Updates You Felt "Broke" Continuous/Ongoing Games

[Fox12]

I was a huge fan of Star Wars Empire at War. Both sides were balanced, with imperials having strength while the rebels had maneuverability. Then the expansion came out, and the developers decided to add a third faction... that had stronger, faster units that were also cheaper to produce. To add insult to injury, the faction also made more money then either side, and could steal money from you. It completely wrecked the game.

In a half ass attempt to even things out, they gave the Empire a super star destroyer, which basically won any battle by itself. It was a mess.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I was a huge fan of Star Wars Empire at War. Both sides were balanced, with imperials having strength while the rebels had maneuverability. Then the expansion came out, and the developers decided to add a third faction... that had stronger, faster units that were also cheaper to produce. To add insult to injury, the faction also made more money then either side, and could steal money from you. It completely wrecked the game.

In a half ass attempt to even things out, they gave the Empire a super star destroyer, which basically won any battle by itself. It was a mess.

Oh yes, the infamous Forces of Corruption expansion. The only reason why I still have the thing installed is for its plethora of overhaul/total conversion mods, many of which either remove the Zann Consortium outright or give it a much-deserved beating with the nerf bat. Not only was the Consortium stupidly OP and aggravating to fight, but it didn't even make any sense within the lore. It galled me that they pulled this heretofore unknown faction out of their ass and expect us to be on board that it's powerful enough to conquer the galaxy.

Black Sun would have been a MUCH better choice, as it was already a well-established and powerful criminal organization in the old EU. They could have easily adapted the storyline from Shadows of the Empire for the campaign and tweak the ending so Prince Xizor's gambit succeeds. Part of the original Empire at War's appeal was exploring "what if" scenarios anyway, so it would fit right in. It would have been a golden opportunity to insert some more well-known EU heroes like Guri, Dash Rendar and Kyle Katarn. I mean, why go to all the trouble to have Rohm Moc and his Dark Troopers if you aren't going to include Katarn as his nemesis?

And that's not even getting into all the technical issues, from compatibility issues at launch to corrupting (lol) long Galactic Conquest sessions and save files. Also, is it my imagination or is unit pathfinding worse than in vanilla EaW?

 

[MajorTomServo]

"Lololo what's next? Different eyepatches for demo?"

Spoiler: Quite the opposite, actually.

+1 for TF2 cosmetics. Now the game is all about flaunting your e-peen.

You used to get respect and status by, you know, being good and helping your team win. Now it's all about strange unusual vintage genuine hot-pink-and-lime-green hats and weapons that destroy the aesthetic.

I literally saw someone wearing a lime green unusual say "My hat is worth more than your life :^)" in chat once. And his steam avatar was a drawing of his hat. FREAKING FAN ART. OF A HAT.

 

[JayRPG]

WoW and everything after Burning Crusade, except maybe Ulduar in Wrath.

(ICC was comparatively shit compared to everything in BC, take off the rose-coloured glasses)

 

[Chaos Isaac]

Dark Souls II

The Great Magic Nerf.

Did you enjoy running around as a weak mage, carefully using your spells and items to beat area's most melee characters can laugh through?

Hah, we're now gonna nerf magic so far into the ground, there is no point to use it. Miracles received much the same treatment, though they were entirely over powered before that patch. I hear hexes are okay to use, but considering you have to level up two stats for decent use of it, you may as well not even bother.

 

[baddude1337]

Medieval 2: Total War - The Steam multiplayer update rendered the game completely unplayable for me, and also broke mods for many others. The only way I could get it (and the mods I play) was to find a non-Steam exe and use that alongside an older HDD backup copy of it. It was quite shocking how badly CA fudged up the older games, the forums for Rome 1 especially are rife with performance problems post patch.

Battlefield 3 - Easily one of my favourite and most played online shooters. Launch was fantastic after a handful of patches and the Karkand DLC. Then came the patch that made suppression far too extreme, and I stopped playing for a bit as a result. I came back after it was patched out again, but then the rent-a servers came in, and created an incredibly toxic community that made it a chore to find a half decent server without getting kicked or banning most of the weapons, and almost impossible to find an official server to play on. Following this there were 'balance' patches that nerfed weapons that didn't need nerfing, and DLC maps that were hardly ever played apart from the Close Quarters ones. I still played a fair chunk after all this, but Battlefield 3 was and never will be the same game as it was in those opening few months.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

It is not an update precisely, more of a revamp...and I seem to only be a part of a small niche group of people that feel the same way. But it's the only example I find necessary to whinge on about until Hades takes my sorry ass away. Metro redux is not the glorious Metro 2033. Last Light is to blame along with Deep Silver for CODding up the gameplay and destroying the immersion that the first game brought. One day I will be able to own and play STALKER to forget about this travesty. But until then: Blaarrrrggghhhh!!

Metro Last Light was a good game, but I do have to agree. First game was better in most aspects.
Which made me sad to see that 2033 got updated to use LL's mechanics in redux.

Edit:
When it comes to Stalker, first game is still the best out of the series. Just make sure it has all patches and apply the Zone Reclemation Project on top. It keeps the game vanilla but fixes everything the devs overlooked while making it easier to run.

Yes it is true that Last Light and Redux are still good games on their own. They just sacrificed what made the original so unique and foreboding to grab some of the COD market. Business as usual. I shall note your STALKER recommendation for future purchasing, thankyou

 

[maffgibson]

Rome 2: Total War. Not that it wasn't borderline unplayable to begin with, but the fact that over a year-and-a-bit time period they were bringing out almost monthly patches, each of which would add/remove features, change gameplay balance, and worst of all, massively re-arrange the tech and building trees and functions, so I would be halfway through a main campaign, and suddenly my empire made no sense, and I would have to start again. I learned to play that game 4/5 times. If it weren't for the fact that I thought each patch was the last overhaul (and that the whole TW format is like catnip to me, seriously), I would have simply given up.

 

[Lightspeaker]

I was a huge fan of Star Wars Empire at War. Both sides were balanced, with imperials having strength while the rebels had maneuverability. Then the expansion came out, and the developers decided to add a third faction... that had stronger, faster units that were also cheaper to produce. To add insult to injury, the faction also made more money then either side, and could steal money from you. It completely wrecked the game.

In a half ass attempt to even things out, they gave the Empire a super star destroyer, which basically won any battle by itself. It was a mess.

Oh yes, the infamous Forces of Corruption expansion. The only reason why I still have the thing installed is for its plethora of overhaul/total conversion mods, many of which either remove the Zann Consortium outright or give it a much-deserved beating with the nerf bat. Not only was the Consortium stupidly OP and aggravating to fight, but it didn't even make any sense within the lore. It galled me that they pulled this heretofore unknown faction out of their ass and expect us to be on board that it's powerful enough to conquer the galaxy.

Black Sun would have been a MUCH better choice, as it was already a well-established and powerful criminal organization in the old EU. They could have easily adapted the storyline from Shadows of the Empire for the campaign and tweak the ending so Prince Xizor's gambit succeeds. Part of the original Empire at War's appeal was exploring "what if" scenarios anyway, so it would fit right in. It would have been a golden opportunity to insert some more well-known EU heroes like Guri, Dash Rendar and Kyle Katarn. I mean, why go to all the trouble to have Rohm Moc and his Dark Troopers if you aren't going to include Katarn as his nemesis?

And that's not even getting into all the technical issues, from compatibility issues at launch to corrupting (lol) long Galactic Conquest sessions and save files. Also, is it my imagination or is unit pathfinding worse than in vanilla EaW?

On a related note: can you recommend any specific mods?

I've had EaW for years and over the Christmas the gold edition was super cheap on steam so I picked it up, installed it and then promptly watched in horror as I got flattened twice in a row by the Consortium within an hour or so.

Corruption in particular is a gigantic nuisance. Second game it felt like I spent virtually all my time just trying to hold back planetary corruption. -_-

 

[Supernova1138]

I was a huge fan of Star Wars Empire at War. Both sides were balanced, with imperials having strength while the rebels had maneuverability. Then the expansion came out, and the developers decided to add a third faction... that had stronger, faster units that were also cheaper to produce. To add insult to injury, the faction also made more money then either side, and could steal money from you. It completely wrecked the game.

In a half ass attempt to even things out, they gave the Empire a super star destroyer, which basically won any battle by itself. It was a mess.

Oh yes, the infamous Forces of Corruption expansion. The only reason why I still have the thing installed is for its plethora of overhaul/total conversion mods, many of which either remove the Zann Consortium outright or give it a much-deserved beating with the nerf bat. Not only was the Consortium stupidly OP and aggravating to fight, but it didn't even make any sense within the lore. It galled me that they pulled this heretofore unknown faction out of their ass and expect us to be on board that it's powerful enough to conquer the galaxy.

Black Sun would have been a MUCH better choice, as it was already a well-established and powerful criminal organization in the old EU. They could have easily adapted the storyline from Shadows of the Empire for the campaign and tweak the ending so Prince Xizor's gambit succeeds. Part of the original Empire at War's appeal was exploring "what if" scenarios anyway, so it would fit right in. It would have been a golden opportunity to insert some more well-known EU heroes like Guri, Dash Rendar and Kyle Katarn. I mean, why go to all the trouble to have Rohm Moc and his Dark Troopers if you aren't going to include Katarn as his nemesis?

And that's not even getting into all the technical issues, from compatibility issues at launch to corrupting (lol) long Galactic Conquest sessions and save files. Also, is it my imagination or is unit pathfinding worse than in vanilla EaW?

On a related note: can you recommend any specific mods?

I've had EaW for years and over the Christmas the gold edition was super cheap on steam so I picked it up, installed it and then promptly watched in horror as I got flattened twice in a row by the Consortium within an hour or so.

Corruption in particular is a gigantic nuisance. Second game it felt like I spent virtually all my time just trying to hold back planetary corruption. -_-

Absolute Corruption nerfs down the Zann Consortium and adds a crapload of units from the Expanded Universe. I think it also removes the population caps restricting the number of units that can be in play at once, potentially causing issues if the AI throws a truly massive fleet at you.

Thrawn's Revenge changes the setting to post-Return of the Jedi and removes the Zann Consortium entirely, adding some Imperial offshoot factions instead eg. Pentastar Alignment and Empire of the Hand and also makes significant changes to the game mechanics. You don't research technologies anymore, you get a set roster of units depending on which era you are in. The era you are in is defined by who happens to be leading the Galactic Empire at the time (Isard, Thrawn, Clone Palpatine, Daala, or Pellaeon), and you advance to another era by killing the Imperial leader. Space Stations are removed and replaced with defenseless shipyards, so if you want to hold a planet's orbit you need to keep a fleet there or invest in Golan Defense platforms. Hero units also permanently die, so you have to be careful with them.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Yes it is true that Last Light and Redux are still good games on their own. They just sacrificed what made the original so unique and foreboding to grab some of the COD market. Business as usual.

Yep, I have to agree on this. 2033 is one of the few reasons why I haven't sold my 360 actually. It's is buggy, has weirdly psychic A.I. and yet I consider it one of the best games I've played.

I shall note your STALKER recommendation for future purchasing, thankyou

No problem.
Stalker SoC is insanely buggy even after patch 1.6, and Reclamation Project is the only mod I think is recommendable when playing it for the first time. Well worth atleast a few playthrough since there has yet to be a game that gives a similar experience.

 

[Neverhoodian]

On a related note: can you recommend any specific mods?

I've had EaW for years and over the Christmas the gold edition was super cheap on steam so I picked it up, installed it and then promptly watched in horror as I got flattened twice in a row by the Consortium within an hour or so.

Corruption in particular is a gigantic nuisance. Second game it felt like I spent virtually all my time just trying to hold back planetary corruption. -_-

Sure. It all depends on what you're looking for, I suppose. Awakening of the Rebellion [http://www.moddb.com/mods/awakening-of-the-rebellion-2] is one of my personal favorites. All three factions are given a fairly comprehensive overhaul, offering a new tech system along with all sorts of new units, heroes and gameplay tweaks. Just bear in mind that it's still rather rough around the edges in places. Black Sun is the underworld faction (though many Consortium units and heroes are present), and many of the more annoying features were seriously toned down or done away with completely.

Thrawn's Revenge [http://thrawnsrevenge.com/] is probably the best of the bunch when it comes to polish. It covers the New Republic era of the old EU, starting right after Endor and ending just before the Yuzzhan Vong invasion. The amount of work and attention to detail that went into the mod is astounding. It feels more like a proper sequel to the game than a mod. I highly recommend giving the website a read to get you up to speed. Best of all; no Zann Consortium.

If it's Clone Wars-era stuff you're after, there's Star Wars - Clone Wars [http://www.moddb.com/mods/republic-at-war]. Both of them are worth a look, as there are numerous differences. A word of warning though; Republic at War's AI can be absolutely brutal sometimes. Again, no Consortium.

Also, the Thrawn's Revenge team found a work-around for a game-breaking unit selection bug during extended Galactic Conquest sessions. Give it a go if it happens to you:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/thrawns-revenge/downloads/unit-selection-freeze-fixer-utility-v2

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I think I am beginning to despise the GvG expansion in Hearthstone. The level of RNG in the game is just ridiculous now, couple that with all aggro decks all the time now where queuing up to ladder is basically flipping a coin between facing MechMage, Mech*insertclasshere*, Face Hunter, Patron Warrior or Zoo and i'm close to uninstalling again.

All of the good cards are outweighed by the bullshit ones. I mean Antique Healbot, while amazing, is only good because of how it gives you a chance against aggro AKA if aggro wasn't so prevalent, Antique Healbot would be average to bad, same thing with Kezan Mystic, she's only good because she fucks over Face Hunter if you steal his Explosive Trap. Dr Balanced speaks for himself, making aggro even worse to fight against while simultaneously making the bigger creatures worse because every deck has to run BGH to counter him. He fits in every deck you can imagine.

"We have no plans to change Dr Bomb and we're not looking at it" - some guy from Blizzard

If Infinity Wars released a spectate mode, I would drop Hearthstone immediately since all of the fun I have is me and a friend spectating each other. I mean an online card game based around skill and playing around your opponent rather than praying that this full aggro ****'s Piloted Shredder drops a Doomsayer is much more preferable.

hmm...maybe it's because you are in the UK so maybe we play entirely different people or maybe you are on legendary on the ladder (I bounce around between levels 5-13, I end up forfeiting a bunch when I'm at work because I won't be busy at all then go to super busy all the sudden and have to quit.) but I see aggro maybe 1 out of every 5 matches (unless it's hunter, I've yet to see a non face hunter) otherwise It's filled to the brim with control/late game decks. I've actually been pretty damn successful with my midrange decks lately, especially mage, holy fuck does it counter druid FON + savage roar so hard. Mechmages I don't see too much of anymore (at least not full mage decks, usually an antique healbot and maybe a mechwarper with a piloted shredder, but not a full dedicated deck like when GvG just came out.)

I've had boom basically since he was released, and maybe I'm just lucky but I always seem to be able to deal with him just fine, I feel like if they bumped the bombs down to 1-2 damage and maybe gave him 6 health he'd be curbed a bit more (that way fireball could one hit him amongst other things) but he'd need to keep the 7 attack obviously for BGH.

sidenote: Regardless of win/lose, I have so much damn fun running patron warrior, always cracks a smile on my face hearing my speakers near explode with "EVERYONE, GET IN HEREEEEEEEEEE" from doing whirlwind + warsong commander combos.

OT: hmm...for some reason it's really hard for me to think of one right now, I know there are some, but I can only think of good updates off the top of my head that helped games.

usually "updates" that I feel break games are when sequels come out, usually they try to change a key staple to the previous game or they make something just unnecessarily broken to counter a strategy from the previous game, and that tends to annoy the fuck out of me, for example:

when they added the auction house to D3, it wasn't the fact of the auction house existing, it was the fact that it felt like the entire game was built around it, and you could NOT get good higher level gear without using it, the amount of gear I found that was just fucking useless for all my builds was too damn high, then they finally admitted to it being shite and made the console version the superior version basically after all the excuses they used on the PC version.

 

[Luminous_Umbra]

Ok, not going to lie, getting a lot "back in my day" vibe from this thread. And getting a bit of second-hand embarrassment from it.

I honestly can't name a game that I play that had a "game breaking update" in that sense.

However...

For me, I'd say the biggest one is in Yugioh. The advent of XYZ monsters I thought was a massive breaker, since it made all the cards that seemed to balance synchro monster summons suddenly massively overpowered and allowed people to summon monsters that were nigh unkillable without effort.

And then Pendulum monsters came out.

I hate those things so much. Treated as monsters and spells? Ok. All summons are special summons? Ok. They don't die but go to the extra deck? Ok. They all seem to have effects that summon more from the deck giving you a full field of strong monsters in 1 turn with little payment? Ok. Fine. Y'know what Konami? I'm glad you're dying. If this level of power creep is what you consider "updating", you've lost all sense!

Other than the Qlis and arguably D/D/D, a lot of the Pendulums are not that good. Also, "nigh unkillable without effort" is really not a convincing argument. At all. There are loads of ways to shut down each type of summon, some of them by virtue of them being special summons.

I pretty much stopped playing when it got to the point where they were adding tons of new items in a patch meaning it was damn near impossible to have the same options as another player without just idling for hours upon hours to get every weapon to drop first. I think I've played it maybe half a dozen times in four years now.

Ok, I will agree with this up to a point, it was especially terrible right at the start. That said, it has gotten far better. The base weapons drop as a result of achievements and all other non-cosmetic ones can be crafted. Plus, few of the weapons are straight upgrades over the stock weapons, so it's not as if you need them.

I still play TF2 on a semi-regular basis, but I understand your frustration. A part of me pines for the "good ol' days" of 2007-08. I miss the semi-serious spytech vibe instead of "SANDVICH SCOUT'S MOM BREAD MONSTER LAZORS LOL RANDOM!" I miss the plethora of tight-knit community servers that were killed off when Valve implemented Quickplay. I miss having a smooth framerate at high graphical settings before a crapton of particle effects forced me to tone it down. I miss the higher skill level from players in general before the game went F2P. I miss not having two or three players just standing in spawn because they were too lazy to find an idle/trading server.

While I absolutely agree with the quickplay and F2P to an extent, the "spytech" was something the purposely went away from when they were developing the game. The cartoony, over the top style in appearance and tone is something more games could use a little of.

 

[spartenX]

Well since you mentioned a card game, I may as well mention one too. Cardfight vanguard and the legion block. to try and sum up what this did for people who aren't quite as familiar with the game, legion was a mechanic introduced to the game that gave cards more power and acess to their best skills. However, the cost for this was sending cards back into the deck. in another game this wouldn't be too bad as you usually want to thin your deck, but in vanguard there are certain types of cards called triggers that can often be the deciding factors in games and only work when in the deck. So legion not only gave consistently high power, better skills than normal since they were behind a restriction that was easy to remove, and its actual cost was not a cost at all.

What didn't help was how it was implemented. When the block was released only a few decks got legion (since their is not enough room to support every deck in every set), and this meant that most decks that didn't get legion support yet were pretty much unplayable in the format. Whats worse is that this block ended up being really short, so most decks only got 1 legion card as a promotional card (meaning its handed out as part of some event, rather than being in a regular pack) while a bunch of other decks that were used by the major characters in the games anime got a bunch of legion support. This all caused a lot of people to leave the game, and I can't blame them as even I didn't find it all that fun.

thankfully the new stride block looks to be fixing these issues, such as the mechanic having an actual cost, a special set that gives every deck stride support (which even helps to revitalize some older boss monsters for those decks), and the new sets are also giving more legion support to the clans that missed out. still, the whole legion block ended up being a bit of stain on a game that had previously been known to be pretty damn balanced.

 

[LostCrusader]

I have gotten that feeling with every single new season on League of Legends. Riot has decided to flip the table every time and rework the jungle completely while taking all of the jungle items out.

 

[Vausch]

Ok, not going to lie, getting a lot "back in my day" vibe from this thread. And getting a bit of second-hand embarrassment from it.

I honestly can't name a game that I play that had a "game breaking update" in that sense.

However...

For me, I'd say the biggest one is in Yugioh. The advent of XYZ monsters I thought was a massive breaker, since it made all the cards that seemed to balance synchro monster summons suddenly massively overpowered and allowed people to summon monsters that were nigh unkillable without effort.

And then Pendulum monsters came out.

I hate those things so much. Treated as monsters and spells? Ok. All summons are special summons? Ok. They don't die but go to the extra deck? Ok. They all seem to have effects that summon more from the deck giving you a full field of strong monsters in 1 turn with little payment? Ok. Fine. Y'know what Konami? I'm glad you're dying. If this level of power creep is what you consider "updating", you've lost all sense!

Other than the Qlis and arguably D/D/D, a lot of the Pendulums are not that good. Also, "nigh unkillable without effort" is really not a convincing argument. At all. There are loads of ways to shut down each type of summon, some of them by virtue of them being special summons.

Maybe it's because I prefer to use gravekeepers, but I've set up my deck and side deck to be used against special summons and to stop attempts like this from happening. Yet it always seems to be that no matter what happens, there's always an effect to be had that will stop the stopping.

"Special summon"

-Dark horn of heaven

"Negated with this 3500atk guy"

-Tomb of the Gravekeepers

"negated with this"

-raigeki

"Negated with this guy"

-Dark hole

"Negated"

And I quit. No more. Not bothering to keep up with this. A lot of these additions are feeling like they're stuffing in failed games into one that's still actually fairly popular. Yes, there's a bit of a "back in my day" feel, but I can't help but think that when someone can easily summon 15 times the first bloody turn that maybe somewhere down the line they may have gone a bit too far. I mean if you're going to do all that give me cyber jar, morphing jar, heavy storm, harpie's feather duster, chaos emperor dragon, the ones that they think actually ARE broken back.

 

[Dalisclock]

About a month or so Kerbal Space Program reached 1.0(official release), which was quite awesome and they added a bunch of new features that made the game more interesting.

However, one thing that they changed was the aerodynamic physics, including actually implementing reentry friction, among other things. So people who had been playing the game for up to three years before this in Alpha and Beta release, suddenly found they had to relearn a new way to fly in an atmosphere. There was a lot more then that, because a lot of the old aircraft designs were no longer stable anymore, SSTO may no longer be possible ingame(as opposed to before, when it was very difficult),rocket launches attempted by the formula pretty much everyone had memorized now resulted on rockets flipping end over end out of control, people were reporting certain spacecraft from previous releases just randomly exploding from massive heat build up and how spacecraft attempting reentry would flip over and explode due to massive heat build up.

The 1.0.2 patch fixed most of these issues, but since KSP is a very heavily modded game, a lot of mods had to be updated to account for the new aero system before they would work again. Otherwise, everyone had to learn a new way to launch rockets to keep them stable, which wasn't incredibly different, but it required a much more precise touch then before. So now it's more or less back to normal.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Yes it is true that Last Light and Redux are still good games on their own. They just sacrificed what made the original so unique and foreboding to grab some of the COD market. Business as usual.

Yep, I have to agree on this. 2033 is one of the few reasons why I haven't sold my 360 actually. It's is buggy, has weirdly psychic A.I. and yet I consider it one of the best games I've played.

I shall note your STALKER recommendation for future purchasing, thankyou

No problem.
Stalker SoC is insanely buggy even after patch 1.6, and Reclamation Project is the only mod I think is recommendable when playing it for the first time. Well worth atleast a few playthrough since there has yet to be a game that gives a similar experience.

Hehe. 2033 is on my 360 HDD too. I bought the redux disc combo for the ps4 and really tried to like it for what it was. But just sold it soon after. The 360 copy shall be preserved in it's faulted brilliance.
The thing is that when a game is great enough to keep you invested no matter what, the bugs don't seem to matter so much that you often don't notice or care for them. It is the same for State of Decay. The amount of bugs in there are numerous, yet they matter not to me, often becoming just quirks. Though, if reviewing a game, it's necessary to remain as objective as possible. So the bugs would have to be mentioned and contributed to the final score. Dems da rules and all that progressive jazz.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Now that the gallery has arrived...I have a few comments.

-Terraria
Updates didn't break the game at all. Inconvenience players by forcing them to generate a new world with the new content? Yes. Yet nothing was actually lost or rendered inoperable as a result of those updates, ergo, it could not be broken.

-HAWKEN
Oh HAWKEN. It had some major (transformative) changes in its design and metagame over the years but the core, underlying problem with HAWKEN wasn't so much its innate mechanical balancing as its low player population and resulting crap matchmaking. (and yes, I realize the two may have some overlap)

Back when I played in 2012, Tuning levels were still a thing and tied to mech levels. Which in turn, were LOOSELY tied to player levels and should have influenced matchmaking but DIDN'T. So in brief, it was inevitable that players with level 25+ mechs would be matched with level 1 CRTs (starting mechs) fresh out of training, resulting in an extraordinary high turnover rate for new players.

Now, I stuck with the game for a while, and I'll NEVER claim to be that good, but even pushing past the ragequit mentality that seemed to grip so many prospective newbies, I was treated to matchmaking so borked that I almost pined for the days of random pub DOTA Allstars.

Every night, I frequently see-sawed between matches which were way, WAY too easy, and way too hard. The reason? My rating surged up and down thanks to me either crushing my opponents to dust, or being crushed like a grape in turn. I was a member of an incredibly TINY moderately skilled population, while the rest were diehard elites and legions of new faces I'd never see again.

I remember once placing in the top 15% AND bottom quartet (25%) of all player rankings IN THE SAME WEEK.

Eventually, it really didn't matter how the developers adjusted the mechanics and meta; with an ever-dwindling population the matches for newb players to get hooked just weren't there.