Analysis of this season so far.....

[Energizeric]

I was thinking about the changes that have been made in AL over the past few months, and there is one theme that appears to be constant.....

During last season, we reached a point where "luck" was the biggest factor in a player's success. If you were lucky enough to loot an arcane shard, then you could have a super rare arcane ring that was worth 80-100m. If you were lucky enough to loot a dark crystal armor or helm from the planar tombs, then you could craft an imbued armor or helm. And if you were lucky enough to loot a planar pendant recipe, you could craft yourself a new mythic pendant. Or you could sell any one of these items for insane amounts of gold.

The problem here was that many players could spend hours per day farming for months and never loot a single one of these items. As a result, there were numerous complaints in the forum.

Then there was the luck system with locked crates. You could spend hundreds of dollars on plat and still never loot an arcane item from a locked crate. The odds were super low. So tons of complaints about that as well.

And then there was the luck system with grand gems. If you were unlucky like me, you could spend months trying to get grand gems on your mythic helm and armor and still be unsuccessful.

So in response to all of these complaints about the "luck" system, it seems that STS has done a complete reversal here and instead this season there are very few things that are luck based, and 99% of your success this season is based on your effort and the time you put in. It is all about the grind here.....

There is the grind to farm jewels so you can work your way up to Noble jewels. There is the grind to farm for components so you can craft your orcslaying legendary gear set. And then after that, there is the grind to farm for components so you can craft your mythic glintstone set.

And if you choose to spend plat and open locked crates, the odds are much better you will loot a mythic or arcane item, and even if you don't, you can purchase one from the vendor with the crate tokens you receive from opening the locked crates.

So overall this is a huge change for the game. My personal opinion is that this makes the game much better. It makes it possible for any player to obtain any item if he/she puts in the time to work for it. The same could not be said in the past few seasons. I find myself playing daily for at least 2 hours and sometimes more, when last season I'd be lucky to play for a half hour each day before getting bored.