I know there are already posts like this but the more fuss about it the higher the chances ehg does something (better late then never!)
Well, progressing in terms of gear pretty much sucks right now! It takes toooo long to get a high end exalted item, then it takes tooo long to get an unique with 2+lp, and then you need good rng to import the wanted affixes and theres a high chance you will end up bricking your unique and loosing the exalted, loosing sooo many hours and still not progressing in terms of gear.
And thats because drop rate is so so low. I am playing frost claw build and so far after many hours i havent even dropped a single + level of frost claw item, let alone a +3,+4. Would i have to forfeit my life to be able to get a single good item, on a game, and maybe even bricking it while trying to get a legendary item?
It is absolutely no fun playing end game, because theres no progression and farming monos becomes boring, really really really boring, its all the same and without any reward you know. Its not all about not having a lot of different content for end game, its about the end game not being rewarding at all.
Now, theres the merchant guild to sort of solve that issue, so we could buy the items that we need, but thanks to dupers and rmt the good items are 100M+, thats right millions. How can people that dont play for more than 10, 15 hours a day buy that. We simply cant. Thats true, we can progress through the game without those bis items just fine, but that is taking away the fun of the game, of not progressing. So we could just stop our life to play, stop playing at all because theres no reason to keep playing since the fun is gonna be gone soon anyway, or we could pay hundreds of dollars for rmt to buy a build (which is not even plausible for ppl that have poor country currency), but even if we do that ehg is just gonna nerf good builds anyway and we are gonna end up loosing the item, so why do all that? Besides we cant even resell bought items, so once you buy it your money is gone forever, you lost 100m, 200m, whatever, and maybe even will loose the item upon nerfs and theres no legacy item, especially with this type of trading system, unless you introduce legacy item drops in legacy leagues. So why drop rate is so low?
My suggestions would be to up the drop rate both for quantity and quality of items. It doesnt really matter how many really great builds would have there, what matters is us being able to enjoy the game right?
Also, up the gold rate by a looot! A LOT!! Otherwise we would never be able to afford good items and good builds. Maybe even put a cap on the price of items, i dont like this but its just not rewarding and fun playing right now, its just doing monos for the sake of doing it, its loosing fun, its just my thought. (actually there are others with same thought)
Unless you want last epoch to become a poe, which is a job, poe is not in game business, its in rmt business, people play it to make real life money selling pixels, do you want last epoch to be like that? cuz its in that exact same route.
Another suggestions would be to let us upgrade exalted items. At least if we get a t6, lets us improve it to be a t7. We would still need to have the affixes anyway. And let critical success in forge be able to put a t5 to t6. It would help with this sense of reward and progression.