I guess it's time

[zosia]

Until the dev team gets over the notion that rewards should be given to everyone, (let me spoil it for you, they wont) then this game will continue to be an underwhelming 'sub for one month' type of MMO. The tedium required even for something simple as obtaining a triple triad card or minion is astounding in this game. The worst part of that tedium is how unrewarding the entire process is. What I mean by this is that the 'grind' required for most things in this game eventually gets nerfed into the ground. Farmed 15 mil for the hunting hawk? Look forward to when their drop rate is increased so high that they only sell for 200k. Spend 15 hrs a week to raid? Here is some gear that is marginally better and has the same skin as the normal mode gear.

The rewards of this game have been simplified down to a glamour and minion lobby that rewards the lowest amount of effort if you are willing to wait 3-6 months. You can can see this underwhelming reward problem in any aspect of this game, from minions and crafting to raiding and trials. Look at niddhog ex. Who really looks at those loot tables and gets excited about ugly looking alt weapons? Why not put raid ilvl accessories in trials like we had at one point? Even something as simple as that is too difficult for this dev team to wrap their heads around. They even botched the rewards for ramuh ex, learned their lesson, and put ilvl 110 rings on his loot table. Even after that ramuh debacle, the dev team keeps making mistakes with releasing trials with irrelevant gear.

Non-raid rewards should never be nerfed directly, only gear and level cap increases should serve as nerfs to obtaining most cosmetic rewards. Raids should be nerfed, as that has always been the way, but I am willing to guess people are incredibly fed up with working hard for minions, glamours, mounts and housing items only for those same items to be proliferated into the game as a cheap hook.

A good example is the thavnarian glamour set. That set should have remained rare, yet SE saw fit to make the set virtually worthless now. This practice can be seen throughout the game and it definitely affects sub numbers. Below in italics are the suggestions I think would turn this game around.

Stop nerfing every last piece of content and catering to the absolute lowest common denominator. I know raiders make up a small % of players, but a majority of the end game players are way better than what this game caters to and our player base deserves more compelling content.

Make the open world actually have teeth. None of this "monsters have more HP" BS that SE did with HW. If you go into a beastman stronghold, there should be monsters that can kill you in 2-3 hits. The world is entirely too silly when you can walk into a 'dangerous' area and roam around solo like you own the place.

Stop adding meaningless rewards. Niddhog EX should have had 240 rings.

Make dungeons interesting. People loved how Weeping city was not a 24-man netflix and chill session. Dungeons should be similar in difficulty.

Raid rewards should mirror what Wow's vertical progression looks like. Normal mode gets normal loot, mythic mode gets mythic loot. If you want the highest ilvl (savage in ffxiv/mythic in wow) gear, you gotta raid for it. You should also be able to progress your relics through raids and trials in addition to the boring relic grinds. Ofc Catch up gear should still be a thing, but only when the next tier comes out.
EX: tier 1 = 210 gear and catch up gear is ivl 200. tier 2 = 220 gear and catch up gear is ilvl 210.
This is pretty reasonable. There would be progression paths for both raiders and non raiders. Non-raiders would only be 10 ilvls behind the current max ilvl at all times. The power disparity between 10 ilvls is not so big that non-raiding players will be irrelevant.

If SE is hellbent on keeping the crappy overmeld system, can crafting gear just stay relevant the entire expansion? I really enjoy those 5% overmelds just to squeeze out +3 of some arbitrary stat so that way I can craft a new dress for someone next patch.......... -_- such compelling gameplay! I don't even know how to fix the crafting system this expansion, it has been terrible every step of the way. SOOOOOO glad it only took 9 months for them to figure out pots/foods should give you more than one per synth. F crafting, It gets me so mad I can't even think about it coherently.

Take it as you will. This is just me adding my two cents after setting sail as well.

[WellFooled]

The tedium required even for something simple as obtaining a triple triad card or minion is astounding in this game. The worst part of that tedium is how unrewarding the entire process is. What I mean by this is that the 'grind' required for most things in this game eventually gets nerfed into the ground.

I completely agree with your point. Interestingly, I feel my time is better rewarded for collecting Triple Triad cards than it is collecting gear and doing battle content. A rare, difficult to get, and useful TT card from 2.x is still just as rare, difficult to get, and useful now as it was then. Meanwhile even gear I collected a patch or two ago have become worthless glamour trophies. A odd few cards are easier to get since 2.x, but for the most part time invested in TT cards has had more lasting benefit for me than time invested in gear.