KingSnake

With Posi saying he's looking to have the Aniversity Badges be account wide instead of Charater spefic?

I know he said he wasn't sure it could happen or not, but, well, I LIKE the fact I only have 4 guys out of around 30 active alts that have the year 1 badge. And a few have the year 2's... all the rookies have only the year 5's.

I mean... we have vet badges that show how long you as a person have had an active account, but the aniverisity badges IMO show how long THAT hero or villan has been around.

I'd be bummed to lose that. Am i alone?

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Therefore there are aspects of Pain that ONLY the corr benefits from.


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But that just isn't true. the "ONLY" part that is. If your were to say, a Corr gets more out of the buffs then the avg MM. Then yeah, but MMs can attack and thus can benefit from them too. Most don't attack and thus don't benefit at all true, MOST, but that doesn't hold true for all MM's.

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I know Sonic Blast is good and I've been wanting to try Energy Blast. Maybe I'll try Energy blast. I just know a lot of Brutes will hate me.

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Not just Brutes, but Stalkers, MMs and Corruptors with anchor-based debuffs. I did NRG blast hero side twice, I would never touch it again.

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The KB in energy blast is not a problem if you teach yourself to AIM toward walls, corners, etc. Use KB to knock them TOWARD the brute, he will appreciate it.

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While I don't disagree, in my experience with the set there were too many times I couldn't position myself properly to do that. Narrow hallways or caves are often too restrictive. Other times I'd hop over somewhere to aim my KB and in the meantime the mobs had moved around or someone else had KB'ed them to another spot. Then there were the times I repositioned myself to aim my KB and grabbed aggro from another group of mobs I hadn't seen. Player error there of course, but if I was going to play the set again I'd either go the hover-blaster route, or take a secondary with non-suppressing stealth to facilitate positioning. Possibly both.

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My advice to getting good with knockback is play a stormy. You practice long enough, you'll get alot better at placing stuff, i promise you. But, even the best of users can't always place stuff perfectly all the time.

I've evolved over my 5 years in game to HATING STORM USERS GUTS... cause i was a grav/kin and knockback was EVIL to me, to being the guy USING the Stormy and going nuts with knockback. And now a days, i don't care so much on teams that are knockback heavy. if i'm a melee, i target a different mob when one is knocked away. If i'm a blaster, bah, it never hardly matters unless the screw up my AoE's, and even then, it happens. They'll learn, or they'll get frustrated and play something else.

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I still say it's a weak argument.

The solo part is irrelevant.

The question is who gets more out of the powerset, not who does more damage, or who is better solo, or even who is better on a team. Corruptors actually benefit from the +Damage parts of the powers, MMs do not. That's my entire point.

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Neither class, solo, can get the benefit of the rez buff. You solo. Corr's cant use the ally only buffs, and heal. An MM can, at least, use the ally only buffs on his pets, and frankly, a Bruser with Painbringer on him is a monster...

And in a team setting, they both have full access to all there powers benefits. A Corr will indeed get more out of it's rez selfbuff cause Corr's can do some decent damage, and MM damage is a joke. (his PERSONAL 3 attacks. Not MMs in genearal.) Heck, i didn't even train my dual pistols on my MM, cause, dispite the cool factor, the attacks are weak.. and the powerchoices are better used eleseware. But, IMO, an MM has more flexability at doing his job, he doesn't have to worry about dealing dmg, the pets will do that, while he plays team support. So, the Corr, when he fails at his job of keeping people alive, will benefit from the buff of the rez... Heh. So yeah, when your teammates die, you do get alittle more from powerset then an MM.. but if your good at your job.. you never see the buff anyways. Hardly a major plus in MY book, but again, that's IMO.

I'm not saying a Corr makes a BAD pain dom, i just think MM's do it better. *shrug*

My scrappers.

Spine/invlun - 50
Kat/Invlun - 50
Claws/SR - 50
MA/Regen - 50
Kat/SR - 50
BS/Shield - 40 atm. Fast tracked to 50 cause he's a freaking blast to play.

That's me. When pugging, which i do alot...

I see more swords then anything else. BS and Kat, and even DB. I think the reason is customisible.

I almost never see Spines anymore, and MA is a rearity. Come to think of it, haven't seen claws in a while either. Them 3 are lacking. DM and Fire is see, but not as much as the swords.

Secondarys, Regen and WP... easily. Then SR. Never see invluns... Fires and Darks are around more then invluns, but still not a common sight.

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I'm almost terrified to post this...

My intention is not to start a flame war. (Period) Took a break from the game just prior to i13 and I had the chance to toy around with shields last night but didn't get to play with PD yet. I haven't logged on a villain yet so I'm curious, player's aura rocking? Seems like a bad [censored] set for a MM though, I can forsee an awesome Thug or Merc set. Can't really see it relavant for a Corruptor though, but thats coming from someone who likes to solo alot. Thanks.

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It's all IMO of course, but Pain is a much better MM set then Corr set.

It's kind of like Controllers and defenders. Where controller and defenders share a set, IMO, controllers get more out of it can are more helpful to teams in general then a defender with the same powerset. I'd rather have a controller emp or rad then a defender one, cause, the deference in % between the classes isn't all THAT much, and a controller bring control to the team, where as a defender get to do very subpar damage instead.

Same IMO is the case with MM's over Corrs. althought not as extream. Corrs do GOOD damage, and MM's are noticable weaker state wise. But, Where they share sets, the MM's are IMO better choices. Cause, you get the same powers, weaker yes, but you get an army of pets for damage. You can with a well built MM do 2 jobs at once. while your pets are doing the damage, you can be playing team support.

My Thugs/Pain MM is my FAV teaming villian i have. I can set my pets to either agressive/follow or Defenive/follow (BG mode) and focuse on team support. If the team has a brute sucking up all the argo, i put them to agressive so they'll attack. If i'm taking dmg, BG mode all the way.

And even when i'm solo, I get the full benefits of my secondary where a Corr won't. (for sets with ally only powers that is) Any ally only buffs can be used to make monsters out of your pets. This is much the same reason my Empath is also a fire controller... after lvl 32, i have 3 little pets i can fort, AB, and heal... so even solo, i get the most out of my emp powers.

Thats why i say, if your going to roll a Pain, roll an MM. You just get more for your money i think.

Again, this is all IMO. Take it for what it is.

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But since the MM doesn't do any Damage himself, all the self buffing potential of the set is wasted.

Fail argument.

Pain is definitely better on Corrs.

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Sure they can, but there damage is pointless. And what little you benefit from, what, 2 self buffs for using.. the rez and CM right? It pales in comparison to what a fully buffed and battleready team of thugs can do. INDEPENDELY of your actions, freeing you to support a team, or heck, add your own pedely damage to your pets damge. Thus STILL getting the FULL benerfit of Pains buffs where a corr can't. (solo)

MM Pain > Corr Pain. (again, IMO)

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I'm almost terrified to post this...

My intention is not to start a flame war. (Period) Took a break from the game just prior to i13 and I had the chance to toy around with shields last night but didn't get to play with PD yet. I haven't logged on a villain yet so I'm curious, player's aura rocking? Seems like a bad [censored] set for a MM though, I can forsee an awesome Thug or Merc set. Can't really see it relavant for a Corruptor though, but thats coming from someone who likes to solo alot. Thanks.

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It's all IMO of course, but Pain is a much better MM set then Corr set.

It's kind of like Controllers and defenders. Where controller and defenders share a set, IMO, controllers get more out of it can are more helpful to teams in general then a defender with the same powerset. I'd rather have a controller emp or rad then a defender one, cause, the deference in % between the classes isn't all THAT much, and a controller bring control to the team, where as a defender get to do very subpar damage instead.

Same IMO is the case with MM's over Corrs. althought not as extream. Corrs do GOOD damage, and MM's are noticable weaker state wise. But, Where they share sets, the MM's are IMO better choices. Cause, you get the same powers, weaker yes, but you get an army of pets for damage. You can with a well built MM do 2 jobs at once. while your pets are doing the damage, you can be playing team support.

My Thugs/Pain MM is my FAV teaming villian i have. I can set my pets to either agressive/follow or Defenive/follow (BG mode) and focuse on team support. If the team has a brute sucking up all the argo, i put them to agressive so they'll attack. If i'm taking dmg, BG mode all the way.

And even when i'm solo, I get the full benefits of my secondary where a Corr won't. (for sets with ally only powers that is) Any ally only buffs can be used to make monsters out of your pets. This is much the same reason my Empath is also a fire controller... after lvl 32, i have 3 little pets i can fort, AB, and heal... so even solo, i get the most out of my emp powers.

Thats why i say, if your going to roll a Pain, roll an MM. You just get more for your money i think.

Again, this is all IMO. Take it for what it is.

I've just gotten my first BS hero up in levels. So now i can make an honest side by side comperison. (I already had two lvl 50 Kat's.)

In a nutshell, here it is.

Besides having different anamations and weapon skins...

Katana is faster. Alot faster. And does less damage per hit.
BS is slower. Alot slower. And does more damage per hit.

Katana, IMO, feels more "skillfull" if that makes since... Your guy feels and looks like a more refinded, skillful fighter..

BS is raw bonecrushing POWER. Brutal, raw, and savage.

IMO, Katana can reach higher hights then BS if you do the min maxing thing, but even still, there's just something satasifing when you drop a BOSS in one shot when you crit with capped damage... (I've taken PURPLE roman bosses to a sliver of health before, i KNOW i'd have killed him if he weren't pluse 3 or 4 to me...)

You won't go wrong with either. I'd say pack the "style" that suits you. Katana for a skilled warrior, BS for a savage brute.

If your wanting shields as a secondary, your stuck with BS. It's why i played it finially, and frankly, i'm sorry i didn't make a BS sooner. It gives a feeling of strenght i wish i could get playing my SUPERSTRONG tank... but hey, what can you do. heh.

The 3 blasters I have are all VERY solo friendly.

My Sonic/NRG is awsome. A cone Sleep, stuns out the wazo, and extream single target damage. In all honesty, he plays much much better solo then in teams IMO cause, he's got bunk for AoE and AoE is where it's at for teams IMO.

My Ice/Ice/Cold is also a great soloer for much the same reasons. Awsome single target dmg, massive slows, Ice Patch, 3 holds. Better teamer IMO then my Sonic/NRG. Very all around blaster build IMO.

My Fire/Ice/Elec is my personal FAV blaster. Fire give awsome damage. Ice provides tools for staying alive, and Elec adds an extra AoE cone, Hold, and Panic button to the mix. She solos nicely. And shines in teams. I can hardly think of a better combo. (IMO of course.)

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Ok.. i've been here 5 years... and i admit, i'm slow... what is the end game content?

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<ul type="square">[*]Rikti Raids[*]Hamidon Raids[*]Rikti War Zone missions[*]Statesman's Task Force[*]Lady Grey's Task Force[*]Cimerora[*]The Imperious Task Force[*]Portal Corporation Missions[*]FOUR Ouroboros Task Forces (not counting the Flashback system here)[*]FOUR Shadow Shard task forces which are often times challenging and long[*] The whole Shadow Shard itself, with four HUGE zones filled with unique monsters and amazing geography[/list]
We have no end-game content? K....

We HAVE it. Now whether you LIKE what we have or not is your own perogative. To say that we DON'T HAVE end game content is just plain silly. I'm counting hours and hours worth of content there, possibly days or month's worth.

You must also keep in mind that you've been here for X number of years. For someone new to the game, this amount of content would be overwhelming.

If you want even MORE content than that... you now have the ability to make it yourself if you don't want to wait the months it takes for the developers to make new content.

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I'm sure I'm braking a flamewar rule somewhere, but, you are infact correct, and I was wrong. Them things are "end game" content. I stand corrected, and undestand where your coming from.

Personally, it's an inferore, more limited "end game" content IMO (need to stress that) then others i've played, but it's there none the less. I guess i just don't spend enought time their cause most of that stuff bores me. AS for MA... eh, a few of the dev's chocies are good, but, the moutine of crap you have to thread through to find the good stuff is off putting IMO.

Except the Shadow Shard... which i love, but can't get people to do anything in there with me... and it's way underveloped... but that's a different issue.

Carry on.

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near-total lack of end-game content after 5 years is a perfectly legitimate gripe to make.

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LOL. I can't take anyone seriously who says something like this.

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Ok.. i've been here 5 years... and i admit, i'm slow... what is the end game content? PvP... god i hope not... MA missions? We just got them... after 5 years... and frankly, the majority of stuff on it is utter crap... if you enjoy most of that stuff, your way to easy to please... seriously...

I've spent the last 5 years making alts... 26 50's to be exacit. For 2 reasons. I, i love the creations aspect of the game, and 2, once i hit 50... eh, what else is there? ReRoll... is that the end game your talking about?

And no need to take me seriously, no one ever does anyways.

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Before AE came out there were at least two warnings not to use it as farm grounds. They were ignored.
When AE came out the patch notes and tutorial said not to farm it. This was ignored.
The Devs went "If you can't be trusted not to throw the ball in the house you don't get any balls."

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to be fair most people didn't actually read any of that

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Yes but the information was there, it is their own fault if they couldn't be bothered to read it.

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Until enough of them get ticked and it becomes a detrement to everyone else when they cant fund the servers anymore.

I've never seen a situation where i totally agree with the dev's in princable, but and flabergasted at it's implomention.

I agree over rampent farming needed dealth with, but you fix the code, you don't threaten and punsh your CUSTOMERS. they don't like that... they tend to leave...

When you relise your badge system encourges something you don't like... you fix it... if you CAN without taking the badge whores toys away... i mean, my gosh, they are a core dimigraphic of yours, and you KNOW how they get over there badges... what are you THINKING?!

The boneheaded... kneejerk dissions of the last few weeks... have been epic... cause i agree something needed to be done... but not what has been done... not even close...

Mids, you have gotten me through some really, REALLY slow and boring days at work. &gt;.&gt; &lt;.&lt; (man i hope my boss doesn't read this...)

My deepest thanks for your work.

Also, to your replacment, thank you for taking on this new challange. I have, many, many (hopefully) more boring days a work ahead, and will need an up to date too to wittle the hours away!

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5 years and this dead horse is still being beaten on a daily basics it seems.

And alot of you have been fighting this fight for YEARS. WHY??? So people call defenders and controllers and corr's "healers".. so what? Have they insulted your mother or kicked your dog or something? Anyone who's played any ammount of time knows defenders are MORE then just healers, but alot of them call them that just the same. Newer people will learn. I've been playing as non healing "healers" for years now and have not been discriminated against at all in forever.

I've played nearly all the defendeing powersets to 50, all the non healers, like FF, sonic, and TA, and not once has anyone had issues with me. they laugh at my TA, but that's kind of a running joke now isn't it?

I'd have though we'd have gotten past this by now... LOL.

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Who's fighting discrimination?

I'm battling ignorance.

Completely different set of gloves for that, mang.

'Healer' is a pointless, unnecessary distinction that is just as easily covered by the greater terms of 'Defender', 'Corrupter', 'Controller', and 'Mastermind', which are far more accurate and give you a much better approximation about the potential capabilities of the person involved.

And that's a pretty long winded post for something you could've clipped at the start. Anything you wanna share with the class? :3

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Longwinded, i'm not out of breath at all. Fight all you want. People have for 5 years, you haven't won, and you won't. I just don't see the point is all. But carry on if you most. I spit me rant out, i'm good, i'm off to the game now. heh. have fun!

5 years and this dead horse is still being beaten on a daily basics it seems.

And alot of you have been fighting this fight for YEARS. WHY??? So people call defenders and controllers and corr's "healers".. so what? Have they insulted your mother or kicked your dog or something? Anyone who's played any ammount of time knows defenders are MORE then just healers, but alot of them call them that just the same. Newer people will learn. I've been playing as non healing "healers" for years now and have not been discriminated against at all in forever.

I've played nearly all the defendeing powersets to 50, all the non healers, like FF, sonic, and TA, and not once has anyone had issues with me. they laugh at my TA, but that's kind of a running joke now isn't it?

I'd have though we'd have gotten past this by now... LOL.

Here's a question i've been wondering.

Remember when we got our 1, 2, and 3rd year badges, we got a 5th coloum glatior? Will heros that have "all" the aniual badges get some kind of special accolade? It'd be kind of neat if they did...

I've made a story arch. Check it out if you'd like

A Tangledweb Indeed.

Considering how bad my spelling and grammer normally is, i'm kind of proud of it. My brother played through it a few times and helped me proof it. Course, if you play through and see stuff i need to fix... much appreacited it if you'd let meh know. &gt;,&lt;

The one thing that really, REALLY started to bug me last night, was having to run through the mission I was happy with in order to get to the mission i was working on. Please GOD tell me theres some why i'm missing to test mission individually... PLEASE. I can't imagain having to run the whole story arch to bug check mission 5... that accually may kill this whole thing for me.

Ok, the video was good. I laughed. I admit it.

But I still care very little for MA. It's not that i actively DISLIKE it, it's just, eh, not my thing. And frankly, we've known most of these details for a long time now. How about some information on the other stuff in I14... if there is any... any powers prolifiration? Any new contacts or tfs? new IO sets? anything besides this?

Or is this going to be a dud issue for me?

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Patch Notes: Patch 18.20081210.10T4[*] Failing a mission that is the final (or only) mission of a story arc, task force, strike force or trial may result in reduced rewards. Failing tasks that have 2 or less missions will award 0 merits. Failing tasks that have 3-4 missions will award 50% merits. Failing a task that has 5 or more missions will result in normal merits.

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Ok... so does this mean teams may accually TRY and finish the LGTF mission they always fail? It's only 5 missions IIRC, and you can fail one mission...

I hope i understand that right. I hate that mission. It's a real disappointment in an otherwise wonderful tf.

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Yeah, don't cheapen it by PLing or getting mad loot for a buddy, but does it really hold water after 4 years and nearly 20 lvl 50 alts?

Have you looked at my web page?

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Your point? You have a lot of guys too, and feel differently then i do? Shocker. We don't matter. The majority does. And we'll see how things play out. I13 is live today after all. I hope for the best, as best as i can, being a bit of a pesamist in nature... i've been wrong about changes before, i hope i'm wrong again... i honestly do.

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Making it easy for players to pool their own characters' resources leads players to stop thinking of their characters as characters and instead reduces them to assets, no more important than a pawn on a chessboard. That reduces the player's emotional investment in his characters, which is bad for player retention, and it reduces the value of getting help from other players, which is bad for player retention. Developers can't stop players from twinking themselves and they usually can't make it harder without incurring too much collateral damage, but they've got no reason to make it easy.

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Ironicly, Im still playing the game for the very reasons your saying people will leave over. Your argument is a vailed one when a game is freash, and new, and your playing it for the first time. Yeah, don't cheapen it by PLing or getting mad loot for a buddy, but does it really hold water after 4 years and nearly 20 lvl 50 alts? You have any idea how many times i've fought FrostFire? You have any idea how many times i've ran the verious TF's in this game? It's nearly 5 years old, and i've done it a dozen times over. If not for the fact i enjoy making alts and seeing concepts come to life, i'd have left years ago. The fact i don't have the scrap, skim, and crawl every single time i want to make a new concept is a major reason i stay. Play a game for the first time through, when everyhing is shinny and new, your more forgiving of the mononity of it all. After the 3rd time, the newness is gone and you have to be asking yourself... "do i really want to do this again?" My answer at the time was, "well, I have money this time, so bring my new guy to live won't be AS MUCH ofa grind." Not a challange. A grind. No challange at all. You want to add challange, fine. Add challange. But if you just want to keep me grinding... screw that. Grind doesn't = challange, and all thats happening by not allowing resorce pulling is lenghting the GRIND, not adding CHALLANGE.

At this phase in the game, the majory of my fun comes from, alt creation of course, but as far as game play goes, it's running TF's with my many diffrent alts, collecting the drops, and figureing out who can benefit the most from what i get. I danced a freaking jig when i got a numinia off a tf, not cause the guy who got it needed it... hardly, it was a Kin IIRC, but because my Kat/Invln srcapper who also runs tough/weave would KILL for it.

That how I play this game. That's the fun I have. I don't think i'm alone. If you start chipping away at that... what's my motivation of doing it again for the 26th time? If making my future alts returns me to the grind I felt in the begining... it's prolly not going to be worth it in my minds eye to make new alts. No new alts... after awhile, that'd prolly be it for me.

Not that anyone cares, but if enough feel the same why, people might start caring. *shrug* At this point in time, i'm completely in wait and see mood. I don't think merits in there current form is going to fly. I forsee too many problems and irritations. But I may be wrong so i'll give it a go and hope for the best. Nothing else to do really... CoH is very lucky that, at least in my singular case, i have no other MMO that intrests me at all atm, so slong as i still have fun, i'm not going anywhere. But this won't be the case forever... Compatation is coming... and frankly, so of the moves the dev's are making on the heal of having REAL compatation for the first time in this games life... is leaving me scratching my head... I don't get it... I just hope they know what they are doing. I really do.

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Why? Nice statments but where is the explanation? What's wrong with the way i currently do things? What am I exploiting? And where have the dev's said as much?

Allowing characters owned by the same player to interact results in pathological behavior. Every character in any RPG is supposed to earn its own progress. That's the ideal. That ideal can't be reached in an MMO, even with draconian measures that are worse than the problem itself. SWG originally allowed only a single character per server, which even the designer had to admit wouldn't stop anyone willing to pay for multiple accounts. That does not, however, mean it is OK to just say "to hell with it" and make self-twinking easy. It can, and should, be made arbitrarily difficult. That won't eliminate the damage but it will contain it.

Under i13 rules you can earn merits on one character until you get the desired reward, whether that's a roll or a specific recipe, then craft that recipe, leave the IO on a base rack and have another character pick it up, or get a friend to help you trade it over. It shouldn't be any easier than that. Making merits tradeable would mean they could be bartered for cash, which would essentially make them the same as cash. Part of the reason for introducing merits is that the cash economy in this game is beyond salvage by any means the developers would even consider implementing (we need a cash wipe, but that's not going to happen). Making them account based would mean either throwing out the diminished returns rule or applying that as account-based as well, which may not even be possible with their current architecture. I have 13 heroes on Virtue, e.g., meaning given RL time constraints I could run the same TF with them all as much as I wanted and pool all those merits instantly. Not just no, but HELL no.

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Yes, and we see what booming sucess SWG was eh?

Your entilted to your outlook. And if you want to play that way, fine. I DON'T. And so far, i haven't been required too. The fact i can pool my resorces and to ease the growing pains of the lower levels is very much a REASON i still run lowbie alts, 4 years after the start. If making an alt and progressing him was just as hard, as it was the first few times, on top of the fact that now the content is OLD, seeing as how i've done it, a dozen times, i'd have left LONG ago. And i don't think i'm alone in that respect. This game is SHORT. This game is EASY to level in. This game has NO end game. This games main appeal (imo of course) is the alting. The creation aspect. Making the whole processes harder by limiting your accomplishements, or you reward to ONE hero, IMO will hamper MY desier to replay the games content for the 25th time. You want to go that rounte, the dev team needs to CRANK out some SERIOUS content over the next few issues to keep me intrested in playing ONE of my man alts. Or it's game over for me. This isn't a "threat", nor do i honestly belive they care if little old me leaves there game, but i am telling them what would cause me to leave, and if i had to guess, not just me, but other like me, who enjoy the alting expearince and use the rewards we EARNED from nearly 5 YEARS of loyality or play to help lessen the parts of the game that SUCKED the first time through.

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But the 2 merit Eden trial worries me, as it's an example of a trend.

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It can't possibly be a trend, because they would have had to repeatedly nerf merit awards due to datamined speeds. It's happened at one point in time (one point in time = not a trend) on multiple TFs, and they've said that they want to fix the content but that this was the easier solution if they wanted to get the merit system live.

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Trend may be the wrong word, but it is a harbenger of what may come. It's easier to nerf rewards then it is fixing content. Once other tf's get "gamed" and the Datamining shows siginifent time reductions, they'll NERF it instead of fixing the expolit, if there is one, or reworking there reward payouts.

And the data mining will ALWAYS be scewed once farming sets in. Yeah, Eden and KTF's get farmed... it's obviouse. But when you pool the causal gamers, the majority i'd wager, none of them run edens in 10 mins or KTF's in 15. But, because some RMT people farm them for profit, and throw the dev's numbers off, we get shafted. And it'll happen again to the other tf's as farmer look for greener pastures. And so long as the dev's seem hell bent on stamping out what they can't stamp out, we will contuine to suffer.

See, i'm not worried that the dev's wont montier the situation and make changes... Accually, i'm sure they will. I'm sure that once the gold farmers figure out how to run Dr. Q in under and hour they'll nerf it. I'm worried that once they figure out how run ITF's in under 30 mins they'll nerf it.

My fear is based on the FACT that thanks to the gold farmers and speed TFers an Eden Trial is worth 2 freaking merits. My god, 2 merits... who many times must i run it to even afford a freaking SO. They'er using data mining to detemermen reward rates, and data mining can and IS scewed by farmer and powergamers.

I accually for see merit rewards shrinking in the future. Compounding the problem. Not because they dev's aren't trying, but because they seem hung up on balancing there game around the wrong dimigraphic.

Again. i could be wrong. But the 2 merit Eden trial worries me, as it's an example of a trend. Nerf the reward... not fix the content. Reward the miminum we can to keep the powergamers and farmers from exploiting the system, at the expenice of the casual gamer. That's what i'm afraid of. Only time and I13 will tell if i'm right.