That would be about 200-300hrs your forgetting the barrier chest in game the victory chests from weekend events and commendation chests from personal challenges too. And yeah its about 300hrs of play couple new friends of mine are maxed chest level and have that many hrs. And its not about taking away its about earning your spot your worth and the time it takes to get the promotions to play those difficulties where these items drop to have someone play for 2months and be able to buy their way in via platinum is not right. Your armor and weps should be earned not bought. And I played everquest or 11 years and guild wars for a time which was a subscription free game. And DAI is dead because the hardcore players left because of the reasons I stated above. And sorry but almost all rpg games are set up for the hardcore player. That's the main player base and their gone because of crap changes like this. Everyone I talk to on the leader board absolutely hates that these items can be bought now and not to mention the XP exploit. If you want them put in 800+ hrs promote up and run nightmare. Its really crap that is what I had to do to get mine. Now someone can effectively run routine/threatening and do all the easy challenges and agents and open alot of barrierd doors power level their chest level up and buy their way into what took me months to accomplish. And for encouragement why don't they add double exp potion to buy to help with promoting that would be more encouragement than a 1% chance for a hakkon wep. And at least then you could earn your spot and equipment.
1. RPG are not made for the hardcore. Maybe demon souls and games by that developer are, but no one else makes games for the hardcore.
2. While it's a nice idea that the top 100 or less players are what are supporting DAIMP, that's probably not even close to reality.
The top players don't buy platinum.
And there are many, many more players in the moderate and casual crowd as there are in the hardcore. Posters on a forum are never indicative of the entire community.
And I'm not suggesting that the most hardcore players should be ignored. They shouldn't. It's a legitimate way to play the game and they should have a proportional part of the developers attention.
But that doesn't mean that the developers shouldn't be also addressing the concerns of the moderate and casual crowd.
3. I always have a little difficulty when people say they "earn" something in a video game. I understand the idea of a return on your time investment, but it's a video game.
One in which the rewards are determined through a random nber generator, not based upon your performance.
You can be fade carried through nightmare dragon runs and get hakkon weapons.
You can also do 100s of runs and not get all the hakkon weapons.
Did the fade carried person "earn" the weapons more than the person that got unlucky loot rolls?