I’ve been watching a conversation on the US forum about the benefits or otherwise of changes in a game of this type, and wondering how to pitch in, so given the quiet patch here I’m going to offer a few perspectives and see if it sparks similar thoughts amongst the international community.
For me, if a game doesn’t evolve it ultimately dies, and Elvenar has a blend of attributes I appreciate. The devs have a difficult task maintaining a long term balance of challenge and evolving the game for people in multiple stages of their play. One of the big risks is long time players accumulate items that make the game easy while newer starters find it hard. Handled badly this can lead to item inflation. The devs seem to me to be using change to maintain challenge without introducing escalating inflation. Pruning back the outcomes of some strategies appears part of this balancing as well.
Personally, I accept some of my strategies being knocked back a bit every now and then to maintain challenge and balance. The game would become too easy otherwise and that would be when I became bored and moved on. I see a lot of comments about the devs leaving quests in the event lists that are difficult (irritating) but providing they are not impossible for some players in my opinion that is just a challenge we know is coming, and therefore can develop tactics to mitigate. If the devs make it too easy I suspect a majority of those drawn to the game would find that boring after a while. Altering the relative effectiveness of different methods to accumulate key resources like CCs or RRs can’t inevitably be a bad outcome even if we think so initially.
I don’t know anyone that gets everything right first time when the problems are complex. I think forums can be a good mechanism for constructive feedback on projected impact of change to the devs, but expecting all adverse changes to be unwound is just not going to happen. We either accept the latest version of the game or not, but I never assume the devs have the same intentions as the player base (not least because we are not a homogeneous group).
What am I really trying to say, it’s a game and meant to entertain. If you personally are angry about changes rather than having a rant to let off steam then I hope you find a resolution to that situation. I game for enjoyment, I wish you the same.