TL;DR: Game is too much of a grind for low rewards, players are leaving NCSoft is losing money and going completely the wrong way about it.
Please note: I am not an experienced player and my knowledge is very limited however I would like to share my personal point of view of my experience.
So I started Blade & Soul a couple months back, never played an MMO before and I was loving every bit of it, however the more I moved on the more it became a chore to play. The idea of dailies is great, I don't mind that at all, in fact I enjoy it since it helped me learn team play and mechanics of basic bosses. And since it was a daily 80% of the time there was a carry so if I failed we would be alright. However the more time went on I started noticing things were a little off, now don't get me wrong I'm down to sit down and grind when I have the time but when you're limited to just dailies and weeklies it's pretty annoying to wait around.
The most recent patch (Blade and Ghoul) was designed for new players. However this isn't quite true.
Let's start with gold, a new player will get gold from finishing the main quest and dailies/weeklies. However with the gold reductions, prices of required items have shot right up. It is getting harder and harder for a new player to find their feet and do what they want, so what happens when a player can't find their feet? They leave. I left for a month or two and came back because I couldn't find any other good MMO's and it was mostly down to the combat system, it's perfect for me. However players I've tried to invite have just got up and left after finishing the main quest after claiming the game was too "Pay to win", "Complicated" or "Too much of a grind". So I did what I did best, tried to find an excuse to say "No it's not". But unfortunately it is.
Upgrades. The upgrade system is pretty much like any other game, get X to upgrade X using X. This game uses processed materials (the common ones) and transformation stones.
Transformation stones are ridiculously hard for new players to get their hands on. The ingredients to make them from Forgekeepers is: Special Metal, Rare Element, Soulstones, Moonstones, Sacred Orbs and Elysian Orbs. The first 3 items are quite easily obtainable, however Moonstones, Sacred Orbs and Elysian Orbs. What do you want me to do? Dailies?
Moonstones. You can get 9 (max) a week for doing all your chores or you can get nothing.
Sacred Orbs. 6 minimum or 17 maximum. + Some of peculiar chests.
Elysian Orbs. 0 Minimum or 9 Maximum.
I mentioned the market earlier, where players can use their gold they got from dailies to buy items from the marketplace.
Moonstones: 21% increase in price.
Sacred Orbs: 3% increase in price (Not really an issue, sacred orbs are no longer a problem for now)
Elysian Orbs: 19% increase in price.
Well why not buy transformation stones directly off the market instead?
Transformation stones: 58% increase in price in the space of 2 hours.
(Information gathered 18/10/2019)
After looking at all this I asked around what on Earth is going on. The replies were often "Use your credit card", "This game is dying" and more and more replies just like this.
Please stop.
I've loved this game up until seeing all this and I've seen myself and other people saying "Don't get too devoted" because of this exact reason. I get what is going on, it's a free to play game but there has to be ways to make a profit.
I've always said "If the game is good and isn't completely riddled with pay to win items I will pay up." This still holds true to this day. If developers and other workers are gonna sit down and bash out good updates and an enjoyable environment then I'm all down to pay my part. Great skins, great events even the odd RnG box now and then, see what I get. But quite frankly, right now I won't be paying a penny because it will encourage these types of actions. So if I'm like that, then what if there is someone else like that? Maybe even hundreds of people thinking the exact same thing. If you want to earn a profit first fix your relationship with your community, it seems lately companies have started caring less and less about the community and I really hate that but what can you do, it's a business before anything else.
I do not want to see this game die. The combat system is great, some skins are utter garbage but some are amazing and obtainable as a free to play player, doing dungeons with friends is fun, I personally love the upgrade system however the path to achieve it is a problem and will push future players (and maybe payers) away.
I will still keep playing until the day it's too much but I really hope that day doesn't come and I believe something will eventually change.
Thank you for reading.
- Misa