Short version? The game lacks in content at the moment.
Long version? Ok, you asked for it :) Read my wall of text and like it.
Really, this game is a four commodity system. CE (bought by some but not all), Time (mostly spent by free players), Stuff (mats, tokens, recipes, gear, and crowns), and Fun (an elusive commodity, but never the less present). Overall, it works as a cycle of motivations. This cycle is effectively a social organism made of different types of players.
CE Buyers:
Some folks buy CE. This is because the cost of CE is worth less then the value of their Real Life (RL) Time. They buy Stuff with their CE, to save themselves the Time it takes to go get it the hard way. They do this because they get "Fun" out of having Stuff. Sometimes this is motivated by status and social standing - having keen gear is cool, but this does not matter unless someone else has less. Status is relative.
Free Players:
Some folks have lots of time and no Real Life currency. They spend their time to get stuff which they trade to CE buyers for CE. They do this because they get "Fun" out of playing. In addition to playing a vital roll in the economy of SK, free players also add color. They boost the numbers so that there are always players online and the game has draw as a social event.
Mixed Players:
Some players sometimes buy CE. Excitement, new fun, changes in CE value, and a good paycheck are all reasons that are sometimes compelling enough to buy CE. These players react to the market and sort of form the "lubricant" of the game.
Effectively, the game works on something like a balance between these groups of people.
If you have too many free players, the value of CE rises, and at a certain point, free play is no longer possible. If this happens, free players quit and the value of stuff rises, fixing the issue. Also, people who are mixed players buy more CE, which is worth more during a spike in CE value.
If you have too many CE buyers, the value of CE drops and it becomes very attractive to play for free.
In the end, you have a self regulating cycle of motivations ... that ultimately balance each other, as long as there is enough "Fun" to keep players motivated.
This is all fine and good. The current issues all tie into "Fun".
Players of all kinds have a life cycle.
For a new player, the initial fun is the joy of discovery. They get to play around and by the time they run out of energy they, hopefully, like the fun they had enough to invest in getting more. Some go straight to buying CE to keep playing more. Some learn the art of free play.
Not all players stick around past the early fun. The further you get into the game, the more Time is needed to see the next shiny object - be it get new gear or get deeper. This is a ramp, where there is less Fun for Time. Still, many players stay engaged through the getting gear and seeing most of the game period.
Either path, as players progress, they get gear and try out the content. On either route, at some point, players see all there is to see. Then, even the most hardcore gamer will drift away.
Of course, RL events and other games also compete for players time. Still, the end of "Fun" is the end of most players time in the game. It is like what happens after you have tried all the rides at an amusement park. You may come back next year and hope they have new rides, but you go do something else.
Before the current round of updates, and I am guessing here, I THINK the half-life on most players was 14 days of time in game or 50$. This is not bad, but its not great. In this time, you could easily get a full set of 5* gear and kill Vana a few times even as a free player. For a CE buyer, total CE to get the same gear was around 18k CE, assuming you just bought at a high price from sellers. Now, with the increase in CE costs to craft and the fact that you cannot buy 4*+ gear directly, the actual cost is lower for a CE buyer but it costs more Time.
For a Free player, I think half-life is now about 21 days. For a buyer, I would guess around 40$ will get you a full set of gear, assuming you buy all the mats and the recipes from the AU. Now, even a hardcore CE buyer probably has to spend 7 days in game, just to find all the bits needed and to level the items.
This change has a positive effect - it means people play longer. By rationing the "Fun" and slowing the progression to "Content Death", the average players time in game rises. This is good, because it means they are more likely to make social connections (a lot of what keeps players in game, even when Fun is mostly dead) and also more likely to still be here when the next round of content arrives. In addition, CE buyers have to exchange more their CE for crowns - as the AU runs on crowns. This has served to moderate the value of CE somewhat.
The down side is that players who were near the end of fun have even less reason to keep playing. The move to the AU means less trade is occurring, which also damages the social nature of the game. Players who invested heavily in recipes have seen their investments rendered unprofitable and players who were involved in trade are cut from what was, for them, "Fun". This means lots of players have quit, or scaled back play, and the social aspects of the game have taken a blow.
I cannot tell you what real effect these changes have had at a financial level - OOO might be able to, but even so, the long term effects are going to take time to see.
The problem is that regardless of what kind of player you are, the game requires more Time and there are less reasons to be social in it. Ultimately, this is a reduction in "Fun". The only way to counteract this is New Content. If this does not happen, and fairly soon, the organism that is the game culture will take a serious hit. Looking at other MMO's, this can kill games.
So yeah, there is a wall of text.
- Copper
I would add that there's another element to having Stuff; it adds variety of gameplay. Each bomb line plays differently from the others; similarly for the swords, and for the guns. Having a different mix of weapons for every Clockworks run generated Fun even if monsters and new scenery/puzzles were lacking. It's not merely about collection.
Now that the crafting costs have gone up, that "Stuff" Fun is over; it's costly now to acquire different weapon lines to play with, and even paying players aren't fountains of cash. I suppose by 5* you should choose only one path, but that seems rather boring.
I'll also note that I've seen pure-paying players, and many tend to only have "the best", and wonder why anybody would try to use a Brandish when perfectly fine Divine Avengers are available; so Stuff and paying player don't necessarily align with each other.