Da Celt
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Nerf definition and PE Nerf List
Nearly every VU a hugh rumble goes through the community, as people react to changes, bugs, new features. Along with this many folks state features, game design was Nerfed in some way. So to add some clarity and agreement within the community, this thread is to be used to state all things Nerfy about PE.
Comments on the following:
Definition:Nerf occording to www.answers.com
"In the context of computer games, a nerf is a change to the rules of the game that is generally considered to have a weakening or negative effect upon the affected object(s). "
This is an important concept in game design and game balance. Players may typically call for something to be nerfed that may be legitimately overpowered, but a game designer must be careful to ensure that the strategic depth is increased and not decreased by this. For example, in a hypothetical early version of chess which had half the number of pawns, players might complain that the queen was "too powerful". A more inept game designer might nerf the queen by allowing it to only move like a pawn, but this loses the point of the queen and decreases the strategic depth. A better solution might be to simply increase the number of pawns.
Nerfing is usually not possible on console games once they are released. The games most frequently adjusted for balance are multiplayer online computer games, especially MMORPGs and highly competitive games such as tactical first-person shooters and real-time strategy games. The word 'nerf' is not as commonly seen outside of online role-playing games though. The main exception to this is when a publisher, such as Wizards of the Coast or White Wolf releases a new version of a popular table-top RPG, which significantly changes the way the game is played.
MMORPG developers nerf aspects of the game in order to maintain game balance. Occasionally a new feature (such as an item, class, skill, etc.) may be made too powerful, too cheap, or too easily obtained to the extent that it unbalances the game system itself. This is sometimes due to an unforseen bug or method of using or acquiring the object that was not considered by the developers. The developers may have intended that a player perform steps A, B, and C to get the item, but players may accidentally discover that they can skip steps A and B and simply do step C to gain the reward.
More often though nerfs are implemented as an anti-botting tactic. This tactic is favored because it is easily implemented; and, although it has a dubious effect on botting it generally harms legitimate players more than the botters.
A classic scenario is a situation where a player runs a bot to gather items of loot by killing monsters repeatedly. Nerfing the loot's drop rate on the monsters harms legitimate players by decreasing the reward for their play time, while it generally affects bots little because the time would simply have been wasted and so any reward at all is sufficient to induce continued botting. In addition, excessive nerfing can often frustrate legitimate players to the point where they begin botting simply so they can spend their play time playing instead of constantly gathering resources. Additionally, there are many professional players that play for the explicit purpose of gathering resources to sell at e-commerce websites. Nerfing the drop rate of an item merely increases the scarcity, driving up the price, and increasing the profits from botting in this manner.
Nearly every VU a hugh rumble goes through the community, as people react to changes, bugs, new features. Along with this many folks state features, game design was Nerfed in some way. So to add some clarity and agreement within the community, this thread is to be used to state all things Nerfy about PE.
Comments on the following:
Definition:Nerf occording to www.answers.com
"In the context of computer games, a nerf is a change to the rules of the game that is generally considered to have a weakening or negative effect upon the affected object(s). "
This is an important concept in game design and game balance. Players may typically call for something to be nerfed that may be legitimately overpowered, but a game designer must be careful to ensure that the strategic depth is increased and not decreased by this. For example, in a hypothetical early version of chess which had half the number of pawns, players might complain that the queen was "too powerful". A more inept game designer might nerf the queen by allowing it to only move like a pawn, but this loses the point of the queen and decreases the strategic depth. A better solution might be to simply increase the number of pawns.
Nerfing is usually not possible on console games once they are released. The games most frequently adjusted for balance are multiplayer online computer games, especially MMORPGs and highly competitive games such as tactical first-person shooters and real-time strategy games. The word 'nerf' is not as commonly seen outside of online role-playing games though. The main exception to this is when a publisher, such as Wizards of the Coast or White Wolf releases a new version of a popular table-top RPG, which significantly changes the way the game is played.
MMORPG developers nerf aspects of the game in order to maintain game balance. Occasionally a new feature (such as an item, class, skill, etc.) may be made too powerful, too cheap, or too easily obtained to the extent that it unbalances the game system itself. This is sometimes due to an unforseen bug or method of using or acquiring the object that was not considered by the developers. The developers may have intended that a player perform steps A, B, and C to get the item, but players may accidentally discover that they can skip steps A and B and simply do step C to gain the reward.
More often though nerfs are implemented as an anti-botting tactic. This tactic is favored because it is easily implemented; and, although it has a dubious effect on botting it generally harms legitimate players more than the botters.
A classic scenario is a situation where a player runs a bot to gather items of loot by killing monsters repeatedly. Nerfing the loot's drop rate on the monsters harms legitimate players by decreasing the reward for their play time, while it generally affects bots little because the time would simply have been wasted and so any reward at all is sufficient to induce continued botting. In addition, excessive nerfing can often frustrate legitimate players to the point where they begin botting simply so they can spend their play time playing instead of constantly gathering resources. Additionally, there are many professional players that play for the explicit purpose of gathering resources to sell at e-commerce websites. Nerfing the drop rate of an item merely increases the scarcity, driving up the price, and increasing the profits from botting in this manner.
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