So what wont you find in this thread (at least not from me):

• B*tching, moaning, complaining
• Threats to either cancel, blow up Cryptic's main office, etc
• Demands

What you will find in this thread (by me):

• Constructive criticism
• Praise where it applies
• Recommendations or suggestions

So now, what do we have? I go to sleep and I wake up and the forum is on fire with over 10 pages (250 threads) of new posts many of which are multiple pages long screaming, shouting, biting, threatening, b*tching, moaning, complaining, etc. I see things never change. But what I gather from the cluster F of a forum is that there was some sort of patch. I go in-game and try out a couple of my characters. Here is what I gathered:

• Players now take in more damage
• Players dish out slightly less amounts of damage
• The once all powerful supersets (or defensive powers) are now not

I said it a while back that people are going to take Open Beta and the Early Start as their chance to find that perfect superset that makes them win. I can't blame them... I don't want to spend my free time in-game losing every turn either. BUT... what happened as far as I can see is everyone found their sets and then when they changed they lost their minds.

Simple fix... allow respecs. I'm all for that. It's a major change and unless someone added a 0 at the beginning of every line of code by accident, the changes do warrant the gifting of a free complete respec.

Now, I tried the new patch. I played a few of my characters and in all circumstances I can still fight 4 or 5 Henchmen at the SAME TIME with little difficulty. I did notice that now I have to use my other skills. Before I would activate my toggle and use just one other power and wipe them out. Now I need to use offensive and defensive powers together. I need to work up a combo that debuffs and destroys instead of just direct damage. That I find VERY acceptable.

I also noticed that with larger, harder missions I'll need a group. I've also been saying from the beginning that this game does not cater to groups. Well, that's changed. Sure, it was drastic, but I'm for anything that makes grouping functional and useful. To get through a quest... that's functional. I was getting bored of just the first three days where I did everything solo. I missed the days of my other MMO's where grouping was fun and different. Now, I can get that again when I WANT. You're still not forced to group which is nice, it'll just be harder and take longer. I can live with that.

Now lastly... I'm even more disappointed in this community with each passing day it seems. It's not all of you, but it's many. Something changes and the first thing people do is go out and barrage the forums and talk about how awful it is (trolling as they provide no real suggestions) and make threats. What that does is push other new players away as they see how disgusting you all are and that OBVIOUSLY the game is bad. Again, it's not all of you, but enough to make an impact like that on a new player. So knock it off.

This new patch was a change. It was a change that wasn't all that expected (Cryptic, next time take note that you should warn people of impending changes like this), and it was drastic. But a lot of it was necessary. I don't think a level 8 player should be able to defeat Gigaton solo. It's a Super Villain that's been living for however long, has gotten a lot of experience in his powers, and you shouldn't be able to defeat him easily (that's just an example and applies to most of the Super Villains).

At this point in time I think Cryptic has a decent foundation. Now it's all about raising certain aspects VERY slowly until it levels out. But I want to say the overall feel of the changes are positive to me. I've heard a LOT of praise in-game... even if those people aren't as vocal as I am. Of course the complainers will always complain. Don't listen to them. I don't want to think that this game is an accordion and going back and forth over and over because people complain (much like with what happened to the lifetime/6 month subs). You've made the move Cryptic... reach down, grab a sack, and hold on. Don't back down. Simply make the slight changes you need to make the game more level and acceptable. You'll never please everyone... don't even try to. ;)

Quote for absolute truth.

Here is the funny thing. From what I can see my character isn't that impacted by the changes. I didn't rely on anything that seemed over powered but instead built a solid set of complementary powers that worked together. I also went for a balanced set of stats and while maybe I couldn't solo the fight club at 19 now I maybe could. :D It would be fun to go back in and give it a try at some point and see if this really did make any difference.

Well as much as we are few and far between... there are those of us that take a look at the bigger picture and contemplate before jumping to conclusions. There's 25 pages of people outright losing their minds when it's completely unnecessary.

I'm with some of them in that respecs and so forth are needed. But there's a right way and a wrong way to go about it. I'm seeing a whole mile long list of wrong ways being displayed here on the forums.

I was the same way. I bought into the whole "Invulnerability makes you untouchable" nonsense. My character with Invuln, who is a melee dual blade character... unaffected. He takes in more damage now, but it also means I have to use that defensive power I slotted too.

My ranged characters I've tested are the same way. It's not all about who can lay into the enemy with damage, but who can even out offensive/defensive moves.

I'm also wondering what the PvP will be like now. I haven't tested it out (last time I did, I pulled second place and swore never to do it again... it was ridiculous). But I may give it one more go if I don't have to worry about the overpowered supersets.

You said with this grace and its about time. Sometimes I get caught up in the moment but what you said really told the truth. But with any drastic change they need to give the player full respec to fix what crypric messed up on ;). It would save alot of complaining but as you pointed out there are complainers and those who praise the game. After beta I am in the middle.... I see things they need to fix and I see things they need to own up to....Also Customer service would be nice and for them to communicate better with all of us...........:D

I'm actually neutral on the retcon thing but the rabid screaming for it tends to make me say screw them they shouldn't get it because they are screaming that they MUST HAVE IT NOW!!!!!! That sort of thing tends to make me contrary.

I think what the developers did was devilishly smart.

My first reaction to this is why didn't they do this sooner, but then I realized they got people to expose themselves before actual launch, where the bulk of players will start playing.

Normally in ANY mmog players who play beta for a long period of time come across information and knowledge that is useful to advancing quickly. Because of what is going on and the pointlessness of racing through beta, these things might or might not get reported and likely will not be linked together.

You ALWAYS have people who develop a plan and strategy from closed beta and through open beta to unveil on launch to level and advance as quickly as possible taking advantage of the game. I have never beta-tested a game where that did not happen.

Well they got people to expose themselves in the headstart, so they had good data and how people would ACTUALLY play on launch and could adjust. People don't play in beta the same way they play in launch. So you can't do final balancing on some things, just because people don't play the same. Be it because it is pointless or because they are holding on to things to benefit from later on.

So Cryptic was able to see what people were up to, and make changes before launch.

In the scheme of things a very good plan.

As for full respec, I am totally against them. Given the issues with broken costs and this major balancing change, though, I say they should be a one time offer. I would even say it should be a one time offer that expires 10 days from when it is introduced.

true but with their ten level lockout system if they dont fix the respec costs now we quickly can never use it

see my point? :D

Amen, well written post...I really hope this complaining stops. It's way out of proportion. The only real truth to their whine that a full respec should have been made available.

Thank you so much OP, while I still proceeded to buy the game from D2D, I was slightly anxious at how I would find the game, because I was looking so forward to playing it.

Now I feel just as enthusiastic as I was before! An extremely well written and informative post!

Thanks again :)