We first saw this trend with "master modes" and the huge removal of skill in dog fights and the dps race it became. We are now seeing this with fps combat via crafted items and will see this in every section of the game with crafting it seems. Your skill in a dog fight and fps matters way less now and even the ships you bought to support the game with money are now level 1 ships. Star citizen is starting to sound like an endless stat grind where players with the most time not the most skill have the advantage. Most players hate this because it gives a huge advantage to the long time players and a huge disadvantage to the new players. If some one logs on today and they have more skill in fps or a dog fight they should win! It shouldn't matter if i framed for x days and my hornet has level 5 guns but theirs has level 1 guns or because their armor is lvl one but mine is lvl 5 so it is 40% better or some nonsense. This magic stat number nonsense kills emersion and sucks the skill and life out of the game. If this level nonsense is done to ship components and ships like they say they want too, this game is honestly a HUGE joke. Ive been backing for over 10 years since i was a kid and even stuck threw the mm changes but the direction of the game is terrible currently makes me not want to play. Why is it so hard to do things in a logical way? The desync, cheating, crashes, bugs and terrible flight model changes you had to remove skilled game play as well and replace is with a level system? really ?