EVE General Discussion

i'm not going with uniformity, i'm going with the fact that if nothing's changing there's no nerf.

so where's the nerf if my gecko is going to be doing the same damage before and after kronos?
i'll laugh at your answer in the morning, i like sleeping more than i like laughing at you.

I disagree. The Gecko has been introduced into the game with its stats pre-buffed. Your refusal to acknowledge this fact, along with your desire to have something to complain about in order to stretch a forum thread out for page after page of "is not!" "is too!" trolling, leads you to believe that the Gecko is somehow getting nerfed after the patch.

All drones are getting rebalanced after the patch. The Gecko is an anomaly because it is already rebalanced today, before the patch. It received its Kronos buff before it was introduced into the game, because CCP doesn't want to have to rebalance it a few days after adding it to the game.

There is no, "from a certain point of view" debate to be had here, except for the situation where you refuse to acknowledge the evidence that has been provided. CCP Fozzie clearly stated that it's being introduced pre-buffed. All drones are being adjusted for Kronos, some are rebalanced up, some are rebalanced down, most are being rebalanced as part of the Kronos patch, the Gecko was being rebalanced before the patch. Attempting to evaluate the Gecko as it exists today, before the patch, in comparison to other drones today, before the patch, without considering that the Gecko is pre-buffed, is wilful ignorance of the highest order: you are wilfully ignoring the information that is being spoon fed to you in this thread.

The only reason you believe it will be nerfed in Kronos is that you didn't see the Gecko's stats before it was buffed. It was horrible! In fact it was so bad that CCP had to not include it in the game!

I swear the ISDs are asleep at the wheel or in a vodka-induced coma. Why this thread is still alive is beyond me.

IBTL.

Actually, I already acknowledged I was aware of the details surrounding the gecko's stats. I never denied or refused to acknowledge them. I'm not sure where you are getting that I was.

Again, all information which I made use of in my posts, and addressed the relevance, at least as a perceived it, to my point. Dave didn't address it, and you apparently completely missed it, even in my post you quoted, but edited to omit the relevant parts relating to your complaints.

Again I'm confused as I haven't refused to acknowledge anything. For anyone with Drone Interfacing trained, the damage output from a gecko will drop come kronos. Period. It was prebuffed, which has it performing above what is intended temporarily, and come kronos, it will be nerfed to intended levels by the skill changes. What am I not acknowledging?

Edit for clarification: This argument was never about, so far as I was concerned, understanding the technicalities or reasonings of what was happening, but rather whether the term nerf could be applied to this or mechanically similar situations.

A nerf means that the stats of a thing are being changed to reduce the affect of that thing. Skills can be nerfed, as can items. Thus the skill "Siege Warfare" might be altered such that the extra shield capacity is added as "empty" shields. On the other hand, the "Siege Warfare" skill might be altered such that the extra shield capacity is added as "full" shields in proportion to the target ship's current shield charge. This change does not nerf or buff shield tanking modules, it nerfs or buffs shield tanking.

The thermal drone range are being nerfed: their stats will change. Overall, the drone weapon system is being nerfed. The Gecko's performance will change between the moments before and after the Kronos release, not because the Gecko is being changed but because the drone weapon system is being changed. The nerf is the change that was made. The reduction in performance is the result of that change.

"The drone weapon system is being nerfed" is not equivalent to "The Gecko and the Acolyte and … are being nerfed." The changes to Drone skills alter the performance of all drones equally. Some drones are getting buffed, some drones are getting nerfed, some drones are being differently-empowered, but all drones will .

So to define nerf and buff, try this on for size: an item is nerfed when its base stats are altered to deleteriously affect the performance of that item in its intended role. An item is buffed when its base stats are altered to advantageously affect the performance of that item in its intended role.

Nerfs to classes of items are not commutative with nerfs to individual items. That is a nerf to "Drones" is not a nerf individually to each type of drone. Each type of drone will perform worse thanks to the nerf, but no type of drone was nerfed. The nerf was to the "base stats" (i.e.: skills) of a weapon system.

Nerfs to individual items are not commutative with nerfs to classes of items. If the DPS of Hobgoblins is reduced, this is a nerf to Hobgoblins, not to the drone weapon system.

If the "Sharpshooter" skill was nerfed, this would not be a nerf to beam lasers because beam lasers would have their range reduced by the same proportion as all other turret-based weapon systems. Beam laser range would be reduced because turrets were nerfed, not because beam lasers were nerfed.

So there's my definition of "nerf": it's a change to a game element that has deleterious effect upon the use of that element in the game. Changes to dependencies are not commutative with changes to dependants: if A is nerfed such that B which depends on A has reduced performance, B is not nerfed. If B is nerfed, it is not true that A (which B depends upon) was nerfed.

Let's try to express it mathematically:

A is Drone Interfacing.
B is the Gecko.
C is an abstract representation of "performance"

B x A = C
A -(nerf)-> A'
A' < A
B x A' = C'
C' < C

B has not changed. What changed were A->A' and C->C'. The nerf was only applied to A, B is the same, but C (the performance of B) changes as a result of the nerf.

14 pages of people arguing with TipTroll and DaveTroll. Really, guys?

On a sidenote the claim the Rattlesnake only suffers 6% not 25% is misleading.

True, two Gecko in the current Rattlesnake versus the one super Gecko post summer patch will see a 6% drop in damage ... however it is totally ignoring the fact that at present my Rattlesnake can deploy two Gecko plus one Garde II or Ogre II whereas post patch it just gets one Gecko @ 3.75 damage and HP.

If all we had to go by was Dinsdale, then everything would be nerfed according to him.

Cool answers my original question. Thanks

No, you haven't and won't change my stance on that, not when you refuse to address the root of my reasoning and just keep repeating your own. But, as stated a while into this, I just wanted an answer that would help define yours despite disagreeing.

I'll end it here with just the statement that for a term you refuse to define, you defend your use of it quite zealously and not without a more than fair amount of condescension.

common definition's pretty clear. the drone poo removal was called a 'mining buff' by everyone. we can see in devblogs a reprocessing efficiency nerf is also called a 'mining nerf'