I'm going to play devil's advocate here and take a look at it from Synapse's side.
First of all, the whole "we didn't expect these would encourage excessive farming". Sure, that happens all the time, but you were so excited about the other things that you didn't see that coming. No big deal.
As to the bit where Synapse didn't apologize for faulty design...I dunno. I may be too working from the framework of my current job where even if you're doing the best you can do, the cab fares will bitch, the cab drivers will bitch, and you just have to realize you'll never make everyone happy all the time, but I don't see how this is offensive.
Yes, they're saying "we didn't expect the players to do this, so we're changing it." Yes, this places the onus for the change on the playerbase, which is accurate. And it's not like they're saying "all our players are bad". And yes, it's punishing the blameless along with the guilty as sin.
But frankly....does this change what I was going to play AE for? Interesting content that's new as opposed to rerunning the same arcs in CoH/CoV over and over and over again? Aside from some nifty badge titles that'll probably get put back in eventually, does this lose me anything? I say no, and the other points they've made, about cutting out the badges that are near impossible for others to get to cut down on griefing (Dev's Choice, HoF, others) frankly I can get behind 100%. The fact they're dropping counter badges entirely also makes me immensely glad. No more stalking Striga at night for that twelve more Vampyri necessary for future accolades. This decision does not and can not change the way I use the AE function, and thus all the read-between-the-lines overreaction to the "intents of the devs" and the "implications of the devs" is meaningless to me, because I don't get that into the game to care about more than the "actions of the devs", and in this case, I approve of every single one as an overall improvement.
So I guess I don't see what the big buzzkill about this announcement is besides losing a few clever badge titles.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
First of all, the whole "we didn't expect these would encourage excessive farming". Sure, that happens all the time, but you were so excited about the other things that you didn't see that coming. No big deal.
As to the bit where Synapse didn't apologize for faulty design...I dunno. I may be too working from the framework of my current job where even if you're doing the best you can do, the cab fares will bitch, the cab drivers will bitch, and you just have to realize you'll never make everyone happy all the time, but I don't see how this is offensive.
Yes, they're saying "we didn't expect the players to do this, so we're changing it." Yes, this places the onus for the change on the playerbase, which is accurate. And it's not like they're saying "all our players are bad". And yes, it's punishing the blameless along with the guilty as sin.
But frankly....does this change what I was going to play AE for? Interesting content that's new as opposed to rerunning the same arcs in CoH/CoV over and over and over again? Aside from some nifty badge titles that'll probably get put back in eventually, does this lose me anything? I say no, and the other points they've made, about cutting out the badges that are near impossible for others to get to cut down on griefing (Dev's Choice, HoF, others) frankly I can get behind 100%. The fact they're dropping counter badges entirely also makes me immensely glad. No more stalking Striga at night for that twelve more Vampyri necessary for future accolades. This decision does not and can not change the way I use the AE function, and thus all the read-between-the-lines overreaction to the "intents of the devs" and the "implications of the devs" is meaningless to me, because I don't get that into the game to care about more than the "actions of the devs", and in this case, I approve of every single one as an overall improvement.
So I guess I don't see what the big buzzkill about this announcement is besides losing a few clever badge titles.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."