A lot of people defending this content are entirely missing the point: nobody (or almost nobody) is taking issue with this content being 'easy,' or featuring copious amounts of cutscenes, story, and lore (I'm a lore fiend myself, so I'm at least happy with that part of the offering). Rather, it's that a lot of us enjoy combat-oriented combat, but we're not up to par/interested in Savage & Ex. For us, ShB has offered less content than ever before, with the reduction in newly-released dungeons, and the omission of a new deep dungeon, so we're disappointed that this is a very flimsy offering as far as combat content we can actually sink our teeth into.

Nor are, I should point out, looking back at 1.0 & 2.0 relics with 'rose-coloured glasses.' Both of those were terminally boring. Eureka, on the other hand, held some promise, but the fact that it wasn't soloable, or even DF-able, meant that there was no real guarantee that you could comfortably log on for an hour, get a good bit of grinding in, and make some progress towards your goal(s). In fact, there is very little in the game that caters to that play style other than maybe the roulettes (unless you end up spending more than half that time in a queue).

Why is this game, unlike games such as ESO and BDO, so averse to a casual grind that subscribers can chip away at over the course of an expansion cycle? I really don't get it, and am completely perplexed that not only has SE missed multiple opportunities to cater to what must be a substantial proportion of their customer base, but have only sought to further alienate them with the latest expansion. Were it not for the first-rate lore, storyline, and characters, I would be totally outso.