Bravo macskull.
I agree with your entire post and I applaud you.
Heres my story:
I used to play for at least 5 hours a day (those were days when I was working - on my days off
. well, I wont say how many hours I played on my days off). I had a wonderful group of friends I played with every day. We loved the game and enjoyed our friendships. After a few years many of my friends started PVPing. It wasnt really my thing, but I did it none the less and had a good time doing it even though I wasnt very good. I got killed all the time, ganked, and picked on constantly - and I should have been. It didnt bother me that that was going on. I hadnt put the time and effort into it others had. They should have been kicking my butt. And if I took, lets say, an emp in there, I didnt expect her to be able to take out anyone, I expected to be buffing and healing (between my trips to the hospital).
Then i13 came along. Wham!
Everyone hated it. With a passion. The changes made no sense and rendered builds useless in PVP. What people had spent years honing were destroyed in an instant. Peoples time, effort, research, practice, practice, practice now meant nothing. And for what? So that people who whined about getting ganked would stop whining? PvP (as it was) took time, effort, research and practice, practice, practice to gain the skill required to do it well. Post i13 tanks dont tank, blasters dont blast, healers dont heal and controllers dont control. This making everyone equal thing the devs have done makes no sense. Archetypes are not equal and shouldnt behave like they are. Travel suppression? Heal decay? Sigh. But I digress
.
Everyone hated it. My friends hated it. I hated it (and I suck at PvP). My friends left the game. Cancelled their accounts - gone. I stayed. I tried to believe the devs had a reason for all this, as they stated there was. Im still waiting. Im tired of waiting. I log in once a month or so (with my 2 accounts) to pay the base rent and to fiddle with the base, and thats about it.
I wont be renewing my subscription when it comes due. And Im sad about that. I loved this game and have a lot of time invested in it. I see changes being made, and some of them look wonderful, but they cant make up for what has been taken away - not just the PvP changes, but the good friends who wont return because of these changes.
Ive waited devs. Ive waited here to here the reasons for these changes. I think Ive waited long enough. I14 had some great changes to it, and i15 looks the same (although I have to admit I really know very little about them - havent had the interest to look much) and its my belief that had i13 not happened this game would be golden.
(by the way - have people been flocking to the PvP zones since i13?)