Balancing an ARPG - Nerfing As the Necessary Evil
As we rapidly approach the release of Diablo 4's Season 3, changes to all the classes are expected to shake up the meta. This will very likely include nerfs to the overperforming builds such as Ball Lightning Sorcerer and HotA Barbarian. We're taking a look at why nerfing the outliers is a necessary evil, even when the developers of Diablo 4 know that no one likes power taken away from them.
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Diablo 4's Balancing Philosophy
Why do nerfs happen in the first place? Lead Class Designer Adam Jackson went into great detail during a BlizzCon 2023 interview with wudijo to explain their current balancing philosophy. For the game not to get stale, the developers have to make changes to existing builds and encourage experimentation for new builds to develop. Otherwise, players will stick to what's best and avoid underperforming builds.
Adam Jackson
If a build dominates for too long you don't feel that shift and every build is kind of the same, there is no point in experimentation because we already know what's the best, it's so much better than everything else. healthy for the long-term health of the game.
Adam Jackson further explains that not nerfing at all would result in power creep, which would keep raising the power level bar of the builds in the game.
Adam Jackson
We can't just not nerf things forever. In that world, and HotA Barb or Ball Lightning, whether or not it's bugged, we just bring everything, then the next and you get quadrillions of damage. You can't do that for a long time or you can't measure it anymore and that's not a healthy way to do things.
Bringing up the floor continuously while also raising the ceiling makes things not only more difficult for developers to work with, but also stagnates for players, leading to experiences that just aren't as fun as they should be.
«Buff Underperformers, Don't Nerf Overperformers»
A common argument in the community
