jesus, just buy the veteran items from the renown vendors for resonant crystals + the nerubian trinket for kej - boom you got like 4 584 items. should be enough…
Nevertheless - you are right this game is a miserable experience right now after reworks and gearing changes but you didn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg.
At this moment Imma not continue subbing - once it expires I’m gone - hopefully for good. but I decided to abandon any kind of pushing because it is a miserable experience. The devs enabled the community to be extremely toxic and picky to the point where no one wants to play with anyone.
My tipping point was sitting in pvp lfm for hours on sunday without finding people to play despite having pvp gear with embellishment and “Some” cr to begin with.
I would literally inv anyone but that anyone would leave after a few mins waiting for the 3rd.
as for guilds, friends and communities - these just don’t work. Either everyone is busy or already mid-runs when you log or have to go or when they wanna play with you, you might be going or… if stars align - someone might try to leech a run off you on a trash lat “cuz we GuIlDiEs”.
And even if you have VERY good friends… well yeah i ran a bunch of DF M+ with same people but no matter what Everyone is whiny - i dont want this dungeons, i dont wanna heal today, i dont wanna play with this or that tank.
You can’t win, ever. And don’t let me start how your seemingly freindly bud can become the most vitriolic person if you make a mistake that tilts them.
This game, by its design - is just an unironically miserable experience.
Sadly - if you decide to skip the endgame, you will find out there is indeed nothing to do. The outdoor is actually emptyish and small - once you kill all rares and do all treasures and side quests which by my experience takes ca. 2-3 weeks of chill play - you are done.
It’s better to just find a better hobby or less toxic single player game because I’m not even sure how much the design influences bad behavior - I have some fringe theory that the Internet made all of us just increasingly horrible.
After all - no matter what kind of degeneracy or vile thing you do - you are mostly safe behind your screen, hunnerds of miles away from the “victim” or “peers”… possibly fully anonymous? You can get banned in the game but then you just… move on with your life or buy another bnet account registered on your aunt or brother?
IDK.
Every single aspect of this game is annoying right now and I’m not even exaggerating - I might even write a very lengthy post to vent/rant some time soon but atm i cba