Discussion Main / Nerf

A general collection of rules used to Nerf things is:

1. Try to balance around PVP and PVE systems in the same game for the same objects. That never works. Balancing one will immediately cause Game-Breaker status or Nerf in the other. Divorcing both, like Starcraft 2 did, solves the problem. The Campaign has their own units for PVE, while the PVP has almost unrecognizable units from another faction of the same race for online battle. A series of mods for Starcraft 1 (lost to memory) caused the campaign to be Unwinnable, for example.

2. Exponential skills, Critical skills that stack, or skills that trigger themselves again from their own actions. The Spiffing Brit proved that revolvers were hilariously unbalanced in Cyberpunk 2077 as most of those skill could stack and multiply each other, turning even the most basic one in a Hand Cannon that did over 1000% base damage with nearly infinite ammo to boot (where some of the skills refilled the weapon.) That also happened in Skyrim, Morrowind, many Fallout games... Skills that flatly multiply damage by 2x, 3x, or 4x, or increase the chance to trigger to over 100% when stacked through multiple instances are begging for a nerf.

3. Complete lack of QA and gameplay testing. The Opressor mk2 is the poster child of an addition that would never pass proper testing in GTA, once again, for PVE and PVP actions. It was said it had "Ruiner missiles", as in, the car launched before it, had those missiles, but a car is a) easier to hit, b) doesn't fly and c)The Ruiner would blow up with a single shot. The Ruiner was all the way into Awesome, but Impractical territory, but the tiny flying vehicle was very hard to hit at speed and altitude. It got the nerf bat multiple times to cost and usability, but it is still remained reasonably useful.

4. Having a previous system (like Dungeons and Dragons) enforced helps somewhat to avoid runaway conditions that require nerfs. Baldur's Gate certainly benefits from using a pre-determined system that has all the conditions to generate runaway examples, but it is self-contained from the get go, after years of rulebooks revisions. It doesn't negate completely the problem, though.

I've noticed that Took a Level in Badass was used to describe the inversion of Nerf, but was deem not applicable due to how it refers to Character Development as opposed to gameplay mechanics. I recommend we create the new trope "Buff" to place inversions of this trope, which seems common enough to deserve its own mention.

Trope Repair Shop discussion archive. Thread decided the trope was objective and clear, and to hit the page with a cleanup to remove natter and complaining and sort by genre.