Regarding recent changes

Whelp fresh off test server and I must say, as a 39 AR/Device blaster I am floored by the changes. Though floored doesn't seem to quite cover it, my heart is in my shoes. I didn't ask for my design, I just choose it as is and choose my strategy. IMO you just ask way to much to take a backstep in power as we have with this upcoming nerf. Your mistake, but our consequences. PI hunting is no longer viable at my level. With haste/CD/SGx3 and 3 Good Luck defense tabs, a level 41 group mowed me down 1st volley. I went to bricks, level 38 group (that would be 1 level lower than me) reduced me to half hp by fights end. So I've gone from groups of Level 42-43 to now having to fight criminals 1 level or more below me for worthwhile exp. As 30k debt death a pop isn't worth taking too many risks when exp is coming in at 160 a pop rather the 500-2500 a pop pre patch.

This isn't an argument weather we were over powered or if this is right or wrong so don't go there. It is however one massive pill we've been asked to swallow. I feel as if I am a far above average gamer in the planning/stragity department. I plan my powers and slot allocation through 40 before even entering the character select screen. I know at level 1 exactly what I will have at every given level through 40, but there is no possible way I could have planned for a fundamental change such as this. I am level 1 again, I have to completely relearn how to play my level 39 character. I have to completely rediscover my boundaries on what I can and cannot do. I have to devise new hunting strategy as everything I have learned to this point is no longer relevant to the character I will be inheriting come post patch.

Call me a whiner if you must, but I don't know any other way to clearly state that I detest these changes, to the point of physical pain every time I think about what my character has become. I have invested what is for me a tremendous amount of time into this character. I am paid through September and I will see through these changes until then so I am not quite sure what I'll do. I do know my initial reaction is this level 39 character is not what I signed on for, knowing what I know now I would have invested my time into another class. I do know I don't have it in me to do the grind to level 39 again with the very real possibility that any choices I make now, despite any planning/stragity on my part will be completely useless when yet another change of this magnitude is made to yet another class/power.

I understand your unhappiness, Nagical, but when was the last time the game was actually challenging for you? I play */Devs too and while the bugged SG was extemely useful, it did not make the game more fun. My only complaint is: why did it take this long to fix it. If it's that bugged, it should have been caught in beta, avoiding all this aggravation now.

I am looking forward to the challenge of post SG blasting!

You stated the heart of my concern very well. Why did it take so long to take away if it was so overpowered? At what point does the dev team say, "we dropped the ball" and at this point since it has been in for so long that it is unfair to the players who have invested so much time in that taking it away would be wrong? And maybe find another fix. I have 15 ish characters before my AR/Dev blaster. 1 was level 25...other was 19...several more in the mid to high teens, all before I made my main that is level 39 now. That is a lot of time to go buy to just not discover that something isn't right.
Super Cudo's to the customer service, best in any game I've ever been in...and I go back as far as Never Winter Knights on AOL. But answer me this...at what point does the dev team take responsibility for a mistake and say its been in the game too long to take it away...and come up with an alternate solution so the players don't ultimately pay the price for these errors?

Hey if you have six recharge in it it still is perma.I know with smoke grenade being fixed we would all like to be to put defense buff in it also.But I think they want blasters to be a team AT.

If you want to solo and not die a whole lot make a scrapper.
I dont think they will nerf them in fact they seem very intent on making that the best AT in the game { at least until epic AT comes out}

I think the changes to smoke and some controlers were very good for the game in the long run.

Maxfire lvl 50 fire/energy blaster

Hi Geko,

I am keeping my fingers crossed that you actually read this post and perhaps will even respond to it. I have had City of Heroes since it first hit the shelves back in April 2004. I play mainly on the Guardian server in where I currently have the following characters, a level 40 Illusionist-Kinetics Controller, a level 34 Gravity-Storm controller, a level 32 Assault Rifle-Devices Blaster, a level 27 Mind-Empathy Controller, a level 14 Fire-Stone Tanker, a level 10 Storm-Psionic Defender and last but not least a level 8 Spines-Regen Scrapper. This should somewhat insure that I do indeed know what I am and will be talking about in this reply to your post regarding the game in general.

I want to address the NERF’ing factor first. Instead of Nerf’ing powers, the not so good powers should be immediately fixed. It is a known fact that continually NERF’ing will lead to a games ultimate demise. It certainly did for Star Wars Galaxies and Ever Quest. City of Heroes is an outstanding game, with even greater potential. Many of the power sets need work, they should be balanced not NERF’d to death. For instance take the Mind Controllers power set, no body will play this power set for a few of the powers cause XP loss if used, second there is no Pet as there is for all the other Controller’s. This power set needs immediate attention, its concept is nice but its powers were implemented without good testing. Simply put leave all the powers the way they are and fix the ones that nobody uses. All this crying over Fire Tankers and Assault Rifle Devices blasters is ridiculous. Someone thinks of a good concept and instead of being rewarded for it, they are punished by constant NERF’ing. You need only run a QUE and gather some statistics on what powers are used and what powers are not. The powers that are not used are clearly the ones that need work. The concept that Fire burns and Ice slows makes perfect sense, but almost everyone will go for Fire because it does more damage and the name of the game is XP. You have a select few who stick to character conception and role playing rather than power leveling, so for them the fun of the game in there characters story and creation.

The issue of Endurance for Tanks and Defenders has already been addressed in this upcoming patch. However there are many other powers that need to be balanced not NERF’d. Missions, should award more experience, double what is currently awarded, this may compel some to actually do the story rather than power level. Training enhancers are all but useless after 15th level and a filter should be put in place to prevent them from dropping, duel origin enhancers are useless after 35th level and should also be filtered. Signal origin enhancers should drop more often and should be awarded in Task Force missions more often other than just 1 at the end. All enhancers should be made available in dual origin form at 15h level instead of 25th level. I am currently drafting another post that will directly address what power’s I am referring to. The purpose of this post is to simply let you know its coming and who it’s going to be coming from. Please reconsider going crazy with the NERF’ing and fix the powers that are so badly in need of attention.

Thank you.

But they have been.

You're only talking about Blasters. You were here since Inception, right? Since 'The Jump'? This game started out as 'City of Blasters' because blasters could, and still can, drop mobs in single hits. You slot your powers right, and anything that cons blue is toast in a single expenditure of endurance. Worse still, you get the right set up, and you can floor a pile of mobs all at once... or with a team of blasters, 'On 3' seems to work wonderfully. Boom. No more pack of nazis.

Scrappers have had their powers all crit-added, defenders, tankers, and controllers have had their costs reduced and their archetype benefits enhanced, Stone powers have had their health regen implemented, several fire powers have had their range or radius increased and their recharge times reduced!

You can't look at the shadow and call it night when the morning sun is plain for all to see.

heres one for the griping... being whats done is done, for now... smoke grenades.... yes, i do have a fire/dev blaster, and i love her dearly. yes, i agree to a point that SGs are overkill.... catch - manual explination of SG.. most foes in affected area cant see past MELEE range. if attacked, they see you, but have a penalty to hit. okay, so whats the difference of melee range and ranged? close quarters combat. if i can punch or kick you, then youre in melee range, if i have to launch any type of projectile to bring damage to you, youre in ranged combat. a shooter in a smoke screen will not be able to see his target, unless he's using NVGs (night vision goggles) or heat sensor equipment, which i seriously doubt is in thier carry packs. ive taken my blaster to test, ive used SG there, and even with SG combined with super speed and cloaking dev, i got hit more often with the 3 than i did without. but that was purely fluke. smoke grenade isnt that overpowered, theres just alot of sour -pusses out there that dont like someone being able to solo when they cant. i dont go out looking for a team, i dont really care for it as i have died more often in teams than out of, so theres a sour taste. if you do manage to get a /dev blaster in your group, i would think you would take advantage of his ability to use SGs and employ him/her to do so, dont complain because he has something you dont. heck, i would trade smoke grenades for a flock of fire emps or some other classes pet ability, which blasters dont get. actually, i would trade web grenade for anything at all....

Posted elsewhere, but maybe Geko will glance at it here... Rise of the Phoenix

At the last minute it seems it was changed to not include knockback. This knockback was the only thing it had going for it before, allowing you to push everything over and give you a chance to rebuff. On test it seems it was still working, plus the newest changes to give you some stamina to rebuff with. On live it lost the knockback. What's going on here? I don't recall reading about that in the patch notes? It's less useful than it was before...

Please read Kingrane's post. He said everything that needed to be said.

In all honesty, I was loving the release. I had been respecing my characters that required it to be of more use, my defender and scrappers (and a blaster). So I hadn't actually gotten back to my Device blasters (i've a couple of them).

First, Devices do not enhance damage (remember that the next time you do double damage with build up). Devices are for stealth. All of the stealth is gone from devices. Smoke grenade is just one, but also cloaking. Think about the defense you should have, at range, with smoke screen and cloaking. A group of level 27 mobs didn't seem to mind, my level 29 ar/dev blaster was hit 100% of the time from them, sickening, but I'm only glad they did 50% damage before the shaman locked me in a rock cage (twice).

I had 2 sgs on them, cloaking device, and combat jumping and they still never missed me.

It sounds like complaining and it is, not only is my charater absolutely worthless to play solo, I can still out agro a tank. That makes my character useless in a group as well.

I had heard they were nerfing... that isn't a nerf, that is a tactic employed by developers to get people to stop playing certain skills. period.

It was done in other games in the name of balance, but basically boiled down to "we can drive people away from this skill if we do this, it is much easier than make than balancing many other skills and we have to get a release out fast".

This isn't 2 cents worth of ranting, I wish I could relate how sick I feel now.

THis is Knee-jerk programming at its worse. Yes, make things more difficult, make powers stronger to compensate, but you should never ever nerf a skill just because it's the easy way to get a release done faster.

Took me some time and debt to get used to the new change, but now I whole-heartedly appreciate them. I am an AR/DEV blaster, and I just hit 33. I now have SG 3 SO'd, up from 2. I took cloaking device for the purpose of trip mining, and in anticipation of them fixing SG. I think "fixing" is the proper term. Now, I have to use Cloaking Device, Combat Jumping and SG, but it does what I need it to do - mitigate some of the initial aggro I draw from my initial attack. I still get hit, often hard, but I feel fairly stable, or at least like I am actually present in the same plane of existence as the mobs. I can take +2 mobs, but I have to stay on my toes, use tactics, use insps (they used to stay in my tray forever). The game isnt just "harder" now, it's more challenging, and immensely more satisfying. I hope I am seeing the devs initial vision for what playing with a blaster was supposed to be. Before I could solo red con minions with purple con bosses. Not now, and that's fine. Balance has been restored.

I think the biggest specific complaints stem from two issues:

1. SG, obviously - I think the update just made it so you have to slot it to make it more like it was before. Before the update, you could just use the 1 slot it came with, and you were nearly untouchable. It's still incredibly useful, it just doesnt grant godhood for simply selecting it.

2. Debt - I think too many people just turn off the game and slam the forums when they rack up 20k debt. After the patch, I hit my cap (129k) between the aura missions and the respec trial. Took me two sittings of like 4 hours to work it off. I dont think people should complain about debt unless they hit the cap and then spend the requisite amount of time, and still cant get out. If you play to have fun, get on a team and go hunting. The debt will go away without you even realizing. I was having a blast with my friends, and suddenly I could see the light at the end.

At least as far as my AR/DEV blaster goes, I am loving the changes.

Did I mention dying or debt? no.

Look, smoke grenade was a power that was relied on, because is "was" a power. don't you get it. it would be like the designers of the game making build-up only work on powers that do "minimal" damage, because you should be able to do extreme damage with your other powers, build up is just to improve the low level powers. What kind of outcry would there be for that. What kind of new tactics would you suggest tot he fire fire blasters? oh, go on you can use your inspirations, provided you don't have something queued or are held because the mobs that used to be dead are now 50% and ticked.

It doesn't seem to set in, this is the first time the developers actually made an entire power set worthless. And there's nothing we can do about it but "make a new character".

What kind of brainchild would say that... make a new character. I've got plenty, and I have some that are level 29+, you don't just "make a new level 29 character", especially since your charater had to have tactics to begin with, tactics meant to provide output for effort. SG didn't mean invulnerable, but it meant a blaster could survive the initial volley, and perhaps an encounter.

"Change your tactics". I love that. Yeah, aparently people didn't realize that stealth does mean that "you do not get hit". The devices blasters have no defenses (except stealth and sg). that IS the tactic, that IS the defense, and now it's gone.

Respec? we should be able to respec and choose a different power set, one with buildup, but then... there will be no devices on the server anymore.

I wrote this on another thread but I feel it would be well suited for this one as well:

Greetings,

The one thing I could always say about COH was (and I've been playing since beta) they have never NERF-ed skills, they always found ways to improve the game.

Nerfing is Lax and Lazy programming. If you want balance, make powers stronger to rival the ability of the stronger powers, never, under any circumstances make a power weaker, regardless of the excuse.

There is no 1 single power in the game that is so strong as to make a person immune to death (some come close, but you still have limits).

Nerfing is the Number 1 killer of games. The reason is because the programmers become Lazy... Let's reduce this power rather than making these other (20) powers stronger for balancing purposes.

You see the dilema, the problem is, now with the nerf they have actually rendered an entire power set unusable (remove the powers and the rest follow).

If we accept the nerf as good because it balances powers, we now open all of our powers to that. NO, stop the lazy programming, find ways to improve the powers, never reduce them.

You talk about tactics. That is what our powers allow us to create, a working tactic, and if you allow a working tactic to be removed, you have effectively destroyed that character.

If you condone this, then you have signed a death sentence of this game.

Um...I wasnt singling out 'Valkyrian' when I mentioned the thing about debt. I was simply making a general statement, as I have read numerous posts from people who have 20k debt and are whining to high heaven. I would have been one of them, too, had I not first made an attempt to see just how bad it was. I was at debt cap, but I just teamed with my buds, got used to playing under these new conditions, and I worked my debt off rather quickly.

My experiences with my blaster just seem to disagree with yours. True, SG didnt always make me totally immune - I died a number of times - but, from the moment I simply took the power, I was able to solo large red con mobs with purple con bosses recklessly. If I died, it was usually because I didnt take out the boss fast enough, or I just did something dumb. I could solo most anything I had the damage output to kill in a reasonable amount of time. The thing is that before, even though I had tripmine, I didnt really need to use it. It was just a way to mix up attacks. I could mindlessly run up to a mob, SG, caltrop, flamethrow, buckshot, cleanup, move on. Now, placing mines before the fight is more essential to success. I never had to use combat jumping before. Now, it's a regular toggle. The only time I had to use insps was if I ran out of end in a tough battle, or if I just felt like getting rid of the old to see what they would give me new. Now, yet another part of the game that was more window dressing before becomes essential to gameplay.

I suppose I agree with your fictional scenario of Buildup - that would suck. But I really dont think these changes are on par with that. I think a more accurate scenario would be like if there was some attack that was doing the equivalent of 6 SO damage the minute you get it, and they fixed it. It could still be as effective, but you would actually have to slot it. I think that saying DEV defenses are now "gone" is a tad extreme. The third SO I just put in SG is helping alot for me to take out +2 minion mobs now. If I did the math properly, 6 SO'd SG will give about 39% debuff. Not 50%, but pretty close. The def is still there, just now you have to actually work for it.

I'd submit to you that, if you were aced by a blue con mob, either you need some adjustments to your build, or there's another element not being addressed (bosses, snipers, etc). I've been killed a few times since the update, thinking it was some magic shot or perhaps the nerf, only to check the damage messages to see I was tagged by a sniper I didnt see before engaging a mob. Are all your attacks and defs SO'd?

Greetings praeter,

As it is, I did not build my device blaster correctly. you see, my SG has 1 slot and that slot is "accuracy buff".

With this particular setup, I could never take out groups of +2 mobs, and would be capped rather handily by a purple. I learned early on that I didn't want to do that with this power.

But I didn't know that if you put 6 SO debuff slots in it, you were immune to damage. Excuse me for NOT taking full advantage of a bug.

My outrage is based upon my use, or rather, lack of use, of the skill.

Everything else is fine with the offense, and other skills, and yes, I place trip mines... cals, ft a group to dot, then drag them back with me to the mines. That was my tactic that was only effective against Same level mobs.

So, in my opinion, in my version of my character that I'd played, I have no defense (btw, that was with cloak on and combat jumping), especially when getting hit 100% of the time.

That is why I view this as a break.

I guess that Invincibility will be the next one that will be nerfed then. I say this because the very moment I got the skill, with absolutely no enhancments in it I solod 2 red lieutenants without getting a hurt.

The unfortunate precedent set forth by "nerfing" super power is that they're supposed to be super, they are defined as super, they aren't called "mediocre" powers. You don't create "Balanced" Man and the "Average" group.

Super implies "useful", from the get go without enhancement.

A super power should not "have to be slotted" to be super.

Does super speed crawl and require 6-slotted speed SOs to run fast? no, because it is a super power.

By default, you should never be forced to enhance a skill in order for that skill to be effective. If it is ineffective without enhancement... That is what i view as being a broken skill.

of course, this is my opinion

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I am another gamer that definatly doesn't like the latest changes. Last night and today I played my Gravity/Kinetics Controller and must say most of the fun has gone out of this charactor for me. ALL of my powers require me to hit a target to work. I spent every influence point I had to buy 6 Accuracy enhancements and people were still dieing too often in my group because I was regularly missing targets with my heals and buffs.
It seems to me that all other healers that I can think of do not have to hit an enemy to heal thier group so kinetics was the only group effected in this way. Was it really nessesary to nerf a heal that missed regularly even before the patch? I use 80% of my slots for Accuracy enhancements just to not feel usless in groups.
Most types of powers have passive and self affecting powers that were not affected by the patch, For example my Scrapper misses his punches more often yet his Invulnerability powers are just as effective as ever. Gravity/Kinetics players seem to have gotten a raw deal as 95% of both power sets are affected.

Also one of the things I liked very much about this game was that players several levels apart could still group together and be effective. Now if you are 3 levels above the rest of the group you are carrying it and if you are 3 levels below the rest of the group you are close to useless.

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This was the most annoying patch yet.. in fact I quit because of it this morning.. check out my post "why I am going to quit CoH"

Can't group, can't XP, no content, Beta Game.. not going to pay for it.

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Posts like "Why I am going to quite Coh" are usually deleted because it brings up flames. Besides there's no reason for you to explain why to us the Coh gamers, just leave and move on with your life.

SG got nerfed because it let you buff it all the way up to 100 percent Debuff, making sure that even an even con boss would have something like a -12 percent chance to hit you. I believe the streakbreaker code still allows them to hit you, but at a low level.

Now, the reason it was so broken was because it was a massive, massive advantage to the Blasters. Yeah, it sucks, they took it away. It'd be like taking away the ability to use Teleport to move around while in Unyielding Stance. That is -the best- tanker build right now because of that loophole.

I don't use it though! It's cheating and dirty. Just because I -can- do it doesn't mean I should. I don't blame you or anyone for using the Smoke Grenade, but it's not like you're a tanker. Blasters traded all their defense for the ability to utterly obliterate squads of men at once.

I'm a level 27 Invul/EM tanker usually, and it takes me a combo of my three best attacks to kill a gray [VVV] con! If I could kill a blue in one hit I'd be happy. If I could kill a whole pack of blues, I'd be ecstatic. If you want MY level of offense, as well as my lack of range (NPC ranged attacks do a lot less damage than melee), then I'd say that you deserve all the defense in the world.

I don't think the AT's are balanced that great. I think Tankers need more O, less D. Their different powers sets, and their massive advantages should set them apart, not their critical, crippling weaknesses.

And I also think Invincibility needs work. It is broken. But if you want to touch it, you need to agree to give me mobile status resistance that doesn't kill me or something. If I am no longer going to be invincible, I need to at least be able to move without being put to sleep and killed.

I'm time pressed or this would be alot longer...
I've read the last page or two of postings and i'd like to throw in my pennies...

Tankers do need more offense and less defense. If youre going to cap their Defense and reduce it so that they're taking some damage, you really should open up their offense a little so they can contribute more.

Regarding the Tanker/Scrapper invunerability issue, perhaps it might be fair to reduce scrapper invulnerabilty by a percentage, similiar to the way controller buffs are reduced in comparison to defender buffs? I think the devs are aware of this and tinkering with it, as Super Strength Tankers seem to be rejoicing with issue two.

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Some one mentioned that the Device pool didn't have Build up to make it an uber power pool for alpha strikes.

Thats true and not true. They do have targeting drone, which if slotted to always be running, provides all the accuracy they need to slot powers with all damage. (+33% damage for the SO replacing accuracy). The accuracy is present all the time, as is the slotted damage, it doesn't run out after the alpha strike, or need to be recycled to to use again like BU.

The sets with BU are missing alot of useful stuff for a blaster. Out of Nine powers, you're lucky if you can find three or four that you want. SG, is still a good power, if you're willing to go the long route and forgo mass AOE attacks, you can still single shot and not cause agro. (Sorta like the controllers version of sleep, except once the fighting starts you cant sleep them again.) If you look at the power, it's a secondary power, in a damage oriented AT. You get it in the teens which in the picture is pretty early. It's power level is about where it should be (now), for a power like that. Its not your final level 40 power, it's not suppose to be uber, get over it.

There are alot of blasters that survive with out SG. Learn and adapt.

Must dash to work, i'm ranting longer than i meant to already

Milk and Cream,
Kitten

Hey geko, if you're going to nerf, why not do it in comic book style? Have some cosmic entities appear on the training server, challenge all the heroes to defeat them at a pre-appointed time before the nerf patch, and if we actually manage to beat the incarnated devas, the nerfs are delayed going live for a little while longer. If the devs or his heralds win, then the nerfs go through and change the universe as we know it. Of course, the odds of victory will be very small, but at least it gives us a way to fight the changes in-game. Just a weird idea...

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So, with that said, let me give you my 10 Commandments of Geko:

*I will do my best to continue to make this game fun.
*I will not intentionally stealth nerf.
*I will not reduce Accuracy.


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Well, you have broken all 3 of these commandments so far. In the latest patch, accuracy was nerfed (or mob defense was raised, the same thing.) breaking your "no nerfing accuracy" commandment. This was also not listed anywhere in th patch notes, breaking your "no stealth nerfs" commandment, and the game has become totally frustraiting at the high levels as every boss I have encountered there has been able to stun and kill me without allowing me any ability to fight back.

This game has become a miserable waste of time at the high levels, and I really hope that the devs take a look at the very real problems with rampant holding and other status effects being used by bosses.

Way to break 3 of your own rules Gekko, with devs like you, this game is as good as dead come WOW.

Oh, and this game used to be FUN, before I hit level 40 and realised all my missions are no longer soloable. I don't want a game with the BS 100% forced grouping of everquest.

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Well, you have broken all 3 of these commandments so far. In the latest patch, accuracy was nerfed (or mob defense was raised, the same thing.) breaking your "no nerfing accuracy" commandment. This was also not listed anywhere in th patch notes, breaking your "no stealth nerfs" commandment, and the game has become totally frustraiting at the high levels as every boss I have encountered there has been able to stun and kill me without allowing me any ability to fight back.

This game has become a miserable waste of time at the high levels, and I really hope that the devs take a look at the very real problems with rampant holding and other status effects being used by bosses.

Way to break 3 of your own rules Gekko, with devs like you, this game is as good as dead come WOW.

Oh, and this game used to be FUN, before I hit level 40 and realised all my missions are no longer soloable. I don't want a game with the BS 100% forced grouping of everquest.

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Let me give you the 10 Commandments of Napier:
* Don't tell us you're leaving for WoW. Just go play WoW if you want to.
* Don't insult the devs personally. It makes you look like a petulant child.
* Don't claim that accuracy has changed without LOADS of proof to back it up.
* Don't complain that you can't solo bosses with stuns or holds. This has been explained in about forty or fifty other threads. Play a character with status protections, use inspirations, find a friend who can buff you with status protection, avoid those bosses, or figure out a different strategy for them.
* Do read some other threads before you just start posting crazy nonsense.
* Do go wash Geko's car.
* Don't exaggerate so much. There are plenty of soloable missions post 40. There was no 100% forced grouping in Everquest, nor is there here.
* Do thank the devs for actually making some of the post 40 missions interesting, instead of the same boring soloable ones we had for the first 30 levels.
* Do learn to spell words like "frustrating" "Geko" and "Alchemist".
* Don't take anything I say too seriously.

Napier,

Thats got to be one of the best responses I've seen in a while. I may well take a few qoutes from it. Thanks.

edited since I realised that I misread the change to mission XP.

The game is no longer fun.

There are too many bugs and changes that lessen the enjoyment of the game.

There are too many ways of dying a lame death or to put it another way there are too many situation where you will just walk in and die.

Such as:

1) Chain Mez: I don't think that a torture could have been devised that is worse. Watching your hero getting killed slowly while you can not do anything to stop it.

2) Sleep bug: As of last patch, this is back. Even the heros that were safe from the chain mez are no longer safe. I think this is a new stun power the villian have that ignores mez defense and not the old sleep bug.

3) Endurance is running out faster. Most players are use to be able to preform a certain amount of attacks without running out of endurance and dying. This is not fun in that heros are running of edurance during typical battle situtation that the game sets-up. Having to face more villians at once does not help either.

4) Random damage increase. This started with Ritki Swords, there are now a number of villian that are doing crazy damage. I don't think that con yellow minion type villians were ment to 2 shot heros and getting killed in this way is not fun.

5) Extreme Running: The AI on running villian is way too good. Also the willingness of villian to run seems to have increase. I don't know what is worse, dying by argo another group while chasing (the villians are running to other group of villians) or dying by a villian(s) that decides to attack after you ignore him running away (I do relized that, most of the time, this is trigger by injuring the villian). Either way, the stop and go chases or the sit and wait are not fun.

6) Lag deaths are always a lame way to die. This game has gotten more laggy and had more crashes after issuse 2. This seems to be with less players. No being able to play the game is the fastest way to drive away constomers.

7) Events are not fun. Making overpowered villian that stand around and blowing heros away is not fun and not very creative either. If the Holloween events suck or are not accessable, expect that a number player will be upset.

8) The hollows. Nothing about the hollows is fun.

9) Missions have a ton of bugs since issue 2. Seem to get bugger each patch.

When the game was released a few months ago, it was a lag free fun game (I do remember the occassional crash). I played a variety of different ATs. I loved the game.

After issue 2, this game has gone steadilly down hill. The only AT that I will play is a scrapper after last night, I am not sure I want play a scrapper any more. I feel that I am logging on in vain hoping that the game is less buggy only to find it is more buggy.

The irony does not escape me that another game is coming out soon. Is COH is being hacked? I can't figure why a company would purposely turn a great game into an abosolute piece of <censor!>.

Geko. Good work.

I pay because you do a good job.

Keep it up.

Change is constant. It may be rough sometimes, and it may be smooth other times, but the only constant is change.

I understand that sometimes when things change, it may effect my game style, power, or playing for some time, and it may make me have to change my tactics so to speak, but thats all part of a game. You will have this no matter what game arena you enter. Think about EQ (as painful as it is to do so) in the respect that, when it first came out, rogues and rangers were useless and noone wanted to play one. After so long now, rogues especially, are insane damage dealers, and everyone screams nerf.

Point being, blasters were the FOTM, scrappers are as well, controllers after they get pets at 32, fire tankers, the list goes on. Constant tweaking is the only way to find the correct path to any sort of balance, and sometimes just putting something on the test server for a while doesn't cut it, because until it is released as content for the whole with everyone running through every possible variable, it can never be completely tested. Heck, there may be things out there that we still have not discovered.

I will continue to play, and if it gets rough as I level, which I am sure it will, I will still play. If a AV chain stuns/holds/sleeps me, I will find a new path to defeat him/her/it. That is the fun in gaming for me, bring me a challenge and I will defeat it, regardless of how impossible it may seem, and I hope this holds true for the rest of the heroes out there.