When we transferred over it was exciting to get the new patches (we were a year without any new patches). At times it felt very overwhelming. There were a lot of raids and some of them felt like how do we do this without pro weapons? We didn't have the past year to build up to it. [Aside from the fact for many of us, our weapons came over blank!] I rushed myself a lot to recruit the fourteen characters (what I call "The Viron Group", see below, under the cut).
Just when I finally finished recruiting them, yet another patch came out, the start of "The Kielce Group". After recruiting the first three, the Kielce Dailies kept me busy, because I was trying to reach the goal of 10,000 favor rate for Back Alley Poor (surpassed by now). I think it was probably at this point, the game started to slow down for me.
JD came out and I recruited him and excessively took him everywhere and he maxed out (I love Joey to pieces, he hates me for calling him Joey! *squish*). After that, it was little patches of Olivia, Veil, and Kaisse. These recruitment quests took less than two hours.
It's a mixed bag for me right now. The first three to four months kept me busy with character recruiting, materials gathering, and leveling. The busiest was when there was that 500 Bounty Hunter Event to get Cadet Elisa (I pray we don't have anything this excessive again, it was too much! I had to swear off BH for a month, the HORROR! /O_O\).
Then came focusing on Lonely Musketeer hunts for Devil's Dream for Strata Bracelet (something I put off because I didn't think it was possible in a million years to craft). I was behind on the TP Rose for Dagger, though I managed to get that and helped co-run with another clan's leaders, which eventually led me to my Main-Gauche. I'm a bit stuck on my second TP Nephtys.
For now I just have mini goals, which will probably be a joke to the pro-players. I don't play this game to be the top player with weapons of mass destruction or for the PVP (I'm a pacifist!), so laugh if you want to.
*Level all characters to Master (last five)
*Level all characters to High Master (eighty, more of a goal for 2014 & 2015, if the game lasts that long)
*Keep working on Back Alley Poor favor rate (even though already passed 10,000; helps with getting non-tradable and tradable Artifact materials)
*Keep doing Durant quest for Artifact materials (still six more Artifacts to craft; second Rose and Selene sets and contemplating Sniper Ring and Clover Locket; no plans at this time to get Repairman as I don't use Summons)
*Keep hunting for Devil's Dreams (someday maybe a miracle will happen and I can get a Strata Ele recipe and Strata Musk recipe and Strata Pistol recipe)
*Get more Tigres medals
Squad things that I try to do:
*Crow (weekdays/weekends)
*Back Alley (weekdays/weekends)
*ToC (generally weekends, on WC duty, sometimes get invited to speedy five-six manned runs)
*Montoro (on Sundays, on WC duty)
*CT (seldom, as they tend to run too early or too late for me, really want a Punisher stance book)
*TPs (kind of a hit and miss, trying to finish my second TP Neph; might cheat and open Paradox Spoil Boxes before year end)
*Tigres (sometimes, I'm hoping to get participation to a regularity, so far that's been either a few hours before CW or in lieu of LW , because T3 still hasn't fixed it)
Tigres is kind of a good challenge, something to do that's not out of the usual reparative things like ToC and CT. I'm hoping with more practice we can get through the floors faster and get good at Floor 5 so we can move on to Floor 6.
To sum up my thoughts and my observations of the game, the year started out well in terms of people being excited about new content, but it was damaged partly by the blank weapons which led people to be frustrated and couldn't quest and quit. The ones that stayed regardless of weapons felt a bit overwhelmed and another wave of people left.
I have an impression there are also some players who already "beat everything" (e.g. raids) and got "the best gear" and became bored and quit. Playtime Events were good in the beginning but now they are rather "meh", not worth the time. This doesn't give players much reason to log in if they've been inactive.
The economy is rough for those who don't spend cash (such as me). To be honest, I don't know how new players survive, even though in the forum some people gave suggestions. T3 doesn't seem to care about players' needs and just keep rolling out Cash stuff after Cash stuff (Lucky Shop and Lyndon Box). As long as the Cash players keep pouring money, the needs of the other players will be swept under the rug. Much of this has been discussed in the forums over and over, so I won't repeat further.
Given all this, why do I still play?
I have put a lot of effort in this game to get me where I am today and there are still nice things in the game and there are still things I can still do or yet to do. I'm learning to do things at my own pace and give myself small goals as I listed above. I'm going to ignore the stupid things and not let them agitate me. I'm not ready to throw in the towel. Just like you can't change people, you change your reactions to people. I will get out of this game what I choose to get out of it.
We still have Bahamar patch. I also hope that they will expand/develop the story into other regions like Armonia and Absinia and other RNPC's areas. I do hope things will improve, until then, Ferret will keep plugging away the best she can.
I also have someone I am grateful to. They have put in a lot of time, effort, and patience for and with me. It is, therefore, also out of great respect for them that I keep plowing ahead. p( '.' )q
The holidays are coming up, so I wish everyone ~*HAPPY HOLIDAYS*~! Two more weeks left in the year!
Some info about characters:
Of 107 characters (both male/female of stocks/Reb/Auch [14] + all Cathy robots [4]) currently available, I have 99. (Plus, I have an extra Asoka who is a stand in for Mifuyu.)
10 stocks created under G1, 54 recruited under G1, 7 promos obtained under G1,
22 recruited under T3, 5 event promos obtained under T3, and 1 promo obtained under T3.
