Thank you for all the constructive feedback. It's most definitely appreciated.
As always, video of the gameplay issues you've mentioned above would be great. If you feel poke checks aren't causing enough penalties, we need to see when they should be happening. In my experience, they feel like they're in a good place. This is probably the penalty I see the most, next to interference. After many years though, a lot of us have learned when and when not to poke. So, it's possible user skill has gotten better at it over time. I would love to see the slow down lessened or removed though. That's super frustrating.
We've had quite a bit of input on hitting. Some are struggling with the changes and some feel they are overexaggerated. Hopefully, we'll see them refined more in the future.
While not every dev plays, many of them do and we of course see many of the same issues. It comes down to priority though. We tend to try to address the more critical issues first. Which are the ones that prevent you from playing.
Most of your concerns will make it back to the team. Messages like yours, that are constructive and detailed are the type that get relayed. Unfortunately, there are many here that don't due to including toxic comments. There are a lot of people that feel ranting and insulting the dev team is a going to bring on change. Which, is never the case as those are typically removed and/or ignored.
I'm not a fan of the fantasy characters either. I prefer a more authentic experience. However, we have a very diverse community and many of them like using these characters.
Thanks again for all the constructive feedback.