Yes, that’s what they’ve done.
All the thought, work, time and expense you put into your gear as you patiently leveled it has been rendered absolutely worthless.
There’s a substantial discussion about this effect of 3.0 in this thread: To save the game for new/mid-level players. Seriously
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But, yes, your game experience now, as you struggle to advance, will be nothing but frustration and disappointment, as virtually every single “reward” you get from the chests is useless crap.
For example: I’ve opened several dozen 100-level chests now, many of them ruby and diamond (i.e. the best you can get) and gotten nothing but crap from them. … And, not being an end-game player, I have to spend a bit of work to get those chests, and only have about a 50-60% success rate winning those battles.
So a lot of work for no reward - not even incremental improvement of my existing gear, which can no longer be upgraded (other than the extremely minor and ‘dead end’ effects of honing).
No reward but disappointment and frustration.
And yet that’s now your only path to advancement.
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It is an unbelievably TERRIBLE change for all but end-game mythic-kitted players.
And – to judge by chat and forums – customers are already abandoning the game because of it.
And no surprise … they were “promised” a game that would allow steady (albeit slow) progress and the ability to find and cultivate chosen gear, and they’ve spent their time and effort (and money) doing so, and looking forward to the reward of getting it to mythic level.
And now - by fiat - that gear they’ve been working on and cared about has been rendered effectively worthless.
All ability to progress steadily (and “intelligently”, by making choices) has been taken away, replaced by nothing but a nearly-constantly-negative-feedback joyless grind with basically no control over advancement.
That’s not fun. Who wants to spend time – or pay money – for that?
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My only hope is that the devs were so focused on the end-game players and their experience that they didn’t bother to think at all about the effect it would have on everyone else.
Which is a rather shocking oversight, if so … but I’d still call that the “best case” scenario.
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To be fair, there are some good aspects to the 3.0 changes, and a lot of the end-game players are enjoying the new challenges.
This is why I think maybe they simply were so focused on the end-gamers they didn’t pay any attention to the rest of their present and future customer base or consider how these changes would affect those players.
Because for new- and especially mid-level players, those good changes of 3.0 are as nothing compared to the horrible effect of no longer being able to upgrade their gear from low-level to mythic. That one thing poisons all the rest.
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Yeah … a LOT of customers feel that way now.
TBH, I myself am only sticking around now in a sort of ‘holding pattern’ to see if, indeed, the devs realize what a colossal mistake that was and hasten to fix it.
If not, I’ll be joining the exodus of all those other mid-level players who have no interest in playing this now very different game, one in which advancement has become nothing but random chance: a thankless, nearly-constantly-disappointing “slot machine” of opening one drops-only-crap chest after another.
Nor can I imagine any new players, coming to the post-3.0 game, will stick around once the novelty has worn off and they realize that this is what is required to advance.
And, if so, that’s pretty much the beginning of the end of the game. Because without new customers to make those micro-transactions and replace departing players, the game will soon cease to be profitable.
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Kinda a shame … I was really starting to get the hang of the game and enjoy it. Starting to invest more time and interest in it. Because there really are some fun, enjoyable elements to it. I’d not have spent as much time on it as I have otherwise.
I’m exactly the kind of mid-game customer the business should want to cultivate and encourage to get deeper into the game & community, and to spend more time and money on it… and that was working, before 3.0
I’ve spent 9-10 months playing, I think, and put in a lot of thought and effort into gathering gear I was slowly upgrading towards mythic. That, like all other mid-level gamers, was where the “value” of the game was to me; where I’d spent my time and effort, and what gave me encouragement looking forward.
So if that ability to advance really is being taken away — and if the devs are really that tone-deaf to the game-experience and efforts of their customers … well, I’m not going to stick around to throw away more time and effort where it’s not rewarded or even (apparently) respected.
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So I really do hope they fix this. And soon.