Nerf, Keep or Buff: What the Community Wants Changed

Every balance thread has the same three camps: nerf it, leave it alone, buff it. The Nerf / Keep / Buff format on versus4.fun counts the camps. One subject, three answers, a count on the current patch. The format is simple, and it is also the one most often misread, because a wish looks a lot like a rating. This post is about the difference.

What the format asks

“What should happen to it?” The subject is one thing in a game: a character, a weapon, an item, a mechanic. The answers are what the community thinks the developers should do. That is a wish, and wishes are shaped by more than strength.

Why a wish is not a rating

A thing can be statistically fine and still draw a heavy Nerf vote, because it is miserable to play against, or because it makes other choices pointless, or because the community simply dislikes its design. A thing can be clearly strong and draw a Keep vote, because people enjoy it being strong. The Power check format exists to ask the strength question on its own; Nerf / Keep / Buff asks what people want.

Reading a Nerf result as “the community thinks this is overpowered” is the most common mistake on the site. The honest reading is “the community wants this weaker”, and the reason might be strength or might be something else.

Reading it next to a Power check

The two formats are most useful together on the same subject:

• Power check OP, wish Nerf: strong and disliked, the clearest case
• Power check balanced, wish Nerf: disliked for reasons other than strength
• Power check OP, wish Keep: strong and enjoyed
• Power check weak, wish Buff: the straightforward buff case
• Power check weak, wish Keep: weak but nobody minds, often a niche pick

The gap between the two answers is where the discussion a community should be having lives. The four poll formats explains each format on its own.

Keep is a real answer

A strong Keep result is easy to skim past, but it says something: on this patch, the people who voted are content with the thing as it is. For a subject that drew Nerf votes on the previous patch, a Keep majority after an update is the community saying the change landed. That is a finding worth more than most Nerf results.

What a result does and does not do

A Nerf / Keep / Buff count is the community’s wish, recorded. It does not change the game, and versus4.fun makes no claim that developers read it. What it does is replace “everyone wants this nerfed” with a number, which ends a particular kind of argument. How to read a verdict covers the general rules: the count and the patch matter as much as the split.

Across patches

A balance patch is exactly the event this format is built around. Votes cast before the patch stay with the old patch; the same subject starts a fresh count after. Comparing the two is the simplest way to see whether an update satisfied the people asking for it. The mechanism is explained in why every vote is tied to a patch.

Voting a wish honestly

The question is what should happen, and the honest answer is the one you would give the developers if asked. That can be Nerf for a thing you enjoy using, if you think it is bad for the game, and Keep for a thing that beats you, if you think it is fair. A wish count is most useful when people answer as players of the game rather than as players of one side of it.

The format in a community’s hands

For a server or a community channel, a Nerf / Keep / Buff poll is a way to find out whether the loud complaint is the common one. Often it is; sometimes the count shows a Keep majority behind a vocal Nerf minority, and that is worth knowing before the complaint is forwarded anywhere. The home page surfaces the wish polls drawing the most votes across games, which is a quick read on what communities want changed this patch.

What the three answers cover

Nerf covers every form of “make it weaker”: lower numbers, a longer cooldown, a narrower use. Buff covers every form of “make it stronger”. Keep is “leave it as it is on this patch”. The format does not ask how much or in what way, because a three-answer card cannot hold that and because the direction of the wish is what communities actually argue about. The details are for the patch notes; the count is for whether the community wanted the change at all.

Suggesting the subject precisely

A wish poll is only as good as its subject. “Should snipers be nerfed” is a different question from “should the new sniper be nerfed”, and the person publishing the suggestion will place whichever one you wrote. Name the one thing you mean. If the argument in your channel is about a class of things, say so; if it is about one item, name the item.

Suggesting one

Name the game and the subject, and ask “should X be nerfed, kept or buffed”. A suggestion in that shape is placed without guesswork. If your question is really “is X too strong”, that is a Power check, and the person publishing may place it there instead. The suggest page is where it starts, and the home page is where you will see it once it goes live.