Any way to not feel this way?

[Doug31]

Here's what I currently think:

Definition: Worse than locked content: It means content that is locked for some, but not for others, and some can't unlock it. Then it's just like locked content is on other games, but worse, because you know some other people got it unlocked.

Tokens and especially skill tokens are just so bad that they ruin the entire game. I know most of you don't seem to think that's the case, so maybe you could enlighten me with how you manage to think of things that way.

Here are the problems with them:

1. First, and although obvious, still important: That some players can't play certain songs. Maybe not a big deal to some, but there's one song I think sounds just so beautiful and I'll never get to play it so this isn't a small point.

2. The social disconnect. I don't feel on the same ground on the forums as the players that have the really hard skill tokens. It's an extra way they can connect but I can't, and although I've added a bunch of them to my ignore list, it still just seems so annoying all the time. As it stands now, I would rather just try to stay away from them. And they like their little elite group so that they'll defend the tokens, and seeing that they probably make the majority of the posts around here since most of the weaker players have already had enough of the worse than locked content and quit. As such, the tokens are probably not going away.

3. The difficulty. No, not what you likely think. What I mean is that, in my rating of video games, this used to have the best possible rating. Why? Because you could just play songs of any level and have fun with them. Now, it's the worst possible difficulty level where it's ridiculously hard to unlock too many things. I have played tons of other games, and absolutely none of the other ones have anything nearly as hard to unlock as this game does. So, in this category, IMO, this game might even be dead last among all games ever made.

4. The target audience and its implications. Back in the old days, I had played this game more than anyone else. I thought it was one of the most fun games ever made and it was made so that the highly dedicated fans like myself could really enjoy it. But now look. It's clearly catering to the very best players as the target audience. So, the staff, or some subset of it, hates all non-elite players. That's probably not the case, but that's how it comes across to me.

5. The psychology effects on playing the game. I just feel like I can't enjoy the game anymore because of the above. I also feel like I don't have the determination to play it very good anymore.

After all that, is there any way I can hope to get back to actually thinking this game is good again? The game is just so fun I want to have a way that I can keep liking it, but I don't think there is one. I think I'm going to move on to better games soon unless there's something I just haven't thought of.