As an electronic game historian... This thing with *players* crying for nerfs is new to me and it goes on nonstop in CO.
Hardly a day goes by in CO without someone complaining in some channel that some power should be nerfed. Often they've admittedly never even actually seriously played with the power in question ("but it's just like this power in my build except it's way better!") and so they don't even know what they are talking about.
And then there is Ren Cen PvP. Like LA says, this factors in with it's own set of complaints but that's about the extent of my knowledge & interest.
From a PvE builders perspective... It takes some people a long time to put a build together that they're happy with and I am one of them. All my powers are picked to work together. I don't pick them because they are pretty or OP I pick them mostly for the overall build and what I'm trying to do with that build's theme. When a power changes drastically in one of my builds, often, so does my build.
I.E. nerfs are a big pain in the funfactor. And on top of that they cost time. Time wasted farming for retcons on builds I was already happy with and that maybe will never play the same again. Or maybe they will. Who knows.
Oh hey, I did fix my build. Oh, what, here comes a new round of nerfs..?
Who's to blame? Everyone with a voice. It's what the game wants.....
Until new nerfs are announced and then all the chat channels start lighting up with bad news. And players, understandably, do leave. And then there is a new round of players talking about powers/toys/gear they have no idea about, or maybe they even do, who cares at this point, and saying Nerf! Nerf!
Un....real. To this electronic game historian. I am used to asking for more power and complaining when I have less and taking advantage of everything I can in-between and letting the Game Designers decide when I am ripping up their game too badly or not and then battling against Them and Their decisions to find 'Balance', not, The Players. Something like this...:
It's why I was playin fallout new vegas and skyrim for hours on end and why I moved to fallout 4. Because you aren't punished for finding some cool trick or even a "good bad bug" that lets you do something crazy and fun.
(Nothing wrong with single players games btw, ofc. Important thing is that it's.. gaming. Immersion and challenge/fun. A diversion. Right?)
I mean player feedback is great and needed and the idea of game balance is important but it's like, especially since Kaiserin, Players are looking for a JOB. By spreading their gamely wisdom about what needs to change and what's out of balance and how the game should really be and on and on until changes actually do come down and the rest of us who were just Playing are like 'here we go again'.
PvP is a whole other thing with it's own set of problems. Just a suggestion, PvP guys.. If you run into a power or device you don't like, how about you ban it from competition. Or think of SOMETHING besides constantly trying to nerf the game into a balance that will never exist.. I know you can do it if you put your minds to it.
Wheee ranting's fun. Ya only got it due to the long server downtime and I had some game energy to burn hehe....