I think that much of the unhappiness here results from a difference in perspective between the developers and the players.

For the devs, this is an ongoing project that needs to be endlessly tweaked until it's just right.

For the players, we are consumers of what we thought was a pretty polished/finished product. This is like buying something, a house or a car or a computer. Given certain specs, we choose a particular product and go home with it, thinking we know what we just bought into. What you guys are doing is like having someone come in and, not just adding some new stuff, but replacing what we already have with products that are arguably worse. Adding m/s to rift is one thing; it doesn't take away from the other players to do that and will let tanks wear the full rift set without chugging pots. But slowing down the weapons? All that does is slow down the pace of the game. And I don't see to what end.

This is not the same thing as developing the new maps/quests. Those are optional purchases. Again, we consider whether or not to make that purchase. But we would really like the stuff that we already did purchase to be pretty much left alone. Any nerfing could have been done for succeeding maps. Restructuring the entire game from the beginning levels is just not a great idea.

Anyway. I did play after the new update. Beckon still sucks. Taunt is weak. The aliens are still too easy to kill. The mages rock. The drops are pedestrian. But the bear isn't so bad to play anymore as it was last night. I felt like I actually contributed to the group instead of just letting the mages have all the fun.

So even though I'm not happy with the process, the result is okay.

The good news, of course, is that new players will be getting used to the new system, which will become their normal. Older players like myself will either adjust or go find something else to do. It's just the way it goes.