ASSAULTING PLAYERS WITH THE NERF BAT

Interesting question. I seem to recall watching a video at some point that discussed this problem (I think it was an Extra Credit episode about World of Warcraft, maybe?). As far as I remember, the creators of that game were confronted with the need to reduce the overall experience gain from fighting enemies in the game to discourage grinding for multiple hours straight, but were afraid that doing so would cause players to get angry. So they came up with a solution that covered up the nerf by disguising the new system as a bonus: All experience gain was reduced, but during the first hour of play time each day, the players received a "daily EXP boost" - which was nothing else than what the regular EXP gain had been at first. After the first hour was over, EXP gain was set back to the new reduced rate until the next day. The result was apparently not only that the players loved the new mechanic, but ultimately the average user even spent more time playing the game in order not to miss out on their daily boost - even though that "boost" was literally nothing more than what they had been receiving regularly before the nerf.

This is of course a very questionable approach, but it seems like the allure of a special bonus can make players happy over what would otherwise be considered a punishment.

My own way of choice would rather be to be honest with your players and give them the option to adjust their strategies and setups without additional expenses or even requiring them to start over. After a rebalancing patch has been released, allow players to react to that by setting a time period during which they can - for example - return or swap out skills or gear, exchange level bonuses etc. for free or at their original price. That way, they won't feel cheated for losing all progress, but still can't become more powerful/rich/high-levelled than they previously were. They just get a chance to redo their previous work they way they would have done it if the nerfs had already been in effect. Maybe that's not as elegant or psychologically clever as what I described above, but at least it's also not as manipulative.

You can test your game into oblivion and someone will still find something incredibly broken or overpowered in ways you never thought imaginable.

I think a lot of the outrage that comes from nerfing stems from the subconscious thought of discovery. That the players found found some sort of superpower. Patching that sense of accomplishment out is what we call re balancing but is also what the players think of as having something taken away from them; oftentimes, that "something" may have had hours of gameplay and research poured into it. The more time and effort players put into an exploit, the greater the outrage tends to be.

I don't think there's a way to completely prevent people flipping out, but if you can identify it quickly and patch it out before it can damage the playerbase and community, that may minimize the impact.

I don't think there is any set way to keep players from complaining about changes to games. As Metool stated, once a player makes the effort to play in a certain style, it can be difficult for them to accept having that style become completely obsolete.

My best thought on the matter is to try to strike a balance. I mean, the point of these changes in MMOs is usually to address problems with how players are making decisions. If a character is overpowered in a MOBA game, for instance, while one group of players have fun with having nothing stand in your way, another group feels isolated as playing the other countless characters in a roster is worthless. Over time, this one-note playstyle can become stale and uninteresting to even veterans of the game, and the result is that nobody is satisfied in the end. As a result, these gameplay changes have to happen in order to keep the game both welcoming to all types of players and fresh, at the expense of traditional playstyles.

People are kind of averse to change in general.

author=LockeZ

author=iddalai
I make games for people to enjoy, not for people to THINK they enjoy them using cheap psychological tricks...

Those are... the same thing though. Enjoyment is nothing but what you think. It's entirely psyschological.

I disagree.
While they are both psyschological, there's a big difference in making a game with balanced gameplay mechanics to enjoy playing AND a game purposefully using cheap (but effective) psyschological tricks to get you addicted.

Jump scares in Resident Evil are cheap, while the lingering sense of fear in Silent Hill is more refined.

The above isn't the best example, I met someone who played World of Warcraft for 7 years straight. And he only really enjoyed the first 3 years, then changes were made to the game and he kept playing because of addiction, not because he genuinely wanted or enjoyed it, but because he was compelled by psyschological tricks and because his online friends played it.
Having to log on daily to reap benefits, events, etc. All made so enough people would keep grinding everyday, increasing chances of groups of online friends to keep playing together because of fellowship rather than gameplay (not that the game doesn't have its merits, I'm only making a point!).
He felt cheated for being tricked into doing the same thing over and over again for 7 years and wanted that time back because it didn't feel like it had been worth it.

Growing a party in an RPG, levelling, getting better equipment, learning new skills/spells is enjoyable because of how our brains work, so yes, it's psyschological, but I would never compare the joy I find in old school Final Fantasy games to mobible "slots" games and their tricks with fake timed wins to make the player keep going, or other games that "play" the players for all the wrong reasons, pavlovian tricks that turn gameplay mechanics into OCD check lists that make us feel good when playing but leave us feelling unfulfilled afterwards.
Can that really be called enjoyment?

Maybe I'm not getting my point across, but I feel there's a big difference between using psychology to make an enjoyable game AND using it to addict someone and get their money.

author=LockeZ
Using just one spell over and over isn't fun, so I had to redesign the Sorcerer class. The new design made it a really bad strategy to focus on just one element.

It is the devs fault for making such an exploit possible, even if it's sometimes impossible to predict... but that's how gam mak works, you test and test but you can never predict everything.

But how much of this is also the players fault?

Once you nerf the Sorcerer, as a player, how much could I blame you for making my build unusable? After all I had every chance to make a balanced/diverse build, but I insisted in making a broken one trick pony build, nothing forced me to to it.
Unless you design the game around these exploits.

If it wasn't for this min/max mentality, this issue wouldn't exist.

And yes, you can never refund time spent hunting for items, but depending on how the game generates items, you could give these players the choice to trade those items for similar items of the same level to compensate.

author=LockeZ
Possibly also because I was really publically vocal on general chat for a really long time about the fact that I hated Sorcerer's old design and felt I needed to nerf it, so they got used to the idea?

That seems like a good way to nerf, ease the player base into knowing there's gonna be a nerf, have them get accustomed to the idea before doing it, giving them the time to adjust their builds for the nerf.
Gameplay-wise I don't see much more right now, maybe at a later date I'll think of something.

author=iddalai
But how much of this is also the players fault?

Once you nerf the Sorcerer, as a player, how much could I blame you for making my build unusable? After all I had every chance to make a balanced/diverse build, but I insisted in making a broken one trick pony build, nothing forced me to to it.
Unless you design the game around these exploits.

If it wasn't for this min/max mentality, this issue wouldn't exist.

Some people enjoy figuring out optimal builds. It's kind of crappy to basically say, "These people are having fun the wrong way and shouldn't do it."

Also comparing the scare factor of Silent Hill vs. Resident Evil is dumb because they're trying to set entirely different moods. Also also SH has beaucoup jump scares.

author=Sooz
Some people enjoy figuring out optimal builds. It's kind of crappy to basically say, "These people are having fun the wrong way and shouldn't do it."

It depends on a lot of factors; especially if the game is multiplayer.

Take fighting games for example; the modern fighting games are often tweaked by the developers, before releases, during betas, and even after release in response to player input, community finds, and trends. This used to be done via "Street Fighter Gold Ultra Championship Edition For Real This Time!!!" but thanks to modern gaming this can just be done via updates.

Barring either, though, if a fighting game with say, 12 characters, has 2 or 3 horribly unbalanced characters, this absolutely sinks the game's playability. Everyone, especially at a high level of play ends up picking the same 2 or 3 characters, because using anyone else isn't viable and an extremely uphill climb, especially given the competitors having equal skill.

Like, there's a saying with Street Fighter 3rd Strike that goes; "A match can be decided at the character select screen". If you're playing against someone really good and they select Chun-Li or Yun, you better hope you're fucking fantastic (or also pick Chun-Li or Yun), otherwise you might as well put the controller around and just watch them dominate you.

...make it optional. I mean, if players want to sink their time into making a broken build, let them? Especially in a non-MMO/Multiplayer game. Why shouldn't they be allowed to absolutely destroy the game over their knee if they want to?

One of the things I like about Suikoden II is the Matilda Glitch - you can push the gate to Matilda out of the way and get to level 30 in minutes as well as access high-end armour that will carry you through most of the game AND recruit two high-level characters into your party... when you reach about level 15-ish. It's a fun time, and it's not hurting the player to be able to do that so why fix it?

Another example, this time from RM - Dry Fate had (not sure if it still has) an exploitable shop that sold stat upgrades. Once I realised that they were there and what that meant for my party, I sold all my items to increase all my magic and strength potential and just went on a killing spree through the game. And it was fun. Hilariously fun. Big numbers are fun. One-shotting a boss is fun. Killing enemies left and right is fun. Destroying balance completely is fun. So much so, that when the creators were saying they were going to remove them, yeah I complained. I bitched and moaned because even though it does break the game open completely, as a player I still enjoyed the game.

It was completely optional. There's nothing saying you have to push that gate aside to reach Matilda, and there's nothing saying you have to beef up with stat upgrades in Dry Fate - the games are balanced enough that they're not needed at all, but finding that thing and exploiting it, as a player, is incredibly fun.

As for MMOs... I got nothin' to say. I don't really play them. :shrug:

author=Feldschlacht IV

author=Liberty
...make it optional. Why shouldn't they be allowed to absolutely destroy the game over their knee if they want to?

This begins to get into an interesting argument on the merit of playing a game on how the creator intended it to be played.

Man, fuck that! Part of the awesomeness of games is that they're interactive to a point where the audience gets actual control over things. Creators who want no audience control should probably look into other media.