Quote Originally Posted by DaBooMan View Post
Again, the game is too noob friendly, the guys at the top on server 1-10 got there with these cooldowns, and i dont think i seen them bitch about them once.
Did all u new server guys come from farmville?
Uh...what? There's been plenty of complaining about CDs in general. I don't think the "it was harder back in the day" argument works in this game, as the difference between server 1 and server 91 is actually not that long of a time period if you think about it. If someone's not complaining about it, they likely just have the gems to blow on endless CD resets, since the prices before the reduction were way way way higher.

I actually like the cooldowns as a limiting factor. It doesn't kill anyone to have to come up with a budget. And if you can afford to not budget, then you deserve to be on top for sacrifices most of us aren't willing to make. Capitalism at it's best, and I acknowledge those people for their achievements. However, it does make things boring after a certain point, where the required stamina output for higher-level gear, increasing CDs, in concert with exponentially more difficult quest and HR bosses puts you at a standstill. Early in the game you're flying. Gradually you're slogging through mud. Eventually you just hit walls, where each achievement becomes a singular act, and you take one step and hit another wall, remaining stuck there for longer and longer periods of time.

In my mind the only counterbalance to this is the PVP aspect, which is not designed fully enough to relieve this. The arena gets locked out, and your guild only functions as a team once a day.

The same arena hierarchy is manifested in carib, in that when you attack a boat you aren't fighting a combined power, simply two powers one at a time. So if you're a lower level player, the only chance is teaming up with one of your tops or you're going down. If that top can't naturally beat the attacker one on one, you're going down. The combination of power is mostly worthless. I'd rather see carib function more like GW, where you can combine maps to put a fleet of ships together with some kind of "layer" strategy, as in based on how you assign people to ships person x gets attacked first, followed by y, and so on. No health regen between fights, and attackers can only strike once against a fleet. Count up the total awards of who made it across and divide among all participants in the fleet. Another opportunity for strategy and teamwork, and more possibilities to overcome an "uber guild" by thinking.

If Tynon can devote the assets to a single, cross-server event, it's certainly within the capabilities to do other changes. I'd rather the focus was more on things concerning sustainable gameplay. I don't know if we'll see it, as I read a tech stock analyst interview with a past employee who describes the industry as Come Stay Pay (CSP), and where the hordes are a "necessary evil" to provide the low percentage of players who actually pay the bills someone to beat up on. Said players, as DaBooMan describes above, being "less fuss and easy to manage." So yes, I expect there wouldn't be any complaints among that echelon. I believe the focus will continue to be single-scope, designed to make these players shine, a-la cross-server championship events, rather than seeing an increase in more dynamic gameplay that might shake comfort zones. That's why I hope for some kind of Q&A routine to at least be able to give the devs some kind of focus group analysis, though I remain unhopeful unless there are players in that top percentile who are pushing for overall changes as well. Things like new heros are simply a boon, like a shiny loyalty reward, but don't address what I perceive most feel are systemic flaws in the gameplay itself.