Game Design Buffs And Nerfs

Now, let me ask you all a question. In the time you’ve been playing Wynn, how many items have you seen get BUFFED? Okay, now how many have you seen get NERFED? If you’ve been paying attention, then you would know there have been FAR more nerfs to items then there have been buffs (If there have been any at all. I honestly can’t remember.). Increasing requirements, decreasing damage/IDs, etc. However, I firmly believe this is a terrible way to approach balancing the items and will ultimately make the game worse.

Firstly, it’s just standard psychology. The playerbase at large will react much more kindly to subpar items getting buffed than to “OP” items getting nerfed. People will be happier that there are more viable options to choose from instead of throwing their keyboards across their room because that piece of armor or weapon they spent so much time and/or money getting is now obsolete. The endgoal of balancing items is to cause as little collateral damage as possible, and nerfs don’t accomplish that whatsoever.

Secondly, as of typing this, and even long before now, there haven’t really been any overpowered items in Wynn. They’re all either good, okay, or shit. However, when surrounded by items that’re only okay or shit, the good items look overpowered by comparison. Therefore, they get nerfed from being good to being shit. This gives way for items that were previously seen as okay or shit to look relatively overpowered as well. Then THOSE get nerfed and the cycle continues. This is the reason why War Scream has become so OP recently. Everything’s been nerfed to the point where something that was pretty balanced before is now completely broken. This is a problem I particularly see in the endgame. There’s really only a small handful of viable builds for whatever build you’re trying to accomplish at best. In most cases, there’s only one or two. Yes, there will always be “meta” builds and “best-in-slot” items and weapons. But the problem arises when there are little to no viable secondary options that might compliment different playstyles or stat builds.

So what’s my point? My point is instead of nerfing good items, buff the subpar items. Instead of bringing the overcentralized items down to the level of mediocre items, bring the mediocre items up to the level of the overcentralized items. This will ultimately give the players more options for viable builds and keep people from whining about how their build is ruined.

 

Isn't this kind of obvious already? You're just stating what most people think... However salted doesn't like buffs.

 

"instert buff pure meme"

 

wew lads I can already see some hate thats gonna be coming

 

It is obvious, but I feel like it needs much more attention. Something like this can honestly ruin the game.

(Along with quite a few other things, but I'll talk about those later)

 

While I agree with this, the major issue is that topteir items are wayyyyyyy to strong, so buffing everything to that standard breaks a lot

 

overpowered how? the standard for top tier items that doesnt include mythics is not way to strong

 

Nothing in this game is hard anymore, even without mythics...

 

Leveling has never been hard, and it has been stated that it is intentional that bosses can be soloed

 

But soloing them still feels about easy

 

Buff PvE, it's ridiculously easy.
EDIT: oh, and buff Ignis ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

a lot of the builds ppl use to solo use a glitch or some type of aboos, and rings are the most unbalanced of anything only concentrations and prisms :^)

 

Moon pool best pool

Also skill potionz

 

YES BUFF PURE #purebestmythicbutitneedstobebuffed

 

I think it's ok to tag @Selvut283 for this thread, since he's essentially been the sole individual responsible for item balancing in the last month or so.

It would be nice to see various items given buffs Grillface buff when, but you really can't deny the existence of the various OP items riddled in Wynn currently.

You do have a point, I imagine it's pretty upsetting to see your most sought-after item get nerfed, that's what happens when abusers ruin the reputation of an item that you've been using legit for the longest time.

The topic of buffing all the shit items instead of nerfing all the OP items has always been an interesting one in the game design side of things, it's a nice idea on paper, and is nice design when handled correctly.

However, when you buff everything else, you "nerf" the rest of the whole game, and that just creates a whole new issue because Wynn is already pretty easy as it is. And if you buff the difficulty we may run back into item balancing issues, creating a loop.

Mythics themselves are suffering a higher level of balancing problems: https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/mythics-need-balancing.188453/
In case you didn't know, only Salted can edit Mythics, however, I can't remember the last time he balanced them, and trust me, were really in need of one right now. Hoping that the next major update balances Mythic items, especially the Unique Mythic boots.

Grillface buff when

 

First of all, yes. I do think buffing (up to a certain point) is better than downgrading items, which would only cause frustration. I would like this change to be made. The only downside I can see is that buffing items will make mobs weak in comparison, and adjusting mob stats for item buffs is out of the picture. This leads me to my next point.

Right now, boss fights and mobs are "easy" because there is not much to them. No matter how strong the boss is, if you keep running around and hitting it over and over again, it's going to die. There's no diversity or challenge, it's just a monotonous exercise.

If weaker items were buffed instead of nerfing good items, and a little bit more flavor were added to boss fights, that would work out well. That way the monotonous exercise wouldn't get that much easier if items were buffed.

 

I think the term "OP" gets thrown around a lot without actually knowing what it means. OP means that no matter what build you have, who you're up against, whatever, so long as you have that item, you can more often than not squeeze out a win. There's a fine line between a "centralizing" item, one that fits really well on a particular build and is very powerful, and an "OP" item, one you can slap onto any build and you'll be good to go.

As for the mobs, it'll always be easy. No matter how much extra health it has, no matter how much you buff its stats, it'll never really be difficult because you can just keep on kiting for days until it's dead. It's really due to the relatively simple foundation this game is built on, and that, as said in previous comments, everything has to be soloable. Which for an MMO, is basically the worst possible choice to make. This is why some boss fights have that onslaught of other mobs attacking you as well. To try to prevent kiting from taking place and to compensate for the relatively simple AI the bosses have. I've been a huge proponent for buffing dungeon bosses to the point where you actually NEED a party of around 4-5 people to beat them. But with Wynn's simple mob AI, everything in the game is soloable with enough time and health potions.

Mythics are a whole different can of worms from the rest of the items in this game. I really don't know what the point of Mythics were besides someone saying "Wouldn't it be cool if we had this?" A whole new tier of items should be made in response to a whole new tier of mobs to fight, but that didn't happen. And even if it did, Mythics are so rare that you'd have to make those enemies so they can be beaten by the endgame items. But none of that happened, so Mythics turn both PvE and PvP into even more of a joke than it already was.

 

Ok... let's more on to the one thing in this game that is actually OP, buy your definition..... Gid potions(Skill potions) these things make you unkillable, and insanely buff you damage. @12nebur27 is testing soloing LI with normal teir gear and these things. They at minimum need a nerf.

 

its going quite well actually... the matrojan idol was a fucking pain but... i mean it always is... right? :p

 

I actually support this
no, it's not just because my entire bank and inventory is filled with shit items