The Truth: The Indignity Of Being Nerfed
If you play video games long enough and do well enough when you play them you’ll probably stumble across a character you like playing with being less powerful after an update.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is being Nerfed.
It happens when a developer didn’t predict how a character would fare in an open environment and it dominates everything else.
The latest instance of this is in Diablo 3 where some character classes are overpowered compared to how the developer expected them to be.
Now I certainly understand and appreciate a developer concerned about his or her work but I stand in the corner of “if you’re able to find the best way to utilize a character then you should be able to do so”
In the case of Diablo 3 there’s three classes that are overpowered when equipped with certain enchantments, so Blizzard went and decreased their potency. If you were a character enjoying one of these perks it’s up to you to regroup and form a new play style.
I think that’s what bothers me most about being Nerfed, everyone doesn’t play games the same way and everyone approaches a game differently. I prefer to level grind the crap out of my RPG’s so that most boss fights amount to a 900 pound gorilla freeing itself from a wet paper bag. Others like to level up just enough so every single battle is close.
Who’s to say which play style is “correct”?
When a developer Nerfs a game they’re saying “you’ve been doing it wrong” and that just rubs me the wrong way.
Other industries can’t work that way. I can’t keep editing this article every single time someone reads it until I get the desired reaction from it. In a restaurant you don’t have someone ladling on and siphoning off sauce until they feel the correct level is achieved.
Know what the whole “being Nerfed” makes me think of?
Mega Man
The entire point of that game is to find out the correct order to power yourself up so another boss character becomes a breeze to beat.
It spits in the face of being Nerfed, it’s embraces UnNerf!
Your job is to outsmart the game. Even today’s Mega Man games reward you for figuring out each villain’s Achilles heel.
“Oh you’re really difficult Solar Man, what happens when I use my Water Shield?”
Mega Man’s boss system is the pinnacle of a user rewarded for figuring out a game.
In Diablo 3 people found their Water Shield and they were rewarded by promptly having it taken away.
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