I’ve a huge complaint, 1st is the magic random pages, all the sucky spells get the pages. I want control back of choice of spell I want to upgrade. It is not fair and it is not balanced.
2nd basically the same,I want control back of the weapons and armor the way it is set up sucks as bad as the spells do. If it isn’t corrected soon I may never pay for another years scription again, I’ve done it twice now. Cause I thought it was worth it. But since this last overhaul I don’t think it is worth it now! I can’t even figure out out to get from rare to epic in any of it. Please fix it and fix the book update it it has old information that is no longer relevant. Thank you a huge fan from 2 and (?) quest 3
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If your Xione is leveled up you can control what class you are getting spells for. You can also go after specific dungeons to get certain spells. Its slow, but its not a terrible system.
You can’t get from rare to epic. Or epic to legendary. Or legendary to mythic.
While you can give slight improvements to gear through the new mechanism of “honing”, you are no longer able – as you were before 3.0 – to improve the ‘quality level’ of your gear.
All you can do is grind, grind, grind away at dungeons, hoping for the (increasingly unlikely) chance that the gear you want will drop in a better version.
At least with spells, you can target the ‘source’ dungeon and, if you get the spell pages (a lottery there), they will definitely be useful to improve that spell. … And, once you maximize her level (a tall order), Xione can craft desired spell pages. Etc.
But, yes, your ability to choose and intelligently advance your spells was taken away by a previous “update” to the game.
The situation with gear – since 3.0 – is even worse.
Not only are you less likely to get the item you want than the spell you want, you’re even more unlikely to get it at the higher level you’re seeking. And you no longer have the (slow but guaranteed) path to improve a “low quality” version of gear you like up to (eventually) mythic… so the lesser-quality versions that drop aren’t even useful to you as a source of “raw materials”.
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So, no, you’re not missing anything. To get that epic version of your rare gear - like you ask about - you just have to play that dungeon that drops it over and over and over and over … and over again, until the Random Number Generator gods happen to favor you.
Which might happen tomorrow, or might never happen. There are no longer any guarantees of advancement.
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You are hardly alone in feeling this way.
Even some high-level players (for whom update 3.0 has some definite positive aspects) feel this way and have quit the game because of it.
How much more so the mid-game players who are the most negatively impacted by it.
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No word yet from the devs whether this ability to improve gear common → mythic will ever be restored.
But the complete lack of response to these concerns, even if only to say “we’ve heard your frustration and are discussing it” – even as they hemorrhage customers over the issue – rather suggests they have no intention of fixing it.
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Too hard you still have no control. I have a channel spell with 1102 pages. Tell me how that is balanced I don’t use any of those spells. The ones that cause damage yes I need those wasted pages on those spells. Controlling class that’s a joke to.nope this game was fun but with every battle l can’t win and I should be as I am lv 50 +16 and legendary equipment something is wrong… It took me almost 30min trying to kill frost giant and it killed me and I came back and I almost died again I had about 200 hit points when finally finished the bastard. I understand increased difficulty but really,stresssssssssful sorry I’m just so frustrated
Yup your probably right about that. When you come to trust those who have created such a wonderful world, the let down actually hurts. It is not often you come across a decent creators and then to just blantly ignore you and your concerns. I would leave too, but I just got to level 50, it took 3 years to get there on the old system but with every battle I get very very frustrated. Spells that I’d never use have all the page, one spell a channel spell, has a thousand one hundred and two pages. When I think where they’d be of use… thank you for the reply. I hope they don’t end up losing to many more players, if they do they won’t last long pissing players off by ignoring them is not good business.
And, once you maximize her level (a tall order), Xione can craft desired spell pages. Etc.
I got her to the edge of epic but where am I going to get ten crystals for her. Rarely to you get them in chest or store and no side quests available…madding…
This is (I expect) a common experience. … And perhaps especially among the “least vocal” of the customer base who come, try it out, and then leave, without ever posting on forums or talking in in-game chat. Which may well be the majority of players.
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One of the fun challenges of the game is to experiment with different spells and builds and try to make the most out of what you have. You might, for example, try out some of those spells you’ve got tons of pages for and see if you can make use of them.
But, yes, it can be very frustrating – especially when, as now, there’s no longer any “silver lining.”
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Before the recent changes, you at least had the consolation that, even when you failed or didn’t get anything good from your reward (chests), you could still use what you got to advance the spells and weapons you were gradually improving towards mythic level. Slow as that might be.
So that was encouraging - and promised future success - even though you were struggling.
I think that’s what encouraged you and similar players to continue on; to keep playing and spending money.
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Now, though, we no longer have that. All advancement is completely dependent on getting a good drop from those chests.
And even if, eventually, something good might drop, it’s nothing but frustration and discouragement until then.
Because there’s no longer the consolation and guarantees that advancing our chosen spells and gear towards mythic used to provide. … The “positive reinforcement” is gone.
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I pointed this out in my very first post on the topic right after the patch hit, as well as in other threads: Mid-level player's frustrations with the 3.0 gear update
Because it should have been obvious, with even minimal reflection, that it would have this effect on the pre-end-game players.
Nor do I see any reason why the 3.0 changes had to take away this ability (to improve gear from common up to mythic).
Could have integrated that upgrading seamlessly into the honing mechanism, and kept all the other 3.0 changes (some others of which are improvements) intact.
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So I’m baffled. … Either
- the devs didn’t think this through and (so far) are unwilling to fix, or even discuss, the problem, not understanding its urgency
- or the devs are so caught up in their “scheme” for reshaping the game that they’re not willing to listen to customer feedback and course-correct
- or the devs wanted to have this negative effect on the present and future customer base, for who knows what reason
- or the devs simply don’t care, perhaps because they think the people complaining don’t matter … perhaps because they believe (in my opinion, mistakenly) that taking away the ability to upgrade gear rarity will somehow encourage more people to play the game and/or spend more money on it.
- or – perhaps most likely – there’s something else going on that we just don’t know about and can’t guess.
But, whatever is going on behind the scenes, I think the “on the ground” facts are that this aspect of the 3.0 patch is frustrating and alienating a lot of people … and that it’s both driving away customers and undermining trust in the company and its products.
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tl;dr – your frustration and sense of betrayal are shared by many other players. It’s difficult to know why this unnecessary change was made or if there’s any prospect of it being fixed … and that has and will continue to frustrate and alienate many customers.
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Thank you for taking time to care 
I feel a bit better but till they fix the issue I’m not spending any more money on this game. And I could very well be one who just walks away. I still have puzzle quests 2 I have enjoyed it and it has made me a better player. Dawn
You’re hardly the first long-time player and supporter from whom I’ve heard this.
Players invested thought and effort into selecting and upgrading gear. People care about what they work on, even - maybe especially - when it’s challenging. So they valued that gear they were shepherding towards mythic.
The update, by needlessly taking away the ability to upgrade gear, not only has vastly reduced the value of that gear that people cared about and invested in, it has taken away that challenge and encouragement of steady progress - which was what got them caring in the first place!
Little wonder that so many respond by no longer feeling inclined to invest more $ - not after having what they valued taken away!
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The gameplay is still fun, but by mid-game, once you’ve gotten the hang of it, it easily becomes repetative and mindless.
The advancing of gear is what gave a sense of forward motion amid the repetition.
That’s gone now, and the gameplay experience is duller and less interesting as a result, even with the occasional random and unreliable drop of higher-end pieces.
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Perhaps the changes were meant to make the game more interesting for end-gamers.
But I have no doubt that this (unnecessary) aspect is having the effect of making it less engaging, over time, for most everyone else!
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The changes were seemingly not just meant for end players.
Is it slightly frustrating that you cant control what you upgrade immediately? Sure. But I dare say that grinding out dungeons (especially with autoclear tickets which are readily available right now) is a much faster upgrade path to a mythic weapon than the old system. I would have still been grinding out dungeons and never had the 4 mythic relics I needed to get up an item, and I would have just had to deal with it. You can also still farm easier dungeons and still pull a mythic. You do not have to brute force 100 constantly just to feel like you are making progress.
The spell pages sure can be a little overwhelming, but if you end up with over 1k pages, you should (scrolls withstanding) work on levelling those up because they do help your overall power. If you are in a dungeon where its dropping a spell you dont really have desire to level up right now, its ok to move to something else for a little while.
Is there a lot more mindless “set it auto and forget it grind”. absolutely. Is it frustrating to feel like you are burning through keys and food far faster than you make it back? It can be. Is it the worst thing ever? Eh… I have a hard time believing that people tried every single piece of gear they are being dropped in the old system at the level it was. I was a pretty hardcore player and I never had played with epics of some of the thing I got because the upgrade cost wasnt worth it. Am I played with gear now that I never considered? Yep, Does it make it a bad experience? Not really. Just different.
Not to discredit anybodies feelings, you can absolutely feel how you do and that is valid. But its also worth just taking a step back and seeing if you can find a path forward.
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Faster now that the glyph cost for gear is removed? Yes.
Faster than it would have been to upgrade gear without that cost? Absolutely not
The chance of getting an upgraded version of a specific, desired piece through the random slot machine is vanishingly small, especially for those who can’t open dozens of if high-end chests a day.
Plus - more important - it’s constantly discouraging as you try.
Being able to upgrade gear to mythic, slow and steady, gave you a guarantee and the positive feedback of steady, gradual improvement. That’s gone now.
I was willing to invest time and resources with that guarantee. I’m far less willing to do so on a slot machine - particularly as, after hundreds of chests, I’ve yet to get anything useful or improving. (And I have mostly epic gear!)
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Most importantly perhaps: there was no reason to take away this ability.
It’s completely compatible with the new system. Leaving it in would provide the best of both worlds, rather than alienating and driving away customers as its lack has.
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I will contest that. I started in January, in that time I found a gearset to pursue spread between 4 different sets with complimentary set bonuses that functioned and worked how I liked as I played. Every week as I played I was able to level up my armor pieces through the week. Every step to the next displayed out, I knew the supplies I had to target and went for those. Week by week, large number of upgrade types but easily done despite the wide variety of tasks I was pursuing. I did the events, I ran the archives, I leveled 2 alts, and all the while I was advancing all the same armor wise. Over time my gear set altered due to finding new set bonuses that I would pursue and glom into the mix, but in general the path forward was always able to be seen.
The pursuit for a mythic weapon wasn’t something I even cared about until I had most everything at legendary, and once I started focusing on it, it took about 2 weeks. The relics were easy because eve can exchange as low as rank 40. The glyphs were a solid pain in the ass but between the adventures and the random, I got 4 really swiftly. 2 weeks. It’s been a bit over 2 weeks since this patch. I’ve gotten another 8 relics, even have some glyphs (albeit not 4 of a type - but I’ve kinda stopped trying). Wanna know what I’ve not managed to get? Oh, I got a mythic yesterday, a sacred one at that. It is of a gear set I don’t have any bonuses, and breaks my 6 piece, and its base effect is nothing I want. It’s trash, but it’s mythic, it’s mythic trash. I want the pursuit at least it’s something real, this slot machine in its place is just awful.
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Its really pretty simple, farm the dungeon of the set that you’re trying to get mythics for. As far as set collecting goes, its way easier than it was before, as opposed to having to wait months to get all the relics and glyphs.
Again, you conflate two issues.
First: speeding up of getting mythics by “relocating” the glyph and relic expense.
Second: only being able to get improved-tier gear through random drops.
Arguing that the first is a good thing does not mean that the second is as well.
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Just getting some random mythic drop isn’t all that great from a gear-development standpoint. To do the high end KD and PvP, you don’t need just some random assortment of incompatible gear in a rainbow of colors with irrelevant attributes. You need something more carefully selected - gear that works synergisticly with other the other gear and the spells in that loadout.
With just random drops, you can’t develop this. With the (now destroyed) ability to find the right gear at lower levels and improve it to mythic, you could.
And, don’t forget, it’s a lot harder for lower-level players – who don’t already have their mythic loadout – to farm chests of any kind, never mind the higher-end one. They can do it by mid-game, but it takes a LOT longer for each chest than those who are defeating each enemy in a dungeon in 1 or 2 blows on autoplay.
Never mind the absurdly high barrier now raised between those who had level 50 battle scrolls after conversion and those who didn’t. … That’s one more way the non-end-gamer now struggles, since they are (by comparison) penalized on every single piece of gear they own.
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But, all that aside, you still miss the main point.
Possibly getting a specific mythic piece is quicker through the present “slot machine” gacha game than it was under the pre-3.0 system – or, rather (for a fair comparison) than it would be under the previous system but with the cost of glyphs and relics removed. (I.e. applying #1 above.)
Now, I disagree that it would be … maybe to get “some random mythic” it’s quicker now, yes, but not to get, say, 1 or even 2 particular pieces in a set that the player is looking for. … (Case in point – I have several gear sets in each color, most at epic level. So lots of items I could use improvement on. Yet, after well over 100 high-end chests, I have gotten nothing that improves upon any of those pieces I was working on advancing, despite how many pieces I have a use for.) … But leave that aside for now.
Let us accept your hypothetical for purposes of argument: Still, even if it is quicker through random drops to get particular pieces, until the desired items at the higher quality do finally drop, the gameplay experience is entirely negative. Frustration and disappointment as low-level and/or useless crap keeps appearing in the chests rather than those desired pieces. Because there’s nothing the player can do to advance except repeat that thankless process.
And it’s this frustration, this sense of being helpless and stagnating, that’s the main cause for players giving up.
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Saying “oh, grind away and you’ll get a mythic eventually, maybe even - if you’re really lucky - one that’s useful to your loadout” doesn’t address this frustration. Doesn’t make the whole process of grinding random drop after random drop any less consistently negative.
Before, players could - even if nothing else - always use scavenged shards etc to improve the items they wanted up towards mythic. Yes, it was slow, arguably too slow. But it was steady, measurable progress that provided positive feedback, gradual improvement, and a sense that the grind was “worth it.”
So even if it is faster now (which runs completely contrary to my own experience, as well as that of many other non-end-game players), that doesn’t change the fact that the gameplay is now discouraging and frustrating in a way it didn’t use to be.
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And didn’t have to be … 3.0 could easily have preserved the capability to improve items from common to mythic.
That would have achieved the first item above (which is why you’re arguing for) but without all the negative effects of implementing the second item (which is the item I’m arguing against – and which ChaosDecision was addressing in his post to which you replied).
These are two separate issues.
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Sure, making gear progression faster (#1) is a good thing … or would be, if that positive weren’t more than negated by the negative of making all progression based on random drops (#2) rather than player-guided improvements of gear.
No, that’s ironically what you’re doing. Read my response to what Chaotic wrote, its not a random different set mythic set, you pick the dungeon you farm, and with that you’re determining what the drops will be. Its just a whole lot of gaslighting to act like your constantly getting random sets unless you’re playing game modes like skirmish, adventure, or Hunt where the drops are and always have been random anyway. What I wrote was a completely rational and logical response to their criticism.
Gear won’t be a random assortment of gear as you pick the dungeons you farm. Followers can change the colors and attributes of every gear piece you find, this is exactly the same as it was before the patch, nothing has changed here. In fact its even better since now you can farm mythics just as you would farm epics before the patch to try and get the ideal pieces that fit your needs, you don’t even have to reroll, just keep grinding for that perfect piece.
It definitely needs some work, the devs have to look at whether the leveling up process is fair or not. Also caches are in a bad spot right now and I don’t care for not being able to play the game because you run out of resources to farm, that was never an issue before the patch.
But keep in mind the update is only half finished, we got followers and minion changes coming. Also Jeto is trying to get the daily cap of coins raised and I’m sure tweaks will be made along the way so that the changes feel good for everyone. But I think its off to a very promising start at least.
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Re-read my post.
I’m not talking about conflating random and non-random drops.
I’m talking about conflating
- Quicker improvement without glyphs/relics
- Taking away the ability to improve gear.
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Second, you misread what I mean by random drops.
By random drops, I mean that your only way to improve is what the RNG puts in a chest. Yes, you have some control of that by choosing a dungeon. (And remember, this is a tall order for non-end-gamers, who don’t have the high level gear/scrolls/spells to be able to do so quickly.) But that’s a logically subordinate issue, not the primary consideration.
No, the contrast I’m drawing is not between “completely random gear from a skirmish” and “semi-random drops from a dungeon”.
The contrast is between “advancing only by finding the gear you want randomly [or, if you prefer, semi-randomly] in a chest” and “deliberately advancing gear you already have in hand, with the assurance that it will, eventually, be leveled up to mythic.”
And, don’t forget, even when you’re farming a dungeon, it’s random (a) if you get any gear at all, (b) if it’s one of the pieces in that set you’re looking for, and (c) if it’s of higher quality and stats than the item you’re seeking to improve through that depressing slot-machine process.
To my mind, that’s still a “random drop”, compared to the certainty of improving gear-in-hand.
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But +10 points for a proper use of “Ironically”, which most people misuse. 
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Again, you mistake your end-gamer experience for what the rest of us encounter.
Only high-level end-gamers have their followers up to level 50, to be able to chose what color their gear is.
I have most of the gear I want in colors I want because I farmed them at low level. I got low-end drops, took them up to level 15 to get their color assigned, then trashed them if they weren’t in a color I wanted.
When I finally got the version I wanted, I started deliberately and methodically upgrading it towards mythic. (Not that I ever got a chance to get there.)
That’s how us pre-end-gamers have to do it. But, since this was only up to level 15 to get the color, it was relatively inexpensive. And it was under our control.
Now all that work I did is rendered basically worthless by 3.0, because I can’t improve that gear up to properly-colored-mythic, the way the game promised me, before, that I could.
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Given their track record and apparent desire to turn this completely into a slot-machine / gacha game, rather than the more RPG-like experience that their customers showed up for, I hold out little hope that those planned changes will make any improvement on this score…
I hope I’m wrong, and that that’s just my discouragement talking, but, well… sigh
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I - and many others - don’t. Not on this particular point, which looms very large in our gameplay experience.
Especially those of us who:
- Don’t already have a mythic load out
- Don’t have battle scrolls at 50
- Thus take a lot longer to farm those dungeons than you speak so airily of.
I.e. all the mid-gamer ranks, present and future. New players, coming to this game, will run into this same barrier and same frustration, once they figure out the game mechanics and want to start developing well-coordinated gear load-outs.
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And the annoying thing is, it would be a relatively small change to return that capability. Which would make the game experience a lot better for many players. (With the corresponding rise in microtransactions from happier customers.)
Just restore the ability to improve gear up to mythic level … e.g. by spending aether to improve a fully-honed item up to the next quality level.
That would keep in the positive aspects of 3.0 – some of which you’ve defended – while eliminating the one element that is proving so unpopular and disillusioning to quite a number of customers.
I don’t see these as incompatible goals.
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So, rather than going in the various directions the game offers: the events, the adventures, the skirmishes, the archives, the current season, I should now devote the small periods of time I get doing the same exact thing again and again and again x4-500 times to clunk out an upgrade? Just take the dynamic of the game and flatten it out as hard as possible, that’s the only way forward? Flat out downgrade, this system is so bad compared to before.
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I’d take relics and glyphs over this gumball machine nonsense.
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I believe this is the main issue of the reworks. Yes, technically they have made it “easier” to get high rarity items since you no longer depend on glyphs or mythic relics to get them. However, if you want a custom build this will only happen if you spend most of your time farming the same dungeon once and again. So you either play “normally” all the modes of the game and then just use whatever random high rarity items you get, or devote most of your time doing dungeons and opening chests hoping for a lucky drop. There may be some players that enjoy that, but it is not my case. I have even gone down from playing around 8 hours a day to around 2 hours a day. Just do the daily tasks, some loot tickets and dedicate the rest of my time to things I can enjoy more than mindless and joyless farming.
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There has always an element of “spending a lot of time grinding” be it for runes, scrolls, relics or the shard pieces to take something to legendary. That is where you would be getting stuck, waiting on relics. I had a full set of legendary items that I was just stuck waiting on because I never could get a relic, let alone 4. And Eveline isnt a great option, as it was expecting you to have other relics “just chilling” that you could do 2:1.
Now the big the big grinding different is that refine your chances of getting something “better” by targeting dungeons. If you grind more, yes you will have more opportunities to play the lottery and many cant/wont/arent able to grind more. But if the limited time you have you fill up your chests with pieces from that specific dungeon you are putting yourself in a better space to get those items from the set.
The skirmish/hunt chests are truly random. I wish they were refined a bit better (be it with better food/ore/scrolls or runes chances), and can only hope there is some tweaking in the future.
Yes there is an element of chance in this new system, but in the old system that chance was still there. You could have always spent the time grinding and then gotten 8 of the same item in your rolls.
Annoying yes, but that is the nature of loot box/gatcha game pulls.