What it Means to be Overpowered

     When it comes to games, developers try to create a balance between the players and the enemy AI. If the player is dying too easily, the monsters might just be too strong. If the enemy is dying way too fast, the player is too strong. Anytime there is a lack of balance between these two, the game itself becomes less fun whether players are breezing through with little to no challenge or the enemies just make playing tedious.

     Being overpowered (or OP) is just a term gamers use to describe something out of balance. In single player games this isn't usually an issue. Sometimes an enemy AI is designed to be OP so that it provides a nice challenge and is highly rewarding to the player when it is defeated. Typically, boss enemies are OP. When the player gains something that gives them a huge advantage, they become OP. In most games, making the player OP is not a bad thing. It gives them the satisfaction of having godlike powers over their foes and it feels great to show them off with extreme prejudice.

     But as I mentioned before, an OP player can also make a game too easy. If there is virtually no challenge at all to the player, the game becomes stale quick. The best solution developers come up with is to create enemies that are much stronger so that the player gradually feels less powerful until they obtain a better means of eliminating their enemies. This can sometimes be taken too far such as some games give the player a cool weapon with OP stats, the weapon works well for the first level, then the mobs are given absurd amounts of health and defense, then suddenly the weapon loses its impact and killing the mobs becomes a chore. Making the player OP, and then taking that away and giving it all to the enemy AI isn't balance.

     In a multiplayer game, being OP is a big issue. Players who have a distinct advantage over other players are immediately called out by the community. Sometimes they get accused of hacking. Whether they are hacking or not, the developers have to find out what makes that player OP and find a way to balance it out. Most of the time it is the class they play. It is up to the developers to fine tune the stats of that class to make them more balanced with the other classes. Sometimes it is certain weapons that have either ridiculously high power or have a special ability attached that gives the wielder a huge advantage.

      Why is it so important to balance players and enemies in a multiplayer game? Because if you don't, the community becomes irritated and people start to leave. I was once on a low populated server in WoW and the community was pretty bad. The reason was all of the players were rolling Death Knights, the new class at the time. Death Knights were highly OP at this point, especially as damage dealers. Because of this, no one was playing other classes that could fulfill other vital roles. Playing the game felt like a job that everyone was paying to do. It is because of these very reasons that balance must be maintained between the player and the enemy AI. Otherwise, no one will want to play.