It's no secret there can sometimes be a lot of negativity on these forums, so here's the opposite. A thread about how much I love the game now. :) I've been around since beta, and I've seen a lot of changes in the game - for better or worse. Danger Rooms disappointed me quite a bit, to be honest. I do like One-Shots, but they get boring after a while. Wish there was more of those. The much anticipated Chapter 9 bored me to hell. The only good thing about it is that it's so short. Chapter 10 was a major step up, though.
But one of the issues that's bothered me the most since beta is the difficulty. Back in the early days, this was solved by having three difficulty levels (Normal, Heroic and Super Heroic, for you newbies). It worked, but that meant having to go through the story three times for each character to get to level 60. 50 characters, three times each... that's finishing the story 150 times. And now that we're close to 60 characters... you can do the math. An alternative was scaling the story and removing the Heroic and Super Heroic difficulties. This worked for new players, although I always ended up the story (well, chapter 9) around level 56. That meant a lot of grinding before I could get to chapter 10. Even worse, there were a few characters I had finished the story with when there were three difficulty levels. In other words, I finished the story around level 25. Now what? The only choice I have with these is to grind, grind, grind. Fortunately adding a huge server side XP bonus helps, plus I have the 204% XP bonus synergy from other heroes. But it still means a ton of grinding in patrol zones.
On top of all that, the new story XP scaling meant usually rushed past a lot of areas that gave me no XP at all, just so I could get to the bosses that did give XP a lot sooner. It meant reaching level 56ish faster, but I still had to grind the last bit.
Well, no more. It took a while, but now the game is finally shaping up to be awesome again. :) My game time today has been playing with a level 40 American Dream starting in chapter 5, and I have taken my time. Even walking around beating up random enemies feels useful, as I get a decent XP and loot from it. This again means I care about the events that pop up, as they aren't a waste of time anymore. Treasure rooms? I used to do them for the Tomb Raider achivement, but I still need 460+ of them. Now, though? I'm having a lot of fun exploring each area, and I'm entering treasure rooms because they are fun, challenging(ish) and gives decent loot. I've even found uniques I can use in treasure rooms. Now they feel a lot more like treasure rooms rather than waste-of-time rooms. :)
When I stopped playing earlier today, I was starting chapter 7, and had hit level 50 already. Not only that, but I deliberately went and picked up the Bug Hunt quest, as I want to do it now. It's not a waste of time anymore. Now it's actually a fun quest to do. Sauron? I usually fight him anyway (it's quick and gives decent XP, but now, I'm actually looking forward to it, and I'm taking my time with it. All because it doesn't feel like I'm wasting my time anymore. Heck, he even managed to kill me once. And I'm level 50. In fact, I do find myself relying heavily on medkits now. True, I auto-vaccuum everything except cosmic and unique gear, but still. I'm actually dying again. And I love it.
On top of that, you can still rush past the boring areas you don't like. The biggest improvement is in fact that you can now rush past areas you don't like, and spend a lot of time in areas you DO like. Awesome. :D So a huge thanks to the devs for this new difficulty level. You have actually managed to make the game fun again. :D :D :D