You're right, steam numbers are incomplete, but they do provide information that can be used to support people's feelings that the game is less active than it used to be. If the devs ever choose to post actual numbers, then I will be happy to disregard the steam charts. Until then there is no other way to that I know of to find information to either verify or refute the "this game is dying" argument.

So, which is it? In one post you say gear doesn't matter and that it's all about skill, and in the other you say that you don't think everyone should have the same gear. If gear doesn't matter, then why not let everyone have it? Personally, I think gear does matter. I think that the person who is just starting out and doesn't understand gearing will perform better as they gain access to better gear, and as players like you and me are able to help them to understand the system. I want those that underperform to be able to do better, just as I want to do better myself, and that means that not only do I want the better gear for myself, I want it for everyone. In the old days, we when we lost a raid member, we would run a new member through a couple of ops and give them all of the gear drops so that they could perform up to their full potential. We would also craft them their augments and explain how the gearing system worked. That made the game more fun. Personally, I get gear to do the content that I like to do. I don't do content to get the gear that I want. That's why I don't join a team now to get the better gear. I want to be an asset to a team, not a sandbag. Yes, I would like to do the content, but lacking the gear I won't.

I looked at the parses that you linked, and it looks like you picked ones were people are doing much less dps than is typical in raids that I join. Someone dps percentile was 0, and one was 6, another was 9, and one at 14, with you in the 97th percentile. So yes, you pulled your weight, and carried the group, but come on, this can't be normal. I do see people regularly performing in a range between the 50th and 75th percentile, and often see people performing in the 95th to 99th percentile in ops that I join on my server. Today, I did an SnV sm, and had a pyro pt and a sniper in 339 gear, and I was playing on an arsenal merc with 331 gear. Yeah I know, a merc lol, but thats what I wanted to play, and even though I underperform other specs on a merc, it was story mode. The pyro pt outperformed me by 20% on Thrasher and 15% on Styrak (both of us played in the 99th percentile for our respective specs), but the sniper lagged behind me in dps by 3.5% and 40% on the same fights. This is typical and what I expect when I play. I don't care that I don't need the better gear for story mode content. I want it, and know that it would benefit me, and would encourage me to join a team that does more interesting content if I had it. Now tell me again why reality needs to set in, and why better gear would do nothing for me.

No. I pugged into a 16 man hm op tonight, and got beat out on dps by the people with 337 and 339 level gear, and me in 331. I out parsed everyone who had gear that was comparable to me and those with lower gear ratings. I also put up numbers that were comparable to the top parses as displayed on the Parsely web site for the spec I was playing. Still, I saw what is possible with better gear, and I know that I don't have it, so I do not want to be on a team when I know that the gear that I have is holding me back from playing up to my full potential. Instead, I will continue to pug into ops, and live with the scraps that I get from the game instead of becoming a valued member of a team. That's the way the devs want it, and I guess that I am just not willing to jump through their hoops to satisfy them or the elitist players who judge me to be either unfit or inferior to them, and not deserving of the gear because I haven't "earned" it.

I understand, and I still disagree. The minimum requirement that I used in my example is from a real world case that I have seen. I know that it is not actually needed to clear content. But it is a requirement to get on a raid team in the real world on the discord server that made the announcement. I have cleared all NiM content short of Apex and NiM gods, so while I am not the uber best player in the game, I do understand what it takes to clear the content, and I still disagree with those that think that they are somehow better than other people, that they are the only ones that deserve the gear. As far as finding an actual team goes. I have been multiple teams over the years, and unfortunately people that I enjoy playing with have moved on to other games. Now I am behind on gearing and don't want to weigh a team down, so I have opted to not try to join one. That could change if I had a pathway towards getting better gear, but outdated old school game design is preventing me from doing that at the moment.

How about instead of using 10k as an example you use a real world example. Here's my example. Yesterday it was announced in one of the discord servers that I am subscribed to that the parse minimum for NiM ops was increasing from 26k to 28k. In that case, someone able to do 7% more damage would allow for an 1.820 point increase to a person who parses 26k in 330 gear, bringing their total to 27,820. That is only 180 points short of the required lower limit. Now you can argue that the limit is arbitrary, and yada yada, as so forth. Or you can argue that people shouldn't do NiM ops if they can't do 28k in 330 gear. There are obviously a lot of "to bad for you" arguments that can be made to justify the position that only better players deserve better gear. But in my opinion, the guy who does 26k deserves the gear just as much as the next guy, and keeping it from those people is not good for the game if it keeps the player base that has access to the harder content from people who want to participate in it, but can only do so if they have access to the gear.

I'm reading the forums less now. The new format is difficult for my old eyes to read. The lack of contrast caused by white writing on a grey background strains my eyes.

How do you know what other people need? You seem to assume that because you might not need it that no-one does. Allowing an attainable pathway to the best gear for everyone that wants it benefits the game because more people are encouraged to venture into harder content when they have it.

Is there a way to customize the background color? It is to bright for me and is causing me to strain my eyes when trying to read the text. More contrast between the background and text colors would help.

I agree, that would help. Your studio has said this several times in the past and has never done a good job of following through and actually improving your communication. Start being honest and learn to better communicate and maybe someday I will trust you. Until then I remain skeptical.

Yup, same for me.

lol..

I don't play wow or ff14 or gw2. I play this game. I don't play merc in harder content, but I do enjoy playing it in other content. I don't see how merc specs are any more braindead than deception, vengeance, lighting, madness, lethality, concealment, tactics or carnage. Lashing out at me because I want balance is kind of strange, but ok. You do help me to make my point though. The current imbalance is causing people to become hostile and is leading to insults being hurled at people for no good reason. The devs can fix that if they choose to. In the meantime, you can point the finger at me if you want but doing so fixes nothing.

If the devs fixed things, then there wouldn't be any under performing specs.

So, mercs suck and are somehow holding you hostage, but they should always suck. It's thinking like that that created the problem in the first place. No spec should suck so bad that people react to them like the way that you have done in your recent posts. Devs, please do something about this. Reasonable differences between specs keeps the game interesting, but those differences should not be designed to cause the slinging of insults like "I would just think that person is stupid" that are being directed towards people that play underperforming specs.

So, you think that mercs are so bad that you actually call people who play them in harder content stupid. No spec should be so bad that people like you call the people who play them stupid. Devs, it's up to you. Fix the underperforming specs, or keep doing things the way you are, and continue to divide and anger people.

This is a game. People play it for fun. If they want to play merc, then why shouldn't they. The only reason is because the devs hate the spec so much that they make it suck so people will avoid it. Learning new specs, and playing them is fun, but still, always having to avoid certain specs because the devs refuse to make them viable is worth complaining about.

I've waited a long time for you to say something that I could agree with, and now I don't have to wait any more. Thank you.

Chris, I think it is time that you communicate for each spec: How you rate their performance (outperforming, performing as intended or underperforming)? Do you have actual standards that you are using to make decisions, or are you just winging it? If you have standards or goals, what are they for dps, healing and tanking for each spec? What were or are you trying to achieve with changes that have already been made, or you are planning to make. Do you want some classes to outperform others, or do you want balance. Telling us what you plan to do is, even if you ask for our feedback, is not enough. Help me and others to understand what you are seeing, how it is affecting the game, and why changes are needed with a comprehensive spec by spec analysis. If you do this it will be much easier for us buy into what you are doing, and maybe even to better assist you in making changes that would help to improve the game. I know that doing this would open you up to getting feedback that you might not agree with, but I still think that more people would appreciate it than would attack you for it, and in the end, it could help to close the rift that has formed between the dev team, and the people who play the game.

I agree. Buff under performers and leave the rest alone.

The time for this is long past due.

I think that you hit the nail on the head with this question. It has seemed obvious for some time now that the devs want players to stop playing burst classes, and that they actually want everyone playing dot speced melee characters. What they should do is just eliminate the specs that they want to keep people from playing and leave the one or two specs that they are trying to get everyone to switch to. Of course that would suck, but at least they could have things their way and that's much more important than trying to do things to make the game fun.

You know it's ok that you only care about yourself. I prefer to care about more than just myself though, and that's why I disagree with the current gearing system. For example, I played today with a person playing lighting sorc in 331 blue gear with blue augs that parsed 15,186 on Dash'Roode and I want that person to have better gear. In other raids I have been paired with people in full 330 gear with gold augs, and some only did 10 to 15k on dummy parse bosses like Nefra. I want them to have better gear too. I don't think that only people who are already capable of doing and clearing nim ops should have the best gear. I think all people of all skill levels should have it, and that's why I will always disagree with the current system.

It is currently impossible to get 340 gear without running r-4 hm, and that is the problem. The disagreement that I have with the devs is in whether or not it should be that way, and I do disagree with the current system. So see, I can disagree after all.

I disagree with you and that doesn't make me or my ideas stupid. I found your comment insulting and I ask that you please refrain from using language like that when addressing me. I am glad that you are getting your gear. I just think that limiting gear to hm r-4 is wrong, and I feel strongly enough about it to make sure that the devs know what I think.