Build to Nerf

[ShenMolo]

Here is an interesting article about how Blizzard creates content with the intention of nerfing it at some point.

I never thought about it like this. I always thought that a content nerf was an admission that they had screwed something up in the first place.

From http://ciderhelm.tankspot.com/#33356

Going to break a bit of unimportant news.

Blizzard has a policy towards nerfing content. Not being facetious here -- there is a company policy to consistently nerf gearing and progression requirements in both PVP and PVE.

I suspected this back in late 2005 as Molten Core went through a process of difficulty reduction. At one time, Molten Core mobs were on a far stricter respawn timer, repair bots didn't exist, entire raids had to zone through Blackrock Depths, and Dire Maul gear had not been introduced. Molten Core was a genuinely difficult zone, though you'd never guess it from the way people describe it now.

Since then, and through this day, I've remarked with friends on certain changes that occur with virtually every content patch. The script goes something like this:

1) Release content.
2) Wait 2 or more months.
3) Introduce easy-to-obtain "bridge" gear, reduce attunement requirements, and provide other beneficial changes such as reducing boss difficulty.

Retuning bosses does not always fall into this category -- C'Thun was a (genuinely awful) mistake in judgment on Blizzard's part. However, changes such as those to Hydross and Gruul, seemed deliberate.

Remember Ahn'Qiraj? Princess Huhuran was a devastating encounter based entirely off Nature Resistance during an enrage period. Only, there was no Nature Resistance in the game, short of mid-level green items in Maraudon. That is, there wasn't any until many of the middle class of raiding guilds moved past Blackwing Lair. Even though all of the major progression guilds proved they could clear Huhuran, Blizzard released sets of cheap, craftable Nature Resistance across the board.

Crafted Nature Resistance was the Ahn'Qiraj buffer. Blackwing Lair had been buffered by Zul'Gurub and increased BOE drops in Molten Core. Molten Core had been buffered by Dire Maul and enormous increases in the value of Dungeon Set gear.


Burning Crusade
Remember pre-nerf Gruul? Or, how about the brutal keying process for Serpentshrine and Tempest Keep?

How about those Heroic badges and the new gear? Purchasing good PVP gear with badges you can now get from Karazhan clears? Or purchasing amazingly good badge gear useful even through Black Temple and Mount Hyjal? How about the change to allow your Honor points to be spent on S1 equipment?

Every raid zone -- every single one of them -- has just received or is about to receive a nerf. For Black Temple, we just got that on Mother Shahraz. Nevermind the volume of brand new trash drops in both Black Temple and Mount Hyjal which offer relatively cheap upgrades.

Everything you do in this game will be easier for people in your current position a few months from now.


Why? Is this bad?
It is, in my opinion, one of the most intelligent and best calculated moves Blizzard has made.

Blizzard is essentially keeping both hardcore and more casual raiders (and players) happy by doing this. Hardcore players get the satisfaction of beating genuinely difficult content. The first people who cleared Molten Core were fantastic raiders, even though it later became a symbol of slide-by raiding. It's no secret that great players are proud of killing content "while it was hard," such as Huhuran, Faerlina, Gruul, Hydross and Shahraz.

The key is that this isn't a mistake. This is purposeful to help players who otherwise could not see content see a great deal more of it. Consider how many fewer guilds would be finishing Serpentshrine and Tempest Keep if the old attunement requirements were in play.

By constantly easing up restrictions on more casual players, Blizzard's customers can see more of what they pay for while maintaining the integrity and accomplishment of the hardcore guilds who did it first.

Too often I see a comment made about Blizzard making content "too easy" with the implication that it's only fair that new players should have the same struggles they did. That's just not how this MMO works.

[Venkman]

Not dismissing the article, but this is fairly well established. Blizzard plays the high/low game in balancing. Like a 401(k), you don't want to day-trade on what a particular class can do in the game at a particular time :)

[bhodi]

No shit. This is common knowledge. Almost Ric Romero-level stuff.

Make shit super hard and buggy so the hardcore don't get bored, then reduce it for the casuals a few month later when the next big instance (tm) hits.

The problem is the hardcore is so much 'better' that casuals simply cannot match it -- they are on two completely different difficulty levels. The solution presents itself.

[ShenMolo]

Yea, it makes sense when you think about it.

I wonder if the howls that always accompany content nerf's would go away if Blizzard just stated every time new content came out:

"We understand many of you are upset that the bulk of the new content will not be playable by 90% of the player base, however, within 120 days we will nerf it so that you can play it. In the meantime, keep subscribing, or join a 5 night a week raiding guild nub!"

[Dren]

What Bhodi is saying is that truly casual players/guidls still don't see that content because they never make it there fast enough.  I concur.  I still never saw MC, BWL, Nax, because by the time I even started to think about going for those places, TBC came out and I had no interest in trying anymore.  Actually, I stop thinking about it 6 months prior because I new TBC was coming out.

I chew on content way slower than Blizz puts it out.  I really don't think I'm all that rare.  I'm just part of that massive group that doesn't say much about it.

Patch 2.3?  More of the same.  I'm not even close to being done with Karaz, but when it releases, we'll be all about the new 10-man.  The only reason we'd be going to Karaz is that we'll eventually figure out we can't handle the new instance without gearing everyone up from Karaz.  We're still trying to get through all of the heroics too.  I've only dabbled with maybe 4 under my belt.  Hell, I haven't seen every 5 man instance in TBC yet either.  I've skipped several.

[Evil Elvis]

Moving arena gear to BG's isn't really dumbing-down the difficulty, it's providing newer players with the ability to compete. 

I'm not buying anything atm with my arena or bg points, since I want to wait for the new season.  I'm basically stuck with my quest blues/greens until then.  It's a nightmare.  I can't count the number of times I've had a shaman insta-dropped me with a lightning-windfury-shock crit chain for my entire health bar.  Or bursting as hard as you can on a lone pally while he /tickle's you and FoL heals for more damage than you can put out. 

[tazelbain]

> What Bhodi is saying is that truly casual players/guidls still don't see that content because they never make it there fast enough.
So the cockblocks are working?

[Venkman]

Depends. There's the level cap which is certainly not cockblocked prior to it, as it wasn't in pre-BC. Solo straight on through, with soloable quests throughout. You won't have the best gear, but the pre-cap game has nevered been balanced to require it anyway.

At the cap though, yea. One really stupid cockblock is the many group-required quests to unlock the dailies. You're basically telling the casual players who get to the cap that once their solo quests/rep-grind stuff dries up, that's it. Those dailies are the perfect casual-continuance vehicle... once they've taken a few PUG-shots at five-manning all the stuff before it. Oh, and then getting the 5k for the epic flyer they need to do the other five dailies.

[Phred]

> What Bhodi is saying is that truly casual players/guidls still don't see that content because they never make it there fast enough.
So the cockblocks are working?

Oh come on? What cockblock would make it take over a year to hit L60 in original WoW, other than self imposed ones. I have some super casual friends, marriied, with kids, jobs, etc, that made 60 in about 8 months of playing. That still left over a year in the original game where he stated he ignored stuff for 6 months prior to launch.

Back to original post. I don't know if it's deliberate or bad planning/internal testing/pressure to ship. Having seen some drastic revisions in the BC beta (Firewing was all elite mobs for instance) I think the designers tend to starrt difficult and be willing to work down from there rather than deliberately have the nerfs planned out prior to shipping.

[Merusk]

People accept it gladly when you make things easier.  Those who cry about "dumbing down" get  from the majority and a good dose of "wtf, get a life it's a game." (Deservedly.)

However, if they made shit so easy you could walk through it in quest greens, you can imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would ensue.  It's the same philosophy they take towards class balance most of the time. Small, incremental tweaks upward, rather than 'oh crap,THAT was a mistake, take it out next patch!"

It's not perfect, and they fuck up enough as it is, but it's a decent philosophy for both fun and long-term enjoyment.

[Venkman]

They're damned either way. They either make everything so easy they leave a lot of people with nothing to do until the next content patch or they make everything so hard the vast majority of players complain there's nothing to do for them.

I think Blizzard does a better job than most at giving a lot of people who reach the cap at least something to do. If they can find ways to get past some unfortunate cockblocks. But then, if you hit the cap and neither know anyone else at all nor have the courage to send out a PUG request, then you are effectively won the game and should move on.

[Trouble]

They buffed some bosses in Black Temple a couple weeks after it was released....

[Phunked]

They buffed some bosses in Black Temple a couple weeks after it was released....

No, they fixed some bosses in BT after they were released.

Abilities not working properly and being entirely avoidable through non-intended mechanics made that place trivial. Hence why Nihilium cleared up to Reliquary in what 5 hours?

It took my guild 2 nights. At the same time, we realized that we were not playing the same game that Blizzard intended us to play. Standing in a dead zone is not an intended mechanic on an encounter where you're specifically intended to eat the AoE (hi2u Naj'entus). On that note however, I strongly agree with the policy of nerfing content. In fact, I think that they should do it earlier. Personally I enjoy the challenge. Which means that I and others like me will push ourselves to clear it as fast as we can. However, many of these fights are really overtuned for the typical raider. They should be accessible to people who aren't willing to put in 8 hours a night into learning it, and don't use the same 25 people for 90% of the content.

It's good marketing, it's great for keeping subs and it really is the better option to breaking up the elitist raiding clique. No wonder Blizzard does it.

[stu]

They're damned either way.

That seems to be the first rule of MMO design. For any title.

[Righ]

Make the nerfed content available from day one. Allow people to play the content in Hardcore Shower-Free Mode, Exam Failing College Mode or Casual Employed Loser Mode. Keep the same loot tables, but bias the sliders to slightly favor the tougher invocation of the instance. Award badges to keep the braggart achievers happy.

[Trouble]

When I first glanced at this I thought there had been some great press release by Blizzard or something saying "yes, we do indeed design content to be nerfed later!" The guy says there is a "policy". In reality this is just fluff bullshit. As others have said, everyone knows this is how it's done. Blizzard has just never outright admitted that they intend to do it beforehand (I'm not entirely convinced they do).

[Ironwood]

I've said from day one that instances ought to be designed around scaling content.

Go in with your 40 man epicced out nutters and the trash will kick fuck out of you.  Go in with your wife and a budgerigar and you'll be tanking little puppies with cute noses.

Sure, make the loot slide too.  It's not really the point.

[Dren]

> What Bhodi is saying is that truly casual players/guidls still don't see that content because they never make it there fast enough.
So the cockblocks are working?

For me, this isn't the case.  I'm just going through it slow, but not ever really stopping.  Sure there are areas that are blocked to me no matter what I do, but I have plenty of other paths to feel like I'm accomplishing something.  I really don't feel like I have to see 100% of the game.  I'd be happy with about 70-80%. I think I'm getting what I expected.

[Venkman]

Make the nerfed content available from day one. Allow people to play the content in Hardcore Shower-Free Mode, Exam Failing College Mode or Casual Employed Loser Mode. Keep the same loot tables, but bias the sliders to slightly favor the tougher invocation of the instance. Award badges to keep the braggart achievers happy.

I've said from day one that instances ought to be designed around scaling content.

These are sorta related, as they directly impact business potential.

If content is too easy or loot tables too generous, you're not just screwing with that instance, but the entirety of that level of content and the next step(s) beyond. You're either trivilizing the next step of content by overpowering the players or making it irrelevant altogether. Given the development costs for making content at some pace that doesn't result in players quiting for six months and only coming back to check it out when it's finally patched, it is more reasonable to make early instances to hard. You risk pissing off your playerbase. But they'll more than likely spend some time trying to figure out if they are broken or it's the instance itself, rather than quiting in boredom/frustration right away as they would when there's no new worlds to conquer.

This corrolates to scaling content because it's easier to sell new content when it's a known quantity. "You think you're good? Well you haven't seen this place yet!" (the whole "you are not prepared" thing). Having static content is fodder for the Wowhead.coms of the world. But knowing how to do something is a long way from a) being geared up for it; and, b) having an experienced group to do it with. Scaling content sorta subjugates this because it implies that you don't need certain content because certain other content is going to be just fine for you.

WoW sorta already has this problem, and it'll get worse with 2.3. How many people are going to be geared up to run the Heroic modes they'll be able to access merely by hitting Honored? They'll get crushed so readily they may end up skipping it altogether. Of course, Blizzard wouldn't do this if they weren't planning for that result anyway. But, like soon-irrelevant reputations, that's mostly in advance of Lich King, where here again they want us all buying new content.