Disclaimer: this is not an argument about having more nerfs.
Buffs are always going to be trickier than nerfs.
We will always see fewer of them than we see nerfs, at least when it comes to smaller updates.
This is for two reasons:
- Avoiding power creep.
- The explosive complexity involved in balancing buffs.
Power Creep. Buffs tend to reduce the amount of time it takes a character to kill something, make it easier for a character to kill something, or make it harder for a character to die.
Buffing, therefore, will always tend to either reduce the difficulty of the game (PVE) or alter time-to-kill (PVP).
In the former case, whether you like the change or not, depends on whether you play PVE for the challenge, or to indulge in some good old fashioned blowing-stuff-up.
In the latter case, you usually want to avoid having your TTK float too far from its initial point, as that can really change the complexion of the game.
The more you buff, the stronger this effect. So designers are always cautious when they buff.
Explosive Complexity When you nerf down to a baseline, the number of changes you make are relatively small.
When you try to buff characters up to a baseline, the number of changes you need to make can be massive.
Since this a multiplayer game, each and every one of these changes can react and interact in unpredictable ways.
Since it’s a 3D FPS with tons of customization options (Helix / gear), the number and kinds of these interactions is breathtaking.
I can’t even imagine how you would build test cases to properly vett all the different ways your newly buffed characters would interact across the maps/modes.
There is no amount of play testing in the world that is going to allow you to model all of these interactions to any degree of accuracy.
As a result, what ends up happening, is that you are going to create a situation where a round of buffs is followed by a round of nerfs, as you work to correct the mistakes you were unable to pick up in testing.
Since all changes are met with a certain percentage of people being unhappy, having your character buffed and then subsequently nerfed, is going to lead to a ton of unhappiness.
This is why designers tend to nerf downward, rather than buff upwards. It’s honestly easier, and tends to engender less anger in the mid-term.
As a thought experiment,
Lets say we made the following changes:
- Raised Ambra’s beam damage by 10%
- Added a hard CC somewhere earlier in Attikus’ kit so he has better lethality early game.
- Raised Deande’s sprint speed by 15% and movement speed by 10%.
What effects would these changes have in Meltdown? Incursion?
Would these changes cause more players to pick these characters, thus increasing overall play experience with them, thus increasing quality of play beyond what the buff provides?
Do these changes infringe upon other characters roles in negative ways?
Personally, I have no idea, but there is one of these that I have an inkling absolutely would.
