115514-community-to-devs-what-we-hear-from-other-players

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I'm an officer in a really great guild on Stormtalon. We're currently 4/6 in GA and let me tell you, we all love the encounters the raid designers have come up with. They're fun, well tuned and new kills are gratifying. From what top end guilds are saying, that trend continues through the rest of GA and into DS. Our core group has managed to stick it out through the bugs (of which there have been many) to get to where we are. However our biggest struggle over the last 4-6 weeks has been the roster boss. Free transfers helped initially but I'm concerned even that well will run dry pretty soon. We're not losing players to other guilds, we're losing them to quitting the game entirely. I thought I'd offer some personal thoughts and reasons people give as to why they're leaving and also some possible answers on how to reverse the trend. If you feel I miss anything here feel free to comment and maybe I'll add it to the list. Here goes...
 
Reasons People Leave
 
- Bugs (I know the devs are aware of this and have amended the drop schedule to help prevent such buggy content from going live in the future but it still needs to be listed here; it's #1 on most people's lists)
 
- Not enough casual content
 
- Too "grindy"
 
- Original attunement design
 
- Not enough reward for time invested
 
- Crafted gear > a lot of raid gear
 
- Too much time required to maintain a "raid ready" character
 
- PvP balance way off. Arena matchmaking is awful.
 
 
Possible Solutions
 
- Casual content: Add more of it obviously but what kind of content? In my opinion people always like shiny new stuff that not everyone has. Add rare mobs throughout Nexus that have a low chance at dropping tangible and flashy cosmetic rewards ie; mounts, costume pieces, housing items (that are useful in some way), maybe a flask/boost that provides a two hour +67 main stat buff that persists through death. Giving the hardcore and casual alike something rewarding and fun to do out in the world that doesn't require a group is always a positive.
 
- Too 'grindy:"  I think the devs have heard the players on this and changes are already on the way.
 
- Not enough reward for time invested: This is a big one and kinda ties into the game feeling too grindy. It's apparent in all aspects of the game. Faction rep grinds don't really yield any major upgrades and take far too long to do; dailies are a time sink and players are smart enough to realize it. In the rare case that raid gear is better than crafted gear it's only marginally. I believe a lot of the issue with gear going to be addressed in the upcoming rune and AP changes but it's certainly a current issue. Beloved with a faction should reward a mount, not a 100 plat mount.
 
- Too much time required to maintain a raid ready character: I get this one a lot from people. Repairs/consumable for a week of raiding can cost upwards of 5 plat, it's too much. If you want to farm for all your materials, more power to you. I can find better and more fun things to do with my time.
 
- PvP balance: To this day I don't understand why games can't separate PvE and PvP. A change in one should not affect the other but it often does. Nothing is more frustrating to a raider than learning their class was nerfed or they need to learn a new rotation because of PvP balancing. It's obvious that trying to juggle both without breaking a spec in either aspect is the problem. Solution? Add a spec tree for PvP! You have assault, support and utility already. An engi's tank tree abilities have little to no effect on their effectiveness as a dps. Devs can balance a class' tanking/healing without messing with their damage because one isn't tied into the other. Make a separate PvP tree with different abilities and stat weights. Problem solved. People will put the time into learning their PvP rotation and gearing strategy just like people learn their PvE off spec.	
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- PvP balance: To this day I don't understand why games can't separate PvE and PvP. A change in one should not affect the other but it often does. Nothing is more frustrating to a raider than learning their class was nerfed or they need to learn a new rotation because of PvP balancing. It's obvious trying to juggle both without breaking a class in either is the problem. Add a spec tree for PvP! You have assault, support and utility already. An engi's tank tree abilities have little to no effect on their effectiveness as a dps. Devs can balance a class' tanking/healing without messing with their damage because one isn't tied into the other. Make a separate PvP tree with different abilities and stat weights. Problem solved. People will put the time into learning their PvP rotation and gearing strategy just like people learn their PvE off spec.
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The other solution to minimizing the PvP/PvE divide and the wildly different effectiveness of skills between the two play-modes is make NPCs behave more intelligently (or at least erratically) instead of constantly falling back on the enormous sack of hit points solution. I know down to the server tick how long I have after firing the first shot at most mobs before they're even allowed to use a telegraph. That's not challenge, it's *cupcaking* BORING. Add in that mobs use a fraction of a fraction of the typical amount of CC you encounter in PvP and don't even try to interrupt in a semi-intelligent fashion and you end up with skills swinging from 'must have' to 'why bother' at every turn.
 
As a purely interim step, open up a 3rd LAS as part of the leveling up process, because right now a lot of people blow off having a dedicated PvP bar/amps because they're already required to have a solo grinding set-up and their group play builds in the two slots we have now.	
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- Crafted gear > a lot of raid gear
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Gave you a like for a great feedback post Arnathis :)
 
On crafted vs. raid:  I think most of this is due to the over-emphasis on AP/SP in general and the RNG issues in some of the loot, yes?  In the recent crafting interview, the devs involved talked about an "effort rating" for each piece of equipment.  The concept is that if something takes more effort to get, it should be tangibly better than something that takes less effort to get.  I support that concept completely, however, I also want crafting to be a viable option for players who are raiding.
 
What does that mean?  It means that it should be possible to craft gear that is on par with raid drops, but that in order to do so, you should need something that requires a similar level of effort to get - possibly a raid drop itself.  This way, raiders continue to have an incentive to raid, but when the drop gods aren't playng nice with them, they also have the option to take that shiny purple or orange power core and go get something crafted to be an upgrade.  I'd also support raid drop schematics with unique and awesome artwork on the finished items (or unique and awesome effects, for technologiests) as something that should be in the game.
 
I think the biggest thing that can help the PvP issues right away is a third LAS available so that people can maintain a PvP build in addition to their main or off-spec builds.  That alone would go a long way towards helping people who want to PvP casually to feel more effective and have more fun.	
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I think the biggest thing that can help the PvP issues right away is a third LAS available so that people can maintain a PvP build in addition to their main or off-spec builds.  That alone would go a long way towards helping people who want to PvP casually to feel more effective and have more fun.
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What does that mean?  It means that it should be possible to craft gear that is on par with raid drops, but that in order to do so, you should need something that requires a similar level of effort to get - possibly a raid drop itself.  This way, raiders continue to have an incentive to raid, but when the drop gods aren't playng nice with them, they also have the option to take that shiny purple or orange power core and go get something crafted to be an upgrade.  I'd also support raid drop schematics with unique and awesome artwork on the finished items (or unique and awesome effects, for technologiests) as something that should be in the game.
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Personally I would love to see a game do away with PvE gear vs PvP gear. Think about this, you fight a boss in a 20/40 man raid, and ultimately kill him. With that kind of skill to kill a NPC then why is it any different when killing another player? I honestly have never understood this line of thinking. If they just get rid of PvE/PvP gear names and just give us gear for all situations, wouldn't that solve alot of the gear problems? If (and this is huge IF) this were real life, and I am out with my buddies and we get jumped by a infected dragon and then kill it, why would I need to change my clothes to fight the bad dudes around the corner waiting to jump us?
 
Sorry, I am rambling	
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I don't think that overly solves the problem with PvP balance Neph.  I play a Spellslinger, I don't heal, so I use LAS 1 for PvE and LAS 2 for PvP.  But that doesn't mean that the core changes to Quick Draw a few patches ago (changing it from 5 to 3 targets hit) wouldn't effect PvP / PvE.  QD was a staple of sustained SS DPS for PvE, but the reduction in targets that was meant to nerf us in PvP also nerfed us in PvE when we were already doing poorly in a raid setting.  Granted that change didn't hurt us on boss fights, but with trash clearing it did, it's not the best example but is the easiest that came to mind so roll with me here...
 
If instead QD operated one way in PvE and a completely different way in PvP (or an AMP skill) it would be easier to balance.  You could use the same names and the same animations but have it like GW2 where you port to the Mists to set up your PvP gear, PvP spec, etc. and you could balance the different abilities and AMPs for PvE and for PvP independently of one another.  That's not just critique for WS, I don't understand why more MMO's don't take this approach...
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About Casual Content
 
...I really don't like the veteran dungeons. They're kind of frustrating and not for me. Raids don't draw me. The attuning is far too complex and, well. They look as frustrating as the veteran dungeons. The veteran adventures are kind of fun, but only with a group of friends and best not for group finder. So, for me, the only real content is dailies. Dailies I don't mind, they do give me something to do, but I'm not going to do them all the time every day. Veteran shiphand missions would be a fun addition! They are made to be soloed, but they also scale with groups. With equally scaling rewards at 50, it would give me more to do a day.
 
Likewise the Elder Gem vendor has many items that are locked behind certain completions. I don't really think this should be done away with, but I think it would be helpful if there were other items for sale with elder gems added that are not locked behind that barrier. Such things that would normally be purple open world drops or along those lines at the most. Excellent for open world, but a tier below what you would have from the ones locked behind certain completions.
 
On Attuning...
 
I already mentioned before, but attunement is really long and complicated, yes. It can also be really, really frustrating. I can find frustrating things in lots of places, but there's also another thing to bring up. There are items that drop from normal pve content with imbuements that can only be found in these veteran dungeons. That's a small point, but the real one that kind of annoys me is that the imbuement shows up on the quest tracker. If you choose to ignore (untrack) it, it will reappear the next time you zone.	
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			I think the relative power of crafted gear is a big one. It removes the incentive to do any pre-raid content and degrades the raiding experience - even raid bosses have no replay value.	
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Crafted gear is already slated to get kicked in the balls without truly resolving the underlying problem - that this is a one stat game (at least for 2 out of 3 roles).
 
AP/mainstat is going to get nerfed/normalized somewhat, but the scaling on the other stats still has to come way up to make them competitive choices and the Devs just don't seem willing to go there.	
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Personally I would love to see a game do away with PvE gear vs PvP gear. Think about this, you fight a boss in a 20/40 man raid, and ultimately kill him. With that kind of skill to kill a NPC then why is it any different when killing another player? I honestly have never understood this line of thinking. If they just get rid of PvE/PvP gear names and just give us gear for all situations, wouldn't that solve alot of the gear problems? If (and this is huge IF) this were real life, and I am out with my buddies and we get jumped by a infected dragon and then kill it, why would I need to change my clothes to fight the bad dudes around the corner waiting to jump us?
 
Sorry, I am rambling
 
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This one is news to me.  Or do I put too much value in secondary stats and my HP pool?
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Out of this came the "Honor/Valor" PvP gear and gear tied to PvP rating. This created a situation where only people who PvP alot and, at least for some of the rated gear, needed to be successful to obtain this gear.
 
The irony, as we saw here on Wildstar, is it creates a scenario in PvP where people who have the higher rated gear (1800 gear anyone) always win because of their gear and people who don't have the gear have no chance.
 
The best solution is just to normalize all gear in PvP or make one set available. This would be a level playing field for all. This never goes over well as "PvP l33T Stud #3287" really does not want a level playing field based on my experience.
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That's a huge barrier to entry for casual PvP.  The game's basically telling us "look, you can excel at group PvE content, or you can excel at PvP content, but you can't excel at both until you're level 50 and have spent a few weeks doing dailies."  Maybe that's not the intent of the design, but it's how it's turning out.
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Basically if you're DPS you get Strikethrough to soft cap, then all AP, then Brutality/Finesse/Moxie (depending on which gives you AP) where AP isn't an option, then crit chance, and all other stats are garbage.
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The existence of PVP stats is inherently detrimental to the PVP scene in your game because it turns off anybody who would only be doing it casually, thereby reducing the potential pool of players who would participate.
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For Spellslingers AP is king, then I go for Finesse (AP Stat), Crit Hit Rating, Crit Severity, Moxie (Crit Hit Rating & Severity stat) and I guess if something has Burtality on it it isn't the end of my day but I'd def give up 10 points of Brutality for 2 points of Finesse...
 
Hopefully that chances with Drop 3-4 and the rebalancing of stats...	
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For Spellslingers AP is king, then I go for Finesse (AP Stat), Crit Hit Rating, Crit Severity, Moxie (Crit Hit Rating & Severity stat) and I guess if something has Burtality on it it isn't the end of my day but I'd def give up 10 points of Brutality for 2 points of Finesse...
 
Hopefully that chances with Drop 3-4 and the rebalancing of stats...
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			The secret to the roster boss: Guild Merger! I know a lot if you are way too stubborn to even fathom leaving your guild, but if the roster boss is so hard, you need to go where you can find numbers. Sitting around in your own unheard-of guild and spamming Thayd will do nothing for you. Take action and make that roster boss hit the dirt. Yeah, you might be doing it with a different tag under your name... so what? At least you're raiding and not one of the 50 stubborn guilds trying to get enough people and refusing to work together.	
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For Spellslingers at least, from what I've read and my experience testing it out, AP > ST even when you aren't capped on ST (unless you are comparing an ungodly amount of ST vs a small amount of AP).
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The secret to the roster boss: Guild Merger! I know a lot if you are way too stubborn to even fathom leaving your guild, but if the roster boss is so hard, you need to go where you can find numbers. Sitting around in your own unheard-of guild and spamming Thayd will do nothing for you. Take action and make that roster boss hit the dirt. Yeah, you might be doing it with a different tag under your name... so what? At least you're raiding and not one of the 50 stubborn guilds trying to get enough people and refusing to work together.
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I'm an officer in a really great guild on Stormtalon. We're currently 4/6 in GA and let me tell you, we all love the encounters the raid designers have come up with. They're fun, well tuned and new kills are gratifying. From what top end guilds are saying, that trend continues through the rest of GA and into DS. Our core group has managed to stick it out through the bugs (of which there have been many) to get to where we are. However our biggest struggle over the last 4-6 weeks has been the roster boss. Free transfers helped initially but I'm concerned even that well will run dry pretty soon. We're not losing players to other guilds, we're losing them to quitting the game entirely. I thought I'd offer some personal thoughts and reasons people give as to why they're leaving and also some possible answers on how to reverse the trend. If you feel I miss anything here feel free to comment and maybe I'll add it to the list. Here goes...
 
Reasons People Leave
 
- Bugs (I know the devs are aware of this and have amended the drop schedule to help prevent such buggy content from going live in the future but it still needs to be listed here; it's #1 on most people's lists)
 
- Not enough casual content
 
- Too "grindy"
 
- Original attunement design
 
- Not enough reward for time invested
 
- Crafted gear > a lot of raid gear
 
- Too much time required to maintain a "raid ready" character
 
- PvP balance way off. Arena matchmaking is awful.
 
 
Possible Solutions
 
- Casual content: Add more of it obviously but what kind of content? In my opinion people always like shiny new stuff that not everyone has. Add rare mobs throughout Nexus that have a low chance at dropping tangible and flashy cosmetic rewards ie; mounts, costume pieces, housing items (that are useful in some way), maybe a flask/boost that provides a two hour +67 main stat buff that persists through death. Giving the hardcore and casual alike something rewarding and fun to do out in the world that doesn't require a group is always a positive.
 
- Too 'grindy:"  I think the devs have heard the players on this and changes are already on the way.
 
- Not enough reward for time invested: This is a big one and kinda ties into the game feeling too grindy. It's apparent in all aspects of the game. Faction rep grinds don't really yield any major upgrades and take far too long to do; dailies are a time sink and players are smart enough to realize it. In the rare case that raid gear is better than crafted gear it's only marginally. I believe a lot of the issue with gear going to be addressed in the upcoming rune and AP changes but it's certainly a current issue. Beloved with a faction should reward a mount, not a 100 plat mount.
 
- Too much time required to maintain a raid ready character: I get this one a lot from people. Repairs/consumable for a week of raiding can cost upwards of 5 plat, it's too much. If you want to farm for all your materials, more power to you. I can find better and more fun things to do with my time.
 
- PvP balance: To this day I don't understand why games can't separate PvE and PvP. A change in one should not affect the other but it often does. Nothing is more frustrating to a raider than learning their class was nerfed or they need to learn a new rotation because of PvP balancing. It's obvious that trying to juggle both without breaking a spec in either aspect is the problem. Solution? Add a spec tree for PvP! You have assault, support and utility already. An engi's tank tree abilities have little to no effect on their effectiveness as a dps. Devs can balance a class' tanking/healing without messing with their damage because one isn't tied into the other. Make a separate PvP tree with different abilities and stat weights. Problem solved. People will put the time into learning their PvP rotation and gearing strategy just like people learn their PvE off spec.
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Off topic: Anlath, I really appreciate how responsive you've been to the player base here. I see other devs make scattered comments here and there, but you seem genuinely interested in addressing people's concerns and making sure everyone understands and is on the same page. Even the community reps can barely be glimpsed on these forums. But you, sir, truly care about your work and the people who enjoy it. Thank you.
 
 Continue topic!	
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Reasons People Leave
 
1 - Bugs (I know the devs are aware of this and have amended the drop schedule to help prevent such buggy content from going live in the future but it still needs to be listed here; it's #1 on most people's lists)
 
2 - Not enough casual content
 
3 - Too "grindy"
 
4 - Original attunement design
 
5 - Not enough reward for time invested
 
6 - Crafted gear > a lot of raid gear
 
7 - Too much time required to maintain a "raid ready" character. I get this one a lot from people. Repairs/consumable for a week of raiding can cost upwards of 5 plat, it's too much. If you want to farm for all your materials, more power to you. I can find better and more fun things to do with my time.
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1 - Hopefully the next drop will address many of them, but we'll continue to fix as many as we can.
2 - There is lots more of this coming. The next drop will have a solo instance as well as a new overland content zone. The drop after that will have a couple of new dungeons, [maybe] veteran shiphands, and possibly some more stuff as well.
3 - We are looking into lots of ways to help improve this. Such as providing a lot more options for different Types of content to do for 'daily' style rewards instead of the same set each day.
4 - Updated
5 and 6 - This should be getting greatly improved in the next couple of drops. The rune changes in the Defile Drop will make GA gear *significantly* more desirable. The set # of runes will have the raid-level gear feel like a big upgrade far more consistently than it currently does.
7 - Hopefully the other changes coming will help make this far more feasible. However, I will mention it to the econ team and keep an eye on making sure that it isn't too painful to do so.
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1 - Hopefully the next drop will address many of them, but we'll continue to fix as many as we can.
2 - There is lots more of this coming. The next drop will have a solo instance as well as a new overland content zone. The drop after that will have a couple of new dungeons, [maybe] veteran shiphands, and possibly some more stuff as well.
3 - We are looking into lots of ways to help improve this. Such as providing a lot more options for different Types of content to do for 'daily' style rewards instead of the same set each day.
4 - Updated
5 and 6 - This should be getting greatly improved in the next couple of drops. The rune changes in the Defile Drop will make GA gear *significantly* more desirable. The set # of runes will have the raid-level gear feel like a big upgrade far more consistently than it currently does.
7 - Hopefully the other changes coming will help make this far more feasible. However, I will mention it to the econ team and keep an eye on making sure that it isn't too painful to do so.
 
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7 - Hopefully the other changes coming will help make this far more feasible. However, I will mention it to the econ team and keep an eye on making sure that it isn't too painful to do so.
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ALL I can say is it hasn't been updated nearly enough.All MMO's survive through the viability of alts in some capacity this game that viability is almost non existent. 
 
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4 - Updated
 
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3 - We are looking into lots of ways to help improve this. Such as providing a lot more options for different Types of content to do for 'daily' style rewards instead of the same set each day.
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1 - Hopefully the next drop will address many of them, but we'll continue to fix as many as we can.
2 - There is lots more of this coming. The next drop will have a solo instance as well as a new overland content zone. The drop after that will have a couple of new dungeons, [maybe] veteran shiphands, and possibly some more stuff as well.
3 - We are looking into lots of ways to help improve this. Such as providing a lot more options for different Types of content to do for 'daily' style rewards instead of the same set each day.
4 - Updated
5 and 6 - This should be getting greatly improved in the next couple of drops. The rune changes in the Defile Drop will make GA gear *significantly* more desirable. The set # of runes will have the raid-level gear feel like a big upgrade far more consistently than it currently does.
7 - Hopefully the other changes coming will help make this far more feasible. However, I will mention it to the econ team and keep an eye on making sure that it isn't too painful to do so.
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[maybe] veteran shiphands
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It makes all the sense in the world but "PVP l33T Studs" will flat out lose their minds and no one wnats to listen tot hem whine and complain.
 
This concept originally came out of WoW where, once upon a time ago, there was no such thing as PvP gear. What was happening is high end PvE Raiders would just destroy other players in BG's as their awesome purpurple gear was better than everyone else. People who were not high end raiders were complaining that PvP was not about skill.... it was only about gear because these high end PvE raiders cannot possibly be as l33t as "PvP l33T Stud #3287" and the only reason they can win is because of their raid gear not thier 'skill'.
 
Out of this came the "Honor/Valor" PvP gear and gear tied to PvP rating. This created a situation where only people who PvP alot and, at least for some of the rated gear, needed to be successful to obtain this gear.
 
The irony, as we saw here on Wildstar, is it creates a scenario in PvP where people who have the higher rated gear (1800 gear anyone) always win because of their gear and people who don't have the gear have no chance.
 
The best solution is just to normalize all gear in PvP or make one set available. This would be a level playing field for all. This never goes over well as "PvP l33T Stud #3287" really does not want a level playing field based on my experience.
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Good topic of discussion.
 
 
Gear:
What really gets me and my friends about gear is the RNG of the slots.
 
If I raid and my piece drops but the slots are messed up, I could lose my set bonus. If I don't take it, it may take a long time for it to drop again.. if I do take it, the next one is going to someone else (which is fair). Either way, even when the piece I want finally drops it might not be the piece I really need.
 
That might not be so bad if I could take my Elder Gems that I have been grinding to save and get a quality piece with rune slots that I want, but again RNG! I have NEVER seen raid level token gear come with an RNG aspect. This aspect does not make getting gear more hard core it makes getting gear a fricken nightmare. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea? The fact that some dude could have good luck and get all that he wants his first go and have a sweet full set and someone else could still be playing the Elder Gem slot machine to get his shoulders 3 months later is absolutely nuts.
 
 
Attunement:
World bosses bring nothing to the table in the attunement process. In of itself it can be fun but it is so buggy that I would have waited for it to be fixed before jumping in on it but I had no choice.
 
There were several bosses that I killed, got gear from, got completion but no achievement.... over and over and over again.
 
One boss I killed 4 times before I finally got it and then when I logged in the next day the achievement was not there. I put in a ticket each time and was told that they knew about it and were looking into it.. That is all well and good on most things, but when a process that is required is buggy, for the unlucky few the gate seems more like a wall. At one point a small group of us spent hours collecting pieces to open a world boss, got to the fight, more people came and then it bugged... Three people killing and picking up 500 fragments to start a fight with no way of resetting it and no answer to a ticket... This issue has been documented and has been on the list for months with no alternative, work around or CRS reset, which makes me feel like individual players do not really matter.
 
(Please before someone says they are working on it what more can they do, they can do better. Examples might include an achievement being awarded when a player has a piece of soulbound loot to show proof of kill or a warning message that states this boss might bug under certain conditions so players can take care to not trigger the bug until it can be fixed or add a check box under the tickets that would pop it up to the top so a CSR can come in and manually reset the fight in a reasonable amount of time. Or anything really... anything that makes us feel that we are getting more than lip service, a pat on the back and told to go play.)
 
I was eventually able to finish my attunement without that boss, but it took far longer than it should have. 
 
 
I know that what I have to say sounds really negative. It sounds that way because it is. These are just two issues that have plagued players for months and issues that have been a part of why people have left. Personally I am still having fun so I am not planning on leaving... but in saying that, I definitely do not feel like a welcome guest.
 
TLDR: The vision for the party was amazing, the actual party has electricity outages, warm beer and burned food mixed in with the awesome stuff... Some people went home sick due to spoiled food but the host just left that food out... I think he put a notice somewhere in the guest book in the back room. I spoke with him and he was really nice, apologized, promised to fix everything and disappeared. A few of my friends have decided to stay so we are enjoying what we can. 
We can't really call it awesome but not awful either. We gave the host what he asked for in admission fees and dues so at this point we can only hope things get better because we really want to like it here.	
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I know a lot of people believe that each new MMO that comes out should include the quality of life improvements of the ones before it - I'm one of them.  Why is there no heirloom gear?  Why can I only buy items one at a time?  Why aren't mounts account bound?  Why isn't "sell junk" functionality built in?  Why do I have pay to unlock my abilities?
 
Some things just seem... self defeating, too.  An example:  Why does it cost so much (why does it cost anything at all?) to respec your AMPs?  One of the things that was advertised as being new and different is the Limited Action Set, and I think it's great!  It forces you to make hard choices about what you want your character to be able to do.  It's great to be able to switch abilities in and out and choose how many ability points you want in each ability any time you want outside of combat - you could redo your abilities between each pull if you needed to.  But if you switch out an ability that's locked behind an AMP, you've got a bunch of "dead" amp points that could have been re-assigned to make your character better, unless you feel like shelling out the cash each time.  Amps and ability points are two sides to the same coin, and they should behave the same.
 
It's evident that this game was made with love (just read the Scanbot lore entries, for example.  Or any of the optional conversational quest text.  Or any number of the amazing details that give the game so much character) but I get the feeling that you guys haven't even looked at any other MMOs in the past 10 years, which is a mistake - "Good artists copy, great artists steal".	
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- Too much time required to maintain a raid ready character: I get this one a lot from people. Repairs/consumable for a week of raiding can cost upwards of 5 plat, it's too much. If you want to farm for all your materials, more power to you. I can find better and more fun things to do with my time.
 
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- PvP balance: To this day I don't understand why games can't separate PvE and PvP. A change in one should not affect the other but it often does. Nothing is more frustrating to a raider than learning their class was nerfed or they need to learn a new rotation because of PvP balancing. It's obvious that trying to juggle both without breaking a spec in either aspect is the problem. Solution? Add a spec tree for PvP! You have assault, support and utility already. An engi's tank tree abilities have little to no effect on their effectiveness as a dps. Devs can balance a class' tanking/healing without messing with their damage because one isn't tied into the other. Make a separate PvP tree with different abilities and stat weights. Problem solved. People will put the time into learning their PvP rotation and gearing strategy just like people learn their PvE off spec.
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I tend to find Crimson Badlands to be really grindy, and all the kill quests in general to be a pain in the neck.
 
My suggestion would be to model most of these kill quests after holdouts and add in a function where you can meter how fast waves come at you.
 
For instance, a holdout in Crimson Badlands where you kill eggs and spiders come at you.  The speed at which the spiders come at you is determined by how many eggs you kill.  Instead of a fifteen minute search-and-wait-for-respawn, you can drown yourself in a hoard of spiders and get it all done in a minute.
 
If you're that ballsy.
 
This may seem dangerous, but it's exactly what some people want : the ability to challenge themselves.
 
Now, I should add that I don't consider Northern Wastes so grindy, but then all the kill quests there either require less kills, are concentrated in a small area, or allow you to gather up large groups of enemies for mass kills.   All except for Eldan Eradication, which is always a pain in the butt.	
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Just to touch on your part regarding maintaining a raid ready character.  I trully cannot understand this.  Simply reaching EP cap outside of raid will yield enough money to buy your consumables.
 
The mats for your potion (Reactive) are fairly low.  Last time I did the math, 1G of mats = 18 encounters, and about 10 seconds to craft on a technologist.  (Assuming you do a BUY ORDER and not a BUY NOW).  Why reactive?  My math might not be so good, but 70 > 63
 
The mats for food are fairly low.  Choice Meat is 20s, Heartichoke 40s.  This the biggest money sink, as you need 2 of each, equalling 1.2g / 5 mats. 
 
Combined, you're spending 30s~ a wipe.
 
For 5P, thats nearly 1700 wipes a week!  YIKES~!
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I use expert boosts. With each fight having built in spots with downtime I don't see how a stacking 10 second boost is worth it for 9 finesse. I have to believe that if the buff falls off of you even once during a 5 minute fight the 9 finesse gain is gone. X-89 you'll lose it during a big bomb, Kuralak pillars, Maw air phase, Prototypes augmentor color phase, Convergence stopping dps mutliple times etc...
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Then youre paying more for less.
 
The 10 second boost is prevalent as long as you are engaged.  It only drops off in breaks, then when you re-engage it ramps up quick again.  Any fight extending 10 seconds (or more), the reactive outweighs at the expert.  I cannot think of a single fight in which this does not occur.
 
Your call what you want to do though. 
 
 
Another point in regards to raid costs - you know that no one has to repair, right?
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