Modified PvE critter accuracy. Defense powers will now work equally well against critters, regardless if they have higher accuracy. For instance, your defense powers will work equally well against a Boss or any critter up to 5 levels higher than you, as it does for an equal level minion. Previously, a more accurate critter could circumvent much of your defense, but this will no longer happen.
However there is a slight nerf associated with this, Bosses+ get more accuracy. (More accurate critters may have a greater chance at the extreme low end of the To Hit scale than previously due to this change. For instance, an Archvillain's To Hit could previously be reduced (with enough Debuffs) to 5%, but will now have a 7.5% minimum.)
All powers which have an Endurance Drain component will now drain a percentage of a PvE target's Endurance, rather than a set number of Endurance Points. This fixes the issues created when enemies' Endurance Pools were increased.
If a character is at 100% health, they cannot be reduced to 0 HP by a single application of damage.
Many Location based powers (Such as Rain of Fire and Blizzard) can now be affected by the casters Buffs (for example, using Build Up will now increase the damage of Blizzard).
Claws, Trick Arrow and Archery sets improved.
Bodyguard Damage Mitigation: When set to Bodyguard mode, the Mastermind and his pets share damage from any attack that the Mastermind takes damage from. Each pet takes one 'share' of the damage, and the Mastermind himself takes two 'shares'. This is in addition to any damage that the pets themselves might incur from Area attacks.
Reduced the Recharge of Dominator's Inherent Power, Domination, from 300 to 200.
Increased Dominator Melee damage modifier to 0.75 - this increases their melee damage by 7.1%
Dominators Domination inherent ability will charge much more quickly when fighting PvP targets. Each successful attack from the Assaul secondary power sets adds a bonus of 8 points toward filling the Domination bar over the normal value.
Fiery Aura/Healing Flames activation time reduced.
Game balance for pve is irrelevant. If you think so, then either you are not really a pve player or there is something wrong with you...*
*Note: Sorry, just having a little carry-over fun from another thread here...
Game balance matters when the playerbase all gravitate toward certain broken powersets. It also matters when some ATs are made obselete by overpowered builds.
Sure, it may be fun to be uber but after a while it just gets dull since there's no challenge.
Written like a dev or fanboy. Which one are you again?
I'm no dev and I'm no fanboy. I just enjoy playing the game. The devs have made many bad decisions that I don't agree with...
Suppression was a clusmy fix that didn't really do much but annoy players. The end-game has been largely ignored and is only now getting addressed, after two years! The game has very little non-combat activity. Missions and enemies are recycled often. They've shown they can make unique, interesting missions but aren't spending as much time on it as I would like.
However, I also realise that I'm still having fun with both my nerfed heroes and my pre-nerfed villains. "Wait here while I herd! Don't do anything until I say so!" Ugh. No thanks. Teaming is much more chaotic and active than before... Invincible missions now require some actual thought and planning rather than just being 'more xp'.
I fully expect the Q2 IR on CoH/V to be a greater disappointment than Q1's report.
I agree that the game is lagging, of that there is no doubt. The reports show the numbers clearly and recent lay-offs only add fuel to the fire... However the nerfs were not the only cause... Issue 7 took way too long to come out and it was not fully stable until now.
And since the nerfs have practically forced teaming at the higher levels of the game, how long are you going to want to wait around trying to find a team?
I don't know what game you're playing because soloing is still very possible and very easy. In missions with Archvillains, soloing is much easier since they downgrade to Elite Bosses.
Teams are plentiful. I play on Triumph (one of the lower-pop servers). During primetime I can find teams of any level no problem.
Serling you're correct on a few things...
The game does have less players but you're making wild exagerrations and you always keep coming back to the subject of nerfs. I'm sorry but every time I see your posts, it just reads like someone who's bitter about having their overpowered toys taken away and are trying to find any excuse to bash the game, even making up or heavily implying things...
Ahh, yes. I forgot about the reduced activation animation on HF. Now if they could only reduce its recharge a little bit(esp since they seem happy with the base of 17% when it is supposed to be 25%) then I could be satisfied with the state of the Fire tanker.
I guess the only one I really don't consider a buff is the Defense one. That is more a fix than anything. Just like certain powers in the past were 'fixed' not nerfed, I would posit the same for the defense scaling. After some reading, the devs said this problem had been around for quite a while when comparing resistance and defense. Though they didn't say why it wasnt fixed earlier, I would like to guess pre-ED, it was covered up by the fact defense could go over 100%.
I could almost say the same thing about the Location based powers as it seems equal to when certain armors did not stack and the devs admitted it was just a technological hurdle and they were always intended to stack. But this is increased damage output(something rarely seen anymore) so it is really riding the fence between buff and fix. The reason I say fix is because how CoH was made that certain ATs were meant to help all allies so I can't see the Emp defender placing Fortitude on a /Devices blaster and seeing no effect on some of his best powers such as the mines. IMO, it was just a technological hurdle that finally made it to the top of the 'to-do' list.
Without a doubt though the Dom and Bodyguard changes are buffs. My Dom is still not very fun to play(I don't think any buffs will change that) and I have done well W/O Bodyguard for 35 levels so it is definitely a buff in my eyes since it is something I didn't feel was needed. I can't speak for Claws or TA, having barely played each of them for only about 10 levels.
If I seem negative about the 'buffs', I apologize but its because I have read too many posts arguing that the 'nerfs' were fixes to things that were never intended even though they lasted a year or longer. I would just like to maintain that balance and use the same arguments that certain things just didn't have priority until now. Yes, there were some buffs but some of them were just fixes and that's all.
The game has grossed over 100 million, do the math it's simple to do. It was a success and a pretty good game for those who enjoyed it. To those debating the game did that well monetarily.
Case in point of a fanboy who drinks Cryptic's Kool-Aid:
The developers were in a situation were they were losing customers because it was too easy (they flat out told us this) so if they didn't make it some sort of balanced challange they were in trouble. So they bit the bullet and made what were percieved to be changes that "ruined" peoples games, even though all it did was make people actually have to play now.
Anyone who think an Issue 3 pre-suppression blaster was overpowered or too easy to play hasn't got a single clue. The nerfs that came in EVERY ISSUE SINCE I3 hit EVERY character and AT, some harder than others!
Furthermore, the devs write a lot of BS on those boards (Emmert's "Balance Vision" being the biggest load of BS ever written about the game) yet there are people willing to gobble up every word of it as though it were gospel!
From Q4 of 05 to Q1 of 06, highest peak monthly accesses went from @194,000 to @182,000. This despite all the "buffs" I7 was supposed to have and how wonderfully "balanced" the game is supposed to be now! And the games (CoH/V) are LOSING money, despite how all well and good it's supposed to be now!
Fanboys and devs are the only people still playing the game that insist all the nerfs were needed and that the game is soooo much better now than it was! So tell me, when NCSoft starts consolidating servers (and people start losing toons because of this) and Cryptic starts having to lay people off because they can't afford to staff at the same levels, how many of you are going to sing Emmert's praises then???
Read the editorial that was written here last month about SOE's nerfs of SWG. To summarize: any company that pisses off it's loyal, long-time customers in the hopes of attracting new ones will have neither. That's what SOE and LucasArts did. That's what Cryptic has done and it's backfiring on both of them!
Don't like it? Don't play it, stop the hate and move on.
The long:
I've been a long time player of CoH. I don't play it now just like I don't play Zelda anymore. I've had my fun. I've played over a year and made a lot of friends, had some great combat. I enjoyed the direction that PvP was going and how the missions start to flesh out.
Will I return to CoX? Maybe, I may reactivate my account for a month, stop by and say hi to my friends and see if it's evolved enought for me to hang around again.
I didn't like some of the changes, I agree with others. I agree with what the article has to say and it presented itself in a balanced manner. Now, those who state "Oh it's a load of smoke and mirrors, the hosting site is biased due to the fact that they also advertise for CoX," are grasping at straws. I've read many gaming mags that have adverts in them. They also have reviews that praise games and bash games. I remember reading one article about a game. The review was dripping with venom, and not very flattering. Later in the mag I saw an advert for the same game.
Also, just because a company offers a free promo does not mean it's doing bad, it's a form of advertising and many MMO's are doing this.
It's good to view things with a bit of doubt, but to troll it over and over just dull and just doesn't give the opinion much weight. I think to many people are in the mentality that a game is polished out of the box. MMO's by their nature evolve and change either to recapture what was intended or to balance PvP/PvE. If the game doesn't suit your taste, move on, there are many others out there.
I've tried the major MMO's, I'm just waiting to see if they can evolve into the "Next Generation" MMO's.
your arguement is so persuasive, so filled with knowledge and insight. You back up your argument very articulately, with suggestions of improvements and raising examples to glorify your position....oh wait, you didn't
Sorry that the nerfs caused you to stop enjoying the game. But even last night, after prime time, I filled a team to 8 in less than 5 minutes. I received a few tells asking if I had room for another, and there were several spots saved for friends of current team members if a space opened. When you talk about the 'empty servers', I think you ought to check out the SWG maybe? That is a case of empty servers. Now there are some pretty low pop servers, but there is no revolt over it on the coh forums that I can see other than the occasionial thread. Nothing like in SWG, and people still can play on them, as you don't neccesarily want a heavy pop server since there isnt an economy, and if you dont like pvp there goes that need for lots of people at all hours of the day. Remember, many people in Cox don't care for pvp in the slightest.
I did see several groups of people powerleveling trying to get bridges; maybe this is what you mean when you say that you can't find a group? They were in broadcast for hours looking, shooting tells to anyone 46ish in an attempt to get the max xp for their group. Powerlevelers don't enjoy the game as a lot of others do. They want to race to 50, probably for pvp, prehaps for the kheldian, maybe they want to try out the higher end powers of sets? But they are finding that many of their fellow powerleveling buddies have moved on to other games.
As someone who enjoys a game where I can go away for a few weeks and not miss much, I'm satisfied. I still go back and play Tenchu Stealth Assasains here and there, I just enjoy the game. Can't play it non-stop for days, but here and there it is plenty fun enough for me. Cox isn't designed to be the same as an EQ2 or SWG, it's not the same type of open world; it's much more linear, and you don't need to grind for x hours a week to maintain yoru status quo ( ok, with prestige you kinda do, but is a different can of worms).
And as for Cox losing money, I still call shennanigans! Losing revenue does not mean that you are losing money, it really doesn't! I'm sorry if you can't grasp that concept, but lost revenue doesn't put a company in the red automatically, it just means that there is less money coming in. Having been a restaurant person in the past, I've seen revenues of same-store sales drop like a stone several times for whatever reason. Very rarely did we lose money though, even after lost revenue. Again, lost revenue doesn't automatically put a company into the red! You assume a lot, but you know what that leads to...
If that concept is too much for you serling, let me know and I'll try to point you at some online high school level econ classes, as you are posting under a gross conceptual error every time you open your mouth about revenue.
Again, I'm sorry you don't like the game anymore, but oh well, move on with your life.
Wow. Who are you guys trying to convince, me or yourselves???
I quit the game. Hated the nerfs. Hated the way Emmert and company ripped me off for hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars. Move on? I already have. I'm just here doing my part to see that others (people who might be interested in the game) don't make the same mistake I did.
The game is a nerf-infested piece of garbage and while you may be able to find a team, it's getting harder and harder to do so.
Moreover, don't bother trying to build a toon to your specs because given Cryptic's track record for nerfs, you'll likely spend more time respec'ing said toon than actually playing it.
Call a 32% loss of revenue anything you want. When that kind of revenue loss forces a company to lay-off almost a quarter of its workforce, it's no small thing. Perhaps you're the one who should take econ 101.
BTW, looking at NCSoft's release schedule: nothing CoX-wise planned for release for at least the next 2 quarters. (But I'd be willing to bet that if they find something to nref, that will be make it live ASAP. Nerfs = instant release. Content = [yawn] whenever).
Enjoy your game while it lasts. It may not be around much longer.
BTW, I know a puff-piece when I see one. The Gamespy article did nothing but blow smoke up Emmert's rear.
One more thing I'd like to mention: the devs at Cryptic don't know jack about marketing or customer satisfaction. Case in point: customers always want to feel like they're getting more for their money than what they're paying. Many are willing even to pay top dollar for a good luxury or sports car. What they don't want is a bait and switch - or worse - to pay for something thinking they're getting a complete package, only to realize later that parts of the package will never materialize!
When Cryptic released an on-line game about superheroes, people approached it with certain preconceived notions about what a superhero should be able to do. Issue 1 - 3 felt about right for most people. They thought they had purchased a pretty hot sports car. Suddenly, the nerfs start coming fast and furious with travel suppression, then the arenas (I4) - which amounted to little more than putting a bumper sticker on a Ferrari - then I5's nerfs, ED (I6), and stealth nerfs (I7). What the devs had done was create a feeling in the customers' minds that they were getting less and less for their money, not more and more. And when new content doesn't materialize, it makes the pill that much more bitter. Many thought they bought a Corvette and got a Chevette instead.
In other words, whether real or perceived, nerfs create the impression that the customer is getting less value for his or her money than they were before the nerfs. And when the devs prevaricate or patronize the customers - treating them as though they're too stupid to know what they (the customers) should find fun in a game - that simply adds insult to injury. Is it any wonder that people are leaving??? Is it any wonder that revenues are down???
You can only piss on people so much before they're going to take their entertainment dollars elsewhere.
Emmert and company have been running a "bait and switch" for two years now, promising a game about superheroes and delivering a game about sissies in tights. I only wish I would have known what a scam they were running BEFORE I had given them any of my money.
I'm sorry you personally don't like the game. Lots of people have come and gone, and Cox is not a game a lot of people will want to play. It's far from the typical mmorpg where you need to grind everyday to get somewhere. Some like it, others don't. So it goes.
But the only thing you keep saying that bothers me is about the NCSoft layoffs. Where are they laying people off from? From what I can recall offhand, there are at least 6 titles they have going on as of now. Still with me? Ok, good. Now, Cox has made less money, very true. 32% less this last year. Guess what? They must have seen that coming as they knew they'd sell less $50 box sets. Have I lost you yet? Hope not.
Now, moving from selling a lot of 50 dollar boxes to selling far more $15 a month subs will obviously cause revenues to decline. That's a total no brainer to understand. How much of the 32% is due to losing players and their 15 dollars a month, and how much is due to losing the $50 box sales, but keeping the player subscribed? See what I'm getting at? Yes, they have lower sub numbers than before, but it's not a ship everyone is jumping off of quite yet. There are still plenty of players ( you posted a loss, from 194k down to 182k, that's 12kish, and let's assume that's correct). Still a lot of $15's coming in monthly.
Where those poor laid off people all from Cox's staff? You imply they are, and that's silly to believe. I doubt they have 70 people total on their staff, but I can't say for certain. With only 182k subs, that's a tad under 2 million a month Cox is taking in revenues alone, not to mention the few boxes they manage to sell. So, subtract the server costs, the office management costs, the salaries of the personnel, adverts, all that jazz, they'd be doing something wrong to be in the red. 2 million a month, and you say they're going under sooner than we believe. That's funny, it really is, and your really stretching yourself if you believe that NCSoft is anything but happy with that kind of take a month.
Could it be better? Sure. But I think you ought to enroll in those Sally Struthers courses they advertise on TV, because they sure couldn't make your understanding of how a business works any worse than it is today.
You can call me fanboi, or whatever else let's you think you have a grasp on all the big words they use when grown ups talk about business. That's great, and I can't stop you. But at least try to understand that a loss of revenue doesn't mean the end of a business. In fact, dare I say, some business even expect that to occur, such as landscaping companies that get a ton of business in the spring, then their revenues decline as they need to only maintain the customers lawns, not do a full out trim/weed/whatever to it like they did the first time. Meh, I don't have any more energy to attempt to educate you on your fuckedupness when it comes to business. Have a good one serling.
I see you edited while I was typing, so in response to the whole 'scam' thing: sorry if you see it that way. What else can they do to add content in a game like this one? More TF's? The game is and will be about mission doors, hard to change that. The whole skill system was basically shelved. I agree with you, the new content is kinda crappy at best. But what else can they do? Throw a suggestion out instead of calling it a swindle. Personally, a few times a week I like doing a couple of door missions, and any new content is gonna be just that: more doors.
If you don't care for them, not much I can say. About the nerfs, well, yeah, they have been nerf happy in the past, but dare I say as a non-scrapper/tank myself (usually), now I'm needed on teams again, which is nice. OK, my invul tank can't tank the whole world anymore, but oh well, I don't need to be super-powerful. Super powered sure, but I see it like superman actually. Why would I want to be superman, he's freaking immortal in almost all regards. I don't see that as fun, I can use a cheat code on a console game to be that. I like the toons that can be beaten on occasion, the ones who can't take on the whole world at once and come out with just a fat lip.
Long time Spiderman fan here, and it's mostly because he is all too human. Sometimes he doesn't save the girl, or catch the baddies. Just like my toons in Cox. Sometimes I have to get rezzed or rez someone, sometimes those malta are a bit too much for my team, and I kinda like that element of the game. After all, no risk no reward and all that jazz. Your mileage may vary of course.
But the only thing you keep saying that bothers me is about the NCSoft layoffs. Where are they laying people off from?
You answered your own question. NCSoft is laying off almost 1/4 of it's workforce. NCSoft publishes CoH/V, the earnings for which are down 32% fom last year's levels. Get it???
If NCSoft - the publisher of CoH/V didn't think a 32% decline in revenues from that one product - coupled with the dismal release of Auto Assault - merited laying off almost one quarter of its workforce, they WOULDN'T BE DOING IT! The bean counters at NCSoft apparently take a 32% decline in profits a hell of a lot more seriously than you do!!!
Sorry you're too dense to get it, but those are the facts. Ignore them at the risk of making yourself appear more foolish than you already have.
Where those poor laid off people all from Cox's staff? You imply they are, and that's silly to believe.
You infered something I never wrote nor implied. You apparently have a reading comprehension problem.
your really stretching yourself if you believe that NCSoft is anything but happy with that kind of take a month.
I guarantee that there are at least 70 ex-NCSoft employees decidedly UNHAPPY with "that kind of a take a month". Perhaps you should ask them how they feel about being laid off due to declining revenues.
Sigh, I'm so sorry you went to a bad school that didn't teach you to think properly. Where did it say that they had to let those people go? Do you get that? Am I typing too fast?
Where did it say Cox caused the people at NCSoft to be laid off? Isn't nearly 2 million a month in subs enough? Did you think maybe that craptastic game AA lost a lto of people, as well as from GW, which is now in another long period of free play, with it's only income due to box sales and not subs?
Good Christ almighty boy, calling me foolish is funny. Every mmo on the market will face decling revenues, F-ing duh! They sell less boxes, get it? Those $50 dollar boxes, yeah those ones, you can't sell many people them twice can you?
Let's try a thought drill, stretch first if you need to. If every person who bought Cox remained on today, as in no one left the game at all, wouldn't revenues decline? Yes.
Losing 12k subs, or 180,000 dollars a month, that's not chump change, but neither is the 1.9 million they pull in a month. You try to put all the blame on NCSoft's woes and firing on Cox ( and a bit on AA), but maybe, just maybe, Lineage isn't as popular as it was? Did they lose any staff? How about GW? Bet they shaved a lot of devs, and the timing is right too, they just had a major release, did the quick bug fixes and since their isn't much for a large dev team to do, I'm sure they chopped some of them. Tabula Resa lose anyone? Do we even know where the 70 people came from? I haven't seen them say Cox is losing anything from it's staff or budget, and neither have you. Seriously.
But, go ahead and blame it on Cox. Before the next time you sit there sniffing paint thinner, and bemoaning your fire tank, make sure to call that Higher Learning Instutite; it might really do you some good.
Where did it say that they had to let those people go?
NCSoft said it, on its web page and other places. NCSoft did, your delusions notwithstanding.
as well as from GW, which is now in another long period of free play, with it's only income due to box sales and not subs?
Guild Wars has always been free to play (no subscription fees) and if you had actually read the investor report, you'd see that revenues from GW went up 60%. So NCSoft isn't laying people off because of GW's earnings. And because Lineage and Lineage II still account for most of NCSoft's revenues (still it's top 2 games), where do we look to assign blame for layoffs? Hmmmm....How 'bout the two poorest performing horses in NCSoft's stable: CoH/V and Auto Assault!
(Of course you would know all of this if you had actually read the investor reports instead of arguing with me about it.)
Do we even know where the 70 people came from?
For at least the third time now, dude: THEY WERE LAID OFF FROM NCSOFT!!! GOT IT?!?!?!
Since you can't seem to read, here's a picture you can ponder:
The funny thing about that chart is that NCSoft predicted CoH/V would actually increase by @11%. Instead, they revised earnings on it down 32%! Lineage didn't do as badly as predicted. Lineage II did worse than predicted. Auto Assault fared the worst (predicted vs. revised).
Still, Lineage and Lineage II combined for about 17 million in losses. CoH/V racked up 11 million in losses alone (put another way, CoH/V lost as much dollar-wise as Lineage II, but percentage-wise lost a third of its revenues compared to 9% of losses for Lineage II. Quite a feat when you factor CoV into the equation.)
Guild Wars, OTOH, was up about 25 million.
CoX: Nerfs every issue, content slow in coming, losing money and customers.
Guild Wars: few nerfs, new content every couple months (most of it for high level players), turning huge profits.
Put another way, Guild Wars' 60% increase in earnings ALONE outperformed total earnings of CoH/V!!!
Hmmm...which model looks better to the bottom line???
Yeh, I wouldn't suppose not having a monthly subscription would have anything to do with it.
OTOH, if CoH/V is as good as the fanboys and devs claim it is, that paltry 15$ monthly sub shouldn't matter, should it?
Wonder why a game with no monthly sub is making more money than a game with a monthly sub? Wouldn't have anything to do with the respective quality of the games or design teams now, would it???
Hell, GW series has sold more than 2 million accounts. You could pretty much say it's made more money than every game except the Lineage series and WoW (and possibly some of the MMO's that have been out for a longer period). Great comparison.
With that comparison, you could say every single MMO that hasn't made more, which is the vast, vast, majority, is a piece of crap that's going down the toilet!
I'm sure I could find more regarding job cuts in the gaming industry but I hope you get my point. It's not just NCSoft or any one game related to NCSoft.
Job Cuts are a fact of life. It's how a business keeps going. Later I'm sure there will be a job surge in this industry. It's happened before and will happen again in the future. The reasons for the job cuts are many factors, not just one.
your arguement is so persuasive, so filled with knowledge and insight. You back up your argument very articulately, with suggestions of improvements and raising examples to glorify your position....oh wait, you didn't
The reasons for the job cuts are many factors, not just one.
Wrong. There is ultimately only ONE reason why businesses lay people off: to improve the bottom line. Period. You can't maintain margin on losing products while maintaining a relatively high level of staffing, support, and development. Any business that tries to do that finds itself out of business real quick.
Part of the problem is an absolute glut of games out right now, most of them like every other game out there. CoH was different, and for awhile anyway, people enjoyed that fact. PvP enters the picture, and soon people are calling for nerfs of this uber build and that uber build and balance, not "fun" becomes the order of the day.
In the end, CoH/V has become just another "balanced" MMO, like any number of others out there. And since it costs 15$ a month to play, why play it when there are free ones that are better?
It's biggest attraction is the character customization screen (before you even get to the game). If you like that, you're probably the kind of person that likes dressing dolls. Sorry, that ain't my cup of tea.
"The bottom line" is what is the desired result but not the cause. From reading your prior posts, you imply that CoX is the reason for the layoffs @ NCSoft.
The true reason is a general slump in the gaming industry now. Like a sine wave, there will be peaks and valleys in the gaming industry. The general slump encompasses many reasons that have been brought up in the prior articles I have posted.
You say "balanced MMO" like it's a bad word. I see balance is what all games are aiming for. Inequality is what drives most people away and leads to a dull gaming environment. One of the main reasons that CoH didn't go the way of freeform classes was because they feared that everyone would be a carbon copy of the ubar build. With balance, anyone can play they want to play and encourages diversity.
Myself, I can see how they could have done a freeform model and keep a balance but I don't have the money nor the experience to set up my own MMO. I can hope that maybe later games will move away from the level system to a skills system but that is for a different topic that should be on MMO's in general (also, there are a lot of posts about this system)
your arguement is so persuasive, so filled with knowledge and insight. You back up your argument very articulately, with suggestions of improvements and raising examples to glorify your position....oh wait, you didn't
Yeh, I wouldn't suppose not having a monthly subscription would have anything to do with it.
OTOH, if CoH/V is as good as the fanboys and devs claim it is, that paltry 15$ monthly sub shouldn't matter, should it?
Wonder why a game with no monthly sub is making more money than a game with a monthly sub? Wouldn't have anything to do with the respective quality of the games or design teams now, would it???
It has to do with Box sales.
Guild Wars Factions sold in this tax year, so the big income is now.
City of Villains sold in last tax year so the big income was then.
Originally posted by yac709 Serling you're correct on a few things... The game does have less players but you're making wild exagerrations and you always keep coming back to the subject of nerfs. I'm sorry but every time I see your posts, it just reads like someone who's bitter about having their overpowered toys taken away and are trying to find any excuse to bash the game, even making up or heavily implying things...
Spoken like someone who hasn't. It's not just Serling who feels this way it's (hundreds of?) thousands of us. There is a large amount of emotional commitment to an MMO. For people like myself the nerfings were an unforgiveable mistake that prevent resubscription. I too feel bitter about it.
Nerfs have less to do with balance and more to do with player retention and powerleveling. I haven't seen any overpowered AT's in this game. I haven't seen any player made obselete by another build. I have seen a player made obselete by the nerfs.
I have also seen hundreds of people convinced that their own build is significantly worse than everyone elses. I have seen two players with the same build, one capable, one incapable. One convinced he couldn't play because he had chosen the worst build, and the other with the same build, the guild hardcase.
Comments
The major buffs...
(Lots of little bug fixes as well)
- Modified PvE critter accuracy. Defense powers will now work equally well against critters, regardless if they have higher accuracy. For instance, your defense powers will work equally well against a Boss or any critter up to 5 levels higher than you, as it does for an equal level minion. Previously, a more accurate critter could circumvent much of your defense, but this will no longer happen.
However there is a slight nerf associated with this, Bosses+ get more accuracy. (More accurate critters may have a greater chance at the extreme low endof the To Hit scale than previously due to this change. For instance,
an Archvillain's To Hit could previously be reduced (with enough
Debuffs) to 5%, but will now have a 7.5% minimum.)
percentage of a PvE target's Endurance, rather than a set number of
Endurance Points. This fixes the issues created when enemies' Endurance
Pools were increased.
be affected by the casters Buffs (for example, using Build Up will now
increase the damage of Blizzard).
and his pets share damage from any attack that the Mastermind takes
damage from. Each pet takes one 'share' of the damage, and the
Mastermind himself takes two 'shares'. This is in addition to any
damage that the pets themselves might incur from Area attacks.
when fighting PvP targets. Each successful attack from the Assaul
secondary power sets adds a bonus of 8 points toward filling the
Domination bar over the normal value.
Game balance for pve is irrelevant. If you think so, then either
you are not really a pve player or there is something wrong with you...*
*Note: Sorry, just having a little carry-over fun from another thread here...
It also matters when some ATs are made obselete by overpowered builds.
Sure, it may be fun to be uber but after a while it just gets dull since there's no challenge.
Written like a dev or fanboy. Which one are you again?
The devs have made many bad decisions that I don't agree with...
Suppression was a clusmy fix that didn't really do much but annoy players.
The end-game has been largely ignored and is only now getting addressed, after two years!
The game has very little non-combat activity.
Missions and enemies are recycled often. They've shown they can make unique, interesting missions but aren't spending as much time on it as I would like.
However, I also realise that I'm still having fun with both my nerfed heroes and my pre-nerfed villains.
"Wait here while I herd! Don't do anything until I say so!" Ugh. No thanks.
Teaming is much more chaotic and active than before...
Invincible missions now require some actual thought and planning rather than just being 'more xp'.
I fully expect the Q2 IR on CoH/V to be a greater disappointment than Q1's report.
I agree that the game is lagging, of that there is no doubt.
The reports show the numbers clearly and recent lay-offs only add fuel to the fire...
However the nerfs were not the only cause...
Issue 7 took way too long to come out and it was not fully stable until now.
And since the nerfs have practically forced teaming at the higher
levels of the game, how long are you going to want to wait around
trying to find a team?
I don't know what game you're playing because soloing is still very possible and very easy.
In missions with Archvillains, soloing is much easier since they downgrade to Elite Bosses.
Teams are plentiful. I play on Triumph (one of the lower-pop servers).
During primetime I can find teams of any level no problem.
Serling you're correct on a few things...
The game does have less players but you're making wild exagerrations and you always keep coming back to the subject of nerfs. I'm sorry but every time I see your posts, it just reads like someone who's bitter about having their overpowered toys taken away and are trying to find any excuse to bash the game, even making up or heavily implying things...
I guess the only one I really don't consider a buff is the Defense one. That is more a fix than anything. Just like certain powers in the past were 'fixed' not nerfed, I would posit the same for the defense scaling. After some reading, the devs said this problem had been around for quite a while when comparing resistance and defense. Though they didn't say why it wasnt fixed earlier, I would like to guess pre-ED, it was covered up by the fact defense could go over 100%.
I could almost say the same thing about the Location based powers as it seems equal to when certain armors did not stack and the devs admitted it was just a technological hurdle and they were always intended to stack. But this is increased damage output(something rarely seen anymore) so it is really riding the fence between buff and fix. The reason I say fix is because how CoH was made that certain ATs were meant to help all allies so I can't see the Emp defender placing Fortitude on a /Devices blaster and seeing no effect on some of his best powers such as the mines. IMO, it was just a technological hurdle that finally made it to the top of the 'to-do' list.
Without a doubt though the Dom and Bodyguard changes are buffs. My Dom is still not very fun to play(I don't think any buffs will change that) and I have done well W/O Bodyguard for 35 levels so it is definitely a buff in my eyes since it is something I didn't feel was needed. I can't speak for Claws or TA, having barely played each of them for only about 10 levels.
If I seem negative about the 'buffs', I apologize but its because I have read too many posts arguing that the 'nerfs' were fixes to things that were never intended even though they lasted a year or longer. I would just like to maintain that balance and use the same arguments that certain things just didn't have priority until now. Yes, there were some buffs but some of them were just fixes and that's all.
Case in point:
"Nerfing's all they know how to do!"
"There was like...one nerf in I7."
"You're a fanboy!"
Sorry to be brash, but seriously.
Case in point of a fanboy who drinks Cryptic's Kool-Aid:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=5973147&Main=3263859#Post5973147
Anyone who think an Issue 3 pre-suppression blaster was overpowered or too easy to play hasn't got a single clue. The nerfs that came in EVERY ISSUE SINCE I3 hit EVERY character and AT, some harder than others!
Furthermore, the devs write a lot of BS on those boards (Emmert's "Balance Vision" being the biggest load of BS ever written about the game) yet there are people willing to gobble up every word of it as though it were gospel!
From Q4 of 05 to Q1 of 06, highest peak monthly accesses went from @194,000 to @182,000. This despite all the "buffs" I7 was supposed to have and how wonderfully "balanced" the game is supposed to be now! And the games (CoH/V) are LOSING money, despite how all well and good it's supposed to be now!
Fanboys and devs are the only people still playing the game that insist all the nerfs were needed and that the game is soooo much better now than it was! So tell me, when NCSoft starts consolidating servers (and people start losing toons because of this) and Cryptic starts having to lay people off because they can't afford to staff at the same levels, how many of you are going to sing Emmert's praises then???
Read the editorial that was written here last month about SOE's nerfs of SWG. To summarize: any company that pisses off it's loyal, long-time customers in the hopes of attracting new ones will have neither. That's what SOE and LucasArts did. That's what Cryptic has done and it's backfiring on both of them!
The short:
Don't like it? Don't play it, stop the hate and move on.
The long:
I've been a long time player of CoH. I don't play it now just like I don't play Zelda anymore. I've had my fun. I've played over a year and made a lot of friends, had some great combat. I enjoyed the direction that PvP was going and how the missions start to flesh out.
Will I return to CoX? Maybe, I may reactivate my account for a month, stop by and say hi to my friends and see if it's evolved enought for me to hang around again.
I didn't like some of the changes, I agree with others. I agree with what the article has to say and it presented itself in a balanced manner. Now, those who state "Oh it's a load of smoke and mirrors, the hosting site is biased due to the fact that they also advertise for CoX," are grasping at straws. I've read many gaming mags that have adverts in them. They also have reviews that praise games and bash games. I remember reading one article about a game. The review was dripping with venom, and not very flattering. Later in the mag I saw an advert for the same game.
Also, just because a company offers a free promo does not mean it's doing bad, it's a form of advertising and many MMO's are doing this.
It's good to view things with a bit of doubt, but to troll it over and over just dull and just doesn't give the opinion much weight. I think to many people are in the mentality that a game is polished out of the box. MMO's by their nature evolve and change either to recapture what was intended or to balance PvP/PvE. If the game doesn't suit your taste, move on, there are many others out there.
I've tried the major MMO's, I'm just waiting to see if they can evolve into the "Next Generation" MMO's.
your arguement is so persuasive, so filled with knowledge and insight. You back up your argument very articulately, with suggestions of improvements and raising examples to glorify your position....oh wait, you didn't
Sorry that the nerfs caused you to stop enjoying the game. But even last night, after prime time, I filled a team to 8 in less than 5 minutes. I received a few tells asking if I had room for another, and there were several spots saved for friends of current team members if a space opened. When you talk about the 'empty servers', I think you ought to check out the SWG maybe? That is a case of empty servers. Now there are some pretty low pop servers, but there is no revolt over it on the coh forums that I can see other than the occasionial thread. Nothing like in SWG, and people still can play on them, as you don't neccesarily want a heavy pop server since there isnt an economy, and if you dont like pvp there goes that need for lots of people at all hours of the day. Remember, many people in Cox don't care for pvp in the slightest.
I did see several groups of people powerleveling trying to get bridges; maybe this is what you mean when you say that you can't find a group? They were in broadcast for hours looking, shooting tells to anyone 46ish in an attempt to get the max xp for their group. Powerlevelers don't enjoy the game as a lot of others do. They want to race to 50, probably for pvp, prehaps for the kheldian, maybe they want to try out the higher end powers of sets? But they are finding that many of their fellow powerleveling buddies have moved on to other games.
As someone who enjoys a game where I can go away for a few weeks and not miss much, I'm satisfied. I still go back and play Tenchu Stealth Assasains here and there, I just enjoy the game. Can't play it non-stop for days, but here and there it is plenty fun enough for me. Cox isn't designed to be the same as an EQ2 or SWG, it's not the same type of open world; it's much more linear, and you don't need to grind for x hours a week to maintain yoru status quo ( ok, with prestige you kinda do, but is a different can of worms).
And as for Cox losing money, I still call shennanigans! Losing revenue does not mean that you are losing money, it really doesn't! I'm sorry if you can't grasp that concept, but lost revenue doesn't put a company in the red automatically, it just means that there is less money coming in. Having been a restaurant person in the past, I've seen revenues of same-store sales drop like a stone several times for whatever reason. Very rarely did we lose money though, even after lost revenue. Again, lost revenue doesn't automatically put a company into the red! You assume a lot, but you know what that leads to...
If that concept is too much for you serling, let me know and I'll try to point you at some online high school level econ classes, as you are posting under a gross conceptual error every time you open your mouth about revenue.
Again, I'm sorry you don't like the game anymore, but oh well, move on with your life.
Wow. Who are you guys trying to convince, me or yourselves???
I quit the game. Hated the nerfs. Hated the way Emmert and company ripped me off for hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars. Move on? I already have. I'm just here doing my part to see that others (people who might be interested in the game) don't make the same mistake I did.
The game is a nerf-infested piece of garbage and while you may be able to find a team, it's getting harder and harder to do so.
Moreover, don't bother trying to build a toon to your specs because given Cryptic's track record for nerfs, you'll likely spend more time respec'ing said toon than actually playing it.
Call a 32% loss of revenue anything you want. When that kind of revenue loss forces a company to lay-off almost a quarter of its workforce, it's no small thing. Perhaps you're the one who should take econ 101.
BTW, looking at NCSoft's release schedule: nothing CoX-wise planned for release for at least the next 2 quarters. (But I'd be willing to bet that if they find something to nref, that will be make it live ASAP. Nerfs = instant release. Content = [yawn] whenever).
Enjoy your game while it lasts. It may not be around much longer.
BTW, I know a puff-piece when I see one. The Gamespy article did nothing but blow smoke up Emmert's rear.
One more thing I'd like to mention: the devs at Cryptic don't know jack about marketing or customer satisfaction. Case in point: customers always want to feel like they're getting more for their money than what they're paying. Many are willing even to pay top dollar for a good luxury or sports car. What they don't want is a bait and switch - or worse - to pay for something thinking they're getting a complete package, only to realize later that parts of the package will never materialize!
When Cryptic released an on-line game about superheroes, people approached it with certain preconceived notions about what a superhero should be able to do. Issue 1 - 3 felt about right for most people. They thought they had purchased a pretty hot sports car. Suddenly, the nerfs start coming fast and furious with travel suppression, then the arenas (I4) - which amounted to little more than putting a bumper sticker on a Ferrari - then I5's nerfs, ED (I6), and stealth nerfs (I7). What the devs had done was create a feeling in the customers' minds that they were getting less and less for their money, not more and more. And when new content doesn't materialize, it makes the pill that much more bitter. Many thought they bought a Corvette and got a Chevette instead.
In other words, whether real or perceived, nerfs create the impression that the customer is getting less value for his or her money than they were before the nerfs. And when the devs prevaricate or patronize the customers - treating them as though they're too stupid to know what they (the customers) should find fun in a game - that simply adds insult to injury. Is it any wonder that people are leaving??? Is it any wonder that revenues are down???
You can only piss on people so much before they're going to take their entertainment dollars elsewhere.
Emmert and company have been running a "bait and switch" for two years now, promising a game about superheroes and delivering a game about sissies in tights. I only wish I would have known what a scam they were running BEFORE I had given them any of my money.
Your mileage may vary.
I'm sorry you personally don't like the game. Lots of people have come and gone, and Cox is not a game a lot of people will want to play. It's far from the typical mmorpg where you need to grind everyday to get somewhere. Some like it, others don't. So it goes.
But the only thing you keep saying that bothers me is about the NCSoft layoffs. Where are they laying people off from? From what I can recall offhand, there are at least 6 titles they have going on as of now. Still with me? Ok, good. Now, Cox has made less money, very true. 32% less this last year. Guess what? They must have seen that coming as they knew they'd sell less $50 box sets. Have I lost you yet? Hope not.
Now, moving from selling a lot of 50 dollar boxes to selling far more $15 a month subs will obviously cause revenues to decline. That's a total no brainer to understand. How much of the 32% is due to losing players and their 15 dollars a month, and how much is due to losing the $50 box sales, but keeping the player subscribed? See what I'm getting at? Yes, they have lower sub numbers than before, but it's not a ship everyone is jumping off of quite yet. There are still plenty of players ( you posted a loss, from 194k down to 182k, that's 12kish, and let's assume that's correct). Still a lot of $15's coming in monthly.
Where those poor laid off people all from Cox's staff? You imply they are, and that's silly to believe. I doubt they have 70 people total on their staff, but I can't say for certain. With only 182k subs, that's a tad under 2 million a month Cox is taking in revenues alone, not to mention the few boxes they manage to sell. So, subtract the server costs, the office management costs, the salaries of the personnel, adverts, all that jazz, they'd be doing something wrong to be in the red. 2 million a month, and you say they're going under sooner than we believe. That's funny, it really is, and your really stretching yourself if you believe that NCSoft is anything but happy with that kind of take a month.
Could it be better? Sure. But I think you ought to enroll in those Sally Struthers courses they advertise on TV, because they sure couldn't make your understanding of how a business works any worse than it is today.
You can call me fanboi, or whatever else let's you think you have a grasp on all the big words they use when grown ups talk about business. That's great, and I can't stop you. But at least try to understand that a loss of revenue doesn't mean the end of a business. In fact, dare I say, some business even expect that to occur, such as landscaping companies that get a ton of business in the spring, then their revenues decline as they need to only maintain the customers lawns, not do a full out trim/weed/whatever to it like they did the first time. Meh, I don't have any more energy to attempt to educate you on your fuckedupness when it comes to business. Have a good one serling.
I see you edited while I was typing, so in response to the whole 'scam' thing: sorry if you see it that way. What else can they do to add content in a game like this one? More TF's? The game is and will be about mission doors, hard to change that. The whole skill system was basically shelved. I agree with you, the new content is kinda crappy at best. But what else can they do? Throw a suggestion out instead of calling it a swindle. Personally, a few times a week I like doing a couple of door missions, and any new content is gonna be just that: more doors.
If you don't care for them, not much I can say. About the nerfs, well, yeah, they have been nerf happy in the past, but dare I say as a non-scrapper/tank myself (usually), now I'm needed on teams again, which is nice. OK, my invul tank can't tank the whole world anymore, but oh well, I don't need to be super-powerful. Super powered sure, but I see it like superman actually. Why would I want to be superman, he's freaking immortal in almost all regards. I don't see that as fun, I can use a cheat code on a console game to be that. I like the toons that can be beaten on occasion, the ones who can't take on the whole world at once and come out with just a fat lip.
Long time Spiderman fan here, and it's mostly because he is all too human. Sometimes he doesn't save the girl, or catch the baddies. Just like my toons in Cox. Sometimes I have to get rezzed or rez someone, sometimes those malta are a bit too much for my team, and I kinda like that element of the game. After all, no risk no reward and all that jazz. Your mileage may vary of course.
You answered your own question. NCSoft is laying off almost 1/4 of it's workforce. NCSoft publishes CoH/V, the earnings for which are down 32% fom last year's levels. Get it???
If NCSoft - the publisher of CoH/V didn't think a 32% decline in revenues from that one product - coupled with the dismal release of Auto Assault - merited laying off almost one quarter of its workforce, they WOULDN'T BE DOING IT! The bean counters at NCSoft apparently take a 32% decline in profits a hell of a lot more seriously than you do!!!
Sorry you're too dense to get it, but those are the facts. Ignore them at the risk of making yourself appear more foolish than you already have.
You infered something I never wrote nor implied. You apparently have a reading comprehension problem.
I guarantee that there are at least 70 ex-NCSoft employees decidedly UNHAPPY with "that kind of a take a month". Perhaps you should ask them how they feel about being laid off due to declining revenues.
Sigh, I'm so sorry you went to a bad school that didn't teach you to think properly. Where did it say that they had to let those people go? Do you get that? Am I typing too fast?
Where did it say Cox caused the people at NCSoft to be laid off? Isn't nearly 2 million a month in subs enough? Did you think maybe that craptastic game AA lost a lto of people, as well as from GW, which is now in another long period of free play, with it's only income due to box sales and not subs?
Good Christ almighty boy, calling me foolish is funny. Every mmo on the market will face decling revenues, F-ing duh! They sell less boxes, get it? Those $50 dollar boxes, yeah those ones, you can't sell many people them twice can you?
Let's try a thought drill, stretch first if you need to. If every person who bought Cox remained on today, as in no one left the game at all, wouldn't revenues decline? Yes.
Losing 12k subs, or 180,000 dollars a month, that's not chump change, but neither is the 1.9 million they pull in a month. You try to put all the blame on NCSoft's woes and firing on Cox ( and a bit on AA), but maybe, just maybe, Lineage isn't as popular as it was? Did they lose any staff? How about GW? Bet they shaved a lot of devs, and the timing is right too, they just had a major release, did the quick bug fixes and since their isn't much for a large dev team to do, I'm sure they chopped some of them. Tabula Resa lose anyone? Do we even know where the 70 people came from? I haven't seen them say Cox is losing anything from it's staff or budget, and neither have you. Seriously.
But, go ahead and blame it on Cox. Before the next time you sit there sniffing paint thinner, and bemoaning your fire tank, make sure to call that Higher Learning Instutite; it might really do you some good.
NCSoft said it, on its web page and other places. NCSoft did, your delusions notwithstanding.
Guild Wars has always been free to play (no subscription fees) and if you had actually read the investor report, you'd see that revenues from GW went up 60%. So NCSoft isn't laying people off because of GW's earnings. And because Lineage and Lineage II still account for most of NCSoft's revenues (still it's top 2 games), where do we look to assign blame for layoffs? Hmmmm....How 'bout the two poorest performing horses in NCSoft's stable: CoH/V and Auto Assault!
(Of course you would know all of this if you had actually read the investor reports instead of arguing with me about it.)
For at least the third time now, dude: THEY WERE LAID OFF FROM NCSOFT!!! GOT IT?!?!?!
Since you can't seem to read, here's a picture you can ponder:
The funny thing about that chart is that NCSoft predicted CoH/V would actually increase by @11%. Instead, they revised earnings on it down 32%! Lineage didn't do as badly as predicted. Lineage II did worse than predicted. Auto Assault fared the worst (predicted vs. revised).
Still, Lineage and Lineage II combined for about 17 million in losses. CoH/V racked up 11 million in losses alone (put another way, CoH/V lost as much dollar-wise as Lineage II, but percentage-wise lost a third of its revenues compared to 9% of losses for Lineage II. Quite a feat when you factor CoV into the equation.)
Guild Wars, OTOH, was up about 25 million.
CoX: Nerfs every issue, content slow in coming, losing money and customers.
Guild Wars: few nerfs, new content every couple months (most of it for high level players), turning huge profits.
Put another way, Guild Wars' 60% increase in earnings ALONE outperformed total earnings of CoH/V!!!
Hmmm...which model looks better to the bottom line???
OTOH, if CoH/V is as good as the fanboys and devs claim it is, that paltry 15$ monthly sub shouldn't matter, should it?
Wonder why a game with no monthly sub is making more money than a game with a monthly sub? Wouldn't have anything to do with the respective quality of the games or design teams now, would it???
You're not following, are you?
Hell, GW series has sold more than 2 million accounts. You could pretty much say it's made more money than every game except the Lineage series and WoW (and possibly some of the MMO's that have been out for a longer period). Great comparison.
With that comparison, you could say every single MMO that hasn't made more, which is the vast, vast, majority, is a piece of crap that's going down the toilet!
I'm game for Round 2, if you want.
February 2, 2006: EA lays off 350 workers
February 17, 2006: Atari Cuts 20% of Workforce
February 24, 2006: Activision confirms UK job losses
March 20, 2006: Lionhead - 50 off its 250 employees laid off
These are some examples of recent job cust going on...These can not be attributed to one game for each company.
Lets put the wayback machine to August 15, 2001 - Sierra On-Line laid off 245 people
I'm sure I could find more regarding job cuts in the gaming industry but I hope you get my point. It's not just NCSoft or any one game related to NCSoft.
Job Cuts are a fact of life. It's how a business keeps going. Later I'm sure there will be a job surge in this industry. It's happened before and will happen again in the future. The reasons for the job cuts are many factors, not just one.
your arguement is so persuasive, so filled with knowledge and insight. You back up your argument very articulately, with suggestions of improvements and raising examples to glorify your position....oh wait, you didn't
Wrong. There is ultimately only ONE reason why businesses lay people off: to improve the bottom line. Period. You can't maintain margin on losing products while maintaining a relatively high level of staffing, support, and development. Any business that tries to do that finds itself out of business real quick.
Part of the problem is an absolute glut of games out right now, most of them like every other game out there. CoH was different, and for awhile anyway, people enjoyed that fact. PvP enters the picture, and soon people are calling for nerfs of this uber build and that uber build and balance, not "fun" becomes the order of the day.
In the end, CoH/V has become just another "balanced" MMO, like any number of others out there. And since it costs 15$ a month to play, why play it when there are free ones that are better?
It's biggest attraction is the character customization screen (before you even get to the game). If you like that, you're probably the kind of person that likes dressing dolls. Sorry, that ain't my cup of tea.
"The bottom line" is what is the desired result but not the cause. From reading your prior posts, you imply that CoX is the reason for the layoffs @ NCSoft.
The true reason is a general slump in the gaming industry now. Like a sine wave, there will be peaks and valleys in the gaming industry. The general slump encompasses many reasons that have been brought up in the prior articles I have posted.
You say "balanced MMO" like it's a bad word. I see balance is what all games are aiming for. Inequality is what drives most people away and leads to a dull gaming environment. One of the main reasons that CoH didn't go the way of freeform classes was because they feared that everyone would be a carbon copy of the ubar build. With balance, anyone can play they want to play and encourages diversity.
Myself, I can see how they could have done a freeform model and keep a balance but I don't have the money nor the experience to set up my own MMO. I can hope that maybe later games will move away from the level system to a skills system but that is for a different topic that should be on MMO's in general (also, there are a lot of posts about this system)
your arguement is so persuasive, so filled with knowledge and insight. You back up your argument very articulately, with suggestions of improvements and raising examples to glorify your position....oh wait, you didn't
The slump in the gaming market right now pertains to console games, which are selling poorly due to the change over to new systems. (Next Gen).
PC games are selling better than usual.
OTOH, if CoH/V is as good as the fanboys and devs claim it is, that paltry 15$ monthly sub shouldn't matter, should it?
Wonder why a game with no monthly sub is making more money than a game with a monthly sub? Wouldn't have anything to do with the respective quality of the games or design teams now, would it???
It has to do with Box sales.
Guild Wars Factions sold in this tax year, so the big income is now.
City of Villains sold in last tax year so the big income was then.
Spoken like someone who hasn't. It's not just Serling who feels this way it's (hundreds of?) thousands of us. There is a large amount of emotional commitment to an MMO. For people like myself the nerfings were an unforgiveable mistake that prevent resubscription. I too feel bitter about it.
Nerfs have less to do with balance and more to do with player retention and powerleveling. I haven't seen any overpowered AT's in this game. I haven't seen any player made obselete by another build. I have seen a player made obselete by the nerfs.
I have also seen hundreds of people convinced that their own build is significantly worse than everyone elses. I have seen two players with the same build, one capable, one incapable. One convinced he couldn't play because he had chosen the worst build, and the other with the same build, the guild hardcase.
Ohio.
The state of the game is Ohio.