Hooboy great timing for this. I started
this thread in response to a lot of talk by both ubers and noobers about frustration due to the most recent skill nerf (VU 8.8) and especially the ongoing (repetitive) nerfing of skills. In particular, the present system prevents those who haven't got skills above 7k from getting them there without massive amounts of time and/or money compared to just a month ago. The discouragement this has caused in players of all levels trying to reach their goals has led to a lot of changes in the game play (decreased input to the system) which is obviously a bad thing for
MA. Some have or will be selling out -- another bad thing.
So my question: why do you not "raise the bar" with SIB tools and weapons that require skills higher than the current "maxed" skills (~10k average) to give ubers something to aim for instead of destroying the chances of anyone new becoming uber (without an uber bank account)? I know that the sugar coating description on the VU made it sound like that is what was being done, but the reality is that the nerf has been heavy-handed and excessive.
MA (you in this case Mr. Balancing manager) had the choice between a progressive change to adapt to the advancing player base or a regressive one. You have chosen the regressive one as has been done too often in the past, ever increasing the gap between first-comes and later-comes, and it has hurt your credibility.
Furthermore, wouldn't it be more beneficial to both MA and the player base to decide on a suitable skill progression and then freeze it, declaring that it will not be fundamentally changed again?