It's either that or you'll have to change the stats on current gear or have new gear give higher % of stats. Your new system is totally unsustainable at the current % of stats that the gear gives. You are going to either (1) not change the % of stats that new gear gives and players will have no reason to get the new gear because it will actually make them worse - and you'll need a new combat update or (2) make new items with either a greater % of stats or items with overpowered equip powers - and you'll need a new combat update because you're already at or above 90% on some items.
This current system is totally unsustainable unless you plan on your players being happy with zero character development.
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I have no idea who's right as I can see the validity in both arguments - all I know for sure is they continually upset a large percentage of the player base.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
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Chrion De Armadeon: SW
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> I'm personally of the opinion that Cryptic are messing things up by chasing short term goals with badly thought out solutions - but a friend of mine who works in a tech related industry has called me naïve. They say Cryptic knows exactly what it is doing and understand the impact of everything they change but are doing so as it promotes certain financial goals.
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> I have no idea who's right as I can see the validity in both arguments - all I know for sure is they continually upset a large percentage of the player base.
You're friend is correct. It's impossible for Cryptic to not know that this new system has a built-in end-life. It's simple math. This system absolutely has to be totally re-done, again, at some point.
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Problem is in ALL business there are the owners/bosses/top feeders who are either very good at their job and listen to others and take constructive feedback and *listen* or the worse kind who think they know it all and drive through ridiculous changes to suit their ego. This latter type are very dangerous and can ruin profitable companies.
The *suits* in the middle management spend their time trying to justify their own jobs quite often... and look at the money and the profit and loss figures and spreadsheets... and advise the boss and/or the owners.
Then there are the *devs* who make the changes to the game, based upon what the suits and the leader/owners tells them to do.
In theory it should work.
But the problem is about us, humans, we can make mistakes, be arrogant, illogical, egotistical and just plain stupid at times and not see the problem that is screaming at everyone else. Think Emperor's New Clothes.
This combat rework gains what in terms of sales or growth in players or player retention?
I can't see where any of those things come from in the new combat system.
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Ghost Templars L20
Alliance: Tyrs Paladium
Main: Cleric (Heals|DPS)
Alt: Warlock
So if players want high stats they need to focus almost exclusively on this area. This is an area that is very hard to rank up via playing the game. They have a tight bottleneck on in-game upgrade tokens so players that need a lot will need to either use Zen or Trade Bars (which means keys). As the Zen exchange is now extremely long (time wise) any player who wants to rank them up fast will need to spend $$$ to upgrade.
Perhaps Cryptic downplayed the negative impact on player retention or accurately assessed that it was 'weatherable'? I don't know. It's possible that they've concluded that "minus X number of players plus Y number of increased purchases from remaining/new players would result in a net increase in earnings? It's a bit of a gamble and incredibly cynical (if that is the case) but only Cryptic know for sure - and they aren't talking.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox