The first recorded call for a nerf in a video game came in 1972, with the debut of Pong. After the game, the losing player wrote a letter, on his typewriter, to Atari. The letter demanded that Atari shorten Player 1's paddle, as it was giving Player 1 an unfair advantage.
Ok, I made that up. This weekend was WAR's preview weekend, which allowed at least 50,000 players to get a taste of the game. Soon after the the servers were brought up, the call for nerf's began.
It seems that at least half of the classes in the game have been called overpowered already. The majority of the classes mentioned have been on the Order side. One possibility for this is that many players have this impression: Order == WoW Alliance == kids & new players == less skilled. This tends to give some Destruction players (not all) a superiority complex.
When they (Order too) lose a battle, they can not fathom that they may have just been beaten by a better player, better strategy or just plain luck. So the call for nerf's go out, often times not even mentioning the classes mirror on their side (Order or Destruction). It is always the other side, not theirs.
All that being said, there are imbalances. Judging a classes power is not an easy thing to do though, especially in WAR. Some classes, like Engineer, have a power curve that only starts to get high in the later ranks. Classes like Bright Wizard have a power curve which starts getting higher earlier. The whole balance may shift in the subsequent ranks. WAR is also a team game. It is not and should not be balanced based on 1 vs 1 combat.
Be careful when crying nerf as it can have some unintended consequences. Star Wars: Galaxies, back before NGE, had all sorts of balancing issues. Players were constantly making pushes for nerfs and powering up of their own classes. This lead to a Flavor of the Month issue since the devs did try to appease the player base and eventually lead to NGE.* So please, keep in mind the overall health of the game before taking to the forums demanding a change.
*NOTE: I am not saying players are fully to blame for SWG, only partly. A better initial design would have gone a long way. NGE also had many other reasons ; class balance was just one contributing issue.
Gaming into the summer
1 day ago
