Just because you don't have a reason to grind doesn't mean there aren't reasons to grind.

I think you may be overlooking a few things. Unless you have EVERY weapon and armor in the game, there are still reasons to keep going. If you think that's too grand, then how about the Shadow Lair sets?

As for your point about tokens, have you heard of this thing called a Hunter's Lodge? You want something to grind tokens for? How about 1152 Bark Modules for a Roarmulus Statue greeting every single person who walks into your guildhall?

"What about radiant fire crystals? Aren't those the reason to play endgame content? Working towards new gear..."

Not when you went from being able to level a piece of 5* gear a 2-3 levels per Vana run to getting enough crystals to level it 1/4th-1/10th of the way for the upper levels. You can run run Vana 10 times and not get enough crystals to upgrade your 5* item from level 9 to level 10. Hell, I ran a D28 arena 4 times and got enough crystals to level up my Winter's Grave one time... from level 5 to 6. We're talking 100% chance up level increase of course, as anything else is a waste of resources.

Makes me so glad almost all of my gear was leveled before the change.

~Gwen

@Gwenyvier

Yeah, I think that's definitely the heart of the issue when it comes to the "reward" (and the radiant fire crystals are still the reward in question regardless of how many you get). In this case, players want more reward per time spent at the endgame without having to pay or use energy (which is also what the OP is saying), and the developers haven't acknowledged their point of view.

i can safely say that i go out of my way to avoid making new gear until i know i have the resources to get it done in an afternoon, which requires a lot of preliminary farming and grinding, and i'm completely okay with that aspect of it

however, making it so i have to grind arguably 20+ hours in arenas, FSC, and/or shadow lairs in order to fully level something without the use of anything in the depot (boosters, radiants, etc.) is frankly more trouble than it's worth. even then, the gear selection that's currently available in the game has been pretty much dominated by overhyped "gunner armor" that does so little in the broader scope of things that there's really only one armor that is functional enough to consider over something else - and even then it's consideration is solely for PvP, and not PvE. every other armor is outclassed by a precursor armor line. all this does is tell me that even if we were to get genuinely new content and armors, it won't be playtested with the intent of "keeping everything balanced" in mind. instead, we'll get something that either: falls short of the mark, or goes so far beyond it that it serves as a quintessential pay-to-obtain armor, such as the black kat raiment (and really all of the kat armor lines, since they all required whiskers to craft to my recollection).

i get the concept that a free-to-play game should have something to prevent players from reaching endgame in an afternoon, and to that end having something to grind is not only expected, but required in order to keep the game going. but the fact of the matter is i've seen more players quit the game now solely because they can't progress through to having 5* gear than i've seen players quit the game over mist energy and elevator fees. the general impression that i get from the game now is that the player base cares more about the game than the staff, and that the higher up the corporate ladder you go, the more apathetic the staff seems to be.

it might seem like a bit of a jump but think about it this way - the mixmaster was recently patched to prevent it from firing through walls/barriers and essentially bring it in line with other guns and this was something i was incredibly happy to see happen. however, the turnaround on this fix was 147 days. doing the math, which i hate doing, it took just over 40% of a calendar year to simply bugfix a gun. i won't even go into the gunner update time crunching because i'd be wasting time talking about the same %*&@ i've pointed out in the past.

i can't even come up with a hypothetical reason as to why things have pretty much nose-dived over the last two years with the game. even if we played the blame game and put it all on sega and not OOO's development team, that still leaves absolutely no explanation as to WHY - why we don't have new pve content, why it takes 14 months to push out reskins of guns and alter a few mechanics with functionality, why it takes 5 months to bugfix a single weapon, why we keep getting eye-%^*!ed with promotional content that has absolutely no bearing on the game.

simply put, the only part of OOO that still functions (arguably, at least) the same as always would be the game masters. as far as everyone else involved in the equation - OOO as a development team, sega as a corporate backer, and the playerbase as a consumer since that is, in essence, what it is? i think this speaks for itself, so don't hold your breath on new content anytime soon.

and to think it'd just take the equivalent in effort to the flick of a switch to restore everyone's hope and interest in this game.

The GMs already read it and they likely get tons of these complaints through support anyway, it's the developers that need to do something about it.

we need rewards for completing acheivements! at least 1000 crowns should be nice

@Rhagnarock

Just multiplying the enemies doesn't really add much. You know the second floor of FSC with all the sprites? You know how zombies spawn in the middle room after every sprite rescued? Try doing that floor without killing any of the zombies in the middle of the room until the end. Whether it's 5 zombies or 50, it's still the same enemies, doing the same attacks, spawning in the same places. You need to at least add in some sort of gimicky twist, like giving all the zombies back shields and make them do curse... Oh right! Shadow Lairs already exist for those who want a challenge.