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.