After seeing the recent changes in the game during the last couple weeks, and the way they've been reveived in the forums, I've been thinking about something...
Sometimes, I'm not really sure what to think about the attitude in the forums here.
While I appreciate the concern about the metagame and so on, I'm really asking myself sometimes what is expected out of the game.
I mean, in the end, it's still a game... it is for your entertainment. And whether you find the game entertaining or not depends on your idea of entertainment.
Furthermore, and that is what I find most disturbing, is the way that only the game is held responsible for the amount of fun you can get out of it, as if this was independent of the way you play the game.
On one side, people are trying the best to break the game and on the other side, it's the games fault that it is too easy after it has been broken by certain strategies. Although I see why it's important to point such things out and that those things should be fixed, I'm kind of puzzled about what people expect.
I mean, if I find a way to play the game, and it spoils the fun by making everything too easy, the logical conclusion for me is to stop abusing it. Easy as that. I'd maybe come here and say that I find this too easy so it can be investigated if a change would make the game more fun to play, but I certainly wouldn't consistently whine and demand changes in all possible ways.
If this was a multiplayer game, things certainly would be different, as it should be fair to all players. But it simply isn't a multiplayer game. If some people find delight in having an easy time in vicious dungeons by abusing combinations (where the parts most of the time are in fact not broken taken by themselves), for gods sake, let them do it. If you can't restrain from using them, it's not the games fault in my opinion. (However, it is the games fault when you don't have other options.)
In this context, I can't understand why some people are so dogmatic about what the game should allow and what not. Just because something is strong doesn't mean everybody is abusing it. The monk change is an especially good example in my opinion:
Although as unbalanced as he was in the last update, I still wasn't able to beat dragon isles with him. Believe it or not, there are *real* people that are new to the game / don't care so much about powergaming and just want to have fun trying things out. On the other hand, I was able to beat dragon isle with the berserker class. So if your not that skilled, there are often real alternatives that make your game easier, regardless of how stronger something is potentially.
Now the monk is changed and people (like me) that played the class for its flavour without stacking resistances are hurt even more than the ones abusing it. In some way, I, as a player feel left out now as i don't like the new monk.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a game where you have meaningful decisions and i think the game has greatly improved since i bought it. And although I'm not as good at the game as you guys, i still have fun with it.
But I don't like the trend that balancing the game is only about nerfing what can possibly be abused, while there are fine ways to use the ingame content without abusing it, as with the monk.
I get the feeling that it's all about who consistently whines the most (don't take this personally lujo) gets the game changed in his favour. I'm not sure if i like that.