Yes, I am sad for what L2 has become. I have been here since prelude & I must say in my opinion L2 was best from prelude until c4/c5. L2 started going down hill after that.
Very low to no drops from just normal mobs, cut adena drops by 3/4, just keep introducing more pay-to-win / Gambling that costs way to much for the amount of adena that normal players can make in game. Way too much reliance on L2 store just to be able to kill mobs, tons of more $$$ if you want to pvp at all.
& now unlike a lot of other mmo's, there are no meaningful quests/rewards system. Nothing to actually do besides just afk macro-bot. & that only gets you to Blazing Swamp.
Normal players who don't spend a lot of real $ won't have the gear to "macro-bot" in any harder zones like hellbound or higher. For most it is game over at this point.
Only the hardcore spenders left for higher zones.
I still log in to l2 but not near as much as I have been. For the most part I am trying to move on to other games. L2 is just no fun anymore with no quest/reward system,
no gear drops, only macro-botting for xp, but what for ?? higher lvl gets players nothing. there is no character progression here.