Here’s my list based on my opinion, please feel free to disagree, contribute etc.
- Karma Vendor items throughout the game:
With the exception of the marginally useful/borderline necessary crafting items, the non-Temple Karma merchants are “meh”. The armor especially, it’s excitingly and uniquely named but the skin is simply the same as any number of other armor types in the game and not even available as a full set.
- “Play the Game Your Way” undermined by game changes since release:
- Fine tuning and controlling character progression during leveling all but eliminated.
- Mandatory events/activities increasingly necessary for character progression
- Mandatory events/activities increasingly necessary for gear progression
- Leveling alternate characters now even less attractive than it used to be prior to APRIL 2014 FEATURE PACK
- Developer content increasingly geared toward restricting player choice.
- Over-saturation of in-game currency types of questionable value.
- Committed guild membership is by design unrewarding and wholly fungible.
- The Living World series is compartmentalizing the game and is countering the incentive of players who wish to revisit the game between breaks.
- Content design discourages “just playing for fun” :
- Players are rewarded for going through the motions as fast and efficiently as possible.
- Repetitive, predictable and self-regimenting player patterns are rewarded.
- Nearly everything becomes a task or part of a series of steps necessary to complete a task, thus making gameplay more about doing “chores” also known as “mandatory fun”.
- This type of game design is more suited for DOOM or QUAKE not an MMO Open World Concept game which is supposed to immerse the player in an illusion of freedom and empowerment.