My thoughts.

Quote Originally Posted by Pride View Post
1. The Relic Grind.

In regards to the Relic grind, it will always be in this situation because of end game raiding. Unless Relics required Savage Anything, one cannot expect to get the most powerful weapon (for the time) to come outside of raiding. Long grind or no.

2. Player choice in both gear and progression is basically nonexistent.

Yes, gear is very boring. However I am more hesitant on Talent Trees than I feel most are. Mainly because, as a WoW Vet, I have seen what happens when one skill tree functions so awesomely that the others must suffer for it.

I do agree we need more customization, but I'm a bit on the iffy side when it comes to deep talent trees

3. Competition should not be shied away from.

I honestly think this is less to do with SE and more with the community in general. While you are right, Grand Companies don't do a lot of anything, you can see they did at least try to have your GC matter in things like PvP, competition where yes your faction mattered. The end result was (because of the nature of this game) everybody jumped on board the path of least resistance and joined what was considered the "best" Grand Company or complained loudly that there should be a non-GC Restricted form of PvP.

In terms of nothing really bringing the players together, again that to me seems more of a community thing but this time SE has it's hand it it too. I've always felt that the limits imposed on characters is what forces us to interact with people to meet our goals. Crafting and gathering being the most obvious of this. However in this game, because everybody can do everything if time and money is put into it there is no real need for anybody but meat shields. The use of a cross server duty finder attributes to this "meat shield" mentality. Thankfully from my experience there are enough people who don't treat the game as such, stuff like this lovely relic quest has shown; put a big enough carrot out there and people will work together to get it, and I've seen more than enough Party Finder Crystal farming groups to make that call.