SWG Players - Comment on the Combat Upgrade

Since last week my inbox and submissions bin has been overflowing with complaints and rants about the Combat Upgrade put into Star Wars Galaxies last week. Players are speaking out all over the internet, and the media is responding. If you've had first hand interactions with the combat upgrade (either positive or negative) please leave a comment below describing your experiences with the changes, and pass on word of this thread to all the players you can. Think of this as a call for interview questions, because I'm going to formulate queries as best I can and see what sort of information I can get from the folks that I know at Sony Online. Here's your chance to be heard, folks. Use it well.

Comments

SWG Upgrade Broken Again

[KeithGap]

I'm a rifleman in the game and while I have been subscribed to SWG since one of the later betas, I really haven't played since shortly after the release of Jump To Lightspeed. (I've been playing "World of Warcraft".)

I was excited to hear about the combat upgrade to SWG, because I thought it might finally make the game playable to me. Since the devs have made some of the changes in the last few months that I have been asking for since beta (PvE galactic civil war for one) I thought this change might make me want to play the game and maybe even buy the latest expansion.

Lo and behold, none of my Rifleman special moves appears to work. I was killed by a green (easy) creature my first time out. I went to the boards and discovered a bunch of posts about how, once again, as they have in the past, SOE is beta testing their "improvements" to the game in live.

I've decided I don't need to play this game anymore, and I'll be deleting it from my hard drive, finally. Goodbye SWG Beta. I've been paying for you for far too long.

Re:SWG Upgrade Broken Again

[Xaielao]

KiethGap your post is another of those who don't understand how the new combat system works. "none of my Rifleman special moves appears to work" Because professions have all new ones that are balanced and give each profession a 'role' to play. Trust me I was playing a Rifleman/Commando on test and the Improved Sniper Shot with a rocket launcher was freekin awesome fun. You can use skills between professions now :) It adds a lot of flavor and variety and lets you set up different combo's and stuff :) "I was killed by a green (easy) creature my first time out." Did you convert your armor? Were you wearing armor? Did you use any of the new specials? Did plan your attack? Unlike before combat isn't 'blam blam your dead' It takes time, lasts longer, takes planning. Even a green can give you a challenge if you aren't careful. Once you figure things out.. greens are cake. See this is what I'm talking about. Most the complaints are from people who just don't understand or know how to take advantage of the new system. You left the game obviously. Once things get smoothed over, bugs fixed, you may miss out on one of the best combat systems in the genre.

Re:SWG Upgrade Broken Again

[KeithGap]

Hmmm...well, here's the thing. I did actually try to do the "knee shot" ability to slow the creature I was fighting down. I saw the critter get +snared+, but it didn't slow down at all. I later checked the rifleman board, where it was advised that there was a bug where higher level critters weren't being slowed down any by the root abilities.

I also tried the sniper shot ability, which made a nice little yellow thermometer on my screen and did nothing. No shot. No damage. Nothing. Reading further on the rifleman boards, I discovered that there was a bug where this ability was only intermittently working.

I even gave them a second chance. Logged in today and tried again. The sniper shot never worked. The knee shot ability had no effect on the greens I was fighting. These abilities are bugged, and they just shouldn't be. Not on live. You can have these kinds of problems on test, but not on live.

I did try to play on test when the CU patch went live there. The seven or eight times I tried to play there, I was CTD'd. Never once could I stay in the game longer than about 5 minutes. I don't have this problem in live.

Pretty much every time they put in something I thought was going to kewl, it was broken. They rushed it in to keep me hanging around to wait to see if it was kewl when it fixed months down the road. Not weeks, mind you. Months. As in $14.95 per.

I'm not playing that game anymore. No more paid beta testing. I know MMOs are complex beasts, but even EQ and UO were better than SWG in terms of bugs.

All that said, I have to say I thought SWG was going to turn things around with the JTL expansion, I really did. I enjoyed that. And it kept me in the game for months, actually playing. But at that point I was ignoring the ground game. And the space game just wasn't quite enough for me.

Funny, you mention how combat is going to become slower after the CU. See, I hate that idea, too. This is Star Wars, and Star Wars really isn't about long, drawn out battles. (Well, except maybe the lightsaber fights...) I guess it just seems to me that Star Wars wasn't meant to be an MMO.

Re:SWG Upgrade Broken Again

[frayedends]

No, not everyone was "gung-ho". The initial reports were greeted with anticipation and skepticism, but by and whole people wanted to test them. The inital review of the docs didn't prepare even the most hardened veteran for what came next: The EQ-ification of SWG. Instead of a combat upgrade, we received a GAME REMAKE. Big difference. If they had left it to just the combat changes, without the level system, cooldown timers, stupid cartoon icons, magical particle effects, ruined sounds, broken con system, and destroyed professions, then we might have had something worthwhile. But no, after ditching the CU they _had_ been working on in sandbox testing with the sandbox testers, someone at SOE made some decision that the only way to do it was to change the game into Everquest 2 using Star Wars graphics. We have been screaming for a combat upgrade, and no one - none of the sandbox testers, and none of the profession correspondants - asked for, or even suggested 3/4 of the crap we got in this pathetic pile. I know, because i was a sandbox tester, and this isn't anything close to what we were working on. Not only that, the player correspondants were all against these changes once we actually saw what was done. Opposition was high, so high the armorsmith correspondant was FIRED over his objection to that SOE told everyone they were doing. They had the audacity to code the EP3 Wookiee expansion in the new system, effectively forcing this crap live. The objection of a LARGE portion of the players is this: Immersion is ruined, and if we wanted to play Everquest, we would be playing Everquest. But we're not, so don't screw with the game itself. Sure there are people that like it, you could release the worst thing in the world and somebody will stand up and say it's great. But by and large, those who call themselves supporters are only taking into account what CU fixes, without acknowleging what it destroys. Sure, it's nice to go out without buffs, it's nice to take the defense stacking out, and it's nice to remove DOT weapons....but is it worth what you got in the long run? All that was achieved by the CU could have been implemented in the old system, without destroying what was a very original and exciting system that differed from the run of the mill MMORPG's out there. Now it's Everquest with f*cking ewoks. My suggestion for prospective players: Don't waste your money - cause there isn't much left anymore. Not to mention the empty servers. www.swgpetition.com has almost 13,500 sigs now, and if you figure 2 accts per person, that's close to 27,000 subscriptions. I know a ton of people still playing because they bought 1yr or 6mos renewals a few months ago, and now they're stuck with it and SOE will not give refunds. Instead they delete all forum posts in opposition, ban players who protest in-game, and outright lie to players at events with developers, like the recent breakfast meeting that was held.

As a noob, it's okay. As a vet...

[xTown]

First of all, let's get this out of the way: I think it sucks, and I cancelled my account today.

Okay.

After playing with the CU for a couple of days, I decided to hop onto another server and start a new character to see what the n00b experience would be like. I was surprised: for a new player, the CU is actually better than the old system was, or at least is its rough equivalent. With the addition of some Medic skills, the basic melee classes played just fine: as long as I could drop healing on myself, the combat itself went smoothly. I earned good amounts of experience and was able to progress.

On my veteran characters, the experience is entirely different. Like someone else here, I had a Master Rifleman. I was completely unable to kill anything at my own level--and since killing things at or near your own level is the only way to earn more than about 1 xp that was a problem. I also had a Teras Kasi Master, and while I was able to successfully defeat single mobs of the appropriate level, if I drew aggro from more than one creature, I was dead. In addition, the specials in Teras Kasi--an Elite-level profession--do LESS damage than the specials from the Brawler class--a Basic-level profession. This is unacceptable.

The game has slowed down, a lot. It now takes a HUGE amount of time to kill anything, on the order of several minutes. It would seem that to get anywhere, grouping is required, and some of us don't want to HAVE to find seven other players to gain experience. Medic skills--preferrably as much Doctor as you can manage--are essential to staying alive.

Jedi characters are screwed beyond belief. If you're progressing through the Jedi skills as a Master in any non-Jedi combat role, you're hosed: you will not be able to kill anything with your lightsaber. The aforementioned TKM is also a Jedi, and I can get in about a dozen hits before I run out of Force because I have exactly two skill boxes in Jedi, but I draw missions that are "appropriate" for my TKM level.

On the SWG forums, there's a lot of counter-bitching that people like me are leaving because we're no longer "uber." I'd just like to say that I never was uber (gah, I hate that word). I never had the best armor, or the best weapons, or the most money. What I did have was fun.

Re:As a noob, it's okay. As a vet...

[xTown]

One other thing. I've seen theories that say that this was rushed out because the new expansion pack is coming out soon and they're expecting an influx of new players when Episode 3 hits theaters. They didn't want to have new players ltearn the "old" combat system only to have it replaced two weeks later with the "new" combat system.

I have experienced nothing that would give the lie to that theory.

sad

[theworldsucks]

to those who say it brought back enjoyment to the game:

a. how did removing the many melee animations and replacing them with generic one punch or one kick animations bring any enjoyment?

b. to those who say groups are important again: they were always important, you just didn't know how to make friends before.

c. How is turning hundreds of medications that took me months upon months and hours upon hours to gather and make into useless nothings make the game better? How is wasting all my hard work making YOU happy??

d. How is a new found joy in your gaming experience when they tunred mine and alot of people's very expensive weapons into fly swatters?

e. how is it joy when they took my bio-engineer pets which took me months to accumulate and perfect into soemthing that forced me to delete them?

Bottom line is, anyone who likes this game, obviously played it very little before CU. They see CU as a different experience and new game. But to people who actually play the game, the CU destroyed their characters and hard work in many many ways.

The CU was promised to be a fast paced arcade type action with a more Star Warsy feel. They failed, it is a terribly slow paced game with a fantasy feel now, adding all those gawdy particle effects and implementing a root and nuke system of combat from EQ.

They also made a huge mistake with the icons, love them or hate them you still now have to stare at them, and not what you are fighting so you can always know when to use the next special.

Star Wars galaxies went from unique to hidesouly boring and common with the CU.

They try to mimmick WOW and EQ, but they do it all wrong, Star Wars wasn't meant to be a lvl game, and it shows! Because if you are a master in one skill, novice in another, you will have a supremely boring and tedious task to raise the novice skill to master. Trying to fight level 65 mobs with a novice skill just is not cutting it.

I can go on and on here, I haven't even scratched the surface, suffice to say I canceled my accoutn which was started on day one in 2003. SOE are the single worse mmorpg company to exsist, and that is saying alot cause I really hate OSI. Not only for the CU, but for their treatment of players. They are straight up liars. They are censors. They are unreasonable. They are cracked out of their gourds.

I am hoping I witnes the first cancelation of a popular MMORPG. I really want to see it fail, to send a message that there is a line Game companies can cross. Sure they can abuse us all they want, they can nerf us all they want, but if you are going to change the game into one that is completely different, make sure it is good!

My favorite quote by them is "Stay positive through the chaos" lol! Translation = Ignore the outcry and hope it all turns out ok!

Another one " There are only 50 outspoken people who hate the CU" LOL LIARS.

Another" " Don't force your dislike of the game on soemone who is just trying to express their opinion and who like it. You just dislike change." (paraphrase). LOL, chnage rocks, WHEN IT IS GOOD. Also, I'd like to note, that only people with positive opinions are allowed to express them, those with negative are banned no matte rhow gracious they are about it. So SOE are hypocrits as well.

Thats it for now.

this CU was unwanted by the majority of players.

[tuzzyfoad]

The idea of an upgrade to combat was something everyone wanted. Some tweaks to armor, chnges to buffing, some class changes to balance things out were all we were looking for. What's being forced on us is in no way, shape or form an "Upgrade".

The day testing began on the Test Servers(there was no closed alpha test. "Alpha" consisted of a handful of people being emailed some excel sheets), SOE placed a Poll on the forums asking for people to rate the CU. It was reset everyday, and sometimes after a patch was applied to the Test servers. Every single poll resulted in 65%-85% of the voters choosing the lowest possible rating. Everyday. Without Fail.

SOE's public stance was that the majority of players loved the CU and couldn't wait for it. Recently, at C3, the Community Relations Director for SWG stated that only 50 vocal people were against the CU.

We already knew these public statements by SOE were lies, which became painfully apparant the day the CU went live and the community responded.

While the CU was still on the Test servers(TCs), those players who were actually testing posted detailed, comprehensive discussions to both the Test Center Forum and the In Testing - Dev forum. A large percentage of the bug reports were ignored. Many which detailed the reasons why SOE's attempt at importing a Level-based combat system into SWG's Skill-based character system was flawed were deleted without comment. Since going live, this Level-based system, has shown it's inherent flaw in SWG, and all further posts by players experiencing it for the first time get deleted from the SWG forums as well.

A day before the CU went live(a week earlier than it was supposed to, with all bugs intact), every single "official" bug thread on the In Testing - Dev forum was deleted. None of the bugs had been fixed, and the players/testers were basically told to do it all over again. However, posting any bugs which were originally posted in the deleted threads(and never fixed) resulted in more deletions, and some bans.

To be honest, it appears that SOE has no desire to hear about bugs, expecially those which show the basic design flaws in the CU, and no desire to fix said bugs.

Besides the Bugs, and broken Combat system, there are a number of other reason why players are so upset and cancelling.

The UI has been changed dramatically. It now resembles a Fantasy MMO more than anything else. Colorful hotbar Icons have replaced the funtional, datapad-like buttons. They don't resemble the actions they're supposed to represent, many of themlook like they were exported straight out of a fantasy game(horses for 'mounting' vehicles, archery arrows to represent range attacks, etc..). When asked if the players would have the option of using the old icons instead of the new ones at a recent Dev chat, we were told "no" without any reason why.

The other graphical changes further create the Fantasy-based atmosphere which has no place in a Sci-Fi game, particularily a Star Wars game. "Magical" particle effects now go off for every possible action in the game. Every basic punch shows a dazzling effect. Mounting and dismounting from a speederbike displays an effect. Medics(clerics?) wave a hand and a cloud of sparkly magical dust surrounds everyone for a PBAoE Heal. None of this was ever asked for by the players. Especially when the accompanying special effects result in FPS loss on a grand scale.

All Crafting professions and Entertainer professions have been decimated by the CU. There's no reason for anyone to master an Entertainer class as the lowest Novice can now give the same single buff as anyone of higher rank. RPing these entertainment classes is no longer as "fun" as it was prior to the CU since a change was put in to make the largest available group consist of 8 players(from 20). This means it's no longer possible to create a full band of musicians with accompanying dancers. What Nerfing the Entertainers had to do with "Upgrading" Combat, I'll never know.

Re:a different word

[ZeroPost]

I don't think the problem is that he disgrees with the majority. The problem is that his post basically just said it's awesome, without any reason why.

After reading all the other posts, I know why the new system is bad, but from reading his post I have no idea why he thinks it's good.

Re:It's just beta-testing.

[Xaielao]

There are a TUN of bugs and problems right now. It definately was not tested enough, and I spent weeks myself testing the crap out of it. I know the ins and outs of the new system. Most the poeple I find who 'hate' the system, do so because they either: 1: Don't really know how the new system works yet and are confused. 2: So used to the old system that, they are pissed they cant solo a nest of rancors without ever taking damage, or the fight even being engaging. 3: Uber d00ds who's 5mil 400 mind poison sword is now barely better then normal ones. Once you understand how the system works, and get used to it, it's a lot better. There are things I dislike, like the mob level multiplier (where mobs are artificially boosted beyond normal depending on their level compared to yours, last I knew they were 80% tougher per level. So a level 10 mob fighting a level 8 player did 160% more dmg then vs a level 10 player. It gives mobs a very artificial feel). Anyway, once you get used to it it's FAR better then the old system. For those that haven't played the old system.. heres an example: You go get buffed by doc & entertainer. You put on your 80-90% comp armor (that EVERYONE in the game wears, and since you couldn't change it out to clothing easily, everyone in the game looked identical). That means 90% of the mobs dmg is deflected. With buffs that boost your stats 2000+ points any damage you got almost instantly regenerated. Then you go to Dathomir or Endor or what ever. Get a mission for like Ancient Bull Rancors that were level 98 (yes there have always been levels, just before it was in the background. Any master scout could tell you that.) Players maxed at the 40's levels or so. So to someone unbuffed, un-armored they killed you in a couple hits. Now.. your buffed, your armored. You head to that mission and you spam your best circle attack with your sword that does 5k dps. You spam it about 100 times. Then you go take a shower (and yes I have LITTERALLY DONE THIS), come back 5 minutes later. Rancors are dead, the nest is destroyed and you are completely unharmed. Then you find your next nest.. repeat. Tell me how thats fun.. and engaging.. and exciting. Poeple are peaved because you cant do this anymore! Can you believe it? Now you know why SO MANY people left the game.. because the combat system was so patheticly boring. Now it's exciting, grouping is actually worth while and FUN. Each profession offers soemthing to the game dynamic. Everyone looks different because everyone wears a variety of armor and you can equip it fast and when ever you want so people go around in CLOTHING. You can see their faces! No more UBER buffs or Uber armor. No more soloing anything super-high lvl (although it is COMPLETELY possible for a max lvl combatant to take out a single Ancient Rancor, with practice, time and effort. YES - grinding is a lot harder because xp is much lower because you cant kill stuff so easily and fast. YES - weapons are balanced and now widly different. YES - you cant be NEARLY as uber as you could. YES - the CU is awesome. Once the bugs are fixed and people get into the new system and figure things out and start grouping again.. and having the load of fun we used to have. The CU is more like how the games combat was back when it first came out.. it was awesome back then. Over the last 2 years players became so powerful they needed to completely overhaul the system. Now that they have and nobody is uber anymore.. poeple are screaming. Also remember that the Vocal Minority is what you hear on the forums complaining, and spreading rumors and crap. The SILENT MAJORITY is in game, having a blast.

The Europe-Chimaera server is dying.

[darylp]

Apologies for replying to the first FP, (I'll post this as a regular reply as well, for double the downmods! Feel free to mark this as Redundant, but at least you've read it! :) )

Although this is probably too introspectively geeky for the regular Slashdot community, I feel it best to explain what's been going on with the Europe-Chimaera server. (One of the most populated servers.) As SWG is very much a social game, I have found myself as both head of a guild and mayor of a Player City. This is a copy of a mail I sent to both my guildmates and citizens:

---
Greetings all!

Apologies for the impersonality of this mail, I'm sending it to both my guild and the citizens of Moonlight Valley. Need to cover a lot of people.

In short, Europe-Chimaera has fallen apart. The Combat Upgrade failed on our server, specifically the item conversion. So the entire server has been rolled back to an earlier backup and the conversion run again. And again. Rather than taking a backup of the database before running the conversion in the first place, they've instead rolled back to a substantially earlier version. From almost two weeks ago!

That's two weeks of gameplay lost, because some idiot didn't bother making a backup of the latest data. Even _I'M_ not that stupid, and I'm hardly the person to be speaking about data integrity. I don't believe there's been a disaster of this magnitude in the history of modern MMORPGs. (I'd like to be proven wrong here)

This has also occurred, to a lesser extent, on the Bloodfin server, although it's disheartening to learn that they were rolled back to a more recent backup than ourselves.

The upshot of this unprofessional behaviour is that all the pre-CU preparation we've done has been for naught. Resources; Money; XP; even new characters have been removed. For a game which eschews enjoyable content in favour of mindless grinding, this has been an unmitigated disaster. Current conservative estimates from this server alone put the number of accounts cancelled at over 400 - a substantial percentage of the population. This includes quite a few 'big names' as well, not just the whiners of the month. And it may include me as well...

Naturally, there have been posts on the SWG Forums related to this absolute shambles. And yes, a few from myself pointing out the shoddy way in which the customers (i.e. the company's main source of income) have been treated. Unsurprisingly enough, we've had postings deleted left right and centre. And several forum bannings, _myself included_. The overall attitude from me and many other recently banned folk is that it's a deplorable way to run a business, but that we're still sticking around. So it seems nearsighted to start antagonising the few members of the community who wish to remain.

Despite all the good wishes spewed forth at the start of the year by various interchangeable figureheads in the SoE hierarchy, this is a return to a draconian 'Us vs. Them' policy. Failing to realise that the community can only thrive with co-operation from both developer and consumer, these mass bannings only serve to drive another nail into the coffin.

So I'm left in the unenviable position of considering whether or not I should carry on feeding money into the SoE propaganda machine. Don't get me wrong, I love this game, and have hopefully garnered a reputation as being a reasonably well-balanced fair speaking member of the community. However, these have been trying circumstances for all of us. Undue pressure has been placed on all of us, with very little feedback or response from the developers. Steam has needed to be blown off by both sides. To have a Customer Service Representative treat the community's rightful indignation as a joke is a dangerous precedent.

Compensation has been offered, which is an insulting 4 x XP earned for a week. This is lip service at best, and an insult to the people who are still in the game. Given the current issues with earning exp

WHY SOE's Combat Upgrade is the way it is...

[RayGunGoth]

This post from SOE's forums was originally posted by "Handsnake".

I believe it gives excellent insight into not just what is broken in the new version of Galaxies, but also why:

I think that this should be here, as it bears on the subject of this forum.
Please take the time to read all of the points as well as the conclusions. Keep responses civil, please.

I have tested the CU since it hit Beta and have been following the CU since publish 7.
There are a number of unexpected problems with the implementation of the CU as it stands in Live (and how it developed in beta) that do not track with the available information given over the year since it was announced.

The way the current implementation of the CU is made up has several glaring variances from the previously released info - in that there was one central item that I have identified has caused the majority of the imbalances and problems encountered with the CU.

Putting a 'level' system on top of a skill based system.

This was not in the original CU documentation released on 03/31/05, and data from public statements of sources inside the CU 'sandbox' scheme (without violating NDA) have confirmed that it was never discussed with them to the degree it was implemented.

Herein I will list the worst issues reported about the CU and show that they are all tied directly to the 'level system' implementation that was added to the functional design of the CU.

1. Crafter Death - Crafters are 1 shotted by every aggro mob on every starter planet. The fragility of crafter characters at 'combat level' 1 is extreme. Surveying alone is impossible since spawns will appear under vehicles in motion and mobs will kill crafters in less than 2 seconds.
The ability to at least run away has been removed - this makes crafters unable to function at a basic level.

The 'level' system has a damage multiplier. You will see this in further points. This damage multiplier makes anything higher level than you equivalent to instant death. Five levels above you will always kill you. Again, this point will be repeated.
Since crafters will not have any combat rating unless they become a hybrid and drop pure crafting, they will always take max damage.

Furthermore, every animal will use the damage multiplier against a base value. There is no such thing, therefore, as a 'safe' enemy for crafters.

This is the result of the 'level' system.
Before, each mob had different resists and damage ranges. They had a "threat" level, which was based on how high their offensive and defensive values were. Under the old system, that was the basis of the /con result.
This threat level has NO relationship to the current 'combat level' system, no matter what the devs claim in the HOC chat.
The threat level was an EVALUATION of an existing mob.

A 'combat level' is a MODIFICATION of a base value mob "angry bag" put into whatever 'skin' is appropriate, i.e, a level 34 dune lizard is the same as a level 34 peko peko.

The new COMBAT LEVEL defines the offensive and defensive values - not the other way around.
This is an important distinction, and is critical to understanding the conclusion about the combat level system and why it was added to the CU at such a late date.

2. XP gains and lack of same: A significant number of people are finding odd results from attacking mobs slightly below their level and higher - as in getting little to no XP. The response of the devs is to have people focus on just fighting even leveled mobs.

The real question is: Why was the XP variance put in the CU in the first place?
XP gains or rates of gains was NEVER addressed as a concern in the Combat Upgrade. It did not affect combat in any way, shape, or form in PVP, nor were there "problems" about the flavor of combat that were caused by XP being gained by anything you defeated.

It was never an issue at all.

However, in 'level' based systems, the paradigm is that LEVEL DETERMINES

As a veteran player

[Darlock]

I've been playing on the Tempest server for 2 years. I've had 2 accounts that whole time and I have unbelievably loved the game.

Sure, it had it's flaws and bugs but it's appeal was that it was unique. The combat, skill trees and crafting were different than anything out there.

Things need to be balanced though. Nobody denies that. What SOE has done is not balance. It is a complete replacement of the current system and it screws long time customers over. I would say that abotu 75% of everything I own in game is now garbage. That is alot of wasted time.

I don't know what happened at SOE that could get the CU to be changed like this but I think that some head of the company came along and said "WoW is the most popular MMO out there. Make our game like it NOW"

Anyone who has played WoW knows that it is not the combat that makes WoW fun. It is the Content and Polish of the game. 2 things that SWG lacked (and even more so now)

If you check out http://www.swgpetition.com/ you will see that 12 thousand people have signed it. Factoring in trolls and people with more than 1 account, I would guess that 15 thousand people have cancelled. That's alot of monthly income for a company.

It is just idiotic that SOE has treated their customers this way. We've been telling them for 2 years about what is wrong with the game and they have decided to just go in the other direction.

SOE even had an "alpha team" of players and correspondents that were setup to help them figure out what the biggest problems were and how to fix them. Basically a bunch of brainstorming between the Devs and Users. 2 months ago they shut that all down and went with the current CU. It was a major slap in the face to the correspondants that were trying to help. The Devs ask for all this input and then severed all ties. Most of the correspondants quit after that. And when I say most, I mean 90%.

I won't get into the CU too much but it is a completely new system. You get to "respec" your character and your items were automatically converted. The respec is full of bugs and takes a good pre-CU character and turns them into a gimp. Uber legendary items have been converted into garbage that a novice craftsman can make better versions of. I have never been big on loot and items but I know of ALOT of people that spent millions on items that are not worthless.

What else? Combat is now boring as hell. And bugs... oh, so many bugs.

Here is an analogy of what has happened. Say you bought a tire from a company. It's just a tire and does the job. You let the company know what can be better about the tire; you spend hours with them in meetings and on the phone explaining that maybe the tred needs to change a bit. 2 months later the tire company send you a square tire. What are you supposed to do with a square tire?

SOE, this is not how you treat customers. Idiots.