Right I was asking if you’re at that limbo point yet, or if you were just echoing. Personally my main is at 1350, and as you said its kind of in maintenance mode since it’s more worth it to me to sell the mats than to go the upgrade route till they release the don’t blow up 500k gold getting 1370 patch.
The issue I keep seeing is when people are not at the limbo level where content is dry, and they are still working their way through T2 and just mad about new stuff coming out when they haven’t finished the old
So I would like to point out to the people that constantly reiterate “you’re not losing out by not doing Argos” are missing something crucial. the people who can do 1370 content have access to higher tier accessories. Why is this relevant, because THOSE are the real profitable accessories on the market. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, probably some have but there is a trend that happens in the market for accessories, where they become incredibly devalued as soon as players start entering new bleeding edges of content. Consider two situations:
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You get a 100 quality +160 crit Grudge/Cursed Doll ring 1325 ilvl, players at best have entered entry point 1325
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You get a a 100 quality +160 crit Grudge/Cursed Doll ring 1325 ilvl, players at best have entry point 1370
In scenario 1 that accessory is incredibly valuable, probably sells for like 70K+. There is demand from whales and those who swipe start distributing that wealth to anyone who gets lucky, because it isn’t a majority of swipers who are in this tier of content. However in scenario 2 It’s practically worthless, because there is no longer a demand, no longer an incentive to let go of that wealth because there are better accessories at 1370.
We’re seeing this right now because what happened with RMT and a high ilvl entry point in particular is that it’s created a new tier of progression within T3 so soon. And the players with the most gold in circulation in scenario 2 are circulating that gold amongst themselves for high quality legendary accessories; gearing alts for hundreds times less in the technically the same tier of content a few dozen ilvls below. Meanwhile due to a lack of content and other sources f2p players have to sacrifice the only valuable market they share, honing materials, to generate gold. So now theres an endless loop where f2p players are directly funding the gap between themselves and the whales in honing materials and accessories.
If you’re f2p and want to enter 1370 you dont want to sell your mats but rather use them because the longer you sell them, the more money you lose in the long term, because that is your only means to enter in the true valuable accessory market, where the majority of gold is being circulated. If you arent in “bleeding edge” content you dont have access to a majority of the gold, you get a fraction of it. If you are however your expenses in the game are quite low for alts and can be recouped rather easily, even if you splurge on mains. Playing too slow will suffocate you from content in the game, its becoming the poster example of pay2win unfortunately.
I can understand that whales were able to bypass the content leading up to argos, however what I am trying to see from your point of view is how that affected you as an individual?
Has it somewhat reduced the enjoyment of the game by knowing whales who have no relation to you or many others you know have finished endgame content? If so, how? What sort of functionally negative effects has it had on yourself or someone else you know?
Thanks again for your response, this is a nice convo to have.
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To my understanding, the accessories from Argos aren’t able to put on the market in the NA version? Or am I mistaken?
You can as of right now many people are selling legendary accessories and making bank. Recouping any expenses they had to get to 1370 if there were any substantial loses and greatly profiting.
No way Demonite is 1370 without dropping money or RMT. They spend so much time in the forums I’ll be surprised if he’s even hit 1350. The guy spends more time in the forums than in the game.
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Well said op, well said
Just tossing this in here for awareness
ok ill explain it to prevent any misunderstanding. here’s what they should have done: Release the content between 1302 and Argos. Let players do this content for a month to push to 1370 then release Argos. They did not do that. Like I said before whales where able to skip this entirely and get to Argos. Heres why the players are pissed. They released Argos before players were ready to attempt him. Only the whales were able to do this. Let me know if there’s a part you don’t understand.
Can’t be bothered reading the whole thread, but has anyone pointed out that hardly anyone says you can keep up with whales?
With patience you can get to the same point, but you’re never, as a F2P player, going to keep pace with someone who drops real money to get bored faster.
Welcome to Any MMO haha
I understand your viewpoint. So just so we’re on the same page, you feel that Argos should have only been released when the majority of players was 1370 so that they could attempt the content immediately after release? I understand your viewpoint.
Thanks for clearing that up 
Now my second question:
- How has it negatively impacted you (as an individual) that whales have been able to clear the endgame content sooner?
Its funny how 3 of your 5 “issues” are the same XD Also which island we missing in our version?
Yes it has. because they didnt add the missing content the vast majority of players are locked out of accessing Argos. What they did only catered to the whales. Need i say more?
Nope that’s all.
I now understand that it was about content cadence and that you desired that the catch-up mechanics / content to assist F2P players was included in the game before Argos was released.
I think this is a reasonable suggestion.
The main negative effect to you as a player is that you were unable to get into Argos same day as the whale players, and this has somewhat impacted your ability to enjoy the game.
One last question:
If there was ‘no’ ability for whales to bypass the gearing process, do you think this would have made a difference in how you feel about Argos being released without the catch-up mechanics or would it have been the same?
Releasing Argos at the current pace of the majority of the player base was a dumb move regardless of whales. Having a majority of whales there just makes the dumb decision worse because it clearly was done for more money.
This is generally true. However what does the person actually gain besides waiting for the next content to drop? Blue Crystals needed to play comfortably doesn’t require that much gold.
As F2P you can keep Crystalline Aura up all the time and even buy some skins which most F2P games make you pay for or spend tons of time to get.
In the end.
These people are just getting an easy lifetime Aura or Skins which they technically bought.
…and they’ll probably quit once we catch up and they’re waiting for content development.
Since you find it hard to understand how it impacts players I can explain a few of many.
Say you have a static raid group and a few of them are whales, do you see the static of friends sticking together to enjoy the content?
It also goes to show the pacing that they are aiming for which impacts all players time and enjoyment of the game to do other things. They feel forced to spend more time doing things for ilvl instead of fully enjoying the game.
Many other things too but you got to think about it and I’m not here to do Amazon’s Job without being paid.
Thanks for highlighting some of those points.
I’d like to address the first one.
“Say you have a static raid group and a few of them are whales, do you see the static of friends sticking together to enjoy the content?”
In our guild, if we have someone who is lacking Gear Score (which being new, 2-3 of them have). We pool our resources together and get their GS up, this includes map runs (we run as a 4 man), we also farm our daily chaos and guardians to pass it down to said person.
So EG, if we have 3 players on GS 1340, and one left on 1302, everyone in 1340 will pass their materials for the day down to the person who is 1302 until they reach 1340.
Thats how a static is supposed to behave no? I find it quite disheartening that they’d leave you behind? 
That’s not always how it works and that wouldn’t in most cases push everyone to 1370 before the raid drops with this pacing and lack of resources.
That’s just an example of many outcomes of the pacing of the game.