Is fixing a bug that caused a feature to over perform a nerf?

[somenewnoob]

So was the Inquisitive change in early 2020 a "nerf" or a "balance adjustment"? It was 8 months after they released it. Devs claimed they spent 100 hours playtesting it prior to release.

It was neither. It was them saying "Ok, enough people spent money getting it. Now we can nerf it."

Not the first time. Probably not the last.

I wouldn't say it's a nerf because it was PLANNED all along.

 

[Fisto Mk I]

I wouldn't say it's a nerf because it was PLANNED all along.

Planned nerf still nerf.

 

[Svirfneblin]

At the end of the day, does it really matter what thIS poll results are?

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

I'm not all that sure it matters... It's a fix. Some fixes are beneficial to players, some aren't. Those that aren't can fairly be termed nerfs IMO, but at the very least they are nerfs with pretty sound justification.

Folks can naturally take advantage of such features before any fixes apply and hope they never get fixed, but equally it's naive to assume they never will be fixed, and there isn't much to complain about when they are, however unwelcome.

 

[Spook]

So this debate can not be resolved until you define the terms. To me a nerf is:

VERB
1. (transitive)
to reduce the effectiveness of (a character, weapon, skill, etc) in order to achieve a greater competitive balance

So a reduction in player effectiveness is a nerf even when it is as a result of a bug fix.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

The Coincise Spookford English Dictionary right there.

 

[Ying]

Fixing a beneficial bug is a nerf in the same way that fixing a deleterious bug is a buff. No one should be surprised by either, but one category of bug-fixes draws a lot more player ire than the other.

Nerfs draw ire from players because they are prioritized by devs compared to fixing long-standing bugs. If something is not WAI, but it benefits players it gets attention. Long standing bugs that would benefit players if they were fixed take ages to get on a dev's radar, if they're fixed at all. There are bugs in the epic destinies that would benefit players that have been there since U51 and reported many times. Law of the Divine in Divine Crusader is a perfect example. It's description states 200% scaling with MP/RP, but only scales at 100%. Glass Shards is another. As recently pointed out on the Lamannia preview thread, the effect hasn't worked for five years because how it interacts with the game's heartbeat system. It used to work, but it benefited players too well, so it was nerfed into uselesness. Instead of fixing it, or putting a different effect that works on the new raid loot, we got a non-committal response from Steelstar that it would get addressed later. It's been five years my man. "Later" ain't gonna happen.

 

[Lazuli]

Nerfs draw ire from players because they are prioritized by devs compared to fixing long-standing bugs. If something is not WAI, but it benefits players it gets attention. Long standing bugs that would benefit players if they were fixed take ages to get on a dev's radar, if they're fixed at all. There are bugs in the epic destinies that would benefit players that have been there since U51 and reported many times. Law of the Divine in Divine Crusader is a perfect example. It's description states 200% scaling with MP/RP, but only scales at 100%. Glass Shards is another. As recently pointed out on the Lamannia preview thread, the effect hasn't worked for five years because how it interacts with the game's heartbeat system. It used to work, but it benefited players too well, so it was nerfed into uselesness. Instead of fixing it, or putting a different effect that works on the new raid loot, we got a non-committal response from Steelstar that it would get addressed later. It's been five years my man. "Later" ain't gonna happen.

Exactly. And it also depends on the type of bug. Fixing something when something is truly unbalancing does not usually attract the ire of players, unless it is done as part of the business strategy of creating OP things to sell and then nerfing or when the "fix" is actually an overnerf that destroys the ability (something of which we sadly have abundant examples).

When a bug is minor, and often even helps make poorly designed things viable, and attracts the attention of devs over things that are really uncomfortable in the gameplay, that attracts a lot of displeasure. And even more so if the "fix" involves destroying the aptitude (again, something of which we sadly have abundant examples).