Cheating, exploits, and the game-mechanics behind the nerf

Nerfs are something that you don't want to happen. Leastways you don't want them to happen to you. One day, you're striding through the MMOG like a god, defeating mobs, collecting loot and punishing the wicked in PvP. The next day you feel like you're fighting with a nerf-bat covered in goose-feathers.

Nerfs are best known in MMOGs but also happen in assorted multi-player (and occasionally single-player) games. Nerfs usually (though not always) come about for good reasons, though. Partly it's because few people are actually sure when cheating is happening. Even if they're the ones doing it. Really.

In a game – indeed in almost any game – what you're supposed to do (aside from just having a good time) is to learn the mechanics of the game, and exploit those mechanics to your advantage. We learn how creatures agro, how they behave in groups, and we exploit that to gain an advantage. That's the very essence of "the pull."

All manner of such exploitation of the intricate game-mechanics of MMOGs have become institutionalized, leading to the general stratification of roles within the game, from Tank to Crowd-Control. Much of that is what is expected of us, even hoped for.

At the same time, you have 250,000+ players examining every possible combination of races, classes, powers, abilities, gears and buffs, looking for an edge. Looking for that combination that makes your Elven Rogue stand out from all the other Elven Rogues. The one that gets you picked for the A-team and not left behind when the guild goes raiding.

Eventually someone finds it. Usually a whole bunch of someones. Some combination of race, class, gear and skills transforms you from Neeshka to Prince Nuada, head and shoulders among the other characters of your type. That combination of Elf, Rogue, Flurry-of-Blades, and twin Spark Daggers seals the deal, and makes you awesome.

And you feel good. You're playing by the game's rules, and you've found an edge. You know a trick that nobody else knows, and that's a great feeling. But someone else is going to figure it out, if they haven't already.

Inside of a month, the developers/operators notice that half the server population are Elven Rogues with twin Spark Daggers, and pumping their Flurry-of-Blades skills. Most of the rest are healers, just so they get to go along on raids.

It's not that the combo is overpowered, necessarily, but it makes everyone not playing that particular combo feel underpowered.

The devs are faced with a choice now. Either rename the game to World of Elven Roguecraft: The DaggerSpark Flurry, or change things up so that this particular combo doesn't make every other combination seem pathetic.

Whether other things get boosted, or your things get nerfed, you're not happy. All that special magic has gone, and your Elven Rogue is just another undistinguished character again.

The question is, were you cheating?

Generally, there's stuff we know is cheating, stuff we're sure is not cheating, and a whole lot of stuff in the middle that's individually decided by millions of players per day, who each generally don't think they're actually cheating. They're maximizing the benefits that they get from the game mechanics.

Hey, if I asked you to kill ten powerfully dangerous wolves with a bow and arrows, are you going to stand down there where they can maul you to kibble, or are you going to stand on something to prevent them getting to you while you pull off this undeniably dangerous chore?

Right. Because you're not stupid.

In an MMOG, that's generally cheating. Admittedly, it's called an exploit, but that's basically what is meant.

So, over in Lord of the Rings Online, they use a mechanism where you can't hurt anything that can't get to you. Even if it can hurt you. Those wolves will run around with little 'baffled' icons circling their heads, but suddenly you can't hit them. You can't hit that Orc archer either, but by golly, he can hit you.

Certain creatures in that game seem particularly prone to this, like the Barrow-Wights (pictured above) who are seemingly unable to find you at a distance of about eight feet away, concealed (as you obviously are) behind a four-inch tuft of grass, and thus they become invulnerable, until you choose to wander over to them, slather yourself in bacon-mayonnaise and get them to sniff your hand.

A modern MMOG consists of thousands of interrelated systems, and the results of their interactions don't always quite go as planned in every single possible circumstance. Which is one of the reasons exploits exist in the first place.

And with millions of users hammering on those game-systems, someone's going to stumble across a combination of things that makes them seem overpowered. Face it, that's exactly the sort of thing games teach us to do: Explore the mechanics and make the most of them for our entertainment.

And we're not happy when that entertainment gets yanked out from under our feet. The devs treat it as cheating when we find and use one of these combinations, even though most of the time, we're pretty sure it isn't. It would be so much simpler if those exploitable combinations didn't exist. However every least change to a system, every rebalancing, every new bit race, class, ability and bit of gear, and every little bug-fix generates those possibilities. Where can a developer possibly get the millions of man-hours to test all those complex interactions?

Oh, yeah ... the players. You and me.

Nerfs still aren't fun, and they're probably never going to be. They suck the fun out of that lucky find like ... well, some big fun-sucking thing. Due to the nature of MMOGs, though, there's no sign that we're ever going to be free of periodic nerfings.