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[DuckFlux]

What's with the fallacy that nerf=bad because it's a negative term?

I think its easy to form a perception of developers where they are paradoxically both capable of pushing the boundaries of traditional game design and creating a really well balanced game, while at the same time they also totally beholden to the pleas of forum goers and incapable of even minor tweaks without irreversibly destroying the game.

With this perception, buffing under-performing ships isn't a problem because we don't play those, however modifying the ships we do play in any way (the OP ones) leaves us vulnerable to the incompetent developer, so we need to appeal to the competent developer to not hurt us through incompetency.

It's just human nature.

[Vextor]

What's with the fallacy that nerf=bad because it's a negative term?
Any game needs it's base state to be a balanced experience, a failure to do so is a failure of game design.
Unbalanced gameplay can be obtained through cheats/mods, and should not be expected of the main game outside dedicated modes/sliders/difficulties.

Players will naturally gravitate toward the most efficient gameplay, it is what a game has to work with, if the best strategy consist of sitting in a corner with a silenced sniper and abusing the enemy AI, everyone will do it eventually no matter how unfun to them.

And personal taste here, no not everyone wants ships to be zooming around like methed-up squirrels on ice, i like my ships with the momentum of a ship.

But isn't it ironic that the most people who want to nerf OP ships are the people who aren't using them? Isn't it also ironic that you generalize everyone optimizing the fun out of games because it's the best strat, but then also add at the end that you're not part of that everyone because you don't do that?
When was the last time you saw here someone saying "please nerf X because I can't stop using it"?
I mean this idea that players need to be protected from themselves due to a lack of self-control at the expense of others's fun seems ridiculous to me, especially when the only player involved are themselves and nobody else.

A game cannot be objectively good, there's no objectively good taste in subjective things, and to counter this, games can offer multiple play styles that can cater for as many people as possible.

I played a multiplayer FPS game in the past that had co-op missions vs AI. Those missions were getting insanely difficult as time went on, impossible to do if you didn't have the top end paywall gear, so in time we found out about a bug and started exploiting it. Now you may think "hah he just proved me right", but no, the point is that if the mission weren't impossible to do under average circumstances, we would've never found out about the existence of the bug.
The moral of the story is just like what you've said, people optimize to get the best performance, but that's just a symptom, because the root of the problem is more often than not just bad game design. If people gravitate towards efficiency instead of fun, that is bad game design.

Here in Starsector however, we aren't forced to use the best of the best ships in order to win. I personally like to play safe and turtle my way up with anything OP I can find (except phase ships, i just don't like them) to the point where I can churn out expendable fleets every month of any design. I ditch my optimized ships and just mass produce junk fleets that i can can blow up and have fun doing so. That's what I find fun and it's also optional. I don't see how does it hurt anybody's gameplay experience what I do in a singleplayer game's optional content. If Doom for example, just went *poof* right now, how would that improve your gameplay experience, if you didn't even use it to begin with? Nobody and nothing is forcing anybody to play stealth archer in Skyrim either, and they can complete the game 100% just fine without it.

I agree that there should be balance and it is good, but there also should be things below and above it that are still viable.

And to your question as to why nerf=bad, well it's because there are obviously people enjoying the stuff that you're asking it to be nerfed. You are telling people what to do or not to do, what to like and not to like. Imagine campaigning to ban cigarettes countrywide, do you really expect people to not speak up about it? You're asking to nerf the fun out of people's lives, to put it more dramatically.
Next reason is because what DuckFlux said, every nerf has to potential to be terrible, it's like playing russian roulette. People don't enjoy that either.

Regarding the Tempest changes, I don't know how it will be and I can't have an opinion on it until I see it in action, and if there are going to be more changes to OP things in the future I'm just hoping that it will be as creative as this one, and not an all around stat reduction that sends that content straight into the coffin.

[Retry]

But isn't it ironic that the most people who want to nerf OP ships are the people who aren't using them?

"No survivors users?  Then where do the stories videos come, I wonder?"

No, it's not ironic, and more importantly it's not true.

The main people highlighting the problems of, say, Dooms, did personally use them and fly them, often recording video evidence of their Dooms performing ridiculous feats such as soloing Remnant Ordo's, story bosses such as Ziggurats, and end-game enemies like Doritos (Either SCC or Zym IIRC?).  Then they stopped using it because it trivialized the challenge fights (let alone the regular gameplay) were leading to non-positive gameplay experiences.

That's one problem solved by self restraint, but there's another issue intrinsic with the situation...

If Doom for example, just went *poof* right now, how would that improve your gameplay experience, if you didn't even use it to begin with?

...the obvious thing being missed here is it's not optional.  Dooms and Furies and Radiants act as NPC enemies whether or not you choose to use them yourself, and it quickly becomes frustrating when the difficulty of a fleet becomes directly proportional to the number of Dooms or Radiants it contains regardless of the composition of the rest of the fleet.  This also degrades the gameplay experience, and it's not an issue that can be solved by merely restraining to personally use certain ships and mechanics.

[BreenBB]

And to your question as to why nerf=bad, well it's because there are obviously people enjoying the stuff that you're asking it to be nerfed. You are telling people what to do or not to do, what to like and not to like. Imagine campaigning to ban cigarettes countrywide, do you really expect people to not speak up about it? You're asking to nerf the fun out of people's lives, to put it more dramatically.
Next reason is because what DuckFlux said, every nerf has to potential to be terrible, it's like playing russian roulette. People don't enjoy that either.

Another voice of reason here.

[Grievous69]

Man this whole thread is such a train wreck. What. people suddenly fear nerfs and think it's gonna ruin the whole game just because it has the POTENTIAL to ruin your fun of piloting the most broken thing in the game? Well good, if your thing is playing a game where there's zero choice when trying to optimize gameplay then just edit the numbers in the game so you can have your overpowered toys. I personally like having meaningful decisions in my games.

[SCC]

The main people highlighting the problems of, say, Dooms, did personally use them and fly them, often recording video evidence of their Dooms performing ridiculous feats such as soloing Remnant Ordo's, story bosses such as Ziggurats, and end-game enemies like Doritos (Either SCC or Zym IIRC?).  Then they stopped using it because it trivialized the challenge fights (let alone the regular gameplay) were leading to non-positive gameplay experiences.

Zym recorded some videos on the progress of his Doom-nerfing mod, which he eventually released. I recorded a couple of fights, where Doom singlehandedly destroys some random ordos, hypershunt guardians, the omega bounty. Though I have to say something - I didn't stop using Doom because of that. I didn't use it in regular gameplay in the first place and only took them for a spin to see how overpowered it is, then once I saw it stupid strong, I returned to my usual playstyle of not using phase ships (not because of their power level, but I just don't like the playstyle). Reminds me of when Doom got Mine Strike. "Oh look, it's broken. Eh, forget about it and have fun instead."

...the obvious thing being missed here is it's not optional.  Dooms and Furies and Radiants act as NPC enemies whether or not you choose to use them yourself, and it quickly becomes frustrating when the difficulty of a fleet becomes directly proportional to the number of Dooms or Radiants it contains regardless of the composition of the rest of the fleet.  This also degrades the gameplay experience, and it's not an issue that can be solved by merely restraining to personally use certain ships and mechanics.

I consider Doom the most dangerous human ship, but it's not the same gap as between the Radiant and other droneships. Regular Remnants aren't really different in their difficulty from similar sized human fleets, but once you throw Radiants into the mix, the challenge drastically and linearly increases with the number of Radiants you have to face.

[Vextor]

But isn't it ironic that the most people who want to nerf OP ships are the people who aren't using them?

"No survivors users?  Then where do the stories videos come, I wonder?"

No, it's not ironic, and more importantly it's not true.

The main people highlighting the problems of, say, Dooms, did personally use them and fly them, often recording video evidence of their Dooms performing ridiculous feats such as soloing Remnant Ordo's, story bosses such as Ziggurats, and end-game enemies like Doritos (Either SCC or Zym IIRC?).  Then they stopped using it because it trivialized the challenge fights (let alone the regular gameplay) were leading to non-positive gameplay experiences.

That's one problem solved by self restraint, but there's another issue intrinsic with the situation...

If Doom for example, just went *poof* right now, how would that improve your gameplay experience, if you didn't even use it to begin with?

...the obvious thing being missed here is it's not optional.  Dooms and Furies and Radiants act as NPC enemies whether or not you choose to use them yourself, and it quickly becomes frustrating when the difficulty of a fleet becomes directly proportional to the number of Dooms or Radiants it contains regardless of the composition of the rest of the fleet.  This also degrades the gameplay experience, and it's not an issue that can be solved by merely restraining to personally use certain ships and mechanics.

What I meant by them not using it is that they aren't actively using it, as opposed to those who do. NPC Dooms I only encountered from ~300k bounties and once in the main storyline in a phase fleet that could've been avoided. There are onslaught low/mid tech fleets, pirate atlas and luddic prometheus fleets that give the same payout, so you aren't exactly forced to pick the TT deserter bounty.

As for Radiants, as far as I'm aware Remnant fleets are meant to be OP. It's not even the Radiant that's OP but the Alpha AI piloting it IME.

Man this whole thread is such a train wreck. What. people suddenly fear nerfs and think it's gonna ruin the whole game just because it has the POTENTIAL to ruin your fun of piloting the most broken thing in the game? Well good, if your thing is playing a game where there's zero choice when trying to optimize gameplay then just edit the numbers in the game so you can have your overpowered toys. I personally like having meaningful decisions in my games.

What zero choice? Is there a Doom in your room that's threatening to mine strike your PC if you were to switch over to midline?

[DuckFlux]

And to your question as to why nerf=bad, well it's because there are obviously people enjoying the stuff that you're asking it to be nerfed. You are telling people what to do or not to do, what to like and not to like. Imagine campaigning to ban cigarettes countrywide, do you really expect people to not speak up about it? You're asking to nerf the fun out of people's lives, to put it more dramatically.
Next reason is because what DuckFlux said, every nerf has to potential to be terrible, it's like playing russian roulette. People don't enjoy that either.

But you can't live in fear of the developer breaking something, especially for a game in development. There are going to be further patches and further ship balances to make in order to better tie in new and existing systems. There is no guarantee that not nerfing a ship now will leave it free of changes down the road.

Why should significantly over performing ships be nerfed? well that's entirely down to the developers design philosophy, as you say, there is no absolute truth or universal measure against which we could judge the goodness of a game. It may be that the developers want the player to be excited to find and use the obviously strong ships and ditch the rest as soon as possible. It may be the developers intent that you love each of there creations equally, as much as they do.

Whenever we discuss the mechanics of a game, we 'should' be discussing them in the context of what the game is, relative to what we think the developers want the game to be. So there are two levels here, either we agree with the developers intent, but disagree with how the developers are achieving that intent, or we just fundamentally disagree with their intent.

People expressing their opinion on how they think the game should be balanced is just that, their opinion. I don't think it is fair to say that they are telling you what to like or do any more than you are telling them what to like or do. It may be that the consequence of anyone being persuaded by their opinion results in a game that you personally won't like as much, but that door swings both ways, has a double edge, and revolves. Just because the game is the way you like it at this moment doesn't give your opinion any more weight than the opinion of someone who would like the game to be changed.

[Scorpixel]

I maintain what i implicitly said, a customer does not know what he wants, it's up to the producer to find what works, same goes for players and devs.

About that point of "you want something nerfed that you do not play", i do not use the Doom because A: not my playstyle and B: still entrenched in 0.9.1. Considering how broken the thing is and how broken enemies are unless the former is used, i would be driven into that corner, as right now playing midlines+carriers and ignoring lowtech entirely.

I'm not special, just part of the niche that enjoy that kind of stuff, i like my corner and management tabs, yet recognise that this niche has no right subjugating others who want no part in it yet have to (be it consciously or not).
We are our most biased viewpoint, observing communities as a whole and acknowledging (not necessarily rejecting) our biases when doing so is primordial to understanding trends and mechanisms.

Maybe there's a truth about good being subjective (that i view as the go-to "defence" when something someone likes is being "attacked", both a wound and insult to all artforms), but an absolute one is the playerbase. If your game offer options, viable ones are those that count, others might as well not exist.
A busted option does this to an even greater degree.

In both solo and multi, the advantaged playstyle defends it's position, while the others complain, if devs give-in, the nerfed side (if within reason) cries a bit before calming down, but when the status-quo remain, everyone else quietly leaves, entering a negative feedback loop of dwindling population but higher ratio of pro status-quo.

As for that point you made on the P2W game, it is flawed logic, and for two reasons:

-You wouldn't need to find the fun through cheats in the first place if the game was good (which is solely incompatible with P2W games, took years to learn that), it takes time to know when something is bad, as even poking a dead rat with a stick can be entertaining for some time.

-You only reference your point of view, which you did the whole time, everything is subjective but only if it's from someone else. What about the large majority of the playerbase that did not get to find such cheats to essentially gain the benefits of those with a bottomless credit card? Did they find the fun?

The truth is whatever gets to be reliably viable within it's niche, games inside those search for the truth in question.
The best representation of this idea is the essay on DayZ from Sovietwomble.

Multiplayer is inherently different and more likely to provide entertainment (IE: not fun, entertainment. Can be the kind players loathe but still play) and as such while more active, also more forgiving of it's flaws.

A solo experience is it's own description.
It HAS to stand on it's two feet and provide to the player entirely by itself, the core gameplay loop has to suck the player in and keep-up for hours if not days, helped by the flavours around it.
ALL flavours have to live around said loop, those fully in the shadow are useless load bound to disappoint, those basked in light completely alter the intended journey, and hold an addiction that take long to notice until you realise you spent the whole voyage in a semi-conscious daze.

[Kahnmir]

I agree with OP that nerfing is not really a great answer,

For the people saying that buffing things just causes powercreep, I want to point out that nerfing also cause powercreep, because there's always a some "second best" thing that is overshadowed by the current "overpowered" thing and that once the overpowered thing gets nerfed, then the "second best" thing will simply take its place.

Case in point, I predict that once high-tech gets nerfed, midline will simply take its place, then everyone will switch to whining about midline being overpowered, than midline will be nerfed, then people will start whining about low-tech being overpowered, then low tech will be nerfed, and THEN high-tech will be overpowered again. And what will have been accomplished out of all this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Really, I think this is a problem of having a hammer and everything looking like a nail. A better solution to balance is to go sideways rather than buff/nerf

Also, Every mention of things being overpowered right now relates to either the skills, or to safety overrides. Why nerf the ships when these two things seem like more likely culprits?

[Megas]

Case in point, I predict that once high-tech gets nerfed, midline will simply take its place, then everyone will switch to whining about midline being overpowered, than midline will be nerfed, then people will start whining about low-tech being overpowered, then low tech will be nerfed, and THEN high-tech will be overpowered again. And what will have been accomplished out of all this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

More like all of the fun stuff gutted out of the game and nothing but sluggish, unresponsive, and uninspired wimps remaining in the game.

[robepriority]

I don't think any of the nerfs in the blogpost put the tempest in a zero-pick condition or unfun to use.
It won't be in a pick-always-with-any-fleetcomp condition, and the system is much more interesting.
The post itself also buffed low-tech by giving it interruptible burn drive and a 2 ability frigate.

I don't think the doom was ever mentioned in the blog either.

[braciszek]

I agree with OP that nerfing is not really a great answer,

For the people saying that buffing things just causes powercreep, I want to point out that nerfing also cause powercreep, because there's always a some "second best" thing that is overshadowed by the current "overpowered" thing and that once the overpowered thing gets nerfed, then the "second best" thing will simply take its place.

No, because whenever something rears its ugly head in need of a nerf, it tends to be an outlier. You fix the outliers, at least those that contribute against a postive game experience and reinforce bad player behavior. Or whatever the developer doesn't want the player to be doing. If there's still "powercreep" after some buffs/nerfs, then the changes were insufficient. That's another matter.

Case in point, I predict that once high-tech gets nerfed, midline will simply take its place, then everyone will switch to whining about midline being overpowered, than midline will be nerfed, then people will start whining about low-tech being overpowered, then low tech will be nerfed, and THEN high-tech will be overpowered again. And what will have been accomplished out of all this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

There's no need to dramatize. Not every one of us complains absolutely all the time whenever anything happens. There is a point where complaints can be minimized. It is the job of the developer to recognize feedback that matters and find their own way to deal with complaints that they could never resolve.

Really, I think this is a problem of having a hammer and everything looking like a nail. A better solution to balance is to go sideways rather than buff/nerf

I believe that is what Alex tried doing with the tempest. Alex will most likely try this sort approach for other things in the future.

Also, Every mention of things being overpowered right now relates to either the skills, or to safety overrides. Why nerf the ships when these two things seem like more likely culprits?

For those of us that avoid complaining about things until it gets tedious dealing with things, we usually try to evaluate the balance of things without additional factors ie without skills or drastic hullmods. Unless skills or SO are explicitly mentioned.

Balance is an iterative process. Things can be the same for years, and developers can suddenly feel the desire for change due to a change in focus over time. The best thing about this game is that it is terribly easy to open up the ship csvs and do whatever balance changes anyone could ever want. The question is, does Alex design and balance the game around what he feels, or what we feel? And to what degree of both? For the most part, I don't get personally attached to elements of the game, especially a game in development, mind. Things *will* change. It's a matter of what and when (and how). I always trust Alex to make the correct decisions, whether it is the next patch, the patch next year, or the game's final update. That's the beauty of a game in development. There's always time to do additional adjustment; nothing is set in stone.

[Yunru]

I agree with OP that nerfing is not really a great answer,

For the people saying that buffing things just causes powercreep, I want to point out that nerfing also cause powercreep, because there's always a some "second best" thing that is overshadowed by the current "overpowered" thing and that once the overpowered thing gets nerfed, then the "second best" thing will simply take its place.

Case in point, I predict that once high-tech gets nerfed, midline will simply take its place, then everyone will switch to whining about midline being overpowered, than midline will be nerfed, then people will start whining about low-tech being overpowered, then low tech will be nerfed, and THEN high-tech will be overpowered again. And what will have been accomplished out of all this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Really, I think this is a problem of having a hammer and everything looking like a nail. A better solution to balance is to go sideways rather than buff/nerf

Also, Every mention of things being overpowered right now relates to either the skills, or to safety overrides. Why nerf the ships when these two things seem like more likely culprits?

Ah yes, of course. Because we have no active examples of weaker choices getting buffed. Definitely not an entire blog post about it.

No, it has to be completely one way or the other: either everything gets buffed, or everything gets nerfed.

[Phenir]

For the people saying that buffing things just causes powercreep, I want to point out that nerfing also cause powercreep, because there's always a some "second best" thing that is overshadowed by the current "overpowered" thing and that once the overpowered thing gets nerfed, then the "second best" thing will simply take its place.

That's not powercreep. Powercreep is when player strength outpaces the challenge that the game can provide. Imagine if every ship was buffed so they could solo doritos and remnant fleets like a doom can. That is powercreep. Anyone that has played mmos or arpgs for a significant amount of the game's lifetime has witnessed powercreep in action.