I don't think we should see each other as much anymore.
What? Why?
You've changed. I'm just not comfortable with these new directions in which you're taking yourself. I don't have as much fun with you anymore.
Everyone changes. You have too.
Sure. I'm probably more demanding, and less willing to accept annoyances. Like ladder bugs. How many ladders do you have - a few thousand, maybe? How long would it take an intern to check each and every one? One month? Two?
Who has that kind of time? Seriously.
You're really letting yourself go too. The launcher has taken two starts for the past four months and it is affecting more and more players. People still crash entering the Sands. And your networking - a two day downtime on a holiday weekend? What's next? False teeth, hearing aids, and support hose?
Baby, we still have something special between us
We had something special going with the D20. You had that one thing I wanted most in a relationship, and nobody else had it. And you've been throwing it away for the past year or two. It started slowly by devaluing the D20 with inflated monster, character, and gear stats, but the new to-hit and AC formulas meant the end of D20. Sure, DC casting is still D20, but it has been dead for over a year now, unless you have insane gear, House D pots, store pots, multiple past lives, and Yugo pots.
But I have level 28! And level 30 is coming! Just stay a little while. Please
I haven't ever had anywhere near as much fun in epic as I did in heroic. And your epic-commoner levels don't do anything for me. They're lame, an empty shell that just proves how badly you are lacking ideas and sorely bereft you are of vision.
Character building is over and done at level 23 once I cap my main destiny. After that, what is there? Grinding in useless off-destinies and for gear, with the only real thing to look forward to being a few epic feats between levels 23 and 30, and some twists? You really don't understand progression and advancement, do you?
Then there is epic TR. We don't know the final details, but I can't believe how out of touch you would have to be with the playerbase to float the initial trial balloons. I'm not expecting it to be worth the grind, in case you haven't guessed.
Okay, but heroic is still here for you
It is, sort of. I'll probably still play my TRs a bit until you shut down the servers in a year or two. But the latest loot updates and enhancement trees have dragged the giant cesspool of suckage that is your Epic game down to the lower levels. You've invalidated playstyles, destroyed twink gear, and changed enhancements beyond recognition. The degree of Monty Haul is getting disgusting, with Deadly VI at ML11. I remember thinking the Sora Kell set bonus was overpowered compared to other readily available first-life loot available at the time. Now it is junk that is barely worth equipping.
But there are more build options now than ever
Except for the old options. They're gone, and they didn't need to be removed, other than to satisfy the hubris of your developers and the not-invented-here syndrome of your current team.
Whenever you make something new, you shit all over the old stuff. I'm tired of it. I liked a lot of the old enhancements, and they're gone. Radiant servant aura takes half of your enhancement points now, in useless junk. It wasn't that OP compared to a shiradi sorc or juggernaut, but you killed the aura anyways. I think my L16 drunk saw some benefits, but haven't really had the heart to rebuild most of my other characters. Come to think of it, I haven't had the heart to level many of them past 20.
You're getting dangerously unstable and inconsistent too.
Unstable and inconsistent? Moi?
Yeah. You. Look at things like ardour clickies. In 2010, 50% clickies were changed to three minutes of 75%. People rejoiced. But then they got nerfed to 15 spell power or something lame like that in 2012 with the spell pass. I can't remember how much, because I vendored all of mine.
You took roman numerals out a few years ago because they were hard for people to understand, and then added them back to weapon effects last month. You even stopped describing damage using dice. Just in case you hadn't noticed, that's kind of a core element of D&D. You remember D&D, right? Memories of tabletop were the reason a lot of your players are even here.
The rules on stacking are a moving target. I never know what I'm going to come in the door and see anymore - it's like a freakshow around here lately. Consistency and stability. You don't have it anymore. Paladins are dead because you can't even figure out that Divine Might should stack with everything. Instead, you made it share a common bonus type at end game. Changes to the dodge and greensteel skill bonus, what's next?
The game I used to know wasn't greedy and demanding either.
Honey, you know I only ever cared about your money
But it wasn't as blatant. I spent money on content every month, and we had fun together. It always felt like it was worthwhile, and you weren't constantly grasping at my wallet back then like you do now.
How else can you explain the disease immunity nerf at around the same time anti-mummy elixirs came out in the store? The powerful store-only healing potions and mnemnonic pots that you cannot buy from a vendor as a plat sink? +5 tomes? Skill tomes? Hall of Heroes? Pay to teleport to dungeon entrances in Shadowfail? Nerfing XP from Cannith challenges, one of your most expensive packs? Reducing the release rate of new content to two adventure packs a year, putting the other three packs into "expansions" so you can gouge VIP even more without developing content any faster than in 2010 or 2011?
It has gone far, far, beyond convenience items when inconveniences that can only be overcome by the store are deliberately added to the game, such as ridiculously long travel. When you have an NPC teleporter to ToD, but need a store purchase of shards to do the same thing in the Stormhorns? I don't trust you on weapon damage now that the astral shard anvil is available for repair anywhere in the game.
You're even selling XP. I read of someone who got 10k XP on a gold roll, and the Otto's box, XP tomes, and XP potions have been your best moneymakers. You even had a Win button in the store for a while. And don't even get me going on the astral shard total in my inventory, on the main panel, and the re-roll chest button. I would expect better from a cheap whore.
There's nobody else. Who ya gonna go to instead? You'll be back, people like you always will.
Back to Freeciv, probably. Maybe Dwarf Fortress. I dunno. Pathfinder or Wildstar when they come out? Guild Wars 2?
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