I'm pretty bad at fighting longspear users. Probably more because I don't like to concentrate and tend to spam people with 1 or 2 attack directions for some reason. Pike users are piss easy though. The stun lasts so long they don't have time to block.
Now let's go back on topic.
I didn't hoped to see two people agreeing with me there (maybe more?) :
The more I think about this, the more I think you are absolutely right. Since winning has such a HUGE factor to advancing, people are going to do anything in their power to win. Nowadays everybody is trying to game the system as much as possible just to win. I think that's my big problem with it. It's a lot harder to play for fun when everyone else is playing to win and doing their best to exploit the items, game, system as much as possible to accomplish it. It all makes sense now...
+1
SO TRUE. Related is because the game is now such a tedious GRIND and people are struggling for all the xp they can get. I play even when I don't really WANT to because I'm trying to grind to retire in hopes one day my xp bonus will be enough for it NOT to be a grind. That is not good when people are playing just to get ahead instead of playing when they WANT to for FUN. It has just become a mindless grind a thon for many.
Also I really think that while making things 'team' focused is good and can work with the right players/community, I think more often than not when it doesn't work and you lose anyway you are left feeling helpless and powerless to affect your own PERSONAL fun and achievement. It gets old hoping and trying to affect an entire teams success when the much easier simpler and more FUN solution is to be able to affect your OWN success independently. Currently the only thing I can think of that directly rewards the individual is 'valor'. I know some people say if you make things 'competitive' people will tk and all that. Well I'd rather find ways to deal with that and play a game that's more FUN instead of being at the mercy of autobalance and who's on your team largely dictating your fun. When the ability to be rewarded is taken out of your hands and given to others you feel powerless and fun is less likely.
I really thought I would be called a noob or crybaby or something along thses lines.
Fact is, when I began playing cRPG, I enjoyed being a peasant. My goal was to survive, maybe hitting or even killing someone. It was really refreshing to play a multiplayer game with those bizarre goals. My team would be winning or loosing, that had absolutely no importance. Then the game slowly changed as I leveled up and bought better equipment. It was slow so I could enjoy many flavors of the mod without skipping them. I remember when I bought the shortened voulge I was delighted to see I was able to kill at least a few people with it. Then my goal began to switch from surviving to killing and winning. But overall winning wasn't an important part of the game. I remember that winners did had better xp and gold but it wasn't x5 like today. So people didn't really cared about winning. The builds were absolutely not optimized even as half as they are now. Nor was the equipment. In fact many players were actually role-playing something, with a particular set of armor and
weapons. Yes, people actually used totally underpowered equipment
just because it fit their style, something considered noobish, if not worse, now. There was balance ranting, but on a much wider scale than now. Current balance discussions are like "elite spammitar is OP". Back then is was like "archers are OP", because no one cared about this or that weapon. No one bothered to see which one was better, because it had no real purpose. You played for fun, not to win.
Current cRPG feels like a giant competition between e-peen, trolling and douchebaggery. E-peen being winning by skill, and douchebaggery being winning by ruining the fun for the other side. Trolls are the real winners. They don't care about winning or loosing, equipment, build, gold, xp and all that crap. They play for fun.
