how to start this? lets imagine this, lets say, there were no nerfs. baduruu ravager was still roaming around. elementalis with 3cc stardust was still around. twilight aramia was still around. fire aramia was still around. majiya and gravebone fire were still around. loest rush with amulet was still around. banebow with 2/2 damage reduction krygon was still around. attachment lance was still around. Hamber was still around. how many decks is that so far? 10? how many decks that have been killed have i missed? and i wonder, how would garina lance do in that meta?
imagine those are still around, all at once, with ALL the other decks that disappeared because it was thought those decks/cards unbalanced the game. can you imagine that? i can, sounds fun and exciting to me.
but cards get nerfed and we are back to what we always have. this same dull meta we have had for a very long time. nothing can rise up and change the meta because if it does, its seen as being bad for the game, when in fact, it is good for the game. change is good. it keeps things interesting. it keeps things new and fresh. it keeps deck builders interested and looking for new decks. it keeps older players interested and the player base grows instead of just being replaced by new players. a new player has that freshness, because they are new, not the game. the game needs new decks that are better than the old. or what has changed?
lets look at deck building. like what is the point if you find a great new deck if its just going to get nerfed? so creativity is squashed. i havent talked to other players about this aspect, but i know it has effected me, several times. and say you do create something good and you play it... other plays see it and copy it, cause it is good. and it spreads and now its everywhere... is it because its too good? or that it was new and exciting and it became popular for the moment? how many nerfs are because it was popular at the time? of those decks i lited at the beginning and ones i missed... how many of those decks were really OP and needed a nerf? 1? 2? in my opinion and there was only 1, that possibly needed a nerf and that was twilight aramia. Garina Lance... maybe but it was around long enough to find out.
this mentality to nerf things that rise to the top is wrong. especially if its to see what else rises to the top so that can be nerfed as well. and so on and so on. SF is still in beta, for almost 3 years now. its out there, being played, in 2 WCs now and its still in beta. we still have to worry about it being nerfed.
and here comes the new set, but wait, its in 3 parts now. and why? so it seems development is faster because we are getting new cards over a year to a year and a half... when all it really is doing is making us wait longer for cards. we have waited 2 and a half years for new cards and we only get 33% of them with the rest coming over the next year.
what?
but lets look at these new cards. more tribe cards, new tribes. a whole new type of card and mechanic. one day out and one of them gets nerfed? or was it 3 days? but, seriously? did you have to release it as it was to begin with then? how many people even got to play it? or even play against it? and it was nerfed. and now 3 months, 3 nerf updates pretty much and it was in testing how long? how long did we wait to get to play with new cards and then what, almost half of them got nerfed and more still will? this frustrates players and the response we basically get is: deal with it, the game is doing great. the bottom of the top 100 is at 277 which means people are playing less, but the game is doing great. of course, it will be said that its at 277 because the game is more balanced.
im tired of hearing about game balance. it is so run into the ground, just like nerfing is so run into the ground. how does the game get better, when what is deemed good at the time, gets nerfed, and what rises up to be good after, gets nerfed as well and so on and so on? and we end up with the same boring and stale meta we have had for 3 years. nothing changes. and posting stats on the new cards and how much they are used, doesnt matter when those cards maintain the 3 year old meta. this isnt balance. this is stagnation. we have enough of that really, we do not need it from nerfing.
imagine if 3se Logan was still around... oh wait, he is, he is just named Garth now. is Garth too powerful? does he unbalance the meta? sure, Logan was a bit extreme back in CotC, so he was nerfed and here we are after 2 other sets were released and 3se Logan... i mean Garth, isnt unbalancing anything. and i would argue that Garth is actually better than 3se Logan because he can use ANY damage source, not just a weapon. sure, he might need two but when any damage source can be used, that dosnt even matter. and he has access to a better card pool than 3se Logan. one that is so good, that it makes 120 card decks competitive. what if hericho's ability was 3se? what if ter adun's ability were 3se? or maybe 4se and still the same but added in renew 2 resources as well? or he can attack twice that round?
lands. a brand new card type and game mechanic. i am sure was worked on hard. not even 1 month out, they get nerfed to almost non-existence. why? especially when some of them needed buffs to begin with. i can undestand, they are new and its hard to balance the no cost and opposing ability against the friendly ability, but damn... i would like to actually be able to play with them and not lose. and deck space is a cost, i do not know why some people do not think so. you are not going to put a sub par card in a 40 card deck. you are not gong to put any card in a 40 card deck if there is a card that does the same thing only better.
i am confounded, confused and just plain tired of this nerfing policy. maybe it came about to make it seem like the game was fresher or newer, like we had new cards when we didnt, i dont know. but this has to stop. its just bad for business. a lot is bad for business. still waiting on promised features like the auction house and campaigns, etc. but to not get features and to basically not get new cards because they get nerfed, is just crazy. and they are so expensive. what incentive is there to keep buying the rest of the set?
no other card game does this, they nerf cards from time to time, but so not even close to the amount SE does and not even close to as often. and those games are growing so very fast, becoming very popular and maintaining that popularity whiles still growing.
try something new, if something rises to the top, how about buffing some other cards that might counter it. what good is it to get new players, when all they really do is replace old players? the game doesnt grow, doesnt get more popular, doesnt make more money than it did in previous years.
so my biggest suggestion is this. stop nerfing, lets go buff several cards or at least only buff cards. nerfing isnt helping the game in any respect. if it was up to me, i would go un-nerf almost all the cards that were nerfed. i would REALLY love to play the game with all those decks i listed still around plus more. i wold really like to go design and build a deck without worrying that it will get killed if its good.
what can it hurt? the game is dying whether the designers believe that or not AND its still in beta, something gets messed up it can still be changed. there is absolutely NO DOWNSIDE, whereas, there is a huge downside to constant nerfing.
(this was originally posted on the A1 forums in our public section, with some comments there:
http://a1-alliance.freeforums.net/thread/184/state-era )