"The Devs Nerf Things Because of Popularity" -- Well Let's PROVE It!

[Drasiel]

5 minutes ago, Deminisis said:

So, Is Glaive Prime not "Meta/OP" enough to merit a nerf? I'm confused.

It's getting a nerf. It's in the dev workshop on arsenal divide. All glaives are getting their quick throw damage reduced and their charge time for full charge throw doubled. Because with the way glaives are if you only changed glaive prime they'd just move down to the next glaive on the list because glaives have surprisingly decent stats across the board. Most of the playerbase seems to be sleeping on glaives as a class outside of steel path and yet still the entire class is getting adjusted.

[Deminisis]

2 minutes ago, Krankbert said:

I don't know about the others, but I was mocking the fact that you clearly don't know about the upcoming nerfs to glaives.

It is nerfs to the damage of the quick attack. Heavy attacks are still doing the same damage, which is what you build for.

[Tesseract7777]

6 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

I have made a footnote for clarity. I don't actually believe the devs nerfs because of popularity, I am simply recasting an often-said opinion in the community as the hypothesis for this experiment.

I figured that, that's why my post was more a serious commentary on how so many get this confused. A lot of commenters in this thread already, who seem to actually believe it 

[Drasiel]

1 minute ago, Deminisis said:

It is nerfs to the damage of the quick attack. Heavy attacks are still doing the same damage, which is what you build for.

heavy attack TTK is being doubled so effectively it does nerf the heavy attack damage.

[SenorClipClop]

32 minutes ago, lukinu_u said:

They obviously nerf things because of popularity for a simple reason : diversity.

If one specific thing is more popular than the rest (being because of strength, ease of use, fun or any other reason), it leaves no room for other stuff.
In this case you either reduce popularity of said thing, or increase the popularity of everything else (through nerf/buff or other changes).

The simplest option is obviously to work on ONE thing (the one that generally get a nerf) rather than changing everything else according to it.

If you take your comment and change all instances of "popular" to "powerful", you just get the core principle of buffing and nerfing for game balance:

Quote

They obviously nerf things because of power for a simple reason : diversity.

If one specific thing is more powerful than the rest (being because of strength, ease of use, fun or any other reason), it leaves no room for other stuff.
In this case you either reduce power of said thing, or increase the power of everything else (through nerf/buff or other changes).

The simplest option is obviously to work on ONE thing (the one that generally get a nerf) rather than changing everything else according to it.

I can't tell if you're being clever, or what?

[Leqesai]

40 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

It does bug me that the devs keep showing usage charts when they talk balance patches and not going further into it. It oversimplifies the issue and a bunch of the playerbase misunderstands because of that.

I mean. Charts are pretty simple to understand... What exactly are you looking for them to further explain?

Spikes in weapon usage generally occur when weapons are disproportionately powerful or more useful. 

[SenorClipClop]

Just now, Leqesai said:

I mean. Charts are pretty simple to understand... What exactly are you looking for them to further explain?

Spikes in weapon usage generally occur when weapons are disproportionately powerful or more useful. 

I'm looking for them to explain that the relationship between usage stats and the decision to nerf something is correlation, and not causation. A lot of people don't seem to get that.

[trst]

Things only get popular to the point of topping average usage stats because they're overpowered or are given out for free. Thus popularity is often a valid metric for identifying outliers that require nerfs.

Also you're not going to get any valid experiment going unless it got boosted via multiple content creators as well. Even if everyone that views this thread went along with it you wouldn't dent usage statistics against other meta weapons.

[Deminisis]

15 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

heavy attack TTK is being doubled so effectively it does nerf the heavy attack damage.

Brozime pretty much covered this change. Killing blow + Amalgam Organ shatter will negate the charge time change with a minimal reduction in crit damage. Here is the timestamp.

 

[lukinu_u]

à l’instant, SenorClipClop a dit :

If you take your comment and change all instances of "popular" to "powerful", you just get the core principle of buffing and nerfing for game balance:

Which is why I used the word "popular".
From what we've seen over the game development, balance isn't really a concern while diversity is. This is extremly different because something objectively weak but still popular will overshadow less popular stuff even if it's weak, which wouldn't happen if we talk about "powerness" instead of "popularity".

Plenty of stuff that got nerfed in the past wasn't necessarily powerful things, but the overpopular ones that overshadow the rest of content for the vast majority of the players, not because they are strong but because they are popular for other reasons (ease of use, early availability, recently featured by content creators, etc...).
Things like : old Zenurik, exalted turret Excalibur, Tonkor, Valkyr ult, Wukong, etc...
 

il y a 18 minutes, SenorClipClop a dit :

I can't tell if you're being clever, or what?

I agree it feels extremly dumb to explain what I said above because it's obvious, but there seems to be debate about "powerness", while this is clearly about "popularity" as OP said.

[Drasiel]

1 minute ago, Deminisis said:

Brozime pretty much covered this change. Killing blow + Amalgam Organ shatter will negate the charge time change with a minimal reduction in crit damage. Here is the timestamp.

 

I'm already using both of those on my glaive builds so for me and every other player already using those mods for comfort or the dps increase they offer in ttk we are still getting that cut in half.

[Traumtulpe]

1 hour ago, SenorClipClop said:

"The devs nerf things because they are popular."

 

We get these observations on here a lot. I'm personally not convinced*, though. So I'd love to see the community prove me wrong. And here's how!

Here's how: Watch a devstream, where they tell you all about their usage statistics, show you charts, and tell you exactly why they nerf things.

[Traumtulpe]

8 minutes ago, Deminisis said:

Brozime pretty much covered this change. Killing blow + Amalgam Organ shatter will negate the charge time change with a minimal reduction in crit damage. Here is the timestamp.

Brozime obviously doesn't know much about glaives. He didn't know that combo throws are quite good (ignoring their severe bugs that will likely never get fixed), nor did he know that uncharged throws were the way to use glaives, nor did he know that people already used both heavy attack charge increases before.

[Leqesai]

18 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

I'm looking for them to explain that the relationship between usage stats and the decision to nerf something is correlation, and not causation. A lot of people don't seem to get that.

Except the correlation between usage IS causation with regard to the determination of useful metrics from a design standpoint. 

There are a ton of weapons in the game. If 20 weapons are released in an upcoming patch and 90% of the population start using one of those weapons then there is a high probability that the weapon is disproportionately overpowered (either in stats or function). 

Weapons in games like this do not become extremely popular when they look pretty. They become extremely popular when players find a use for them that invalidates the use of other weapons. 

The more powerful a weapon the higher the spike in popularity. Now, this is certainly not the absolute reason for spikes in popularity but it is fairly consistent. Consistent enough to justify investigation (which more often than not leads to rebalancing/nerfs).

[Traumtulpe]

54 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

Glaive prime has shot up massively in popularity but mostly for steel path because it has one of the big things steel path builds look for: incredibly strong slash procs. It also has really good crit stats and works well with condition overload, and it's explosion option is bigger than melee swings and safer than getting in the face of enemies.

Condition Overload does nothing for Glaive Prime. The explosion is entirely unaffected.

[Drasiel]

1 minute ago, Traumtulpe said:

Condition Overload does nothing for Glaive Prime. The explosion is entirely unaffected.

They fixed condition overload not working on throw damage and I will actually just hit solo enemies with the throw without exploding it or chain throws for small groups, so I slap it on anyway so I don't get bored just using glaivesplosions.

[Traumtulpe]

Just now, Drasiel said:

They fixed condition overload not working on throw damage and I will actually just hit solo enemies with the throw without exploding it

You're funny. The throw's hit damage is entirely irrelevant.

[Drasiel]

1 minute ago, Traumtulpe said:

You're funny. The throw's hit damage is entirely irrelevant.

That's fine if you feel that way, I find it fun to hit things with the actual throw sometimes :) It's like the difference between a bag of chips and baked potato, sure I can get a massive amount of chips in a bag definitely more than a single potatoes worth but sometimes you just want a baked potato.

[Venus-Venera]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb SenorClipClop:

"They just hate when we have fun."   "They just don't like us being powerful."

"They just want us to waste our investments."     "Something something slap in the face!"

"The devs nerf things because they are popular."

 

^{...............*Btw I think popularity is not the cause of a nerf, it's a symptom. .......}

the first sentence is nonsense. it's not about fun!
devs MUST sell new content !!! it's all about this! when devs design useless garbage, no one wants to farm it! or buy ...... player online goes down and platinum or prime pack is not bought. (Hello to the single target semi-auto mindlessness, I just say!)

if you understand that, then you can answer the questions yourself ...... a lot of intellect is actually not necessary.

[Deminisis]

38 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

I'm already using both of those on my glaive builds so for me and every other player already using those mods for comfort or the dps increase they offer in ttk we are still getting that cut in half.

Less than .3 seconds more with both mods. Really doesn't sound as bad as you're making it out to be.

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, SenorClipClop said:

We get these observations on here a lot.

Senor, I've known you for a long time (although my name's changed, so you might not remember me so much) and I need to interject here.

It's not much of an observation here. At this point it's just 'stating the obvious' because the reasons for specific nerfs are a stated fact by DE.

DE out-right said in the latest Workshop update that the Kuva Nukor is getting Nerfed because it's being used by the overwhelming majority of players, a stat backed up by their release earlier this year that showed the relative popularity and usage of all weapons and frames in the game based on Mastery rank, and they've noted its crazy amount of usage on multiple DevStreams.

The same was true of the Catchmoon when they put fall-off damage onto it. DE straight stated that the reason they were doing so was because the popularity of using it didn't go down despite having the Riven disposition drop down to literally the lowest possible.

So these aren't player observations.

They're literally DE's stated reasons for many of the nerfs to specific things in the game.

You don't have to prove anything.

You specifically don't have to get my Stradivar Prime's Riven disposition dropped by organising this.

We know the answer because DE literally told us the answer both in words and the actions that directly followed those words.

[SpentCasings]

1 hour ago, SenorClipClop said:

"They just hate when we have fun."   "They just don't like us being powerful."

"They just want us to waste our investments."     "Something something slap in the face!"

"The devs nerf things because they are popular."

 

We get these observations on here a lot. I'm personally not convinced*, though. So I'd love to see the community prove me wrong. And here's how!

To do this, let's take a fully off-meta weapon and collectively play it so much that we make it incredibly popular. The devs will then see this overwhelming popularity and, since the devs nerf because of popularity**, they nerf that weapon even though it's not super powerful! This will prove without a doubt that they nerf by popularity.

Essentially, let's do what r/wallstreetbets did with Gamestop stock.

For this task, I am nominating the Stradavar. (Or its Prime if you have it.) I do this partly because it's firmly off-meta, but mostly because it's my favourite gun in the game. I love this gun's aesthetic, sound design and general feel, and it's one of my more-used and more-invested-in weapons. I would personally hate to see the Stradavar get nerfed, and that's why I think it's a good, unbiased nomination for this test. I have only to lose from it being nerfed, but for the sake of others getting to prove their point, I offer this sacrifice.

 Let's prove once and for all if the devs nerf weapons due to popularity. Play the Stradavar (Prime) as much as you can! Skew its popularity super high! And, though it hurts me to say it, get this off-meta weapon nerfed!

 

^{*Btw I think popularity is not the cause of a nerf, it's a symptom. The cause is something being overpowered in some way, to a point where enough people play like there's no point picking any other option, and that's what causes the nerf. Meanwhile popularity just shows the developers the existence of an imbalance. Or, you're not sick because you have a fever -- you're sick because of the flu virus, and the fever is your body responding to that virus. The Catchmoon didn't get nerfed because it was popular -- it got nerfed because it was OP, and the popularity was the playerbase responding to that OPness.}

^{**EDIT: I think I should clarify, based on comments, that I do not believe this statement. "...since they nerf because of popularity" is an opinion I see getting tossed around a lot, so it's set here to be proven true or false by this experiment. "If the devs do this, like some people assert that they do, then X should happen."}

This entire thread doesn't stand on 1 leg. I literally main a prisma gorgon because its a crit machine gun and so wildly unpopular its riven dispo is perfectly safe(140% cc currently)... Which is basically what you are doing with the stradavar prime. And I too have a nice riven on my stradavar prime for that very reason. We are both literally gaming thier nerf by popularity gimmic to get stupidly strong rivened weapons. 

[Graavarg]

2 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

"They just hate when we have fun."   "They just don't like us being powerful."

"They just want us to waste our investments."     "Something something slap in the face!"

"The devs nerf things because they are popular."

Well, the devs SHOULD nerf things that are too popular. It's sort of indicated from the terminology itself ("TOO popular").

The rest ("non-bold" statements) are millennial crybaby stuff, not need to comment.

From a more philosophical viewpoint "popular" might not be the correct term though, "most copied" would be more apt. 

[Graavarg]

27 minutes ago, SpentCasings said:

I literally main a prisma gorgon because its a crit machine gun and so wildly unpopular its riven dispo is perfectly safe(140% cc currently)...

And I too have a nice riven on my stradavar prime for that very reason.

Funny, I use these two guns as well. Great weapons both. I even have a build for the Prisma Gorgon as an "unlimited ammo sniper headshot plinker" (the first shot has no recoil and you can avoid recoil by methodical single-taps).

[Drasiel]

7 minutes ago, Deminisis said:

Less than .3 seconds more with both mods. Really doesn't sound as bad as you're making it out to be.

it doesn't have to sound bad it simply is what it is: a change that doubles charge time. Again if you are already using those mods you are still stuck with doubled time.

A1. current without mods

• 0.6

B1. current with mods

• 0.4

A2. Future without mods

• 1.2

B2. future with mods

• 0.8

You keep comparing A1 with B2. For people already using the mods it's comparing B1 and B2. Even though the numbers are small they are more than enough of a difference to feel, those of us who already equipped those mods weren't comfortable with 0.6 we're not going to be enjoying having the sped up version now be 0.8. We don't really have a choice but to get used to it. So for you maybe it's not a big deal you have mods to slap on to make it only be a 0.2 increase. For me? I don't have another option to improve it and it's going to be slower than a current glaive unmodded for charge speed.