As it stands, most of the game is pointless. There’s just, so much non-recyclable trash that by the time you actually do get to the BiS standard 300+ levels in, there’s literally nothing else worth doing if you’re not a fashion warrior/gacha lord. IMC decided instead of dealing with it, to create a streamlined path forward to give incentive on a basic path.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved and still kind of love theorycrafting builds for friends who want one of the favorite classes within certain niches. Owning what you are is a large component of the game’s enjoyment, the sheer cohesion or cacophony of builds is really fun to play around with. There’s been a crap ton of QoL changes to make the game more tolerable, and overtime, the game has indeed gotten much more stable (Who remembers in CBT when Miner’s Village lagged so horrendously that once you entered you either had to warp out or wait for the GMs to hard flush the map?), but in essence there’s not all that much to do. The mysteries of hidden classes have been found, most of the storylines don’t reward exploration or curiosities, and aside from your character in specific there exists literally no way to identify and express yourself. That’s why you end up bored and unfufilled, what do you actually do aside from grind and sometimes PvP?
Personally I feel like most of the crafting classes just need to be erased in favor of main-class specific utilities, and more systems (Remember when IMC noted that Orsha and Fedimian were relatively desolate and they were gonna add more social hub interactions like the old Mercenary Post into a bar of sorts?) that cater towards actual interaction to help one another. Maybe an actual treasure hunter subclass/specialty can run around fighting certain mobs throughout the world and uncover secret maps to find low DPK gear, or Alchemist’s Magnum Opus could actually be expanded upon much more than it is now.
Right now the game’s an MMOG. I really don’t feel the MMORPG aspect anymore.