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How to Balance Neverwinter
joseph7777
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 20 Arc User
Hello,
Since I have started playing Neverwinter, I have been reading the forums on daily basis. While I'm still a nub and don't understand all classes yet, I do have an advice to everyone playing the game and the dev team.
First of all, our opinion as gamers should means nothing when it comes to PvP balance. Crying on the forums nerf that or buff that should be irrelevant. Why? because us gamers love to cry about anything and everything and most of us are just average players. In light of that, I truly do advice the developer team to ignore what the players want in term of PvP balance. As for gamers, unless you are really good at your class to the point of being part of the best 1% players, cry less please & L2P.
I'm not trying to be hostile or attack anyone but this is something you need to understand, balancing the game around the average player in my honest opinion is wrong.
So how should the dev balance the game for PvP?
I believe, one of the best balancing solutions is what Valve doing with Dota 2. They completely ignore the average player and all the crying (even the average player data is being ignored). They balance the game around their best players (less than 1% of the population). By best players I mean the pro players. Similar case should be applied to Neverwinter. The dev team have access to accurate data and they can easily determine their very best players of each class. After that, it is really just a matter of deciding the correct approach with each class.
The approach can be anything. Once more back to dota, when they wish to buff someone, they almost never just give them straight up damage increase but rather change some of the skill mechanics or shorten a skill cool-down. When they wish to nerf a Hero (class) they almost never go hostile against the hero itself but rather change what makes him so OP (mechanics, item, etc.).
This is my 2 cents and I hope it reaches the right person.
Since I have started playing Neverwinter, I have been reading the forums on daily basis. While I'm still a nub and don't understand all classes yet, I do have an advice to everyone playing the game and the dev team.
First of all, our opinion as gamers should means nothing when it comes to PvP balance. Crying on the forums nerf that or buff that should be irrelevant. Why? because us gamers love to cry about anything and everything and most of us are just average players. In light of that, I truly do advice the developer team to ignore what the players want in term of PvP balance. As for gamers, unless you are really good at your class to the point of being part of the best 1% players, cry less please & L2P.
I'm not trying to be hostile or attack anyone but this is something you need to understand, balancing the game around the average player in my honest opinion is wrong.
So how should the dev balance the game for PvP?
I believe, one of the best balancing solutions is what Valve doing with Dota 2. They completely ignore the average player and all the crying (even the average player data is being ignored). They balance the game around their best players (less than 1% of the population). By best players I mean the pro players. Similar case should be applied to Neverwinter. The dev team have access to accurate data and they can easily determine their very best players of each class. After that, it is really just a matter of deciding the correct approach with each class.
The approach can be anything. Once more back to dota, when they wish to buff someone, they almost never just give them straight up damage increase but rather change some of the skill mechanics or shorten a skill cool-down. When they wish to nerf a Hero (class) they almost never go hostile against the hero itself but rather change what makes him so OP (mechanics, item, etc.).
This is my 2 cents and I hope it reaches the right person.
Post edited by joseph7777 on
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Comments
In Dota 2, public match making have 2 heroes out of the 200~ heroes with 60% win rate (highest win rate ever). They have not in the past 2 years been touched or nerfed even though they own the average player so hard. Why? because those 2 heroes are only strong against <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. The average player don't even try to counter them when it is so easy and for that exact same reason, pro players never plays them. In turn, Valve have no interest of touching those heroes just because the average player won't put effort to counter them.
the type of game doesnt matter in a PVP arena... Same principles apply...
Find your best players (I know lemonade stand touts they are the best, so start there) and figure out what is making each player so OP. Instead of changing the class, specifically address THOSE setups/builds and that will really help balance.
Right now its tene enchants/perfect vorpal...
Nerf those, and see the next flavor of the month rinse repeat. If the average player is getting stomped by something that is easy to fix... let them...
I actually never understood why games like this didnt interview obviously skilled players to ask for balance questions. I know path of exile did and got some really good feedback... Neverwinter should adapt this and talk to good players and ask what needs to be fixed. It would take what, 1 day to interview the top 30 players for 20 min each.... Then 1 day to discuss the feedback and a few days - a week or two to code the changes... Bam, patch done no more qq...
We all know that Mr. Obvious.
The point is PvP, not the whole game. Believe it or not, it is almost the same exact mechanics with Dota 2 being the much harder case.
Some may ask why Dota 2? why not an example from another game with good balance?
Truth is this game and dota 2 share the same exact mechanics when it comes to Classes in Neverwinter. If anyone here plays Dota 2 they can tell you the same thing. For example, GF daily is an exact match to major items in Dota 2, BKB (Magic Immunity) and Satanic (200% life steal for 3~seconds). It is not just those 2 skills, but even stuff like Knight Challenge is the same Mechanic as the ultimate skills for one of Dota Heroes (Legion Commander). It is like this because of the massive number of Heroes in Dota 2 who take shape from every fantasy setting you could think of at that time including DnD & FF.
In the end, my point still stands, PvP needs to be balanced around the most successful players from each class.
depends on which top 30 players you talk to... its quite clear on the forums that if you call the OP classes the top players they will tell you that clerics need nerfing and their characters need more buffing. Not to even mention that the top players in this game are typically the exploiters.
You are misunderstanding. Cryptic does not need and should not talk to its top players. What they should do is look at the top players Data only. It is very simple, numbers don't lie. The top players will have a common denominator within each Class. That is what need to be tackled if they are doing way too much damage for example. Same idea if the top clerics are being overwhelmed by stuff out of their control because other classes are way too OP against them.
Yes it depends on the "top" players, I would wager and its pretty consistent with the feedback though. Most "top" players are not top players because of exploits or because of theri gear, they will always find gear/new specs to play and rely on their skill to be better. They are not worried that if you nerf their set up they cant find another...
Now if you see "top" as in who has the most AD... yes thats exploiters who dont care about the game.
Find those that do, most of which probably post on the forums quite a bit... Its really not rocket science... They have data they need, they can tell what players do if they want to and can pretty easily determine what to fix.
Not to mention, if it obviously doesnt line up with the forums and they say "tene arent OP, people are just scrubs" the DEVs wouldnt blindly folllow that... Plus most (I would think) are willing to give honest feedback to help a game rather than hurt it...