I still play this but I am no where near where you guys are noping out at. I will get pissed, take a small break and then come back. There is honestly nothing on the market right now that intrigues me enough to pull me away from this game yet. The closest thing is Throne and Liberty and who knows what kind of game that will turn out to be as it to is Korean. Ashes of Creation would be the next one but that is years away.
I'll take a stab at this (albeit, I don't want to speak for Gravel & Booze even if I'm using them as examples of what I believe to be the problem): To start with Booze as an example, here's someone who has been playing more than I have these last few weeks. He's dedicated, advancing, and playing an MMO in a hardcore capacity. This should be rewarding provided the skill level is there. For him however, it's not - he's not able to hit 1445 and potential gain the
chance at making boat loads of gold via accessories. This is a repeat of what occurred at the beginning of the game (where I made my money) and because he was a few days behind, he lost that opportunity. Because his honing luck was ass here, he's in a similar position. There is a solution however: swipe a credit card and buy the materials. That design absolutely sucks and, for anyone who doesn't have a gambling addiction, is just a 'nope' point.
Gravel is also someone playing a boat load. He even brought his bard back up to speed in record time but the amount of fun content is now limited to him; thus if these raids aren't engaging, his care level will go down even more.
But the game doesn't cater to that audience. It caters to people similar to you, which is probably why you're much further off from cancelling. Think about it: your playtime is likely 1/10th of mine and you're within 50 gear score of me. I have no way to create greater separation other than swiping (thankfully however in my case, due to my early gainings, I don't even need to factor this in really).
From my standpoint, I've been enjoying watching the Valtan hard progress on streams. I'm looking forward to learning normal on Saturday with the guild and starting the GVG activities.It's going to be a twice a week commitment with some chores thrown in every now and then for me but I knew that going in. Part of my enthusiasm is for the latter part of your logic though; I know that if I wasn't playing this, I wouldn't have another MMO to play and this is a genre I enjoy. That doesn't make it any less frustrating though. This is also why I've kept informing people that no, there is no rush for hard mode for the guild. We're going to play this at a pace that benefits people who are playing regularly but not a crazy amount; in short, you've likely found an MMO that (even with frustration) is ideal for your situation and you realize that the market won't have one like that for some time again. Others will need to make the decision if they're okay with the frustration and adjust or do what Raes originally suggested when he spoke about the game originally and people seemed confused (which is take breaks and come back when classes are released).
Edit: I'll also note that I do think a lot of you are crazy critical on yourselves relating to gold generation. If you have 20-25kg, you're rich by most standards. If you have 100k, you're legit 0.01%. Legit KR is that we sat on materials but waited for our weeklies for gold just to try and hone for
months. AGS really fucked up the economy with their version and the perception of wealth as a result of our audience being silly.
