Stop the stealth nerfs

OzarkBoatswain

When a character changes, it should be mentioned in the announcements board or in the game.

Phoenix has received two nerfs that weren't mentioned officially anywhere. First the AP costs of her second form attacks were changed, with red going from 6 to 9 AP. When the character was first released, people in this forum were posting about whether or not it was a bug. No response. Months later it gets changed. No announcement.

Then this month her red was changed again so that it counts Countdowns and other special tiles when considering putting down enemy tiles. That's what the power's description says it should do, but originally it only counted attack/protect/strike tiles. No announcement.

It would be best to get it right the first time with QA. If something unintended slips through, it can be caught quickly by reading the messages of your unpaid testers, us users. If it needs to change, it should be announced when (or before) it happens.

SnowcaTT

If they are going to stealth nerf, they need to do it to The Only Character that Matters [and deserves a nerf] (OML) rather than the 5*'s that aren't equal to him.

But yes - no player likes playing a character one way only to have a surprise popped on them that it is suddenly playing a different way.

wirius

Announced nerfs get people on this forum rabies mad, with froth and spittle spewing from their mouth as they jabber, "We'll sue, we'll down rank you, you're stealing from us etc."

Stealth nerfs are mostly ignored.

What would YOU do if you were in charge?

dsds

wirius wrote:

Announced nerfs get people on this forum rabies mad, with froth and spittle spewing from their mouth as they jabber, "We'll sue, we'll down rank you, you're stealing from us etc."

Stealth nerfs are mostly ignored.

What would YOU do if you were in charge?

What would you expect from people? You announce something and then change it in a very short amount of time. Would you be mad if you ordered a coffee, and they gave you tea? And now what's worse is that you are still claiming it's coffee even though you clearly know that it is tea. Own up to your mistakes and take your lashes just like every other grownup.

elwhiteninja

I would prefer the DOTA 2 method over the league of legends method.

League: X champion is too strong. Solution: make them worthless.

DOTA 2: X Champion is too strong. Solution: Make everyone else stronger/make hard counters to that character.

wirius

dsds wrote:

wirius wrote:

Announced nerfs get people on this forum rabies mad, with froth and spittle spewing from their mouth as they jabber, "We'll sue, we'll down rank you, you're stealing from us etc."

Stealth nerfs are mostly ignored.

What would YOU do if you were in charge?

What would you expect from people? You announce something and then change it in a very short amount of time. Would you be mad if you ordered a coffee, and they gave you tea? And now what's worse is that you are still claiming it's coffee even though you clearly know that it is tea. Own up to your mistakes and take your lashes just like every other grownup.

Case in point. This one got really mad at just the IDEA of nerfing a character. Trust me, I was around for several announced nerfs and many in the community acted...appallingly.

The problem is, especially when you could directly buy covers, there are people who have spent THOUSANDS on this game, as well as the time needed to win and level the covers. People who spend that kind of money typically do it for the illusion of power that it brings. If you nerf their character into something reasonable for the good of the game, some of those spenders mentally snap.

But you don't fund a game with nice people. You fund a game with people who spend money. I really don't blame D3 for stealth nerfs in the future because there are many in the player base who just can't mentally handle announced nerfs.

dsds

wirius wrote:

dsds wrote:

wirius wrote:

Announced nerfs get people on this forum rabies mad, with froth and spittle spewing from their mouth as they jabber, "We'll sue, we'll down rank you, you're stealing from us etc."

Stealth nerfs are mostly ignored.

What would YOU do if you were in charge?

What would you expect from people? You announce something and then change it in a very short amount of time. Would you be mad if you ordered a coffee, and they gave you tea? And now what's worse is that you are still claiming it's coffee even though you clearly know that it is tea. Own up to your mistakes and take your lashes just like every other grownup.

Case in point. This one got really mad at just the IDEA of nerfing a character. Trust me, I was around for several announced nerfs and many in the community acted...appallingly.

The problem is, especially when you could directly buy covers, there are people who have spent THOUSANDS on this game, as well as the time needed to win and level the covers. People who spend that kind of money typically do it for the illusion of power that it brings. If you nerf their character into something reasonable for the good of the game, some of those spenders mentally snap.

But you don't fund a game with nice people. You fund a game with people who spend money. I really don't blame D3 for stealth nerfs in the future because there are many in the player base who just can't mentally handle announced nerfs.

I would agree some people can't handle especially those that pay for characters and expect this to be a pay to win game when clearly the publishers have said they don't want that model. They want you to still earn the rewards and this is why hp can't directly buy covers anymore. So when they made that decision certain parts of the player base will leave and some revenue will be lost but they know that for long term, they will gain back the revenue because new people will be attracted to the game who don't want a pay to win model and will pay to get an advantage but don't expect to dominate without spending a reasonable amount of effort in the game. Or they will gain people who won't mind a monthly subscription model if they later decide to implement it.

Every decision has a positive and a negative effect. Short term greed should not be the reason for decisions. I think not announcing the nerfs will hurt more in the long term as people will lose trust in the company. Those people who overreact to nerfs are not the people they want to target in the long term. Pay to win players will never stay because as they win more and more, they will get bored and go. And if they don't win, they will feel ripped off and they will go. They are detrimental to any game because they are simply short term players. Yes they infuse a ton of cash in the short term and if they get their way it will be at the expense of the other players feeling alienated and leaving.

Normal players who aren't whales makes up a huge part of the player base and also are responsible for spreading the word and are likely to attract more people as most new players can relate to them and so their posts are read more often and they have more influence. Also this game is not only selling premium purchases, they help to promote the movies and the overall marvel franchise including comics, etc. Those movies, comics benefit more from the normal player base than a few whales. You can only watch a movie a certain amount of times before getting stale. Same with comics. So this game is a great way to help advertise those other elements they want to make money on and history has shown us that they do this (eg. civil war, ultron)