Upcoming Item Rebalancing

[rorswar]

More nerfs incoming!? Here's an idea I've had for awhile now, think about this.

In traditional gaming ecosystems, centralized control by developers creates an inherent imbalance of power. When devs unilaterally alter item stats, gear mechanics, or economic systems to suit internal roadmaps, competitive priorities, fleeting trends, or to satisfy a graph or chart on a spreadsheet. The player base, the very lifeblood of any title, becomes subordinate to their decisions. This is how it's always been and ROR is no different. Is there even another way?

Patches arrive without recourse, hard earned progress can be nerfed overnight and the community’s collective voice is reduced to forum posts (hi) and social media petitions that carry no binding weight. This model not only breeds resentment and player churn, but also undermines the long term health of the game by eroding the sense of ownership and agency that keeps communities engaged for years rather than months. I know ROR is an old title and has been around for years, but the player base is relatively low. I'd like to see 2k+ players online regularly and I think it's possible.

A compelling alternative lies in a decentralized architecture where players themselves become the infrastructure. Sounds crazy, stay with me. Imagine a system in which every participant runs a lightweight node. Whether on consumer hardware, cloud instances, or even mobile devices. Maintaining a shared, tamper-resistant ledger of game state. Core rules and asset behaviors are no longer dictated from a single studio server. Instead, they evolve through public governance mechanisms native to the game itself. Players could, for example, signal desired changes by modifying or staking in game items. Equipping a legendary weapon with a governance modifier, forging rare materials into proposal tokens, or routing in game currency toward community voted upgrades. These signals aggregate transparently across the node network, automatically triggering protocol level adjustments once predefined thresholds are met. Be it a 60 % consensus on buffing underused armor sets or a coordinated rebalance of drop rates or even set/item nerfs like we're discussing here. Let the players decide. That would be an incredible system and likely an extremely popular game. Not sure if it's possible for ROR, but I think it's worth a post here and thinking about. At the very least, let the players vote... somehow.

A model like this transforms passive gamers into active participants, even more than just playing a game they love, now we all have a say. Pretty awesome!

It aligns incentives: developers ship the initial vision and tooling, while the player run network assumes ongoing stewardship, preserving the game’s integrity.

The result is a living, player owned economy where balance patches feel emergent rather than imposed, and where the whims that once dictated change now reflect the collective will of the very people who invest their time, skill, and passion into the world. In an era when digital ownership is becoming the norm, this decentralized approach is not merely technically innovative, it is philosophically overdue.

TL;DR - It sucks that the devs change things and the players have no say. We simply accept the changes/nerfs or stop playing. I remember when there was a big riff about initiative change, nothing the players can do, take it or leave it. I like ROR, it's cool what the devs have done to keep the game going, hats off to that, I would just like to see more players thoughts brought into consideration.

Thanks, ChatGPT.

Horrible idea. In a "competitive" game like RoR, people are naturally incentivised to see the classes they play buffed, whilst getting classes that they struggle to fight seeing nerfed. This forum is prime example of this.

The wisdom of the crowd doesn't always work, especially when the problem is too complex to grasp for most people. Again, this forum is an excellent example of this where most people only vaguely understand the few classes they regularly play, with little to no understanding of other classes, let alone gear, bonus sets, pots, and all the other things that influence balance.

[bittrio]

Great post overally but this part i feel the need to comment. There has been approaches like that, with groups that were to connect into community etc etc. Nothing of this has ever worked well. There has to be a clear design.

Absolute majority of players either has no knowledge, or experience or vision to suggest anything sane. Will of the very people is what i personally dont wanna see. Imagine all the crap from forum "suggestions" goes live? Its pure nightmare imo

Yea there's pros and cons. I don't think we've seen a successful implementation yet, but I think we will (hopefully) soon.

Thanks, ChatGPT.

Horrible idea. In a "competitive" game like RoR, people are naturally incentivised to see the classes they play buffed, whilst getting classes that they struggle to fight seeing nerfed. This forum is prime example of this.

The wisdom of the crowd doesn't always work, especially when the problem is too complex to grasp for most people. Again, this forum is an excellent example of this where most people only vaguely understand the few classes they regularly play, with little to no understanding of other classes, let alone gear, bonus sets, pots, and all the other things that influence balance.

The devs of this game play as well so this point is moot. They are 'naturally incentivised to see the classes they play buffed, whilst getting classes that they struggle to fight seeing nerfed.'

[Noh]

Create an analogue for Destruction.

[Starx]

I wont say anything about the stat/weight changes until they are out, but im a bit worried about procs.

Personally I think weapon procs are extremely underwhelming across the board outside a few outliers like the one in the post above, yet still niche and usually a case of being something valuable in terms of being applicable in AoE.

Id like to see all weapons/offhands recieve procs, its a nice bit of flavor/fun.

I also think it is EXTREMELY important that more information about the proc be present on the tooltip, specifically ICD and what abilities it works on. For instance direct vs DoT (also I think if its not the case already all DoT abilities should get to proc things on their first hit) also I think 2/3 sec casts should get a boost in proc rate. There also issue with the value some classes that lack auto attacks get out of on hit procs.

The issue with lack of info is for instance a newer player looking at tank warlord seeing the elusive proc and thinking it will turn them into a god when it actually has a 10 sec ICD globally(it not person person but everyone once applied to a single enemy) or certain procs about removing blessing/enchant and how it works in AoE situations etc.

On a slight tanget I also think currently that prices crest wise for gear after conq basically jump the shark, inv/warlord are way too expensive especially considering how trivial it is to get comparative or better gear in PvE.

I believe that when players are disincentivised to spend crests and just squirrel it away for what will likely be months for them and skipping over sets to save for sov something is wrong. PvE also becomes mandatory as the amount of crests you save not buying sets after anni is so high that youd be an idiot not to.

[gersy]

Create an analogue for Destruction.

a bit hard since destro has no 2h mdps and no competent IB or SL is actually using this weapon. the proc also doesn't stack with IHD, which makes it undesirable for any form of decently organized gameplay.

you will argue that WLs use it in warband for aoe IHD. that's true. it is a small chance to proc, can be cleansed and whether or not it goes on the 'right' target is completely rng. also good warbands use 50% IHDs on MA's target which further renders this proc less potent than face value suggests.

now look at chosen's IHD aura. it is guaranteed and permanent, always up on the same targets that destro's frontline are hitting. that is the true analogue, and it is a much better one.

[gisborne]

With all the melee power, crit, bypass and weapon proc do you plan to introduce Fortitude or something else working like it back on tank items? Its ridiculous now with some dps [*cough, cough* WE] being more tanky 1v1 in long fights then a tank... Yank w/o healer that heal him from behind is not a tank anymore but renown pinata

Your complaint is that a tank with massive group utility loses 1v1 to a 1v1 class that isn't wanted in groups?

Not wanted in groups? Lol.
You even played since mellee patch at all or simply trolling? Kek.

No i complain that tank is nowhere close to where it was in terms of tankiness comparing to AOR or even ROR from few years back.

All dps got more and more power, procs, crit while tank sit on his hands and being rekt without support in seconds.

I am complaining that tanks used to TANK.
If tank with 70+ block, 1000 tough, 10k hp, soft cap resistances can be deleted by WE while standing back to corner in the wall in seconds while that we is getting aborbs, regen and her health bar doesnt flinch then i say something is waaaaay off.
I can accept making 0 dmg in tanking sets but let tank be tank not a renown pinata that can be deleted almost instantly.

The role of tank is not "don't die". The role of tank is guard, challenge, punt, knockdowns, AE stagger, group buffs, etc.

Of course your wet noodle tank doesn't kill a WE. Why should it? You think my heal RP kills anything?

You are arguing based on hyperbole in a thread about item rebalancing. It's off topic and just ranting. Take it to one of the WE hate threads.

[live4treasure]

More nerfs incoming!? Here's an idea I've had for awhile now, think about this.

In traditional gaming ecosystems, centralized control by developers creates an inherent imbalance of power. When devs unilaterally alter item stats, gear mechanics, or economic systems to suit internal roadmaps, competitive priorities, fleeting trends, or to satisfy a graph or chart on a spreadsheet. The player base, the very lifeblood of any title, becomes subordinate to their decisions. This is how it's always been and ROR is no different. Is there even another way?

Patches arrive without recourse, hard earned progress can be nerfed overnight and the community’s collective voice is reduced to forum posts (hi) and social media petitions that carry no binding weight. This model not only breeds resentment and player churn, but also undermines the long term health of the game by eroding the sense of ownership and agency that keeps communities engaged for years rather than months. I know ROR is an old title and has been around for years, but the player base is relatively low. I'd like to see 2k+ players online regularly and I think it's possible.

A compelling alternative lies in a decentralized architecture where players themselves become the infrastructure. Sounds crazy, stay with me. Imagine a system in which every participant runs a lightweight node. Whether on consumer hardware, cloud instances, or even mobile devices. Maintaining a shared, tamper-resistant ledger of game state. Core rules and asset behaviors are no longer dictated from a single studio server. Instead, they evolve through public governance mechanisms native to the game itself. Players could, for example, signal desired changes by modifying or staking in game items. Equipping a legendary weapon with a governance modifier, forging rare materials into proposal tokens, or routing in game currency toward community voted upgrades. These signals aggregate transparently across the node network, automatically triggering protocol level adjustments once predefined thresholds are met. Be it a 60 % consensus on buffing underused armor sets or a coordinated rebalance of drop rates or even set/item nerfs like we're discussing here. Let the players decide. That would be an incredible system and likely an extremely popular game. Not sure if it's possible for ROR, but I think it's worth a post here and thinking about. At the very least, let the players vote... somehow.

A model like this transforms passive gamers into active participants, even more than just playing a game they love, now we all have a say. Pretty awesome!

It aligns incentives: developers ship the initial vision and tooling, while the player run network assumes ongoing stewardship, preserving the game’s integrity.

The result is a living, player owned economy where balance patches feel emergent rather than imposed, and where the whims that once dictated change now reflect the collective will of the very people who invest their time, skill, and passion into the world. In an era when digital ownership is becoming the norm, this decentralized approach is not merely technically innovative, it is philosophically overdue.

TL;DR - It sucks that the devs change things and the players have no say. We simply accept the changes/nerfs or stop playing. I remember when there was a big riff about initiative change, nothing the players can do, take it or leave it. I like ROR, it's cool what the devs have done to keep the game going, hats off to that, I would just like to see more players thoughts brought into consideration.

So, you want to turn mechanical changes into a coin, basically. Utterly hillarious.

There's a problem with this system in that it leans way too much into the other extreme. You're familiar with the concept of entropy, I'm sure? Well, it applies by proxy to any system, in fact including social systems or governments. Which is why each good system of this nature needs to have a mechanism for resetting itself once it has become too chaotic, corrupt and etc. Which means power should not be centralized in one place, true, but what you fail to account for here is that when we say "place", it refers to such things in the abstract. It means that in order for a system to function properly and self-repair, it needs to have multiple stakeholders present, that exert pressure on each other and keep each other honest.

In this case, what stakeholders do we have? The players, basically. What do players want, statistically, in a pvp game like this? They want to win. Because of this, 99% of the community falls into a mental trap of their own making, which can be accurately summarized as such: "If I lose, it's because they did something broken, dishonourable or unbalanced. If I win, it's because I'm just a better player, and deserve to win."

You can be the most reasonable, logical and level-headed person on the planet, but as long as you have any amount of ego, you will be tempted to believe this to be true. And boy, let me tell you, many players on this server don't just have "any amount of ego", they often have extremely overinflated egoes. They create a false reality in which they themselves choose to live, because it is safer and more gratifying to believe your own bullshit, rather than face the truth. And not only that, if they end up being a guild leader or a warband leader, they will then actively enforce this warped prism on their players, who, by the way, also would rather believe that the enemy cheated in some fashion that admit they lost because of their own mistakes or because the other side just outplayed them. It turns into a boiling soup, in which the longer you simmer, the more your own ego inflates, and which then circles back around to forcing the leaders to maintain the illusion, because if at any point in time the idea that these leaders are the best in the server shows cracks or weakness, suddenly a lot of players who have grown addicted to thinking themselves "elite" will question them and leave for other guilds.

That's the reality of the server. But this is just warbands and guilds we're talking about; random guildless pugs that constitute the majority of the playerbase are EVEN MORE susceptible to falling for this trap. "Guards is too powerful", "Healers are OP". "DPS don't do anything in this game", "I should be able to enjoy the game without needing to be in an organized voice chat 6 man for SC's and 24 man for warbands", "Don't even talk to me about my tank needing to punt away their tank, what bullshit game design" - all these you will see on this forum with a frightening degree of regularity, and all of them are an excuse players tell themselves so that they don't have to live with the reality that another player might be better at this video game than them, and that they might still have something to learn.

Would you trust the entire game balance into a decentralized decentralized system where every single actor remains pretty much anonymous in their "suggestions", and is actively incentivized to be injust and rule the game balance such that it is favorable to them, as opposed to their opposition, which then creates a negative feedback loop, where they begin to win more often, thus accumulate currency more often, thus have some of the more weaker-willed players join their faction and speed up this currency generation, and cause the balance to tilt even further?

I wouldn't. Having game devs be in control, but more or less be beholden to the public opinion is a better system, that will cause the balance to be closer to a truly balanced gamestate, because community backlash will create a voice that will have to be heard, and then considered. Even if nothing is done, if the problem the community is pointing out is real, and not just imagined, or borne of fear of change, or just hurt the nostalgia of 50 year old dadgamers who used to play this game back in the day and thought it was way better (even if it wasn't); then that voice will not go away and will continue to be persistent and coming from multiple people. The team will eventually get fed up and fix it.

Anyway, this was obviously a troll post. But the idea of turning MMO game balance into a rocksprinkler rocks is a hillariously fun mental exercise to tackle. Thanks for that.

[Alubert]

Create an analogue for Destruction.

I would never trade the speed buff proc on my Chopp for 25% IHD.
The proc doesn't stack with the 50% IHD skill, so why would I want it?
If, for some strange reason, I wanted to deal AoE damage, I'd invite a Chosen with an aura to the party.

[bittrio]

Spoiler:

More nerfs incoming!? Here's an idea I've had for awhile now, think about this.

In traditional gaming ecosystems, centralized control by developers creates an inherent imbalance of power. When devs unilaterally alter item stats, gear mechanics, or economic systems to suit internal roadmaps, competitive priorities, fleeting trends, or to satisfy a graph or chart on a spreadsheet. The player base, the very lifeblood of any title, becomes subordinate to their decisions. This is how it's always been and ROR is no different. Is there even another way?

Patches arrive without recourse, hard earned progress can be nerfed overnight and the community’s collective voice is reduced to forum posts (hi) and social media petitions that carry no binding weight. This model not only breeds resentment and player churn, but also undermines the long term health of the game by eroding the sense of ownership and agency that keeps communities engaged for years rather than months. I know ROR is an old title and has been around for years, but the player base is relatively low. I'd like to see 2k+ players online regularly and I think it's possible.

A compelling alternative lies in a decentralized architecture where players themselves become the infrastructure. Sounds crazy, stay with me. Imagine a system in which every participant runs a lightweight node. Whether on consumer hardware, cloud instances, or even mobile devices. Maintaining a shared, tamper-resistant ledger of game state. Core rules and asset behaviors are no longer dictated from a single studio server. Instead, they evolve through public governance mechanisms native to the game itself. Players could, for example, signal desired changes by modifying or staking in game items. Equipping a legendary weapon with a governance modifier, forging rare materials into proposal tokens, or routing in game currency toward community voted upgrades. These signals aggregate transparently across the node network, automatically triggering protocol level adjustments once predefined thresholds are met. Be it a 60 % consensus on buffing underused armor sets or a coordinated rebalance of drop rates or even set/item nerfs like we're discussing here. Let the players decide. That would be an incredible system and likely an extremely popular game. Not sure if it's possible for ROR, but I think it's worth a post here and thinking about. At the very least, let the players vote... somehow.

A model like this transforms passive gamers into active participants, even more than just playing a game they love, now we all have a say. Pretty awesome!

It aligns incentives: developers ship the initial vision and tooling, while the player run network assumes ongoing stewardship, preserving the game’s integrity.

The result is a living, player owned economy where balance patches feel emergent rather than imposed, and where the whims that once dictated change now reflect the collective will of the very people who invest their time, skill, and passion into the world. In an era when digital ownership is becoming the norm, this decentralized approach is not merely technically innovative, it is philosophically overdue.

TL;DR - It sucks that the devs change things and the players have no say. We simply accept the changes/nerfs or stop playing. I remember when there was a big riff about initiative change, nothing the players can do, take it or leave it. I like ROR, it's cool what the devs have done to keep the game going, hats off to that, I would just like to see more players thoughts brought into consideration.

So, you want to turn mechanical changes into a coin, basically. Utterly hillarious.

There's a problem with this system in that it leans way too much into the other extreme. You're familiar with the concept of entropy, I'm sure? Well, it applies by proxy to any system, in fact including social systems or governments. Which is why each good system of this nature needs to have a mechanism for resetting itself once it has become too chaotic, corrupt and etc. Which means power should not be centralized in one place, true, but what you fail to account for here is that when we say "place", it refers to such things in the abstract. It means that in order for a system to function properly and self-repair, it needs to have multiple stakeholders present, that exert pressure on each other and keep each other honest.

In this case, what stakeholders do we have? The players, basically. What do players want, statistically, in a pvp game like this? They want to win. Because of this, 99% of the community falls into a mental trap of their own making, which can be accurately summarized as such: "If I lose, it's because they did something broken, dishonourable or unbalanced. If I win, it's because I'm just a better player, and deserve to win."

You can be the most reasonable, logical and level-headed person on the planet, but as long as you have any amount of ego, you will be tempted to believe this to be true. And boy, let me tell you, many players on this server don't just have "any amount of ego", they often have extremely overinflated egoes. They create a false reality in which they themselves choose to live, because it is safer and more gratifying to believe your own bullshit, rather than face the truth. And not only that, if they end up being a guild leader or a warband leader, they will then actively enforce this warped prism on their players, who, by the way, also would rather believe that the enemy cheated in some fashion that admit they lost because of their own mistakes or because the other side just outplayed them. It turns into a boiling soup, in which the longer you simmer, the more your own ego inflates, and which then circles back around to forcing the leaders to maintain the illusion, because if at any point in time the idea that these leaders are the best in the server shows cracks or weakness, suddenly a lot of players who have grown addicted to thinking themselves "elite" will question them and leave for other guilds.

That's the reality of the server. But this is just warbands and guilds we're talking about; random guildless pugs that constitute the majority of the playerbase are EVEN MORE susceptible to falling for this trap. "Guards is too powerful", "Healers are OP". "DPS don't do anything in this game", "I should be able to enjoy the game without needing to be in an organized voice chat 6 man for SC's and 24 man for warbands", "Don't even talk to me about my tank needing to punt away their tank, what bullshit game design" - all these you will see on this forum with a frightening degree of regularity, and all of them are an excuse players tell themselves so that they don't have to live with the reality that another player might be better at this video game than them, and that they might still have something to learn.

Would you trust the entire game balance into a decentralized decentralized system where every single actor remains pretty much anonymous in their "suggestions", and is actively incentivized to be injust and rule the game balance such that it is favorable to them, as opposed to their opposition, which then creates a negative feedback loop, where they begin to win more often, thus accumulate currency more often, thus have some of the more weaker-willed players join their faction and speed up this currency generation, and cause the balance to tilt even further?

I wouldn't. Having game devs be in control, but more or less be beholden to the public opinion is a better system, that will cause the balance to be closer to a truly balanced gamestate, because community backlash will create a voice that will have to be heard, and then considered. Even if nothing is done, if the problem the community is pointing out is real, and not just imagined, or borne of fear of change, or just hurt the nostalgia of 50 year old dadgamers who used to play this game back in the day and thought it was way better (even if it wasn't); then that voice will not go away and will continue to be persistent and coming from multiple people. The team will eventually get fed up and fix it.

Anyway, this was obviously a troll post. But the idea of turning MMO game balance into a rocksprinkler rocks is a hillariously fun mental exercise to tackle. Thanks for that.

Decentralized balance isn't turning mechanics into a coin,(we could use the same gold in game) it's removing the devs ability to play favorites while pretending they don't. Devs play the same game we do. They have guilds, mains, alts, and egos too. The difference? When a devs class or playstyle gets nerfed, they can just... not nerf it. Or buff their favorite class. Players can't separate their egos from balance opinions, I'll buy that, but devs magically can? That's the real joke.

In a decentralized system, everyone’s bias is out in the open and priced in, we're all voting in our best interest. Which would make ROR awesome, it would be a true players game. No hidden bias. Power is distributed and self correcting through skin in the game amongst a wide group of players.

Centralized oversight just concentrates the exact ego problem you described, at the top, where it’s the hardest to challenge. Decentralizing games is not a troll, I understand it's hard to grasp, but the real illusion is thinking devs are neutral gods without egos. They're humans as well.

[live4treasure]

Spoiler:

More nerfs incoming!? Here's an idea I've had for awhile now, think about this.

In traditional gaming ecosystems, centralized control by developers creates an inherent imbalance of power. When devs unilaterally alter item stats, gear mechanics, or economic systems to suit internal roadmaps, competitive priorities, fleeting trends, or to satisfy a graph or chart on a spreadsheet. The player base, the very lifeblood of any title, becomes subordinate to their decisions. This is how it's always been and ROR is no different. Is there even another way?

Patches arrive without recourse, hard earned progress can be nerfed overnight and the community’s collective voice is reduced to forum posts (hi) and social media petitions that carry no binding weight. This model not only breeds resentment and player churn, but also undermines the long term health of the game by eroding the sense of ownership and agency that keeps communities engaged for years rather than months. I know ROR is an old title and has been around for years, but the player base is relatively low. I'd like to see 2k+ players online regularly and I think it's possible.

A compelling alternative lies in a decentralized architecture where players themselves become the infrastructure. Sounds crazy, stay with me. Imagine a system in which every participant runs a lightweight node. Whether on consumer hardware, cloud instances, or even mobile devices. Maintaining a shared, tamper-resistant ledger of game state. Core rules and asset behaviors are no longer dictated from a single studio server. Instead, they evolve through public governance mechanisms native to the game itself. Players could, for example, signal desired changes by modifying or staking in game items. Equipping a legendary weapon with a governance modifier, forging rare materials into proposal tokens, or routing in game currency toward community voted upgrades. These signals aggregate transparently across the node network, automatically triggering protocol level adjustments once predefined thresholds are met. Be it a 60 % consensus on buffing underused armor sets or a coordinated rebalance of drop rates or even set/item nerfs like we're discussing here. Let the players decide. That would be an incredible system and likely an extremely popular game. Not sure if it's possible for ROR, but I think it's worth a post here and thinking about. At the very least, let the players vote... somehow.

A model like this transforms passive gamers into active participants, even more than just playing a game they love, now we all have a say. Pretty awesome!

It aligns incentives: developers ship the initial vision and tooling, while the player run network assumes ongoing stewardship, preserving the game’s integrity.

The result is a living, player owned economy where balance patches feel emergent rather than imposed, and where the whims that once dictated change now reflect the collective will of the very people who invest their time, skill, and passion into the world. In an era when digital ownership is becoming the norm, this decentralized approach is not merely technically innovative, it is philosophically overdue.

TL;DR - It sucks that the devs change things and the players have no say. We simply accept the changes/nerfs or stop playing. I remember when there was a big riff about initiative change, nothing the players can do, take it or leave it. I like ROR, it's cool what the devs have done to keep the game going, hats off to that, I would just like to see more players thoughts brought into consideration.

So, you want to turn mechanical changes into a coin, basically. Utterly hillarious.

There's a problem with this system in that it leans way too much into the other extreme. You're familiar with the concept of entropy, I'm sure? Well, it applies by proxy to any system, in fact including social systems or governments. Which is why each good system of this nature needs to have a mechanism for resetting itself once it has become too chaotic, corrupt and etc. Which means power should not be centralized in one place, true, but what you fail to account for here is that when we say "place", it refers to such things in the abstract. It means that in order for a system to function properly and self-repair, it needs to have multiple stakeholders present, that exert pressure on each other and keep each other honest.

In this case, what stakeholders do we have? The players, basically. What do players want, statistically, in a pvp game like this? They want to win. Because of this, 99% of the community falls into a mental trap of their own making, which can be accurately summarized as such: "If I lose, it's because they did something broken, dishonourable or unbalanced. If I win, it's because I'm just a better player, and deserve to win."

You can be the most reasonable, logical and level-headed person on the planet, but as long as you have any amount of ego, you will be tempted to believe this to be true. And boy, let me tell you, many players on this server don't just have "any amount of ego", they often have extremely overinflated egoes. They create a false reality in which they themselves choose to live, because it is safer and more gratifying to believe your own bullshit, rather than face the truth. And not only that, if they end up being a guild leader or a warband leader, they will then actively enforce this warped prism on their players, who, by the way, also would rather believe that the enemy cheated in some fashion that admit they lost because of their own mistakes or because the other side just outplayed them. It turns into a boiling soup, in which the longer you simmer, the more your own ego inflates, and which then circles back around to forcing the leaders to maintain the illusion, because if at any point in time the idea that these leaders are the best in the server shows cracks or weakness, suddenly a lot of players who have grown addicted to thinking themselves "elite" will question them and leave for other guilds.

That's the reality of the server. But this is just warbands and guilds we're talking about; random guildless pugs that constitute the majority of the playerbase are EVEN MORE susceptible to falling for this trap. "Guards is too powerful", "Healers are OP". "DPS don't do anything in this game", "I should be able to enjoy the game without needing to be in an organized voice chat 6 man for SC's and 24 man for warbands", "Don't even talk to me about my tank needing to punt away their tank, what bullshit game design" - all these you will see on this forum with a frightening degree of regularity, and all of them are an excuse players tell themselves so that they don't have to live with the reality that another player might be better at this video game than them, and that they might still have something to learn.

Would you trust the entire game balance into a decentralized decentralized system where every single actor remains pretty much anonymous in their "suggestions", and is actively incentivized to be injust and rule the game balance such that it is favorable to them, as opposed to their opposition, which then creates a negative feedback loop, where they begin to win more often, thus accumulate currency more often, thus have some of the more weaker-willed players join their faction and speed up this currency generation, and cause the balance to tilt even further?

I wouldn't. Having game devs be in control, but more or less be beholden to the public opinion is a better system, that will cause the balance to be closer to a truly balanced gamestate, because community backlash will create a voice that will have to be heard, and then considered. Even if nothing is done, if the problem the community is pointing out is real, and not just imagined, or borne of fear of change, or just hurt the nostalgia of 50 year old dadgamers who used to play this game back in the day and thought it was way better (even if it wasn't); then that voice will not go away and will continue to be persistent and coming from multiple people. The team will eventually get fed up and fix it.

Anyway, this was obviously a troll post. But the idea of turning MMO game balance into a rocksprinkler rocks is a hillariously fun mental exercise to tackle. Thanks for that.

Decentralized balance isn't turning mechanics into a coin,(we could use the same gold in game) it's removing the devs ability to play favorites while pretending they don't. Devs play the same game we do. They have guilds, mains, alts, and egos too. The difference? When a devs class or playstyle gets nerfed, they can just... not nerf it. Or buff their favorite class. Players can't separate their egos from balance opinions, I'll buy that, but devs magically can? That's the real joke.

In a decentralized system, everyone’s bias is out in the open and priced in, we're all voting in our best interest. Which would make ROR awesome, it would be a true players game. No hidden bias. Power is distributed and self correcting through skin in the game amongst a wide group of players.

Centralized oversight just concentrates the exact ego problem you described, at the top, where it’s the hardest to challenge. Decentralizing games is not a troll, I understand it's hard to grasp, but the real illusion is thinking devs are neutral gods without egos. They're humans as well.

Even if devs make some, or even the majority of decisions based on their egos, that will still cause community backlash when enough disbalance is introduced into the system. Let's say devs are destro players, and buff destro; even if they do this in a very subtle way, it will over time cause the faction to grow stronger, as it begins to win more often, and accumulate more players and so on and so on. Eventually order players will begin to complain. Then they will keep complaining and complaining and complaining until something is done about it, and this has worked in the past this exact way. There's resistance whenever the system is tilted too much in another direction, ensuring it doesn't topple over. It's a pendulum that, when put into motion by such intent, will eventually swing back to the middle. There have been massive server dramas in the past that caused the retirement of unpopular game devs because their balancing has generated enough resentment in the community that it was either that, or the server collapses. Rest assured, if a game devs ego gets to that same point, it will begin to generate the same resentment.

What you're suggesting is essentially that the side which has more players that are more active get to decide the game balance. So they decide it, then the balance tips in their favor, because they are obviously going to make biased votes; in fact they won't even be called out for doing so, since that's the whole point of such a system. So now it topples in favor of those players preferred faction, which initiates a death spiral, where those players win more, vote more, tilt the balance more, until the entire thing topples and you have to hit a hard reset for it to be functional. Which means someone will need access to a hard reset button, which centralizes veto powers somewhere, and at which point this whole cycle was pointless in the first place.