The Long Road to Queue Yoo Eye Tee

So I heard Issue 20 hits today. Or was it yesterday.

It makes a very low overall splash in the MMO blogosphere that I frequent, mostly accompanied by distant shrugs or sneers about CoH moving to join the rest of the world seven years on in implementing raid-style endgame.

On the board forums, it makes the impact I expected. A bunch of folks ranting, a bunch of folks calling for calm, a bunch of folks saying let's wait and see, things will get better, or not.

Frankly, my gut feel is that people will adapt (or leave), stuff will settle, and things will move on.

The real question is, will I be moving on with the game to wherever it moves?

In this learning period, there are a lot more failures than successes. Successes (of which there seem to be a decent number, or at least people posting to brag) appear to come from organised groups, usually pre-formed, using teamwork and communication, taking time to explain and being very patient about everybody's learning curves until yay, sweet success, and everybody gets it.

To soften the blow of failure, there are a bunch of partial rewards of different sorts of incarnate currencies, some of which use a progress bar (I think, people were talking about 18% progress or 31% progress of incarnate xp), and some of which are just funky named Astral and Empyrean merits of one sort of another.

Y'know, I honestly don't feel that this is bad design.

I do feel, however, that this is very narrowly-focused, "unpolished," design that changes further the game I used to enjoy into a strange market economy loot-accumulating repetitive grinding experience for a number of currencies used to buy increasingly personally meaningless rewards.

It makes me very uncomfortable supporting the direction of such a game, because this is in opposition to my personal gameplay preferences. To the point where I am seriously considering saying to heck with the loyalty reward, there seems to be no conceivable way I'm going to benefit from the vanguard weapons and armor unlock at level 1, because I have totally lost my taste for playing the game.

There is very little point making new level 1s when I don't like where level 50 is going, and I'm not enjoying the immediate journey of getting there.

I don't feel the least bit excited or raring to go to try out the lambda trial. (Although I hear it is possibly easier than the BAF, maybe.) It just feels like a chore to have to earn this to get that, unsoweiter. When I get home, all I'm dying to do is to log into Rift and go check out the next mountaintop or undersea puzzle.

Guild Wars and ATITD are standing around as backups, and to be honest, given a choice between hitting a huge stone with a sledgehammer in peace and quiet and running around to pick up gravel ad nauseam, and sitting around listening to people talk, explain, fail, blame, fight, die, wipe for the same amount of time (an hour or less), the bored to death hermit option seems distinctly more attractive.

Let alone making steady progress on teensy achievement bars for my very own pretty Hall of Monuments and GW2 toys. Which is all the grindiness I would ever desire, with a lot more peace and quiet and personal accomplishment built in.

You know, what the hell, let's do it. The thought of saving 40 bucks (USD, mind you) by quitting in time for the next billing cycle is suddenly a lot more attractive than the thought of all my CoH character slots having glowy weapons unlocked without any need to spend vanguard merits.

Already have a glowy weapon in Rift, thank you. And I'm sure GW2 will have glowy, flamey things by the microtransaction boatload.

(pause for the account log in. Couple quick clicks for the survey. Long essay in the last comment box...)

I am leaving City of Heroes after seven years, and giving up the Loyalty Rewards perk for staying through the month of April because I am no longer comfortable with the direction the game is heading, nor have I been having fun and feeling inclined to log on.

The focus on endgame, increased loot and assorted currency rewards has gotten to a point where it is no longer 'optional' and has changed the feel of the community for the worse.

Increased difficulty is all very well, but the current design of Issue 20 encourages and espouses raid philosophies I left other games and came to CoH to avoid, and the masochistic idea that repeated failures before achieving success is "fun."

The game is increasingly focused on the destination, of becoming "powerful", of improving one's stats and powers by repeating the same boring missions or task forces ad nauseam. The immediate combat experience and interesting story arc/mission designs that feed into the moment-by-moment experience of excitement and having fun are sorely lacking.

Interacting with a community that is skewed towards the former is no longer pleasurable, only forming stressful arguments, and the increased developer silence on the boards also make it no longer the same CoH I once loved.

As long as the updates continue to focus on achievement-based and grindy currency-buy systems, I no longer feel that my subscription money is being well spent to support a game which is heading in directions I do not personally enjoy.

I may return when there is more focus on low and mid-levels, rich lore-based story arcs, increased variety of tilesets/art assets, overarcing campaign stories continuing across issues, changing spawn sizes and locations and other such content.

There. I feel a weight off my shoulders. That's it. Done.

With great timing too as I quit on impact of I20, just before my three-month billing cycle, maintaining my moral stance against pointless grindy raids (especially when they are treated as the be-all and end-all of the game by community and developers).

I may or may not have any effect on where CoH is going. I might be a minor unnoticeable little bump in the road roadkill, ground under the wheels of a semi going places. But hey, at least I feel better for being true to my own preferences.

In the meantime, there are elemental rifts, pixelated blocks, and 7-hero teams to play with.

Oh, grape vines and beetles too. If I could spare the time. And I should keep grinding Investigating to get in the sack with the Melancholy Curate and his sister... if I had a long-enough break at work to do that, that is.

P.S. This now makes the blog a badly named one. But I'm a bit too lazy to move. And no, I do not like Wordpress. Even if it is fancier. :P