You and I represent 100% of a population. We meet 500 times. You kill me all 500 times. Does your weapon get nerfed?
This is completely detached from reality. In this situation, if we were to swap gear then meet another 500 times, and you were to kill me on all 500 meetings, then damn right the winning weapon would get nerfed. Furthermore, planetside does not have a sample size of two individuals from which to gather data. Instead it has a sample size of thousands of players. So for example... - You could filter the data which is gathered by Sony to find all the players who have both NC and TR characters. - From that sample (of players who have NC and TR characters), you could find the average k/d, kills per minute and score per minute for those players on their TR characters. - You can then compare this to the average k/d, kills per minute and score per minute those players achieve with their NC characters. - If you find that these players achieve better results with their TR characters, you could then look through average k/d, kills per minute and score per minute with each TR weapon which is used. - If you find a weapon which stands out as giving those players a better k/d, kills per minute and score per minute, you can assume that weapon is overpowered. This is extremely basic statistical analysis and SOE have the tools to do this, and it is what they use to determine what needs to be adjusted. I find it astonishing that this even needs to be explained. I wonder if you are willfully ignoring this, because it does not suit your view that faction A has better players than faction B, and therefore everyone should just shut up and deal with everything how it is and that stuff is only nerfed to suit worthless scrubs. It's ridiculous.
No, not ignoring it. I am of the belief that nerfs do not make for better gaming, and that there are far too many variables in the game to place statistical significance on weapon performance as a way of determining "balance". The only answer to achieve pure gaming (IMO) is to have static weapon abilities, and then challenge the players to overcome their adversities...as you are so "adverse" to doing. It is ridiculous that the culture of nerf has taken over gaming. We do indeed live in the dark ages of gaming.
And again, you ignore the meat of the post and offer no criticism of statistical analysis for determining weapon balance, while still speaking against it. You are mistaking a cultural phenomenon (people crying for nerfs, which I agree is annoying and tedious), with an objective and rational method of determining how the in game items need to be adjusted.
If you don't understand the role that nerfs play in balancing a multiplayer game, you have no business posting. That said, the more I read these forums, the more I understand why I can so easily maintain my k/d and kpm: 90% of you don't have even the most basic understanding of what this game is or how it works, let alone how to balance it.
I've done nothing but criticize statistical analysis. There are far to many variables to make weapon performance statistics reliable enough to use as justification for adjusting weapon abilities. What happens is that no-one can agree on the facts; because there are none. I know this because I make my living by turning numbers into actions. I am glad that we agree about nerfwarriors. I wish we could agree that the creation of immutable weapon abilities based on physical laws (and then making sure each faction has good weapon-matches at the onset) would place the players in the position of ownership of their experience, thus growing the style of game we play. You get last word.
But due to the game being created by fallible humans, mistakes are made in those initial weapons matches. The only way of making initial balance flawless, would be making every faction have the same set of weapons (like, stat-for-stat identical) and removing any factional diversity. It would be red vs blue vs purple. Even then, there would be weapons and classes which are outright better, and everyone would be using X weapon and Y armour on Z class. This would be exceedingly boring. The strength of this game is in scale, diversity and a relatively healthy balance between offensive and defensive capabilities. Removing that would detract from the game significantly. Given the possibility for errors in initial balance and the desire for diversity between factions, weapons and classes, the only available option is monitoriing the statistics generated by people playing the game, and making adjustments to bring stuff in line based on those observations.
