELY popular, yet they can be extremely funny to watch.
GW2’s genre and design does not works well with instagib combat.
And I didn’t say buffs make a game shallow. I said the power creep philosophy does it.
GW2’s genre and design does not works well with instagib combat.
Yes and no.
MMOs don’t work well with easy to pull off CC-lock literal insta-gibs, sure.
But fast paced, sometimes over-in-under-5-seconds combat… that’s fine, that’s actually a favorite of some people.
GW2 is just riddled with mindless CC-rotations or ones that are entirely spec based to counter (how many stun-breaks/cleanses do you have) and bad visuals which leads to bad quick combat instead of engaging. Straight up buffing stuff in GW2 (power creep and power creep allone) won’t fix a single issue in the game and only worsen existing ones, but power creep in general isn’t necessarily bad.
(edited by garethh.3518)
Not affiliated with ArenaNet or NCSOFT. No support is provided.
All assets, page layout, visual style belong to ArenaNet and are used solely to replicate the original design and preserve the original look and feel.
Contact /u/e-scrape-artist on reddit if you encounter a bug.