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?