Take a pro-active attitude to changes and lets stop crying for nerfs please!

I posted this in the development forum but it has been pointed out to me it has more relevance here soo...

A lot of people in this sub-forum seem intent on nerfing one thing or another be it remove things like /face, HJ not work or cost more, promote duelling over pvp, reduce hacker offenses etc etc. I think we have to be very careful what we ask for, because there is a genuine possibility of it backfiring.

Duelling  is a subset of pvp, every skill you learn for duelling will improve your pvp ability but there are additional pvp only skills that need to be refined. For all of us who have been in the endgame 18months or more surely we should be looking and asking to increase the variety of what we do and increase the challenge we face.... CR2 heavily favoured duelling in its overall designs now it needs to be enhanced to promote because of the greater variety it can offer...rather than remove or reduce abilities its time to look at the problem from the other perspective, if there is an issue to be addressed suggest what could be ADDED to the system to offer better balance....

A level of stealth could be applied to HJ making emotes impossible/break over a short distance, if people hj and getting away is a problem for you, has your tree sufficent debuffs to keep an opponent in IL etc, if hackers are pwning what about adjusting the awkened abilities etc (I'm not condoning or arguing any of these points just offering examples) 

These are the kind of suggestions that need discussion, take a positive and pro-active view to expand the combat system for a change. If we nerf we deny ourselves a challenge and deny the game its true potential, but if we expand we enhance variety and diversity in what the game will offer.

I'll repost here, since we want the discussion in this particular forum.

Spartan18 wrote:

i personally think the balance that we have right now is good, i dont see any tree that really needs to be nerfed. so lets stop whining about nerfing so the devs can focus on giving us content instead of trying to balance things we already have.

Unfortunately, that's not true.

Look, we can all delude ourselves and say that the game is perfectly balanced. Or, we can call for an abolishment of nerfs, believing that they're all inherently evil and bad for the game.

I'll agree, some folks on this forum are completely off their rocker, and calling for nerfs over the silliest things. HJ, for instance, just because the thought of someone getting away from an easy kill makes their blood boil.

But not all proposed changes are bad for this game. For instance, this is my proposed changes list:

Changes and Improvements

-Supression Fire reuse timer now 15 seconds
-Firearms Skill and Line Up The Shot can no longer stack
-Counter Throw and Tomo Nage now on same family timer
-Ki-Charged Punch and Ki-Charged Foot Sweep now on same family timer
-Dim Mak Strike and Wooden Dummy Drill now on same family timer
-Side Roll Escape reuse timer now 15 seconds
-Poison Knife reuse timer now 30 seconds
-Neuro-Dart effect timers now all 15 seconds
-Back Roll Escape reuse timer now 30 seconds
-Blinding Throw reuse timer now 10 seconds, effect timer now 8 seconds
-Paralyzing Throw resuse timer now 10 seconds
-Deadly Throw reuse timer now 18 seconds
-Crippling Throw reuse timer now 10 seconds, effect timer now 8 seconds
-Sever Artery reuse timer now 18 seconds, effect timer now all 15 seconds
-Code Freeze 1.0 effect timer now 12 seconds, reuse timer now 20 seconds
-Slow reuse timer now 15 seconds, effect timer now all 10 seconds
-Code Freeze 2.0 effect timer now 15 seconds, reuse timer now 22 seconds
-Code Infection 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 now no longer stack

Do you know the purpose of these changes? It's not to wreck combat, it's not about getting my way; it's about making PvP more fun! It's about removing those parts of combat that frustrate PvP. Because, if a player is frustrated, he or she is not going to stick around, and combat simply dries up.

So yes, get rid of /face and pointing emotes. Get rid of MA's "Win button", and MKT's overlapping timers. MxO's combat has never been so close to being balanced!

I'll repost here, since we want the discussion in this particular forum.

Spartan18 wrote:

i personally think the balance that we have right now is good, i dont see any tree that really needs to be nerfed. so lets stop whining about nerfing so the devs can focus on giving us content instead of trying to balance things we already have.

Unfortunately, that's not true.

Look, we can all delude ourselves and say that the game is perfectly balanced. Or, we can call for an abolishment of nerfs, believing that they're all inherently evil and bad for the game.

I'll agree, some folks on this forum are completely off their rocker, and calling for nerfs over the silliest things. HJ, for instance, just because the thought of someone getting away from an easy kill makes their blood boil.

But not all proposed changes are bad for this game. For instance, this is my proposed changes list:

Changes and Improvements

-Supression Fire reuse timer now 15 seconds
-Firearms Skill and Line Up The Shot can no longer stack
-Counter Throw and Tomo Nage now on same family timer
-Ki-Charged Punch and Ki-Charged Foot Sweep now on same family timer
-Dim Mak Strike and Wooden Dummy Drill now on same family timer
-Side Roll Escape reuse timer now 15 seconds
-Poison Knife reuse timer now 30 seconds
-Neuro-Dart effect timers now all 15 seconds
-Back Roll Escape reuse timer now 30 seconds
-Blinding Throw reuse timer now 10 seconds, effect timer now 8 seconds
-Paralyzing Throw resuse timer now 10 seconds
-Deadly Throw reuse timer now 18 seconds
-Crippling Throw reuse timer now 10 seconds, effect timer now 8 seconds
-Sever Artery reuse timer now 18 seconds, effect timer now all 15 seconds
-Code Freeze 1.0 effect timer now 12 seconds, reuse timer now 20 seconds
-Slow reuse timer now 15 seconds, effect timer now all 10 seconds
-Code Freeze 2.0 effect timer now 15 seconds, reuse timer now 22 seconds
-Code Infection 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 now no longer stack

Do you know the purpose of these changes? It's not to wreck combat, it's not about getting my way; it's about making PvP more fun! It's about removing those parts of combat that frustrate PvP. Because, if a player is frustrated, he or she is not going to stick around, and combat simply dries up.

So yes, get rid of /face and pointing emotes. Get rid of MA's "Win button", and MKT's overlapping timers. MxO's combat has never been so close to being balanced!

Oop, I responded in the other thread. Copy and paste:

Spartan18 wrote:

haha, you just proved how balanced this game is lol. you called for a nerf of MA, gunmen, hacker and spy abilities. sounds like balance to me.

Really?

Lets take a close look at these changes, shall we?

The changes to Gunman is an increase of a single timer by 5 seconds, and disallowing the stack of a damage buff by snipers.
The changes to MA are a simple family timer modification.
The changes to MKT are nine abilities across the board.
The changes to hacker are four abilities, plus multiple family stacking prevention.

Are these changes somehow even, spartan?

To me, they look a bit lopsided towards MKT especially. And, interestingly enough, MKT seems to be the alpha class in PvP... funny how that works

The Leo wrote:

I am MA and even I want to agree on the changes for the family timers for the MA proposals because simply to extend combat as long as possible and not "PWN" people only coz they got dazed or staggered.

Certainly! I'm not looking to kill any class; I want them all viable. I want to see diversity across the PvP battleground, and that means making all classes across the board useful, and fair.

I don't want to see 3/4 of the PvPers specced as MKT's.

Oop, I responded in the other thread. Copy and paste:

Spartan18 wrote:

haha, you just proved how balanced this game is lol. you called for a nerf of MA, gunmen, hacker and spy abilities. sounds like balance to me.

Really?

Lets take a close look at these changes, shall we?

The changes to Gunman is an increase of a single timer by 5 seconds, and disallowing the stack of a damage buff by snipers.
The changes to MA are a simple family timer modification.
The changes to MKT are nine abilities across the board.
The changes to hacker are four abilities, plus multiple family stacking prevention.

Are these changes somehow even, spartan?

To me, they look a bit lopsided towards MKT especially. And, interestingly enough, MKT seems to be the alpha class in PvP... funny how that works

and for the record, i dont see MKT as the alpha class it used to be. i dont have a problem with them at all. the reason you prolly feel this way is because a lot of people do use it, and when you interlock one of them all the others throw knives at you and then you die. but MKT is supposed to be good out of interlock, thats how this game is set up.

Spartan18 wrote:

and for the record, i dont see MKT as the alpha class it used to be. i dont have a problem with them at all. the reason you prolly feel this way is because a lot of people do use it, and when you interlock one of them all the others throw knives at you and then you die. but MKT is supposed to be good out of interlock, thats how this game is set up.

Sneaker does have quite the valid point saying that MKT is an overpowered, thus alpha class.
Or do you think that everyone before CR2 just really liked hacker, and all those people coincedently liked to change their loadout to MKT?

sooo your logic is really flawed then. if you feel MKT is overpowered and still call for a nerf of MA and guns as well??
How is my logic flawed? I gave MKT more focus because, as it stands, it's the tree needing the most changes. That certainly does not excuse the other trees, nor does it negate their problems. It just means MKT has more of them.

and for the record, i dont see MKT as the alpha class it used to be. i dont have a problem with them at all. the reason you prolly feel this way is because a lot of people do use it, and when you interlock one of them all the others throw knives at you and then you die. but MKT is supposed to be good out of interlock, thats how this game is set up.
I haven't brought in my personal circumstances into this argument. My argument is based completely on CR2 game mechanics, and logic.

There is no reason any effect should overlap its reuse timer.
There is no reason two nearly-identical high powered abilities should be able to be used back-to-back.
There is no reason a higher-level DoT ability should stack on top of its lower-level inferior.
Similar buffs should not be stackable.
Effect timers should not be unmodified from CR1.

sooo your logic is really flawed then. if you feel MKT is overpowered and still call for a nerf of MA and guns as well??

How is my logic flawed? I gave MKT more focus because, as it stands, it's the tree needing the most changes. That certainly does not excuse the other trees, nor does it negate their problems. It just means MKT has more of them.

and for the record, i dont see MKT as the alpha class it used to be. i dont have a problem with them at all. the reason you prolly feel this way is because a lot of people do use it, and when you interlock one of them all the others throw knives at you and then you die. but MKT is supposed to be good out of interlock, thats how this game is set up.
I haven't brought in my personal circumstances into this argument. My argument is based completely on CR2 game mechanics, and logic.

There is no reason any effect should overlap its reuse timer.
There is no reason two nearly-identical high powered abilities should be able to be used back-to-back.
There is no reason a higher-level DoT ability should stack on top of its lower-level inferior.
Similar buffs should not be stackable.
Effect timers should not be unmodified from CR1.

Reeverb wrote:

Spartan18 wrote:

and for the record, i dont see MKT as the alpha class it used to be. i dont have a problem with them at all. the reason you prolly feel this way is because a lot of people do use it, and when you interlock one of them all the others throw knives at you and then you die. but MKT is supposed to be good out of interlock, thats how this game is set up.

Sneaker does have quite the valid point saying that MKT is an overpowered, thus alpha class.
Or do you think that everyone before CR2 just really liked hacker, and all those people coincedently liked to change their loadout to MKT?

i personally thought MKT was overpowered in CR1 as well as hacker. they have been toned down a pretty good bit now. while, yes, they are annoying at times, there are ways to beat them now.

i think what a lot of people dont realize with CR2 is that certain classes are supposed to be better against other certain classes. MA's are going to have a disadvantage vs. MKT. MKT has a disadvantage vs. hackers. Instead of trying to make every class equal against every other class(which is really hard to do), with CR2 they just decided to allow every class to have one class its strong against and one its weak against. So that way, if there are a bunch of one type of class, all you have to do is switch to that classes weakness to defeat them.

My whole point with the argument of calling for MA and gunmen nerfs was that it gives the devs more work to do. the way you put it is say we rated the 3 classes, MKT,MA and guns on 1-10 scale. what i interpreted from you is you say MKT strength is a 10 and MA and guns are an 8. now your idea was to bring MKT, MA and guns all down to a 6. while it would be much, much less work to just bring MKT down to 8 like the other two. that is how you logic was flawed just because it would cause unnecessary work for the devs. there is no reason to nerf any class lower than the highest class because that is wasted time.
I hear what you're saying, that it would be easier to simply modify one class and leave the rest as is.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. How do you rate, for instance, the negative effects of stackable buffs versus, say, the negative effects of overlapping reuse timers?

Which one is worse? In which situations? How often do abusable situations arise for each?

The "rating system" you laid out seems simple enough, but in reality, things are not that simple. The problems are not comparable to one another on a linear scale.

They are simply problems. Problems which need to be dealt with without isolating one class or another.

and i agree that no effect timer should overlap its re-use timer because that just makes the re-use timer completely pointless.
Which is, in a nutshell, what is wrong with MKT.