Developers: is this the experience you want for players?

[Fusionstrike]

An open letter to PL developers:

I wanted to share my recent experience with PL and find out how it strikes you. Here's my story.

I started working on Nuri's Hollows when I hit level 57. I thought I'd try to craft for myself a demonic set through determined application of time and effort. So, I played exclusively in Nuri's from 57 all the way until I recently hit 61. Every single run I did bosses and mini bosses, never wanting to pass up the chance to get a legendary drop or rare crafting component. I wanted to craft the set for myself rather than waiting for someone else to do it and buying it. I figured it would be a good challenge to do it myself.

As of now, I have earned a little less than half the crafting components and recipes I need. But the big thing is I have earned zero of the legendary items (helm, plate, etc) I need. In fact, I've only ever seen a single legendary item drop, and it went to someone else. So I have to wonder, is this really what you want the experience to be like? I played for the equivalent of 13 levels (grind from 60 to 61 is effectively 10 levels) and I literally never got a single item I needed. And I didn't pass up a single drop chance along the way either.

Now I realize someone's going to say "well you're just unlucky" or "I know player x who got 20 drops" or other comments of that nature. It's true that my story is anecdotal, and maybe it is unusually unlucky. I guess only someone with access to the drop rate code could answer that. But my point here is, it doesn't matter what happened to others. This is how it happened for *me*, so it's the only experience I'll ever have. Sure, I can go buy what I need from the store. But I have to wonder, how do *those* people get the items that they're selling? If people were counting on me to supply the items for sale, they'd literally never get what they want, because even if I played forever at this rate, there'd still be zero for me to sell.

So I go back to my original question: is this the experience the developers are hoping for? I'm a pretty patient, determined player and I don't get discouraged easily. But it's hard not to walk away discouraged from this experience. I did everything I could do and still came up empty. Not "a little bit short" or "need to try a little harder" but completely shut out. I understand the value of having difficult challenges to achieve in a game, but I really think there needs to be some reevaluation here. Players really ought to get something if they try hard enough, and apparently the drop rate is so low that it's possible never to get anything at all. I know because I just proved it.