[ QUOTE ]
The gold farmers don't make the money. Their employer does.
[/ QUOTE ]
half truth, there are some who will work for free as long as they have a place to stay, others who typically get paid make $40-$200 a month, and that's working 12 hour shifts w/ little breaks.
Guh. No, I'm simply telling you that they are fixing an oversight: certain TFs should not be exploitable like they are now. What you were doing was, in fact, grinding for what you want, using publicly acknowledged loopholes to put yourself at a performance level that you think is correct, but is ultimately well beyond necessary by developer measurements. There's actually nothing wrong with that.
However, you did say "a few decent recipes a year."
[ QUOTE ]
so far about 4 full sets of Numina, 2 purple sets, just about every proc I want on every toon, et. I do quite well - I am not crawling in wealth like the farmers but I am ok.
[/ QUOTE ]
is what I'd consider more than a few decent recipes. That's actually really good by most players' standards.
So if you want to complain that you won't be able completely deck out characters the way you want as quickly as you are now...maybe. If you don't adapt, in any case. There is currently the potential that other exploits will be found, despite the Dev's best efforts.
You're also exaggerating. It wouldn't be "down to nothing." As I said, investing that same amount of time, you'd end up with "a few decent recipes a year," as in a few really good rares. So no, I'm not wrong. Your measuring stick is simply not accounting for what should be "rare" and "ultra rare." You simply want it and want it now.
Now, you'd have an argument if the Devs were simultaneously lowering PC abilities across the board, ultimately making this game more difficult and unenjoyable for the broad player base. You may even have something, if you're referring directly to PvP's player base (as in PvP on Live, not the new PvP). However, they are most definitely not "giving less and charging more" when it comes to the majority of players--ones that end up with far less than your "few decent recipes a year." In fact, it's giving them a means to earn them over a long period of time where they didn't have an option before. At this point, it actually helps casual players while only placing a small, and seemingly not insurmountable obstacle to those who are gaming the system.
So really, I think your perspective is rather skewed and full of hyperbole. Furthermore, you're assuming that the Devs aren't willing to adjust the variables of a variable system (Merits) if they see a problem when the issue hits Live.
[ QUOTE ]
So really, I think your perspective is rather skewed and full of hyperbole. Furthermore, you're assuming that the Devs aren't willing to adjust the variables of a variable system (Merits) if they see a problem when the issue hits Live.
[/ QUOTE ]
Getting 2 sets of purples and a few nice IO's in an entire year of playing time is not "wanting it all now" and I resent your pedantic snotty stance and your killjoy conservative gaming outlook.
Maybe you love sludge and drudge and gaming to be a painful slow and steady but I for one LOVED doing fast Katie's and Edens and Caps even when I got nothing for them. And hitting the lotto with them was fantastic.
It was one of the funnest things I have ever done in any online game. I am saddened that the glum conservative "grind it out... make them pay" mentality of gamer has won the day.
In any case, I have said my piece, canceled my subscription and made other plans for my indoor time in December. I will check back in January to see if everyone has come to their senses or if I am gone for good.
4 full sets of Numina ?
I dont even have 1 set...
Yep thats mutliple of the Highest end recipes going. Not a few decent IOs.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
[ QUOTE ]
In any case, I have said my piece, canceled my subscription and made other plans for my indoor time in December. I will check back in January to see if everyone has come to their senses or if I am gone for good.
[/ QUOTE ]
Buh bye! And for the record....my senses are just fine thank you. 
No offense ,Toonie but you are hardly in a position to type about most of the complaints aired here. When you can pvp and farm expediently please do address comments made by more proficient players. When you have played the test version of issue13 and have something of import to add please do post.I am really not surprised to see you throwing in your uninformed " oooo Im a helpless girl that need a sugar daddy" 2 enfamy//influence. Please be constructive or be quiet.
P.S. I dont question your 5 senses. I question your lack of common sense. Sorry. 
The person I was responding to was trying to connect their practices, at least indirectly, to the experience of the average or casual player. Their experience is their experience, and while it's sad that they won't be able to do what they've done in the past, trying to say "getting all the IOs that I want within a year" is the average experience, and what's more, saying that the average experience will suffer due to Merits when the system can actually help the majority of players (who don't run Katies regular times a week), is misguided.
They are allowed to say that their experience is messed up. Implying that everyone's experience will be messed up by assuming everyone does what they do is highly misleading, and steeped in non-fact.
Again, I cannot state emphatically enough that I don't think the Merit system values are perfect--the Devs acknowledge that fully--but the underlying system is actually beneficial to the game as a whole, so long as the Devs do what they said they will, and keep working on data mining and adjusting values. And at this point, I see no reason to think they will break this promise.
[ QUOTE ]
I'm not trolling, I am very upset that I have been pushed out of the game. I really loved it. - I loved doing Katies and other short taskforces and squeaking out just enough money to get like 1 purple set every 3 months or so,
[/ QUOTE ]
The thing that it took me a little while to "get" is that the IO system has always been about the grind. It's a time-sink. You ran stuff, maybe you got what you wanted, maybe you didn't, you ran more stuff. When you say that you collected enough money to get a purple set every 3 months, that just demonstrates that the game was already encouraging you to grind.
It doesn't matter if you play for 30 minutes at a time or 3 hours at a time. If the only way to get stuff is to play more, you're grinding for loot. All I13 does is take off the veneer that let us think we were doing anything other than grind. Once I understood that, and the next point I'm going to make, I was basically okay with the new system.
[ QUOTE ]
Now there is nothing I can do unless I want to stay logged on for 3 or 4 hour spurts and I simply cannot do that.
[/ QUOTE ]
Verifiably not true. There are missions you can flash back and earn better than a merit every 5 minutes, solo. You don't have to put together a team, even. The 40 minutes it took the team I was on to do Katie today would have been enough time for my villain to earn 10 or 11 merits thru Ouroboros.
Doing that is no more or less of a grind than logging in and doing a TF you've done 100 times before, either. Yes, it's slower than getting a rare drop now is, thru Katie/Cap/Eden. I'm okay with that, because it's become clear to me that those are SO different from most of the other content in the game that they make for really bad comparators.
What I hear you saying are the same things I said when I first saw the merit system and first realized the effect it was going to have on my (relatively casual, time-wise) playstyle. I've since played with the system fairly extensively on Test and decided that while it will represent a change, it's a change that I can live with, and there are plenty of ways to still get the rewards I want.
Best of luck with whatever game you choose.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
And to you Ditzy Blonde, whatever! I was merely adding my goodbye to someone making their "I'm quitting" speech once again. Your common sense is questionable however, since you know NOTHING about me and what I am informed on or what I do! How would you know whether I can farm or not? Or if I even WANT to farm. Personally, I don't because it is boring. As for PvP I say very little because I choose not to PvP but it certainly does not make me anymore "right" than those who do. And where do you get off claiming I even once posted a "ooooo I'm a helpless girl that need a sugar daddy" post? I ask nothing of you or anyone. You call me uninformed? I wonder where you got your information on that one? And just a little FYI.....I have played issue 13 on test. Funny that you are so "informed" about me that you did not know that. So in your own words.....be constructive or be quiet. Your post added nothing in that regards whatsoever.
Is it still safe to lolz dark armor? Because that's really as hardcore as it gets.
Infinity and Victory mostly
dUmb, etc.
lolz PvP anymore, Market PvP for fun and profit
Snippet:
[ QUOTE ]
Maybe you love sludge and drudge and gaming to be a painful slow and steady but I for one LOVED doing fast Katie's and Edens and Caps even when I got nothing for them. And hitting the lotto with them was fantastic.
--
It was one of the funnest things I have ever done in any online game. I am saddened that the glum conservative "grind it out... make them pay" mentality of gamer has won the day.
[/ QUOTE ]
Right... So, perhaps I am missing something here... recieving intanglible rewards that are, essentially, a luxury item is more entertaining to you than actually, I don't know, playing the game?
The game is a game! It is its own reward. If people need to earn some mystical intangible in-game object to have fun, then (IMO), you are doing something seriously wrong.
It is this exact type of conclusion that has caused me to (almost) ignore the doom sayers. I started playing this game because it looked fun to make superheroes, and interact with others who like comic lore. Even if every IO in the game were to be deleted tomorrow, I would still turn on the game and play. Fun (to me) is not nor will it ever be a direct function of what I "earn" in the pretendy fun-time game. This point of view is tantamount to only playing Monopoly so that you can hold the pieces of cardboard, and owing nothing to the personal interaction and pure fun of playing a somewhat silly make-believe game.
(Call me a "Yes Man" or a "Dev Lover" if you want... but I am not here for invisible prizes... just invisible fun from a game.)
Can you post some scheduled Zone PVP times, broadcast in Admin on each live server prior to those times that there will be PvP testing on test, and then use admin to encourage players to register forum accounts and leave their feedback?
Or maybe just do some kind of poll in the launcher about the changes? It'd be good to get more info in open beta from the large swaths of players who don't forum-browse. Just a thought!
Wow, that is a pretty decent idea. I could curse him for bringing logic to the internets but, alas, I shall not. 
Ok everyone, come back with me.... all the way back to issue 8. There's no such things as IOs. The best enhacements in the game are SOs and the occasional HO (Hami) and omg, anyone remember CTOs?.
To summarize any 'nerfing' of the IO system with merits - I wouldn't even care if they did away with the whole Invention System - say Dr. Brainstorm's equipment was stolen by Rularuu the Ravager and we all have to do the Cathedral of Pain trial to get it back.
Essentially they are making something harder that didn't even exist until a few short issues ago. Most of my characters never touch IOs and stick with good ol' predictable cheap SOs so what the merit system means to me? Nothing absolutely nothing.
Does anyone remember why you would do a Katie Hannon TF before issue 9? Umm....: Badge for an accolade, fast xp from lvls 30-34, achievement badges for cabal and red caps for an accolade, and most of all [u]for fun.[u]
As for PvP, now maybe you have to TRY to win. Stalkers, TP foe, pocket emps and sonics, Energy Melee/anything, and previous 'i win' powers and powersets now have to use strategy and perhaps put forth some kind of effort to defeat people in PvP instead of mashing a total of 3 buttons.
For all you dramatic whiners out there canceling accounts, all you're saying is "now that the game isn't as unintentionally easy for me to win anymore, i'm going to quit" and "now that the game is how it was supposed to be, i'm going to quit". To those people I say, good bye and good luck - less lag for me. Maybe if you squint at whatever game you're changing to it might give you the illusion that that game has as much detail as this game you left without reason.
AMD Phenom 9950 BE @ 2.6GHz
8GB DDR2 800Mhz
1TB Seagate SATA 3.0Gbps
ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB DDR5
Vista Home Premium SP2 64-bit
[ QUOTE ]
Can you post some scheduled Zone PVP times, broadcast in Admin on each live server prior to those times that there will be PvP testing on test, and then use admin to encourage players to register forum accounts and leave their feedback?
Or maybe just do some kind of poll in the launcher about the changes? It'd be good to get more info in open beta from the large swaths of players who don't forum-browse. Just a thought!
[/ QUOTE ]
Great idea!! I hope this idea doesnt get lost in the shuffle
I have reserved my comments on I-13, There are plenty of changes I don't like, there are some I do and some I just think WTH.
I understand NCSoft/COx is a business, and that change is what is needed to keep the game competive with the new up and commers. I would ask all sides to think about these things when they respond and read these boards.
On a whole we the player base have responded and reported what things we would like to see and sometimes we feel more often then not that we are ignored. Other times it seems you realize we have been asking for something and that you decide yea, we should do that to appease your costumers.
Without costumers, it doesn't matter how great the game is it will fold. Without the game their would be no costumers, the two do go hand in hand.
I have concerns dealing with: Bases, the merit system and to a point even PVP. Thats over half the new changes being addressed. New powersets are nice, the new icon pieces are nice and I love em. Mission changes and additional content is ok.
Please review the things some of us are saying, the bug reports and findings sent and posted. I enjoy this game but as my friends leave and the new player base changes I find myself wondering the real future of this game I enjoy.
Valor
Quote:
|
by Star Ranger 4 WIN LOSE OR DRAW, WE WILL FIGHT. WE ARE HEROES This is what we DO! |
Decide that this will be another day in which you Walk The Talk.
MA #14724 Operation: Discredit @American Valor
Sentinel Of Liberty SG
[ QUOTE ]
Ok everyone, come back with me.... all the way back to issue 8. There's no such things as IOs. The best enhacements in the game are SOs and the occasional HO (Hami) and omg, anyone remember CTOs?.
To summarize any 'nerfing' of the IO system with merits - I wouldn't even care if they did away with the whole Invention System - say Dr. Brainstorm's equipment was stolen by Rularuu the Ravager and we all have to do the Cathedral of Pain trial to get it back.
Essentially they are making something harder that didn't even exist until a few short issues ago. Most of my characters never touch IOs and stick with good ol' predictable cheap SOs so what the merit system means to me? Nothing absolutely nothing.
Does anyone remember why you would do a Katie Hannon TF before issue 9? Umm....: Badge for an accolade, fast xp from lvls 30-34, achievement badges for cabal and red caps for an accolade, and most of all [u]for fun.[u]
As for PvP, now maybe you have to TRY to win. Stalkers, TP foe, pocket emps and sonics, Energy Melee/anything, and previous 'i win' powers and powersets now have to use strategy and perhaps put forth some kind of effort to defeat people in PvP instead of mashing a total of 3 buttons.
For all you dramatic whiners out there canceling accounts, all you're saying is "now that the game isn't as unintentionally easy for me to win anymore, i'm going to quit" and "now that the game is how it was supposed to be, i'm going to quit". To those people I say, good bye and good luck - less lag for me. Maybe if you squint at whatever game you're changing to it might give you the illusion that that game has as much detail as this game you left without reason.
[/ QUOTE ]
As a matter of fact just take all the updates away... wipe the slate clean and don't try to make the game better at all. Or even better, NERF all powers by at least 50% - that way everyone but the mostly manly of men will quit.
They you can wave your little unit around and brag about how you can play in even the must miserable setting all alone, and how it's better that way and you still love CoH!
Now that we've "summarized" what would make you happy...
Can we find a single argument here that doesn't involve sticking our heads in the sand and accusing any rational dissenter of being a whiner?
I mean really I am starting to suspect that the developers just salt these forums with their close friends or maybe even post as random customers. There are so many suck ups and "yes yes yes" people here that I begin to wonder if ANYONE has noticed that this is the only superhero MMO on the market at a time in history when the most successful entertainment medium is "superheroes" and it has been consistently shedding customers and suffering population declines for months and months on end.
Meanwhile a game like WoW which exists in a saturated market and has terribly outdated graphics and a crumbling infrastructure is pulling in MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of subscribers simply by listening to customer demands and giving them some or not most of what they ask for.
Is it too hard to ask anyone to understand that the "punishment" mentality of game development does not gain customers, it loses them?
Can you just suck on that lifesaver for a second and let the flavor register before you go on another pointless posturing lecture about how making a game harder is always the better choice?
[ QUOTE ]
I mean really I am starting to suspect that the developers just salt these forums with their close friends or maybe even post as random customers.
[/ QUOTE ]
If you really think that, you're a paranoid git.
[ QUOTE ]
Meanwhile a game like WoW which exists in a saturated market and has terribly outdated graphics and a crumbling infrastructure is pulling in MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of subscribers simply by listening to customer demands and giving them some or not most of what they ask for.
[/ QUOTE ]
So does that mean you support grinding?
Look, I don't know how many times I've said it now, but Yes, there are problems with this game! Throwing tantrums and insults, then quitting isn't going to make it better. So, either you love the game enough to stick around and give proper feedback in a calm, collected manner, working with the community as a whole, or you unsubscribe and save yourself the stress of reading people's replies that happen to disagree with you.
I13 is a largely foundational system change. The fundamentally important thing is to make sure these founding systems work and are flexible and expandable enough to support future changes and additions. Merit and PvP tweaking can come over time and are not set in stone.
You don't like it, we get it.
If your looking for an angry mob to follow you out the door, it looks like this ain't your crowd.
Taking It On the Chin I-16 Tanker Guide
Repeat Offenders
[ QUOTE ]
Can we find a single argument here that doesn't involve sticking our heads in the sand and accusing any rational dissenter of being a whiner?
[/ QUOTE ]
Can you just ignore them when they're presented?
Oh, wait. You've already demonstrated that you can.
[ QUOTE ]
I mean really I am starting to suspect that the developers just salt these forums with their close friends or maybe even post as random customers. There are so many suck ups and "yes yes yes" people here
[/ QUOTE ]
Go ahead and leave already. Your drameh is not needed. You're not saying anything anyone hasn't already said. I tried being nice about it and offered common ground, but you are clearly not LOOKING FOR common ground, or kindness. You just want to be angry. Fine.
So leave. I'd tell you not to let the door hit you, but to be honest? I think it'd do you some good.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Ok everyone, come back with me.... all the way back to issue 8. There's no such things as IOs. The best enhacements in the game are SOs and the occasional HO (Hami) and omg, anyone remember CTOs?.
To summarize any 'nerfing' of the IO system with merits - I wouldn't even care if they did away with the whole Invention System - say Dr. Brainstorm's equipment was stolen by Rularuu the Ravager and we all have to do the Cathedral of Pain trial to get it back.
Essentially they are making something harder that didn't even exist until a few short issues ago. Most of my characters never touch IOs and stick with good ol' predictable cheap SOs so what the merit system means to me? Nothing absolutely nothing.
Does anyone remember why you would do a Katie Hannon TF before issue 9? Umm....: Badge for an accolade, fast xp from lvls 30-34, achievement badges for cabal and red caps for an accolade, and most of all [u]for fun.[u]
As for PvP, now maybe you have to TRY to win. Stalkers, TP foe, pocket emps and sonics, Energy Melee/anything, and previous 'i win' powers and powersets now have to use strategy and perhaps put forth some kind of effort to defeat people in PvP instead of mashing a total of 3 buttons.
For all you dramatic whiners out there canceling accounts, all you're saying is "now that the game isn't as unintentionally easy for me to win anymore, i'm going to quit" and "now that the game is how it was supposed to be, i'm going to quit". To those people I say, good bye and good luck - less lag for me. Maybe if you squint at whatever game you're changing to it might give you the illusion that that game has as much detail as this game you left without reason.
[/ QUOTE ]
As a matter of fact just take all the updates away... wipe the slate clean and don't try to make the game better at all. Or even better, NERF all powers by at least 50% - that way everyone but the mostly manly of men will quit.
They you can wave your little unit around and brag about how you can play in even the must miserable setting all alone, and how it's better that way and you still love CoH!
Now that we've "summarized" what would make you happy...
Can we find a single argument here that doesn't involve sticking our heads in the sand and accusing any rational dissenter of being a whiner?
I mean really I am starting to suspect that the developers just salt these forums with their close friends or maybe even post as random customers. There are so many suck ups and "yes yes yes" people here that I begin to wonder if ANYONE has noticed that this is the only superhero MMO on the market at a time in history when the most successful entertainment medium is "superheroes" and it has been consistently shedding customers and suffering population declines for months and months on end.
Meanwhile a game like WoW which exists in a saturated market and has terribly outdated graphics and a crumbling infrastructure is pulling in MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of subscribers simply by listening to customer demands and giving them some or not most of what they ask for.
Is it too hard to ask anyone to understand that the "punishment" mentality of game development does not gain customers, it loses them?
Can you just suck on that lifesaver for a second and let the flavor register before you go on another pointless posturing lecture about how making a game harder is always the better choice?
[/ QUOTE ]
Well put.
I'll offer you an asbestos suit for the fanboi flames to come.
Infinity and Victory mostly
dUmb, etc.
lolz PvP anymore, Market PvP for fun and profit
I have not seen one person really make the argument yet that they love doing long 4 and 5 hour taskforces which is in truth exactly what this update is all about.
And what I said about being friends with the dev's isn't a "git" it's an observation about a regular core of posters here who's noses are browner than the air in Bejing.
Don't accuse me of drama because I had the guts to come in here and dissent and tell the truth.
Here is one of them:
"The vast majority of players do not like long TFs"
So the idiocy of using the Merit system to force gamers to do more long TF's is obvious. Defending this merit system as is, is buffoonery at best and you can all insult me and flame me all you want.
This Merit system isn't like a bad nerf or taking away a power. where you can just ditch one alt or respec. This is a sweeping epic game change for the worse.
I had to say it just one more time, and to those of you who have been rude and insulting to me because I had the audacity to state the merit system sucks - happy thanksgiving!
So, finally here is the door hitting me on the way out...
*wave*
[ QUOTE ]
Don't accuse me of drama because I had the guts to come in here and dissent and tell the truth.
[/ QUOTE ]
I won't. I'll accuse you of drama for feeling the need to lace your interpretation of the truth with insults and inflammatory language though. You can tell the truth without being a jerk. It actually works better.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
[ QUOTE ]
I have not seen one person really make the argument yet that they love doing long 4 and 5 hour taskforces which is in truth exactly what this update is all about.
[/ QUOTE ]
My name is M I Abrahms, and I don't hate teaming, or my teammates.
[ QUOTE ]
And what I said about being friends with the dev's isn't a "git" it's an observation about a regular core of posters here who's noses are browner than the air in Bejing.
[/ QUOTE ]
So, the only acceptable response is Dev-hate?
[ QUOTE ]
Don't accuse me of drama because I had the guts to come in here and dissent and tell the truth.
Here is one of them:
"The vast majority of players do not like long TFs"
[/ QUOTE ]
They don't like moderate ones, either from what I'm seeing. It seems to boil down to 'Give me my reward, and get me the hell away from these unwashed things that call themselves teammates.'
[ QUOTE ]
So the idiocy of using the Merit system to force gamers to do more long TF's is obvious. Defending this merit system as is, is buffoonery at best and you can all insult me and flame me all you want.
[/ QUOTE ]
It wouldn't matter if Doc Quaterfield gave 900 merits at the end of his Task Force, there is still NOTHING forcing you to run his TF. The Devs don't send armed soldiers to your house to stand over you and make sure you sit through that contact. It's a reward, intended for those that actually don't hate the rest of the people that play this game. You still have faster options available, and now you can even earn merits 100% solo.
The Abrams is one of the most effective war machines on the planet. - R. Lee Ermy.
Q: How do you wreck an Abrams?
A: You crash into another one.
[ QUOTE ]
Second, if you play exactly the same way you do now, assuming you run story arcs at all, you'll still be able to make a few decent recipes a year. What you may miss is a feeling of immediate gratification when you get that great drop at the end of the TF. You'll either get that feeling of gratification when purchasing a random roll from merits, or have a sense of accomplishment when you purchase exactly the recipe you want.
Now, I don't think the system is perfect. There are a number of suggestions I hope the Devs will take into consideration. But your behaviour of "they changed stuff, I don't want to change, I quit," is a bit hasty. If you want to quit, then that's your call. However, I think it'd be worth waiting a month after Live release to see how it truly pans out. Even if you do leave, then keep an eye out to see if things change afterward.
Some gamers in these forums are die-hard CoX fans, it's true. But the difference between a real fan and a bad one is that the good ones will keep on pushing for changes in an intelligent and well-explained manner, even after an Issue's release. We've seen it work in the past, and I'm sure that it will continue to work for the foreseeable future. Taking your ball home to sulk (i.e. protesting with your feet/by withdrawing your cash) has actually not been an approach that's gotten a lot of change done.
[/ QUOTE ]
You are simply wrong.
The way I play now I have many IO's... so far about 4 full sets of Numina, 2 purple sets, just about every proc I want on every toon, et. I do quite well - I am not crawling in wealth like the farmers but I am ok.
Under this new system my ability to gain those rewards will be down to nothing. I have run about 15-30 arcs this past year that would get me what in this new system?
Furthermore those arcs take hour and hours each from my time. I've run about 30 katies and maybe 50 15 minute edens this year. That's right around 25 to 30 hours of my time that gives approximately 75% of the influence and IO's everything I have.
Now they are asking me for an estimated commit 300 hours of my time for about the same reward and the 300 hours they are asking for won't be nearly as fun as the 30 hours I spent this past year.
Again, this culture is in a mode of "Oh don't upset the balance, if you complain you are 'sulking' 'wining' et."
You know what that gets you?
Screwed that's what it gets you. When someone does something incredibly stupid and tries to take advantage of you you take a stand.
Most people play this game because they are a captive audience, there aren't really any Superhero MMO's out there so the developers have gotten into the easy mode of doing whatever they want to the fan base and expecting you to take it.
Your post tells me exactly why they have gotten away with it.
You are basically telling me.
"Yea, I know they are giving it to me... but if I just wait a little while it won't hurt as bad and maybe I can talk them into being a little less abusive down the road if I am sweet and submissive."
That's not the right attitude. That's an attitude of a dependent or a hostage or a junkie who needs the fix and has no way out and no alternative other than to accept what is given them.
I made my living in private business and I did my job well and put myself in a good position in life. I didn't do that by giving my customers less and charging them more!!!!
And this is exactly what the devs are doing. I don't care if they want to go to a merit system, but to expect us to give more time to the game and get less in return is CRAZY.
Furthermore it's wrong on both a business and ethical level. Not only are they giving it to the customers they are giving it to themselves.
Many people playing less hours > less people playing many hours.