Improving the Grind for Future Expansions

[Kaziscate]

Recently, I've begun to feel burnt out towards the game from how grindy the game is. The reward for farming feels too underwhelming and there is a very steep progression to how items are obtained.

A good example of this is how spirit gear is obtained. All spirit items are worth 1500 murkstones. The armor and helmet doesn't live up to the value, especially since they lack a damage stat. What would help make grinding for these spirit items more satisfying is if obtaining these pieces were more progressive. The helmet and armor shluld be worth less tokens to get (like the helmet is 500 or 750 murkstones and the armor is 750 or 1000 murkstones). Then, once a player obtains one of these pieces, they will have more incentive to farm because they're focusing on both getting more murkstones and leveling up their spirit gear.

Another instance of this issue is with events in general. Platinum tier tends to be the most underwhelming in terms of rewards. They usually contain just a vanity and a few filler items, rather than items that can be of good use. The item doesn't have to be paracelsus gem good, but useful enough that it lives up to the milestone that platinum tier can be. Several items that seem platinum tier worthy are heroic pets, crate keys, maybe an unlocked event crate recipe (that would be cool to implement in an event), or it could just be a bunch of gold.

This all could probably be dismissed with the point of "just farm maus and buy from auction". Farming maus probably is less grindy than farming for items the non-auction way (would like to see someone test that), and if it is less grindy, then that is an issue that should be addressed because I'd like to enjoy new content, but not have to rely on old content to benefit in the fastest possible way.

As reference, heres a ranking of what types of gear tend to be the most desired / expensive, just to give an idea of what is wanted or valued the most so that vendors could value items accordingly.
1. Weapons
2. Artifacts
3. Belts
4. Armor
5. Helmet
6. Pendant and Ring

It's evident that the intent is to provide players with a road map of what gear to pursue by gradually rolling out new gear, but the initial grind (for this expansion, it's spirit gear) currently feels too steep, it turns off players from following that road map, and makes it difficult to keep up. There are also inconsistencies in value of gear when it comes to vendors. What do you guys feel would improve on how obtaining gear should progress?

[PatD]

Those spirit gear are for totally ftp player, of course they need grind to get it, its 100% free.

If you don't want to grind then help STS, buy some plats!

And for event plat tier, there is not only the final reward but the fact that when u plat tier u always get the best boss and some pretty good loot from boss, also u get token way faster, then buy recipes and craft many locked chest and make pretty good gold out of it

[oneazeli]

I dont have an issue with the grind, just 2 suggestions STS
1) Please add set bonus to ancient gear for the grind . Level based set bonus would be awesome .
2) Please add 2x murkstone token and xp event back.
I had a lot of fun grinding.

[Flamesofanger]

Lowering the tokens required for obtaining the spirit Helm & Armor sounds reasonable.

Cause 1.5k each piece is a lot for underpowered gear. That is replaceable by a cheaper alternative eg...Mireguard/Endless set.

No salt. Just my opinion.

[arcanefid]

Those spirit gear are for totally ftp player, of course they need grind to get it, its 100% free.

I completely agree with that, but I'm sure you have noticed that all the gear that is available 100% from farming requires way too much time. In most cases, more time than the whole expansion lasts, and a very small amount of people actually manage to do it 100% free.

For example the Glintstone Set, Antignome Set, Banished Set, and now Spirit stuff. I don't want to speculate, but from what I have seen, the number of people that have farmed those gears 100% F2P should be way too small.

People who have now Spirit Weapons at max level are mostly rich guys who have just bought a big number of Murkstones. Spirit Helm and Armor are kind of useless because Mireguard ones are way better and they were less than 2M in the first 2 weeks of expansion because they drop from raid zones. Not to mention the fact that you don't have to level up Mireguard pieces.

I think the stuff that is available for tokens, or those like Glint set which require a lot of materials, should definitely take less time to get. Otherwise, it's just F2P guys farming the stuff so that rich guys can buy them and enjoy them first - the F2P guys don't really farm them for themselves.

This is also the reason why people are asking to buff Spirit weapons, because they bought all the materials for like 20M, and are now leveling them up, but before they can reach their full potential, Arcane Weapons came and outclassed them. However, they never remembered that Spirit gear is just Mythic tier in terms of power.

So yeah, the grind is definitely not worth it, even for F2P guys.