4.25 and beyond

[ShanXiv]

I've seen this kind of cycle before. What I mean is that asking 'why are they still here?' doesn't have a clear black and white answer. People are still here, yes. But that could be for a variety of reasons. It's hard to measure if people still love the game unconditionally, or are merely still here because they're in a transition phase and haven't yet found anything better to play. And I'm seeing an increase in the amount of people that speak as if they are in the transition phase, because as far as I've seen, SE has spent the past 2-3 years not really addressing the fact that they have locked themselves into a predictable patch cycle.

My former raid group in particular had half of its members quit the game two weeks before 4.2 came out for this very reason, and I haven't been able to find another raid group since on account of the vast majority of raid groups running at evenings, when I have to work. One member in particular was extremely upset that there wasn't really anything long-term to work on this expansion cycle - that relics being tied to Eureka and Eureka being delayed as long as it was, was a really terrible decision. And that's coming from a raider, where the need to have relics for gearing isn't necessary, but it gave them something to do.

It took me two years to quit from my previous MMO, after all. And one year to quit from the one prior to that. It's not to say that I am even in the transition phase right now (as I am not), but more to say that someone can not just drop an MMO immediately, especially if they've invested years into the game.

Relics are pointless in this game, spend 1-2 months for a powerful weapon, for what? raid? ex? df??
if you raid or join some EX parties, you will get a same ilv(or 5ilv less) weapon in few ten minutes...
and after 3 months, you go back to the beginning.

the current formula is a joke