So what's wrong with the game? Just curious because I followed this game for a long time, but never got around to playing it. Everyone I talked to about it seemed to just be lukewarm on the experience.
I personally never thought the grind was that bad for leveling by itself. I always played with friends and we would do farm groups that would yield high amounts of money and Id get a level without even trying sometimes. The grind starts with item farming. The items have notoriously low drop rates that make EverQuest farming look like childs play. If you're unlucky, we're talking weeks. Where only a single entire percentage point would put some kind of bad luck protection on you out-leveling the power of the item. If you check out the drop rates of certain items in the game, then you'll be amazed about how they thought the next system was good.
Once you have the item, through purchase or drop - then you have to enhance it. Once you're at a certain level of enhancement, the ability to enhance it may fail. Depending on whats being enhanced, you may have been using the exact same item to boost the enhancement up to the next level. You'll lose the item you tried enhancing yours with on the fail, and in some cases - you'll lose your item and the enhancement fodder. So you have people working the system, looking at the server clock etc. and making sure all the stars align (kidding on that one) to know when to try an enhancement. Last I checked, certain items had a better success chance after you have purposely failed 38+ times. I do not believe there is a hard coded bad luck protection here, only hearsay. Upgrading a fourth tier jewelry piece to a PEN is the most butt clinching moment Ive ever had in gaming.
The game struggles to have a PVE and a PVP audience. Ive heard the PVP is good, but Ive never really engaged in it in a meaningful way. The problem with the PVE aspect is that its not really set up for a traditional trio group. An additional person each time makes stuff easier, and is fun. But you just cant think - "ok, im going to heal. You tank, and you DPS." Because you're all DPS, and the beneficial spells that you may have are jokes in comparison to anything you may think a class should have. You can do a somewhat controlled raid mob in your guild, but you're still going to be dying left and right. Not near as much as going to an open world boss, of course. But the combat just doesnt allow you to walk away unscathed by these mobs and I literally felt like anything I did was a zerg. Making this worse, last I played anyways, you getting an item was based off your characters innate luck and the overall dps that you did during the encounter. So if you was a melee, disregarding luck, you would rarely get anything because of the unavoidable insta kill abilities that all the bosses have. Plenty of the abilities are dodgeable, but there are a few that arent and it was pure bull shit. Especially watching Range DPS the shit out of the boss at a safe distance and then get loot at the end. So much BS in fact, that you could count on seeing that item in trade chat soon after.
Something I became a firm believer on was that characters have innate hidden stats upon creation. Some of which you could see simply by looking at someone of an equivalent level and class and seeing a difference in Hit Points. The luck modifier was always my sore spot - I made three characters. My first was a warrior and I would say he had no modifier to luck one way or the other. If so, it was minor. My Ranger never saw an item drop for her the entire 58 levels I played her. My Witch was flush with items every single g'd time I turned around. We could say its how the pendulum swings, but it just doesnt make sense to chalk it up to RNG only, in my mind. This bugged the shit out of me and it can kick rocks if its actually true.
Lastly, the item shop that you can buy with real world currency has direct power level increases. Some as noticeable as the stats, and then some that affect your overall game play. The pets you get for example could be considered racketeering. You can tier up your pets just like you do items and you get them only by real world money. Several hundred dollars in pets is not unheard of. The armor suits, if you wear the entire suit, gives you a nice set of bonus stats. If it was just cosmetic, you'd still end up buying at least one suit because on the whole - the free, level based armors are just hideous. I believe they changed the Guinee suit or whatever, but at the time, it would literally hide your name plate out in the open world. So if you PVP'd at all, then it was a must have. An option that simply should have been in the base UI.
Overall the game is well worth a play through. Especially if you enjoy crafting, lore, auction market cornering etc. I really enjoyed the sights and exploring. Some of the stuff Ive seen people complain about isnt really worth complaining about. Some people enjoy the combat, some dont. Its personal preference. I would try out different types of classes before I ruled the game out based on combat alone. Some of them play so differently, that you would think you're not playing the same type of combat system.
