Frustrated

Yeah it has always been like that, you need to dedicate a lot of time to the game, well maybe not so much now with the auto hunt system. "Lineage 2 is now very bad game" <- It has been bad for many years, not only now. The European server has no queue because they seem to really ban bots while NCWest doesn't give a damn.

I understand that a free to play game can't really be free because it costs money to run servers and developers do not work for free and neither does the gms, support staff and web developers but I think several hundred $ per year is a bit much to spend on a game when there is other games which you buy once and can enjoy the game without spending further money and there is also some free to play games where you can have fun without spending a penny. Spending $600-1200 on a game per year is crazy, for $600 you can buy a decent Android phone, for $1200 you can even buy a used car. And that cost is just for the items from store, not for the gear which you also need to acquire which costs quite a bit. @OP If you want to have fun without spending any or much money you could try L2 Essence, from what I have heard you can even win at oly without having to have top gear if you are skilled player. Going to try it out now.

I am playing this game on and off since 2005 and I enjoyed playing every minute of it until Interlude, after that it has been less and less fun for me because they have been adding more and more items to the game (shirts, brooches, belts, talismans, cloaks etc) that will make your char stronger which you need to buy (and those items are mostly expensive) to be able to compete with many other players but also because of many of the other changes to the game. I don't believe the game ends at 105 but it will be tough because without good gear it will be harder to farm and without good gear you are not welcome in parties. Good gear is expensive and I don't see how any new player could afford to buy it without spending real money on the game. If you don't spend at least several hundred $$$ on the game you won't reach far and you shouldn't try to PVP because the well geared guys will one shot you to death. But even if you do spend much cash on this game it is hard to enjoy because the game is never balanced, you can't really play whatever class you like, in every update they buff some classe and nerf others so if you want to play Othell now you won't be dealing as much dmg as a Feoh or Yul. There is so many bots everywhere and many mentee chars which people are making just to power level to 104,99 and sell mentee for adena, because of bots and mentee chars we have login queue and lag. I have seen other people complain about drops too, you as a new player shouldn't expect any good drop anyway, the top players on the server are getting the good drop and getting a lot of adena (up to 20b per day according to some other forums posts) but you will stay poor unless you spend $$$ on the game. How fun is it to take part in castle sieges when you have zero chance against the well geared guys. There was a Russian guy soloing RBs in 5 min three years ago when I played, we were many people in several parties attacking a RB and he would just come and steal it from us, how fun is that when there is someone overpowered? How fun is it when there is few places for farm and in those few places there is full of bots, go to Blazing Swamp and you can't find a single spot where nobody is already attacking mobs. This game was so much more enjoyable 15 years ago, there was parties all the time, not as much bots and not so much afk farming, people actually spent time playing the game, you didn't have to dualbox, you could create a buffer or healer as your main and play only that, buffing and healing other people in a party while they were dealing dmg and you were getting exp. It was fun collecting mats from early lvl and bringing to someone in your clan who had a crafter so they would craft something to you for free or a small fee, it was fun playing as a Bounty Hunter and gathering mats from mobs. Back then it was not just about constant farming and striving to have the best gear, people were hanging out in game, doing things together, having fun without spending money on the game apart from the subscription. It's just hard for me to enjoy the game when they have changed it so much, for the worse :/.

https://forums.lineage2.com/topic/17571-character-creation-disabled-until-415/