Just a heads up warning from the future of archeage, coming at you from 4.5 and the like....People mention 3.0, and the changes to farming, crafting, quality of life stuff with gems, the gear gap, the fact that everyone is a dark runner.....
^ I'm just here to warn you guys.....it gets progressively worse. I've been analyzing XL's changes to this game for quite some time, and the situation doesn't improve. Korean Archeages population is so low you would think a server merge is approaching. Live population is so low you could walk into any zone...AT ANY TIME, IN ANY MAP! And look around and see SWATHES of open space. Nobody is putting down land, nobody is running trades, nobody is queuing arenas, nobody is returning to the game, nobody is doing the events (Do not count alts as real players). The regrade changes in KR made the gear gap worse. And the skill changes didn't make up the difference enough in scaling to account for the games overall balance. The remaining players who haven't gotten bored or didn't quit join a player nation and continue to farm up items while waiting for merges....<----ACROSS ALL REGIONS OF THE GAME.
All I can tell you is, DO NOT TRUST ANY CHANGES XL MAKES TO THIS GAME. At this point, if you wish to keep things going, don't count anything XL games puts into the game as gospel. Change as much of the game as possible, and change it often, gut any systems that are pushing players out of the game <----regardless of what any naysayers say including yourselves! Make the game fun, code it and make it your own. Don't copy XL, don't copy Trion because they are both terrible at running this game into anything except the ground. The RNG systems create the gear gap and class imbalance as 1 weapon can outscale 7 pieces of armor and a shield <---eliminate RNG and that ratio goes away, yes I know it sounds crazy 100% regrading and 100% gem rates. But not as crazy as XL implementing systems they should have known full well by logic since 1.2 that will drive players OUT of the game. Even if you made it 100% regrade and kept gemming RNG based it would still be infinitely more balanced than the current system where the gear gap continues to imbalance XL's grafting on class reform with every patch. Archery scaling is purposefully bad as bow scaling gives the least damage out of any weapon in the game of equal grade and archer skills do not have the ample % scaling per skill to make up for the differential. Change the scaling to match 1h swords and suddenly archers do well at any stage in the games lifespan. The 50% shield reduction debuff is bugged. And suddenly allows for 2h nodachi users to hit people in full plate and a physical shield and melt them. <----Thats right, nodachi, not spear, full plate, physical shield+defence tree+ full honor gems. It took them till 3.5 at least to adjust that change and fix it and they never mentioned that they fixed it in patch notes.
Now outside of the gear aspect they also manage to begin the killing off of vocations and jobs by artificially extending your playthrough of those proficiencies. They do so by adding in "Rare" drops to proficiency trees as materials, artificially gate your farming ability by locking and limiting your vocation points available per day to "extend" the lifespan of the game. <-----It does the complete opposite of that and kills off players who enjoy vocation and farming and crafting further so by making it so that the only way to obtain these required rare drops is through single planting, which if you haven't done it before......It can take you roughly 4 hours a day of single planting cucumbers potato's and other materials just to get enough seeds to last you several larder cycles because of the low drop rate of those seeds. (Its so mind numbing and rage inducing standing in one spot doing it over and over, most people resorted to bots)
Make matters worse they convolute the system even further again "artificially extending" the life of the game by placing charcoal as a mainstay in many recipes. Amplifying its demand while at the same time SUBSTANTIALLY INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF MATERIAL NEEDED! While claiming it as an attempt to "increase ocean activity" <-----while ignoring the fact that at the time this change was thought about the ocean wasn't dead because of lack of objectives it was because of my first point ^ RNG systems and imbalanced combat mechanics, along with a dying population people weren't willing to take the risk anymore, which are literally the only two things that matter in the ocean of this game. Combine their false logic of why players stopped sailing, and amplify their incompetence further by making it so that the only way to even produce coal is through land runs.... <-----This is the level of stupid you guys are dealing with, in this game and its files.
Please for the love of god show us you understand at least how incompetent they are and are willing to make changes to reverse the stupidity found in this games systems.