Ofc they never knew better and will be know any new player who start it.
Recentlly, when i started playing again, ii bring 4 friends to play with me, and they barely played for a month before going to Lost ark, even with me helping them with dungeons+VT(i even took them to msp so they could farm TT soulshield), cause the progression was terrible and not friendly to new players...
Not to mention they blamed alot the game optimiization, and all of them having high end PCs... and guess what? their experience was terrible...