Although I am not having nearly as much fun the last 3 days as I did in open beta and early start, I'm sticking around.

I have 7 toons in the game at the moment, 4 of which are "stuck" between levels 11-13. In my current situation, if I attack enemies standing in a group of three or more(as almost all of them are) I die quickly. This did not happen until the past few days.

I am an MMO newbie, and I'm sure there are ways that I could make my characters more efficient, but I'm not really looking for that. I want to play the version of my character that most closely matches the vision in my head; I'm not interested in mini/maxing. Nor am I interested in seeing how fast I can race to level 40; it'll still be there when I get there...eventually. On the other hand, I don't think I should HAVE to mini/max my toons to make them at least somewhat effective in PvE. It's not much fun being ganked repeatedly by minions; surely there's room in this game for both casual and hard-core players.

I am also concerned by the closing of all the discussion boards not directly related to the MMO. This seems to me to be destructive to our group's sense of community: nobody wants to talk about just one thing ALL the time, and we are currently not welcome here if we want to talk about something else. I hope this will change again in the future.

However, as I said above, I am nowhere near ready to give up on this game. This was only one set of changes; there will be others. The game will eventually become all it can be, and I will be there to see it. :)

See you all in game!

Matt W.

I paid for a lifetime subscription and even though I don't like where the game is at right now, I'm not canceling my sub either.

I've only played about an hour or so since launch due to getting too frustrated with it, but with the lifetime sub I can just leave this game for a month or so and then come back and check it out without having to worry about submitting anymore payments which works for me.

So I'll just leave it subscribed and return when it's fixed.

ya i agree

Thank you for posting this, it's good to get an "MMO newbie's" perspective. And thank you for being patient and staying positive! That is, as you can imagine, refreshing to see today.

I hear ya. I'm sticking around because Cryptic built one of the best games that I've ever played; they just jacked it with "The Patch". I'm sticking around because I think that they'll fix it. It'll never be as fun as it was (they've said that a few times now) but I'm hoping to get a bit of the fun back.

In an attempt to be helpful -- it doesn't actually require min/max'ing to survive. My main has several stinkers (Grasping Shadows... oy!) and I've spent my Advantages on good-for-grouping does-little-for-me-solo stuff and he still does okay solo.

What it requires is thinking about how you can pull a little of each role into your build.

For example: An Archer I just started up. I plan to play him in the offensive role. First power choice was Taser Arrow -- a hold. Second choice was Quarry with Fair Game (heal after defeating a target -- well, if they fixed it yet). So my first choices are Support abilities, not Offense -- these will help me solo.

After that I'll start picking up the Offense -- these will help me solo and be what I mostly use grouped (assuming someone else is providing support).

If I was min/maxing I'd take the best hold available rather than the archer hold. And the best self-heal available. But I try really hard to work within concept and still have a flexible build. To me this is just common sense (wouldn't a solo superhero pick up some survival skills) and also makes the game more interesting (if the fight is going bad I can think of other options than will-my-damage-be-enough)

I'm not quiting. I've wanted to make Black Dragon my avatar there in a computer game for years. And I mean years. CO let me do it from alpha on. That right there would have sold me, then I find the game play is fun and enjoyable for me. So I'm not seeing a need to quit.

Out of curiosity, have you tried changing your stance? That might help you in combat.

I agree with you about the forums. That was a pretty stupid decision.

I hadn't considered that. Are you suggesting the offensive stance, to kill the bad guys faster? Or the defensive, to stay alive longer?

i have a lifetime membership and am gald of it, yes the current stiuation gives me the shudders at times, However the fact that most of what people have complained about cryptic has gotten off their asses and have fixed means that any problems currently with the game will be rectified.

To me that's reason enough to stay.