Current State of EN: Just What Happened?

I'm going to say that at least half the server are casual players. Now by casual I don't mean that you play less than seven hours a week, I mean the type that plays for fun. The type that does what they feel like.

The type that doesn't try to optimize their damage potential.

I'm not going to say it's a bad thing, because Megaten is just a game afterall. Do what you feel like, and if you have fun that's all the more to you. What I AM going to talk about however, is the effects it has on the game itself.

Due to the latest "sponsor" craze anybody can get into an Ichi Gold now, while before it used to be a closed nit group only with the most elite. This was mainly because our gear sucked and very RARELY could someone OHKO Deformed Kirins. Slowly as Aeria released better equipment this limitation was gone and Ichi Gold went down severely in difficulty. Because people could now afford to lose a few slots or two people either: a)Only had few people for more exp or b)Brought someone along to buy plates for them. One thing you should know however is that one Ichi Gold plate costs 20k macca. You could complete Ichi Gold and the minimum you would get is 15k, effectively making costs less expensive. The problem is though is that people want the most efficient experience they can get and for that they do the good 'ol Jiko-Traesto method (unless you've been living under a rock it basically means you kill the Ichi Boss and teleport out as soon as he is dead). 20k Macca might not seem much, but most of the time you will run at least ten runs a session, which totals up to 200k. An average plasma farmer would take them one hour and a half to farm that. Does anyone want to dedicate their time to making money for grinding?

Back on point, what has sponsors done to our server? We have people running around that are level 80+ without a single enchant into their armour. If you don't see what's wrong with that, go slap yourself right now.

The worst part about it is, is that no one cares. Half the server are veterans and know not to invite these people, and the other half, the casual players don't care about how much damage you can do. This creates no sense of urgency in optimizing their damage as much as they can.

If what Finella said about JP server said was true, that they are elitist and expect everyone to be just as good as them, then this would show a huge contrast. Because the JP server are potentially perfectionist at damage potential there is an actual reason to enchant your gears. If you didn't you would get blocked by everyone. However, over here in the EN, because there is no penalty about being mediocre than the rest there is no need to upgrade your gears. The crystal market is practically crashed as the demand for certain crystals isn't really high. Because there is no reason to optimize your damage for the fact no one cares.

Another thing I want to bring up: Sugi Gold. Ever since sponsoring came into play no one runs Sugi Gold anymore. Why would they? Ichi Gold gives much more experience in an experience/min calculation (As a reference, a speed run is about ten minutes. You could run two-three Ichis in that time). Back then where we had mediocre equipment Sugi Gold was more of a challenge. We had to be careful, and to pick our skills carefully. We had to lure, we had to do things a certain way, we had to be precise in our routines (wait this sounds a lot like Ichi Gold). The important fact is, is that it raises some skill play than just leeching Ichi or having some uber-geared melee do everything for you.

Last thing to mention, information accessibility. This is an aspect of EN that we are heavily depraved in. Just for example, we didn't learn about brute forcing great success on weapons until we learned about the modification chances, something we wouldn't learn by ourselves. Most of gameplay related information is gathered through first-hand means which will lead to the veterans knowing most things about the game, while being too lazy to teach others. This is the case that I also fall into sadly, and even more sadly is that I have to leech off other sources of information to broaden my knowledge. What I do know is that I've been playing since CB and knew how to build my character as soon as the get go. Information isn't easy to get to as most of it is passed off first hand and is not in an open place where everyone can see. This leads into many faulty builds in Megaten which people have to sadly restart, because they didn't have the information on what to do first hand.