The flip side of the coin is that when Blizz fixes CotA and similar areas, they will be replaced by the next best thing.
This isn't really problematic, though.
The problem only exists if the "next best thing" is still massively disproportionate with the expected XP gains. If it's within some kind of tolerance then most reasonable people seem to be OK with that... as it should be.
It's OK to have Alkaizer runs so long as people who don't do them aren't 50% behind everyone else... because all that does is give people a false choice between "fun" and "efficiency." As to what the tolerance is where people stop getting the "I really have to do something I don't particularly enjoy because it's much better than what I'd prefer to do" ... my guess is as long as it's 5% or less, roughly, you'll see people not really caring. And that makes perfect sense, really.
EDIT
Remember, the entire Paragon system was tuned around some XP/hr rate that Blizzard observed during PTR/Beta. If people start going too far beyond that rate the whole system "breaks" for them. And then those people go to the forums at Paragon 1000 whining that the system is boring because all they've got is int/dex/str for the past 200 levels. Arguably the only issue is that Blizzard didn't fix CotA BEFORE people were already Paragon 650+.
Quote from Dimebog Even if all zones had "equal" density, there will ALWAYS be one or two zones that everyone farms if nothing, then because of the shape and layout, frequency of chest spawns, etc. So what is the point in making everything blandly the same and overcrowded.
Parity. You do understand the concept of parity, right?
It doesn't matter if there is a more popular area. It matters if there is a more popular area because it affords 75% more XP than every other area in the game. There's a huge difference which seems very easy to understand.
And as long as people speak out against the actual problems at hand, we can productively provide input to make the game better. But asserting that "people who farm areas of high exp yield are punishing everyone else" does little. If anything it makes the community come off as unintelligible. And when yields ARE put into tolerance as you suggested,the actual issue of crazy disproportionate experience yields goes forgotten in a heart beat when suddenly people's runs net them less and they come here to complain.
It's kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't, you see. That's whats boggles my brain.
^ truth. I like how everyone is clinging to the "wait 2-3 days for adventure mode/ Neph rifts". Are you guys that naive? Those are just gonna get the nerf bat in the first 4 hours just like everything else.
How stupid do you have to be to believe that they'll nerf new content to be worse than old content when it comes to rewards? So much fuss about one room with enemies that only melee being nerfed.
CotA farming is nothing more than an ode to dumbed down gameplay.
Maybe YOU Should STOP Calling People stupid. I bet I can find new content they put in only to nerf soon afterwards. I think your pretty stupid
You're (<--see how it's properly written) implying that they're making some content too good and exploitable intentionally, which falls in the realm of people who believe that the queen is a lizard and that illuminati is controlling your remote.
There will most likely be new content that gets nerfed, just like every game that is better when the gameplay is balanced. Saying that blizzard makes stuff unbalanced intentionally is quite dumb. New content is also meant to trump the old content by default, so they are not going to intentionally nerf the new content to make old content more rewarding.
At the moment i'm soooo looking forward on doing content to get gear, and having the most exp coming from content that need's gear, time and skill in varying quantities each run. For people who want 0 challenge there will still be "ok" ways to get exp from places other than nephalem rifts.
I'm pretty stupid to think blizzard will do the exact same thing they've done since launch? At no point did I say/even mention anything about nerfing the content to previous patches/content. And I sure as hell don't run CotA runs.
"There will most likely be new content that gets nerfed". So do you usually make it a point to contradict yourself and make yourself look like an ass?
Stop drinking the kool-aid. And I've learned one incredibly important thing about you thus far, you either didnt play D2 at all, or were some band-waggon fan that doesn't know shit about how Diablo is supposed to be played.
- If you found a near-perfect crit Mempo or another godly item, you could have sold it for 2 billion gold in AH or more than that with trading. You see, no bots or flipping involved. You shouldn't accuse people without proof. Or would you like to be in a society where you can be arrested just because someone said that you are a thief?
- I wonder where you get your "facts". Have you done a research on how average/casual players play? And what is your definition of average/casual player? Is it someone who plays 1 hour a day on average? 1.5 hours? 2 hours? Is there a consensus on that?
Look at this character: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Tebby-2211/hero/36838772. I started this around a week ago. I play around 1.5 hours average, and I already have plvl 33. With only doing completing story twice. No CotA or equivalent runs, just playing the whole game. I know this is just an example and doesn't say anything for the whole category of "average player"; however, talking for the whole group of players without giving facts is wrong.
- The problem wasn't just the CotA, the problem was the effort/reward ratio of the monsters. It was high for those swarm types: they die fast and they propose no danger for you. If just the CotA was adjusted, the next place having big groups of swarmers would replace it. So they have done the right thing and tuned it accordingly.
You might say "Then, why nerf? Why buff everything else?". This question has been answered hundreds of times, you can find it even in this topic.
I nor you get to decide "how diablo is supposed to be played", blizzard does...
I disagree, wholeheartedly. The game is supposed to be played as the players wishes it to be played.
That's like; you thought a movie you saw was funny, but the director said after the show; "You are not allowed to think it's funny, it's supposed to be serious!", so you don't.
Well you tell Blizzard that, let us know how it works out for you.
Quote from Nausicaa» 1. If you have hundreds of millions of gold, you have either been botting, bought gold from botters or spent a lot of time flipping items on the AH. I've played D3 for about 500h (on HC) and I have picked up 38 million gold in total.
2. The average D3 player doesn't get paragon levels. Period. 99% of people posting on this board are not average D3 players.
1) I actually have over 250 million gold looted in about 1500 hours /played. I do not bot and I've never used GF gear or any cheesy gold-gaining methods like Sarkoth or ashes farming.
2) My guess is that the average D3 player, at this point, has a few paragon levels. But, at this point, I'm not really considering accounts that have been inactive since 2.0 launched. If people haven't come back for 2.0 then, well, they're not really part of the demographic that matters at this point.
I disagree, wholeheartedly. The game is supposed to be played as the players wishes it to be played.
That's like; you thought a movie you saw was funny, but the director said after the show; "You are not allowed to think it's funny, it's supposed to be serious!", so you don't.
As much as I hate BoA, this statement is just flat-out retarded.
You make it sound like Blizzard is making decisions that are bad for business when their goal (since they're a business) is exactly the opposite. They wouldn't be making decisions that they think is bad for the game. It's moronic to think they would do that. They may take calculated risks, but they're not actively trying to fuck things up (since they're a publicly-owned company that is actually illegal in the USA).
When they do something like nerf low-HP swarming monsters they do so because they have reason to believe it's going to make the game better, not worse; therefore that whole comparison is wrong. They simply have evaluated the situation and realized that if they don't do something they risk losing people who become frustrated because the "best" way to play is also amazingly boring. Believe it or not the average player is NOT going to be very pleased to find out that their stupid little farming route is massively less efficient than abusing CotA in a group. Why would you be happy? The overwhelming presumption should be that even if you're not operating at 100% efficiency that you aren't being penalized by 50 or 75% just because you DIDN'T choose to do 20-second CotA runs.
Some people may enjoy CotA and that's their prerogative. But what you're saying is that MOST people enjoy it and that Blizzard is "telling us how to play" because what they're doing flys in the face of the average player. That's simply ludicrous and impossible to believe. The *average* D3 player would never touch CotA runs... and therein lies the problem. Because of the XP/hr gains in CotA that means the average gamer is fucked. And with all the hinting at ladders recently, they CLEARLY have to address any significant imbalances in XP gains. What would the point to ladder be if everyone knew, ahead of time, that it was just going to be five months of CotA farming because NOTHING ELSE IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING GAME came anywhere close to the XP/hr that you get in CotA?
Just the implication of ladders DEMANDS that these things are balanced reasonably. Seriously, what kind of fucking sociopath is going to want to do ladders if it means months of doing nothing but CotA? /boggle
EDIT
And, even though it's been mentioned. Unintended behavior is unintended. I could make the argument that Blizzard is bad because I don't actually want to fight monsters, I just want to run around kicking over corpses and getting gear. By your statement there's nothing wrong with that because it's how *I* enjoy the game. What you're missing is that there are ground rules. If you don't want to kill monsters you probably don't want to play an ARPG, for example. This is non-negotiable. So the idea that we get to define "what we find fun" and then if Blizzard infringes on that, for whatever reason, they're being horrible people.... it just doesn't pass the smell test. It simply lacks any sense of pragmatism.
At the end of the day Blizz wants us farming what they want us to farm. If we are farming something they think will give players an advantage over the other they will get rid of it. Why? Because they don't want people complaining. They want a fair game that = the amount of effort put in. People that put minimal effort into the game by repeatedly killing the same room for 24 hours (go eat something) aren't playing the game! Why are they getting better xp and loot when they are doing nothing but some lame run.
[quote=undefined]
You missed the point i was making. I was showing how a scummy economy "sneaks up" on players who do not pay any attention to it. the scummy economy exists because it has a way to exist.
Hundreds of millions of gold is not the extreme end of the spectrum. Some people, have racked up billions and billions of gold. As I mentioned millions of gold OR billions it does not guarantee for sure that they cheated or that they are AH geniuses.....
But the example was simply to highlight an idea.
The same way that players not paying attention to a runaway COTA farmer might fall behind by several hundred paragon levels.
Oh sure not a big deal at all....who cares about the differences in everyones paragon levels......who cares about the differences in wealth......
Blizzard cares. At least i truly hope they do. If i had to hazard a guess I'd say that they do.
They dont have to outright prevent it, they dont have to easily allow it, but they should definitely oversee it. and correct it as needed. But again this is just an IDEA. Not a specific statement that COTA NEEDED to be nerfed....maybe it did.....
but the idea states that everything needs to be scrutinized and monitored, so that these apparently ridiculous anomalies are not allowed to grow and fester.....
I nor you get to decide "how diablo is supposed to be played", blizzard does...
I disagree, wholeheartedly. The game is supposed to be played as the players wishes it to be played.
That's like; you thought a movie you saw was funny, but the director said after the show; "You are not allowed to think it's funny, it's supposed to be serious!", so you don't.
I actually see modern game-making as a mix of both
When done by a serious company, game developing has a very healthy mix of limitations imposed by the developer (which are exactly what makes the game what it is) and feedback by the playebase (which prompts the devs to discuss that feedback, iterate on it, and promote changes).
You need the feedback so that you can change the challenges presented in game (and its rewards) to what players feel like a "fair game". And you need the devs limitations because otherwise every single game would just be a sandbox out there.Some directionis always good.
A lot of people could be already doing "Bounties" on their own on vanilla, with no guidance, but once the developer comes out and say "look, do this and get this very minor/different reward" suddenly everyone loves the feature and is going to explore the entire game.
I just find it funny people are so upset over this. It's a blue bar that moves right. Now it moves slightly slower. Cannot fathom how this got blown so far out of proportion, since XP grinding is such a small part of what makes this game worth playing. Now, if they halve legendary drop rates, we'd have something to talk about.
I can't be alone here. There must be other people who really couldn't care less how much XP monsters give you.
I just find it funny people are so upset over this. It's a blue bar that moves right. Now it moves slightly slower. Cannot fathom how this got blown so far out of proportion, since XP grinding is such a small part of what makes this game worth playing. Now, if they halve legendary drop rates, we'd have something to talk about.
I can't be alone here. There must be other people who really couldn't care less how much XP monsters give you.
I just find it funny people are so upset over this. It's a blue bar that moves right. Now it moves slightly slower. Cannot fathom how this got blown so far out of proportion, since XP grinding is such a small part of what makes this game worth playing. Now, if they halve legendary drop rates, we'd have something to talk about.
I can't be alone here. There must be other people who really couldn't care less how much XP monsters give you.
3. Never said anything of the sort! Quite the opposite. Maybe you need to read the posts again? I personally believe (but I've not looked into the matter) that a minority enjoy CotA. I know I don't enjoy doing CotA runs, but I also don't begrudge others from doing them. More power to them, if they want to min/max.
How many times does it need to be said? It's not about STOPPING people from running CotA ad nauseum. It's about making sure that people who DON'T run CotA to infinity (and beyond) aren't stuck with a choice that's massively behind CotA.
It's called parity and it's not a very difficult concept to understand. Really, we've been through this a hundred times. If someone ENJOYS CotA runs they're still free to do it. They just won't be getting the absolute, hands down, best XP gains in the game anymore. What the fuck is the problem with that? How the hell has that been blown so far out of proportion that it has to continue to be repeated?
There's a difference between "I enjoy running CotA" and "I run CotA because nothing else in the game comes close to it" and that difference really isn't that complex. It's amazing that people can't wrap their heads around it.
If you believe that a MINORITY actually enjoy CotA runs then you have to understand how Blizzard is making this decision because they believe that it benefits more people than it harms. So what the fuck is the issue?
I'd hardly call what they attempted to do in D3 with the auction house (specifically the rmah) safe, as you put it. Beyond that, even the customization in the game was a risky venture, as it limited player progression that didn't involve gear to only leveling to level cap. Unlike other ARPGs that don't give you all the abilities at level cap and force you to level a new character to try them out. That's hardly safe and goes against the norm for ARPGs. So your assumption that they take zero risk is flat out wrong in the case of D3 alone.
Also, something a lot of people misunderstand about major development companies is how a near infinite supply of money doesn't equate to better, faster, or a great game. Money doesn't design content, or classes, or balance in the games, people do. Blizzard certainly has the talent, and the money, but time isn't as abundant as you may assume it is for development. This is something a lot of WoW players misunderstand as well, and for some reason can't comprehend something as basic as time isn't infinite, and money doesn't buy you more of it.
"There will most likely be new content that gets nerfed". So do you usually make it a point to contradict yourself and make yourself look like an ass?
Stop drinking the kool-aid. And I've learned one incredibly important thing about you thus far, you either didnt play D2 at all, or were some band-waggon fan that doesn't know shit about how Diablo is supposed to be played.
The point was that there will be unintentional imbalance that did not come up in beta testing. This is different to making content imbalanced on purpose just to nerf it.
Hyperventilating about d2 is moot, d3 was never supposed to be d2 with better graphics. D3 has come out at the age of drm, old auction house and the ability to patch and hotfix games. I nor you get to decide "how diablo is supposed to be played", blizzard does and i'm glad their view is much more like my own than people who farm 1 spot just to be able to farm it faster.
edit: And you can still farm any spot as much as you want, and farm it faster and faster until your ears bleed, all you get now is less paragon levels than people doing more unpredictable and non repetitive content (which nephalem rifts hopefully bring). In my opinion the best player is the one with the best ability to adapt, not the one with most resets of an instance that offers no chance to fail.
Their biggest mistake then was to try and make D3 anything other than D2. It was a simple goal to meet and had 10 years to achieve it. And had they succeeded in doing that in the first place, every original Diablo player/fan would have been more than satisfied a year or more ago. I don't care if this new expansion is Blizzard's new "Mona Lisa", they are still a company that HAS to provide customer service to it's customers and take feedback on what can/will make us happy, and make it happen. There is no arguing that. Ever.
I already have. I'm not buying RoS. I'm playing something else. Works out fine for me, less so for Blizzard.
Please tell me that "playing something else" does not mean "trolling Diablo fansites whining and crying about how horrible D3 is and how much you hate Blizzard".
First off, you know they didn't just "fix" CotA right? You know they changed all similar mobs, in every zone, in every difficulty, in single player and multiplayer... cause a minority found an "exploit" in a, let's face it, single player game?
And they nerfed SIMILAR monsters because the problem, as has been stated a hundred fucking times now, was that these monsters that were *exceptionally* low-risk were giving better XP/hr rewards as monsters that were much higher-risk.
It is a very... very... simple concept. You can parrot "THEY NERFED ALL THE MONSTERS IN TEH GAME" stuff, but that shows a fundamental lack of understanding as to *why* CotA was popular in the first place.
Hint: It's the same reason MP10 scorpions were popular in 1.0.7. Strangely enough, 1.0.8 had a similar across-the-board nerf to weak monsters that occur in big swarms. SHOCKER!
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The problem only exists if the "next best thing" is still massively disproportionate with the expected XP gains. If it's within some kind of tolerance then most reasonable people seem to be OK with that... as it should be.
It's OK to have Alkaizer runs so long as people who don't do them aren't 50% behind everyone else... because all that does is give people a false choice between "fun" and "efficiency." As to what the tolerance is where people stop getting the "I really have to do something I don't particularly enjoy because it's much better than what I'd prefer to do" ... my guess is as long as it's 5% or less, roughly, you'll see people not really caring. And that makes perfect sense, really.
EDIT
Remember, the entire Paragon system was tuned around some XP/hr rate that Blizzard observed during PTR/Beta. If people start going too far beyond that rate the whole system "breaks" for them. And then those people go to the forums at Paragon 1000 whining that the system is boring because all they've got is int/dex/str for the past 200 levels. Arguably the only issue is that Blizzard didn't fix CotA BEFORE people were already Paragon 650+.
Parity. You do understand the concept of parity, right?
It doesn't matter if there is a more popular area. It matters if there is a more popular area because it affords 75% more XP than every other area in the game. There's a huge difference which seems very easy to understand.
And as long as people speak out against the actual problems at hand, we can productively provide input to make the game better. But asserting that "people who farm areas of high exp yield are punishing everyone else" does little. If anything it makes the community come off as unintelligible. And when yields ARE put into tolerance as you suggested,the actual issue of crazy disproportionate experience yields goes forgotten in a heart beat when suddenly people's runs net them less and they come here to complain.
It's kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't, you see. That's whats boggles my brain.
"There will most likely be new content that gets nerfed". So do you usually make it a point to contradict yourself and make yourself look like an ass?
Stop drinking the kool-aid. And I've learned one incredibly important thing about you thus far, you either didnt play D2 at all, or were some band-waggon fan that doesn't know shit about how Diablo is supposed to be played.
Take a seat,
- I wonder where you get your "facts". Have you done a research on how average/casual players play? And what is your definition of average/casual player? Is it someone who plays 1 hour a day on average? 1.5 hours? 2 hours? Is there a consensus on that?
Look at this character: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Tebby-2211/hero/36838772. I started this around a week ago. I play around 1.5 hours average, and I already have plvl 33. With only doing completing story twice. No CotA or equivalent runs, just playing the whole game. I know this is just an example and doesn't say anything for the whole category of "average player"; however, talking for the whole group of players without giving facts is wrong.
- The problem wasn't just the CotA, the problem was the effort/reward ratio of the monsters. It was high for those swarm types: they die fast and they propose no danger for you. If just the CotA was adjusted, the next place having big groups of swarmers would replace it. So they have done the right thing and tuned it accordingly.
You might say "Then, why nerf? Why buff everything else?". This question has been answered hundreds of times, you can find it even in this topic.
2) My guess is that the average D3 player, at this point, has a few paragon levels. But, at this point, I'm not really considering accounts that have been inactive since 2.0 launched. If people haven't come back for 2.0 then, well, they're not really part of the demographic that matters at this point.
As much as I hate BoA, this statement is just flat-out retarded.
You make it sound like Blizzard is making decisions that are bad for business when their goal (since they're a business) is exactly the opposite. They wouldn't be making decisions that they think is bad for the game. It's moronic to think they would do that. They may take calculated risks, but they're not actively trying to fuck things up (since they're a publicly-owned company that is actually illegal in the USA).
When they do something like nerf low-HP swarming monsters they do so because they have reason to believe it's going to make the game better, not worse; therefore that whole comparison is wrong. They simply have evaluated the situation and realized that if they don't do something they risk losing people who become frustrated because the "best" way to play is also amazingly boring. Believe it or not the average player is NOT going to be very pleased to find out that their stupid little farming route is massively less efficient than abusing CotA in a group. Why would you be happy? The overwhelming presumption should be that even if you're not operating at 100% efficiency that you aren't being penalized by 50 or 75% just because you DIDN'T choose to do 20-second CotA runs.
Some people may enjoy CotA and that's their prerogative. But what you're saying is that MOST people enjoy it and that Blizzard is "telling us how to play" because what they're doing flys in the face of the average player. That's simply ludicrous and impossible to believe. The *average* D3 player would never touch CotA runs... and therein lies the problem. Because of the XP/hr gains in CotA that means the average gamer is fucked. And with all the hinting at ladders recently, they CLEARLY have to address any significant imbalances in XP gains. What would the point to ladder be if everyone knew, ahead of time, that it was just going to be five months of CotA farming because NOTHING ELSE IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING GAME came anywhere close to the XP/hr that you get in CotA?
Just the implication of ladders DEMANDS that these things are balanced reasonably. Seriously, what kind of fucking sociopath is going to want to do ladders if it means months of doing nothing but CotA? /boggle
EDIT
And, even though it's been mentioned. Unintended behavior is unintended. I could make the argument that Blizzard is bad because I don't actually want to fight monsters, I just want to run around kicking over corpses and getting gear. By your statement there's nothing wrong with that because it's how *I* enjoy the game. What you're missing is that there are ground rules. If you don't want to kill monsters you probably don't want to play an ARPG, for example. This is non-negotiable. So the idea that we get to define "what we find fun" and then if Blizzard infringes on that, for whatever reason, they're being horrible people.... it just doesn't pass the smell test. It simply lacks any sense of pragmatism.
At the end of the day Blizz wants us farming what they want us to farm. If we are farming something they think will give players an advantage over the other they will get rid of it. Why? Because they don't want people complaining. They want a fair game that = the amount of effort put in. People that put minimal effort into the game by repeatedly killing the same room for 24 hours (go eat something) aren't playing the game! Why are they getting better xp and loot when they are doing nothing but some lame run.
You missed the point i was making. I was showing how a scummy economy "sneaks up" on players who do not pay any attention to it. the scummy economy exists because it has a way to exist.
Hundreds of millions of gold is not the extreme end of the spectrum. Some people, have racked up billions and billions of gold. As I mentioned millions of gold OR billions it does not guarantee for sure that they cheated or that they are AH geniuses.....
But the example was simply to highlight an idea.
The same way that players not paying attention to a runaway COTA farmer might fall behind by several hundred paragon levels.
Oh sure not a big deal at all....who cares about the differences in everyones paragon levels......who cares about the differences in wealth......
Blizzard cares. At least i truly hope they do. If i had to hazard a guess I'd say that they do.
They dont have to outright prevent it, they dont have to easily allow it, but they should definitely oversee it. and correct it as needed. But again this is just an IDEA. Not a specific statement that COTA NEEDED to be nerfed....maybe it did.....
but the idea states that everything needs to be scrutinized and monitored, so that these apparently ridiculous anomalies are not allowed to grow and fester.....
A diminishing return system was used and it worked very well without being over the top or punishing the player.
When done by a serious company, game developing has a very healthy mix of limitations imposed by the developer (which are exactly what makes the game what it is) and feedback by the playebase (which prompts the devs to discuss that feedback, iterate on it, and promote changes).
You need the feedback so that you can change the challenges presented in game (and its rewards) to what players feel like a "fair game". And you need the devs limitations because otherwise every single game would just be a sandbox out there.Some directionis always good.
A lot of people could be already doing "Bounties" on their own on vanilla, with no guidance, but once the developer comes out and say "look, do this and get this very minor/different reward" suddenly everyone loves the feature and is going to explore the entire game.
I can't be alone here. There must be other people who really couldn't care less how much XP monsters give you.
It's called parity and it's not a very difficult concept to understand. Really, we've been through this a hundred times. If someone ENJOYS CotA runs they're still free to do it. They just won't be getting the absolute, hands down, best XP gains in the game anymore. What the fuck is the problem with that? How the hell has that been blown so far out of proportion that it has to continue to be repeated?
There's a difference between "I enjoy running CotA" and "I run CotA because nothing else in the game comes close to it" and that difference really isn't that complex. It's amazing that people can't wrap their heads around it.
If you believe that a MINORITY actually enjoy CotA runs then you have to understand how Blizzard is making this decision because they believe that it benefits more people than it harms. So what the fuck is the issue?
Also, something a lot of people misunderstand about major development companies is how a near infinite supply of money doesn't equate to better, faster, or a great game. Money doesn't design content, or classes, or balance in the games, people do. Blizzard certainly has the talent, and the money, but time isn't as abundant as you may assume it is for development. This is something a lot of WoW players misunderstand as well, and for some reason can't comprehend something as basic as time isn't infinite, and money doesn't buy you more of it.
Their biggest mistake then was to try and make D3 anything other than D2. It was a simple goal to meet and had 10 years to achieve it. And had they succeeded in doing that in the first place, every original Diablo player/fan would have been more than satisfied a year or more ago. I don't care if this new expansion is Blizzard's new "Mona Lisa", they are still a company that HAS to provide customer service to it's customers and take feedback on what can/will make us happy, and make it happen. There is no arguing that. Ever.
It is a very... very... simple concept. You can parrot "THEY NERFED ALL THE MONSTERS IN TEH GAME" stuff, but that shows a fundamental lack of understanding as to *why* CotA was popular in the first place.
Hint: It's the same reason MP10 scorpions were popular in 1.0.7. Strangely enough, 1.0.8 had a similar across-the-board nerf to weak monsters that occur in big swarms. SHOCKER!