Qandor
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Posted - 2003.12.20 11:49:00 -
[1]
 Quote:
Players using the term nerf batting and the developers use of the term play leveling e.g. reducing the effectiveness of equipment, ships, skills, is somewhat misunderstood. The new level of play has to be balanced both for experienced players and new players AND for the new equipment [and everything else] that will be introduced. The new equipment can not give experienced players godlike abilities over new players nor can experienced players have god like abilities in the new level of play.
Just as in the initial release, players will find a way to do that which they wish to do. Be is being a miner, a solo player, a pirate, a corp CEO, a MegaCorp CEO, a hauler, a manufactuer, a researcher and so on. Yes it will take time and new skills and equipment to do so, but it can be done. Just as in level 1. The only difference is that there isn't a newbie server, a level 1 server and now a level 2 server which players can play. Instead, it's 1.0 space, .5 space, .3 space .0 space.
This is exactly what is the scariest thing about Castor and the methodology used by CCP. Particularly the "Yes it will take time and new skills and equipment to do so, but it can be done" part. What this essentially means is that you take a set of achievements made by players and nerf them back to a lower level and then let them chase the carrot once again to regain the abilities they once had. So if new skills and new items once again allow you to travel faster as tech 2 becomes ingrained, what happens when tech 3 comes out? Nerf it back again? Start the chase all over again? That is one damn way to run a game.
Online games are successful when players feel they are progressing. Constantly reacquiring what you once had is not progress - it is drudgery.
All online games experience nerfs fron time to time. They generally consist of percentage adjustments to various abilities or items and generally any individual nerf rarely effects a major percentage of players. In this case, the travel nerf effected everyone and it was a huge effect, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of a 100% increase in travel times. If that was absolutely necessary it should have been done in stages to allow people to adjust. However, if it was absolutely necessary, it could only show one thing and that is that CCP had totally botched the travel design in the first place.
Finally, if full implimentation of Tech 2 results in a restoration of travel speeds approaching the pre-Tech 2 level that would prove without a doubt that this whole travel nerf was a crock of s--t. Basically it would say that CCP really couldn't think of anything interesting for Tech 2 so they just nerfed Tech 1 back to have the players chase the same thing once again and it would also prove that there was nothing wrong with the travel times in the first place.
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