You've got a dying game here, no one's gonna argue that. Some people say it's already dead, w/e that's up to debate.
How do you attempt to save it? Well this is NCW/NCS's way:
Releasing more pay2win gear to squeeze more milk out of stone. Yes that is totally going to attract new players to install game or players who quit game to return, "brand new whale-level tier items that only cost $5000USD to unlock! (Fineprint) Or of course you can spend two and half years grinding for it"
Cashgrab casino simulator which more and more people agree are complete scams due to highly questionable drop rates and reward choices
Renaming "normal" to "easy" to give them an excuse to reduce drops even further because that'll totally get people to whip out that credit card. Please don't give me the BS this will "attract undergeared players". First of all it's not even confirmed "easy mode" is really "easy mode", for all we know the only different could be the name as a facade. Second of all it's literally impossible to wipe in any normal mode dungeon except WC/BC/DST. If you wipe in them, well maybe you shouldn't join a BC party with story gear to start with? New players will just get the same dungeon experience aka braindead simulator as before, and all older players will get pissed off with nerfed rewards. So what's the benefit for us here? NCW's wallet, that's what the benefit is. Think about it, if they really wanted to help players why would they remove normal mode? Because keeping normal mode would no longer give them an excuse to force a drop rate nerf, as no one in the right mind would join easy mode
Increasing amount of dailies required to get basic reward from 3 to 4, and from 5 to 8. Also removing celestial basin's daily which was critical for alts. What's next, removing CS/HM too (or are they already removed, didn't check)? Yeah totally alt-friendly. Now instead of spending half an hour each alt, you spend an hour or more each. That'll encourage those players to play more!
If you want to release new pay2win crap and a casino simulator, at least make it so the rest of the patch is actually beneficial for players, both new and old. When you couple pay2win additions with massive nerfs in drops and increased effort required to get them, what do you think is going to happen??
Releasing a new "archer" class is like trying to put out a forest fire with a bucket of water. It's about run of the mill as run of the mill classes can get. How much hype will "archer", the most common class in MMO history, spark in a dying game? It's laughable to release an archer class near the end of an MMO's shelf life when literally every other game in existence has this overplayed class since launch day.
It's also funny on the "system changes" and archer class news page they put up, they didn't even bother polishing it with any marketing speech this time like "this is a great chance to return to the game" or "best chance for newcomers to join the game" that they usually do for these big patches, cause all that page talks about are more tiers of pay2win gears. Players are not that stupid.
At this point I don't see how anyone, even the white knights here, could tolerate this absolute mind-boggling decision making anymore.