Name 3 Non retail like / Instant Progression PvP servers that are still up and running from the last 2 years to 6 months.
while there is no current example of servers that are still running, NotAion was by far the longest running server with the most players of any server out there for over 8 years. No "retail-like" server matches this. And if a well managed NotAion would open again, it would be very successfull.
But this isnt the point here because noone is asking for instant progression, full pvp only server.
people are asking for things to not be retail like, and for some more PvP enticement.
If you take retail like, with all its inconvenience, and bad designs that are just made to make you spend money, and you remove the "spend money" part, all that is left is just a very bad designed game. Artificially prolonged progression, manastone failrates, enchantment fail rates, randomt stats on gear.
All that is designed to make you buy socketing aids, enchantment aids, gear reroll scrolls, drop boosters etc.
Enchantment rates are pretty much so bad here that i am forced to spend every single elden coin i get on 100% socketing aids. And i have already donated like 80€ most of those coins used to just socket my gear. Because there also is no retail like supply of manastones that you could just buy. If I farm 3 hours Dark Poeta with a drop boost, i might just get 3 Mboost stones. i am definitly not daring to waste those.
So what we are left here with is realy realy bad and unrewarding gameplay. It takes weeks to month to grind PvP gear, which leads people to try and find shortcuts, abuse siege gate mechanics for example, or they just quit right away. With sieges being a very sensitive to balance event, it is also very frustrating if you see the other faction has 3 times the players you have and winning is basically not an option.
Yes you can Farm AP in Dark Poeta, and it only takes about 20 hours and 1900 elden coin to buy just the weapon, and even then you have 0 of the medals needed.
Yes you could high theoretically farm AP in dungeons, half of them are locked behind enemy fortress gates and not accessible, and even if they would be accessible, it would be not quite rewarding at a measly 30k AP per day for running all 3 KKM instances with 6 people.
And even if you do all that, your left with a very limited amount of platin medals to buy any meaning full gear, and again the access often even more limited due to siege situation.
for example right now winning siege is out of the question, Contribution medals from sieging regardless is questionable if you dont win attack or dont deffend successfully your left with nothing. leaving you with taloc for 1 medal, and right now asmos still own one fort in gelk, making 2 extra platin medals. That is 3 medals a day, makes 39 days to just buy the weapon.
Dredgion is at such an inconvenient timing that if you want to be efficient you have to rush PvE dredd, because you only have 1 hour after siege for 3 runs. it would help if sieges would have a more sensible schedule, having siege every single day, is also a problem to both pvp and Pve players. PvE players can not do PvE content when they return from work in the evening because they are imediatly begged to help with siege, or they wont find players to form a group, and vice versa people are missing at siege because they rather do PvE.
If you have lets say, Siege only every second or 3rd day in gelk, and every other day in upper abyss, those that want to do less zergy pvp can do dredds on the days off and the others can pve.
Another highly inconvenient design are stigma shards, it costs clerics, sorcs, chanters and some other clases an easy 3-5k stigma shards to switch from one build to the other. Making me think twice if I would do PvP now, because its a serious investment to switch to that build.
Open world is so non existant, that your PvP daily quests turn into weeklys, and even those you often cant finish.
And Silentera was nerfed so dead that it is not worth for anyone to go there exept maybe absolute new players in need of platin coins.
Elden Coins drop infront of gates have not had any effect as well, them being tradeable doesnt change anything, because again, there is no retail like economy, there is no assigned worth to a coin that you would be willing to pay. I have not seen anyone sell these or ask to buy them yet.
Siege rewards for the Fort Conquerring legions are also too high. They are tuned for thousands of players not 50. Crafting potions, buff food, scrolls etc is pretty much obsolete because your flooded with them, which again , doesnt help the economy one bit.
People are quitting, and the people that are not quitting are only still here because of friends in the legion or because of hopes that 3.9 will make everything better. We had 20 members just in the legion alone that had been inactive for over a month and showed no signs to ever return.
New people that are joining, make pretty much just a horrible experience, which if it doesnt make them quit right away, they surely wont recomend it to their friends.
You need to understand your playerbase, most of your players right now as far as i have heard and seen are former aion classic players, that didnt like how grindy and pay2win the NcSoft aproach is, and they come here hoping that it is significantly better here. Then they waste 50 manastones on a single piece of equipment, are forced into braindead grind content and realize, nothing here is different exept the missing shop to compensate for all that is bad.
This is not all my own opinion, I have asked for other peoples suggestions on our legion discord too, and tryed to bring everything together into this post.