I try to write down in summary what do I think about the Lindvior update after release date with the experience of two weeks:
Positive:
Character/Class:
- The return of 34 classes already is a very positive thing the whole gameplay was around the different ability of different classes and now as the process begun, what with the classes gets back their unique abilities is here and in the next updates it will even better than in the old times.
Hunting Zones/Instances/Raid Bosses:
- It was a very good idea to take a lots of open world contents to the game, that is what makes the Lineage 2 to Lineage 2, also was good idea rework the area of Elmore.
Recreate the drop and spoil list of the Mobs, instances and raid bosses also was a very good step but it still isn't perfect...
PvP:
- The PvP is way more better as before, as Mr. Gon Namkung promised we have much more action in PvP. Skills use more MP, hits bigger their reuse time decreased and their success rate increased also.
Negative:
Character/Classes:
- While I can't say, that it is terrible, but I guess it wasn't a good idea to let awake an Elf character with Elf stats to Specter Dancer or a Dwarf with its stats to Cardinal, they had to close this only reawakening inside the race of character. Those who did awake in different race class in Awakening update (example Dwarf to Cardinal) should to get fix human class with Human race stats.
But since I guess the 34 4th class are good worked out to its original paths it isn't a big issue, but of course this was an issue what the developers didn't solve in the best form.
Hunting Zones/Instances/Raid Bosses:
- The new hunting grounds are extreme hard I guess. While it should be an area what constantly should be under farm (Land of Chaos, Raider Crossroads) to setup the reworked economy this difficult level of the spots just make it very slow.
- The developers did experience well in the Awakening update mainly from the Goddess of Destruction began a drastically Adena inflation including Korea and our region too.
To decrease the inflation and maintain the R-R95-R99 item prices they did decrease the amount of Adena drop to 1/5, while removed the Unidentified Items also, while they did create a new craft system, what is I guess a very good system far the best what until was in the L2, but the drop and spoil rate a bit low, but the decrease of the amount of Adena drop was too fast and too hard.
I'm as Fortune Seeker will able to farm with SSR and make a very solid profit, but I think we will meet with the times again when we will run from Town to Town or kill the mobs without Soulshot to save money to gear upgrade.
Totally I think, that this update really was able to bring back many thing from the glorious times, the game is much harder now and we will need everybody to explore the world of Aden again build a new economic system.
It is sure, that the drops or spoils are works with low rate, their rates is much more better than many people think it. When everybody begun to play again on the open world hunting zones and leave the instances, everything will work well.
Really I never took advantage of free R shots. I simply didn't want to spend the time. I've always bought them from shops to support the local dwarf unions.
It is not the end of the world (Aden). This is how the game should be and I think it'll be fine.
Hunting Zones/Instances/Raid Bosses:
- The new hunting grounds are extreme hard I guess. While it should be an area what constantly should be under farm (Land of Chaos, Raider Crossroads) to setup the reworked economy this difficult level of the spots just make it very slow.
- The developers did experience well in the Awakening update mainly from the Goddess of Destruction began a drastically Adena inflation including Korea and our region too.
To decrease the inflation and maintain the R-R95-R99 item prices they did decrease the amount of Adena drop to 1/5, while removed the Unidentified Items also, while they did create a new craft system, what is I guess a very good system far the best what until was in the L2, but the drop and spoil rate a bit low, but the decrease of the amount of Adena drop was too fast and too hard.
I'm as Fortune Seeker will able to farm with SSR and make a very solid profit, but I think we will meet with the times again when we will run from Town to Town or kill the mobs without Soulshot to save money to gear upgrade.
If you,the pve farming mobs for adena 99lvl spoil say it,its officiel. :)
Adena will be so big problem ingame that will push players to rmt or quit game,since game is full of adena sink - oe skills cost,make gear,put new stones,make talismans,make dyes ect ect ect- means a player needs over 30billions.
One problem you didnt mention is the sp to oe skills.Many 99lvl players havent oed skills since they couldnt afford it and now the sp from mobs its reduced.
One problem you didnt mention is the sp to oe skills.Many 99lvl players havent oed skills since they couldnt afford it and now the sp from mobs its reduced.
Well this where you buy ncoins!! Sp booster! yaaaayyy!! All you kids should know this.
If you,the pve farming mobs for adena 99lvl spoil say it,its officiel. :)
Adena will be so big problem ingame that will push players to rmt or quit game,since game is full of adena sink - oe skills cost,make gear,put new stones,make talismans,make dyes ect ect ect- means a player needs over 30billions.
One problem you didnt mention is the sp to oe skills.Many 99lvl players havent oed skills since they couldnt afford it and now the sp from mobs its reduced.
Look, most of current people try to leveling through instances, but the instances from now results much lower amount of Adena as before.
So will come the day when they have to start to think about it how they get Adena for SS or items if they want to continue to play only in instances.
Open world farm is profitable and if appear the maestros with the new material recipes the economy stand up.
Currently for me who can farm with profit should do the action, that sell the stuffs in grocery and from the clean profit take Adena to the market and buy stuffs, what with I can give Adena to the players.
It isn't so bad the situation, that it would force the people to quit or even use rmt, but we have to think what we buy from our Adena, so minimum until the Epo update the crazy over enchanting and the different type of test your luck stuffs won't be so financial decisions to nobody.
Look, most of current people try to leveling through instances, but the instances from now results much lower amount of Adena as before.
So will come the day when they have to start to think about it how they get Adena for SS or items if they want to continue to play only in instances.
Open world farm is profitable and if appear the maestros with the new material recipes the economy stand up.
Currently for me who can farm with profit should do the action, that sell the stuffs in grocery and from the clean profit take Adena to the market and buy stuffs, what with I can give Adena to the players.
It isn't so bad the situation, that it would force the people to quit or even use rmt, but we have to think what we buy from our Adena, so minimum until the Epo update the crazy over enchanting and the different type of test your luck stuffs won't be so financial decisions to nobody.
People have been RMTing full TW Sets and +4 Apoc weapons, and even epics since like... last year? A lot of new players do it now. They're doing it fo R95 and R99 as well. It's a bit of an epidemic, but it's harder to see... I see Academy members in some clans ding 85 then show up with (what is for an 85) incredible gear 2 days later and a full stack of XP runes to put it to good use.
The current inflation will (and is) worsen it. It may normalize, but these players are human and many of them do not want to monitor the in game economy like it's their 401k. They will take the path of least resistance.
And 90% of players in the game simply roll with it.
I've never seen any "legit" clan kick a new player out of clan for showing up with what is literally impossible to farm gear sets at such a low level (and even then, it would be near impossible to prove with the way the mail system is apparently being utilized for RMT purposes).
Also, I have PL'd a lot of Mentees/first chars and the prices they are willing to pay to get leveled fast is not farmable in such a short time for characters below level 80.
Always where there are big changes (new updates)
there is easy way to earn adena...
the way is to turn profit from laziness (or stupidity, low awareness) of players. You can do the same between updates but now its even easier.
I made a lot of adena just checking auction house for immortal/requiem recipes, keymats, there are (were) many with lower prices than u can get if you sell it to the shop (grocery, etc...) First days the profit was around 20kk per day.
Also the crystalizing of equipment is worth now, if you are lucky.
I made at least billion with just buying the apo weapons before update and crystalizing them later.
Yea and as LordOfSpoil said the crafting system seems to be good, we just have to give some time for dwarfies on the servers to get the right recipes :-)
PvP in lindvior is a lot more fun then pre-lind thats for sure. PvP's are a lot shorter and actually take some game awareness and planning rather then the mindless button smashing it was before.
The new areas are cool, but as you stated, they are way too difficult.
The new raid bosses are actually not that hard if you know what you are doing and drop some cool stuff, nothing major, but PvP/PvE stones, hair accessory enchants etc, but mostly elycum powder and other useless BS. I also like how their open field raid bosses.
However I greatly disagree with lord and many others about this game economy.
To give you an example, pre-lind my CP would grind in HF for roughly 2 hrs a few days a week. In that 2hr grind session I would make 25-30mill adena off of mats and pure adena. After Lindvior, I now only get 4.5-5m adena in that 2 hour timeframe..... wtf are these idiots talking about when they say you can only make adena in non-instances and stop using instances to xp..... seriously stop spewing shiit its ridiculous. Yea you make more adena xping in open field now due to the fact that instances no longer drop literally ANYTHING..... but 2.25m adena a hour with a strong HF group.... I cant even use that ****** adena to wipe my god**** *** with.
There is literally no way too even come close to xp and gear yourself anymore. Only the extremely lucky circumstance will this actually happen. Therefor, if the current economy stays mark my words you will see a ton of your current player base disappear, and extremely low amount of new or returning players coming back to game.
as said before the nerf on adena/item drops in general should not have happened on the GoD introduced/changed XP areas as the issue was with the pre GoD spots being to profitable compared to the new ones to the point it got abused by rmt bots..
drops at the new spots were 1/10th of the pre GoD areas before Lindvior and now it's basically 1/100th so yeah the adena drop on the new spots doesnt even compensate the soul shots usage..
Well, I just got experience, that we have to know the game more and need to re-explore everything.
After as I did create my comment found a spot, where before I made like 6m per hour, now I'm able to make in this spot like 12-20m per hour.
This update just will "hard" until, while we won't re-explore the new economy, after it will work well.
Anyway I guess these changes won't keep back the neutral players, they are able to leveling faster so they get time to farm adena.
But the so many pve content and the pvp for these on end game area at the top clans maybe will force a part of them to emo quit, because mostly these people got strike from this update I guess.
Anyway I guess these changes won't keep back the neutral players, they are able to leveling faster so they get time to farm adena.
But the so many pve content and the pvp for these on end game area at the top clans maybe will force a part of them to emo quit, because mostly these people got strike from this update I guess.
Exactly the opposite.
First of all,most players arent strictly pvpers or pvers(as most clans have some war),they want play both sides of game and L2 exists so long because of this,original game was designed to make a player daily get involved on both actions.
The new pve players who care to reach end content will quit seeing its impossible to make lets say r95 set.The even more casual players that have no goal at all,only keep slots on accounts of the server,they dont profit ncwest or servers market since events happen by buying from l2 store/galleria,not by farming a few mobs(dont like this,but these are our events).
The few very emo and rich big clans pvpers,will find unlegit ways to gear and keep going as long as they find enemys.
The main problem of the game always was(but now its even stronger) there is no connection at all in a players effort/skills to his reward.Reward(drops,event rewards,craft,oe and so on)is total random and most of times i see it going to a total random toon that is a noob who quits game after some months while all players who created the history in their servers get nothing at all.
Remember the museum status in town,we had the faces of 24/7 bots as heroes!
Many things could be done to reward the active players and make botting and rmt a waste like
- give q item to player on siege for killing enemys around his lvl(only on siege zone),something like territory used to be but with todays rewards and no need kill special classes, including battlefield potions(similar to chaos),giant's energy,new pve/pvp stones and so on.
-give real higher chances on succed oe gear on players with higher pvp score
-give q item for killing enemy around your lvl in pvp again with today's valuable items as prices
-put a penalty on xp/drops after 4hours of continued playing with a 8 hours of cooldown and raise dramaticely the rates on these 4 hours.
-get rid of the 1/20000000000000000000000 chances of craft a blessed item,make the ingame items available with logic rates
First of all,most players arent strictly pvpers or pvers(as most clans have some war),they want play both sides of game and L2 exists so long because of this,original game was designed to make a player daily get involved on both actions.
The new pve players who care to reach end content will quit seeing its impossible to make lets say r95 set.The even more casual players that have no goal at all,only keep slots on accounts of the server,they dont profit ncwest or servers market since events happen by buying from l2 store/galleria,not by farming a few mobs(dont like this,but these are our events).
The few very emo and rich big clans pvpers,will find unlegit ways to gear and keep going as long as they find enemys.
The main problem of the game always was(but now its even stronger) there is no connection at all in a players effort/skills to his reward.Reward(drops,event rewards,craft,oe and so on)is total random and most of times i see it going to a total random toon that is a noob who quits game after some months while all players who created the history in their servers get nothing at all.
Remember the museum status in town,we had the faces of 24/7 bots as heroes!
Many things could be done to reward the active players and make botting and rmt a waste like
- give q item to player on siege for killing enemys around his lvl(only on siege zone),something like territory used to be but with todays rewards and no need kill special classes, including battlefield potions(similar to chaos),giant's energy,new pve/pvp stones and so on.
-give real higher chances on succed oe gear on players with higher pvp score
-give q item for killing enemy around your lvl in pvp again with today's valuable items as prices
-put a penalty on xp/drops after 4hours of continued playing with a 8 hours of cooldown and raise dramaticely the rates on these 4 hours.
-get rid of the 1/20000000000000000000000 chances of craft a blessed item,make the ingame items available with logic rates
and so on..
The reason, why the people cry back the C4, C5, Interlude times, because they only remember to the nice things, but they forget, that we used to swim from Talking Island to Gludin to save Adena.
I remember I went my level 15 Dwarven Fighter to Talking Island with ship to spoil some materials, what I was able to sell for some thousands of Adena.
When I spoiled like 50k Adena, with ship through 1,5 hours I did travel from Talking Island to Giran Harbor. Or when with my Adventurer character I did hit the level 58 I went to Ketra Orc Barracks to pick up the A-Grade Arrows or sometimes some Adena what the bots let on the field. 1-2 hours pick uping for 300-400k Adena, SSS prices was like 300 Adena, SSA like 150-180, while SSB like about 120-130.
People did sell the Higher grade weapon and used lower grade one to can pay the SS.
Socketka using S-Grade dual for him for sure no problem to buy the SSS (right he can craft it).
I wrote this to another topic, but this comment work to this thread too:
Laby has right. I remember very well, that in old times we had to make decision often, that do we make XP or do we make Adena?.
Spoilers are able to make nice spoils.
The target is, that go to open field area and get a spoiler who will farm.
A part of the game, better to say end game still request a lots of Adena while the drops reduced. So, will comes the time when the farmer bots won't be able to farm enough Adena.
Legendary Dyes won't drop its price, Skill Enchant neither, QHP and any another PvP potions won't drop its price.
It was told by Gon Namkung, that they will focus to open field areas, if you like, if you won't like, you need to go to open field areas and farm.
Currently necessary to appear X amount of material what from the players will able to craft, but for it few, that like me spoilers go in solo to spoil anywhere. I can farm my money, I farm enough Adena from spoil only, that make profit and enough to my SSR too, I don't even need to pick up the Adena neither.
But if we want more materials, we need faster spoil and drop, for this need, that the healers, DDs, buffers, tanks go out to open field areas and farm there.
Those who won't play on end game actions, will able to afford everything, you can make alts to Zaken, Freya, make Mithril Mines daily, there are half million way how you able to keep up your character, but to it optimal to forget the "daily instances" idea and do what make you profit and not what is uncompleted daily.
But those who play the end game pvp with QHP spam and with stuffs like this they will run out from the Adena easily, if they try to get it illegal way, it will might be month by month harder to them get Adena to their PvPs.
But anyway, when the Maestros will get all recipes to craft materials will start the crafting, after people will break their items in the hope of Elcyum or BEAR, BEWR and they will sell the Rcry, the amount of Rcry reward after Crystallize process about 10 times higher as before, so things will start work in 1-2 months fine, after when the people will return from their summer vacation in end of August or September, the economy will work much better than now.
The key to current gameplay:
Go to open field area make a party take a spoiler and farm, farm, farm and forget the daily instances!
The reason, why the people cry back the C4, C5, Interlude times, because they only remember to the nice things, but they forget, that we used to swim from Talking Island to Gludin to save Adena.
I remember Or when with my Adventurer character I did hit the level 58 I went to Ketra Orc Barracks to pick up the A-Grade Arrows or sometimes some Adena what the bots let on the field. 1-2 hours pick uping for 300-400k Adena, SSS prices was like 300 Adena, SSA like 150-180, while SSB like about 120-130.
Sure,on the first chronicles adena didnt came easy and we had to walk and swim but,we were not in hurry to make 20 lvls in 1 update,or gather 30billions.And i dont get crap from anyone saying << you dont have to make them in 1 update >> because all have eyes to see each update makes players not be able make ingame wealth/items while all events who are supposed to give rewards with the new good items need buy coins to participate.
Old way of playing did let you explore the content of game,see the landscapes,get lost on map,make a new friend while exping,die and go to village if no rez.The bots always left players ''gifts''to pik, adena or mats,even full items.You didnt have to xp all hours if no hurry for lvl,you could just have a toon that could run around certain spot and pikup.Certain items needed for player that could get farmed by certain class/lvl was a player's income,like books for skills.Market? game had new players every month coming from prive servers who didnt know prices and you could easily sell them items in any price.
And last but not least,since all started around same time and they didnt had to face older players who benefit years of running bottrains,most of players could have around same adena.
The bots always left players ''gifts''to pik, adena or mats,even full items.
400k+ Silver arrows FTW :D And if you found some fast leveling mage and politely asked if you can pick Adena, they let you most of the time, you could make couple hundred thousands from his/her spot.
Really I never took advantage of free R shots. I simply didn't want to spend the time. I've always bought them from shops to support the local dwarf unions.
I never made ALTs to get free shots either...
I really don't care buying from players in town or buy the keymats and craft them on dwarf in town...
Problem is that with Lindvior, Adena drop is sooo low that you waste more money in SHOTS than you earn when farming...:mad::eek:
Character/Classes:
- While I can't say, that it is terrible, but I guess it wasn't a good idea to let awake an Elf character with Elf stats to Specter Dancer or a Dwarf with its stats to Cardinal, they had to close this only reawakening inside the race of character. Those who did awake in different race class in Awakening update (example Dwarf to Cardinal) should to get fix human class with Human race stats.
But since I guess the 34 4th class are good worked out to its original paths it isn't a big issue, but of course this was an issue what the developers didn't solve in the best form.
.
what do u mean by this?
The reason, why the people cry back the C4, C5, Interlude times, because they only remember to the nice things, but they forget, that we used to swim from Talking Island to Gludin to save Adena.
I remember I went my level 15 Dwarven Fighter to Talking Island with ship to spoil some materials, what I was able to sell for some thousands of Adena.
When I spoiled like 50k Adena, with ship through 1,5 hours I did travel from Talking Island to Giran Harbor. Or when with my Adventurer character I did hit the level 58 I went to Ketra Orc Barracks to pick up the A-Grade Arrows or sometimes some Adena what the bots let on the field. 1-2 hours pick uping for 300-400k Adena, SSS prices was like 300 Adena, SSA like 150-180, while SSB like about 120-130.
People did sell the Higher grade weapon and used lower grade one to can pay the SS.
Socketka using S-Grade dual for him for sure no problem to buy the SSS (right he can craft it).
I wrote this to another topic, but this comment work to this thread too:
I seriously cannot stand this stupid argument anymore. Its soo dumb and illogical that if anyone actually cared about the human race they would point out the flaws of this argument.
Do you think transportation is better now that we have the automobile/planes/trains etc or do you think transportation was better with walking, horses, sail boats?
The answer to that question should point how ******ed your viewpoint is.
I seriously cannot stand this stupid argument anymore. Its soo dumb and illogical that if anyone actually cared about the human race they would point out the flaws of this argument.
Do you think transportation is better now that we have the automobile/planes/trains etc or do you think transportation was better with walking, horses, sail boats?
The answer to that question should point how ******ed your viewpoint is.
It's a game, not real life. Using real life to compare it to a game is nonsense in itself.
Hey, if you wanna argue that someone cannot use "real life" analogies in order to prove a point on a video-game world, by all means go for it..... lol......
We mine as well not use English or any form of real world dialects. We should develop a dialect only relevant to lineage 2.
Hey, if you wanna argue that someone cannot use "real life" analogies in order to prove a point on a video-game world, by all means go for it..... lol......
We mine as well not use English or any form of real world dialects. We should develop a dialect only relevant to lineage 2.
Yeeeah...I think you need to get out of your mom's basement more often.
At least he proved that he left his mom's basement long enough to attend a few philosophy 101 courses unlike you and Tiferet1.
I'ts not philosophy... Simply, a human being cannot conceive what he/she doesn't know.
We can argue that the respawn mechanic is a sign of the hidden fear of death humankind possesses, but again, forcing a fantasy game - i.e. a virtual reality environment - to adapt totally to real life values, is quite contradictory, as some things that in L2 are possible, in reality aren't...
P.S. I'm 25, I'm old enough to have finished my classes. Try harder.
I'ts not philosophy... Simply, a human being cannot conceive what he/she doesn't know.
We can argue that the respawn mechanic is a sign of the hidden fear of death humankind possesses, but again, forcing a fantasy game - i.e. a virtual reality environment - to adapt totally to real life values, is quite contradictory, as some things that in L2 are possible, in reality aren't...
If this was comparable to reality then I guess I could go around killing people and it's ok! I could go and beat some puppies and kittens and get money!
I'ts not philosophy... Simply, a human being cannot conceive what he/she doesn't know.
We can argue that the respawn mechanic is a sign of the hidden fear of death humankind possesses, but again, forcing a fantasy game - i.e. a virtual reality environment - to adapt totally to real life values, is quite contradictory, as some things that in L2 are possible, in reality aren't...
P.S. I'm 25, I'm old enough to have finished my classes. Try harder.
And yet an argument by analogy is very common in philosophy as well as elsewhere even when (or especially when) dealing with esoteric or impossible concepts or scenarios. The fact that Lineage 2 is a video game in no way logically precludes someone from making a real world analogy.
And of course your reasoning for the argument that you can't use real life analogies to describe decisions made in reality by real people about what their virtual characters will do in a virtual world is laughable.
There is also a religion based on belief in reincarnation. If that turns out to be true then you can in fact respawn after you die.
When did I argue that l2 is real life. I argued that just because l2 was harder "way back when" does NOT mean it was for the better.
I used a real world analogy or some form of literary or philosophical tool that better explained this by saying that just because transportation a hundred years ago was much harder does not mean that it is better then transportation that exists in today's world.
You can keep saying that this game was harder blah blah blah back when you no-lifed this game years ago but it does NOT change the fact that that DOES NOT make the game better.
As ellisande said in another thread, to you, possible = too easy, impossible = hard.
And yet an argument by analogy is very common in philosophy as well as elsewhere even when (or especially when) dealing with esoteric or impossible concepts or scenarios. The fact that Lineage 2 is a video game in no way logically precludes someone from making a real world analogy.
And of course your reasoning for the argument that you can't use real life analogies to describe decisions made in reality by real people about what their virtual characters will do in a virtual world is laughable.
There is also a religion based on belief in reincarnation. If that turns out to be true then you can in fact respawn after you die.
Wow you actually took the time to say what I thought about saying but decided it was a waste of time.
And yet an argument by analogy is very common in philosophy as well as elsewhere even when (or especially when) dealing with esoteric or impossible concepts or scenarios. The fact that Lineage 2 is a video game in no way logically precludes someone from making a real world analogy.
And of course your reasoning for the argument that you can't use real life analogies to describe decisions made in reality by real people about what their virtual characters will do in a virtual world is laughable.
There is also a religion based on belief in reincarnation. If that turns out to be true then you can in fact respawn after you die.
But again, you're trying to force real life reasoning into a game where you don't have consequences for certain things that in real life are considered crimes. Killing, scamming etc, it's allowed in L2 but not by real life laws.
Now, if you kindly would explain me what does transportation means have to do with this whole argument. What, gatekeepers are better than swimming from TI to Gludin? I won't confute this, but what does this have with planes and horses?
When did I argue that l2 is real life. I argued that just because l2 was harder "way back when" does NOT mean it was for the better.
I used a real world analogy or some form of literary or philosophical tool that better explained this by saying that just because transportation a hundred years ago was much harder does not mean that it is better then transportation that exists in today's world.
You can keep saying that this game was harder blah blah blah back when you no-lifed this game years ago but it does NOT change the fact that that DOES NOT make the game better.
As ellisande said in another thread, to you, possible = too easy, impossible = hard.
But again, you're trying to force real life reasoning into a game where you don't have consequences for certain things that in real life are considered crimes. Killing, scamming etc, it's allowed in L2 but not by real life laws.
Now, if you kindly would explain me what does transportation means have to do with this whole argument. What, gatekeepers are better than swimming from TI to Gludin? I won't confute this, but what does this have with planes and horses?
ok
ok
I clicked on "submit" while your post wasn't there yet.
By the way, I simply got confused over how the debate evolved. It's quite obvious that the game back then was hard, but it's the nostalgia factor that makes it appear more enjoyable than it really was.
Now, if you kindly would explain me what does transportation means have to do with this whole argument. What, gatekeepers are better than swimming from TI to Gludin? I won't confute this, but what does this have with planes and horses?
Very simple.
Running from village to spot was the way for the new poor player to see the world,spot new locations and realise how to deal with his income to pocess a better place in the upcoming community.Older quests also sent us walk to different locations which we wouldnt ever see otherweise.Why to need to see the l2 world?Because it had the most fantastic landscapes and colours,part of the enjoy playing was enjoy the view.And because if you knew the roads and which mountains to climb,you could use it later in your life when you had to run secretely on a siege lets say like it did many times.
L2 is supposed to show/create the life of certain races on certain kingdoms on the certain period on the certain world(all fantastic since it doesnt describe any real life human istoric period but made by a puzzle of pieces of historic human storys and fairytales) and since any kind of life progress and adapt to survive and rule so a game's life has to.
Since our toons are ''free men'' who have ''free towns/ kingdoms'' every sign of arts and endustry should go on to give our toons a more quality life and strenth them more for the battles to come.
Because in the game world its the same player who has to go on battling untill the end of game(yes,i know new players will come, but new players will stay only if old players stayed too) and he is not going to get old/retire/die to be treated like ''meat'',the ''state''(ncwest/ncsoft) must not ''eat him alive'' when he's fresh and young but provide him a world his battles become achievement and he wont become excausted or bored after 6 months.
1. People who had money before the update, still have that wealth and it has actually increased in value due to the income of everyone getting slashed. People who are trying to catchup just got another quarter or half year added to compete. Same with Exp. In the old chronicles never was there such stores of wealth. Or sure, a few people had 2 bil, maybe a couple boss jewels. But never BankOfAden 100+bil in an environment where solo mobs drop 100-1000 adena.
Exploit first, exploit best.
2. Dragons were made harder, even lowbie bosses had their accessibility curtailed. Thats not necessarily bad, but with the sparse populations of the NA server this leads to exploitation/domination of the head clans even more so.