The only scary thing is how useless those critigation buffs are.
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I would say either increase some costs and requirements, or do not touch them at all. The game is currently too fast in terms of progression at 80.
Making the game simple will cause a strong population decline. People will leave either after being dissatisfied because of simplicity and likeness to other MMOs or after progressing enough.
It may come as news to the Op but this IS the grind reduced! Problem if you reduce it too much is people will complete their gearing and many will leave because they have no more progression.
I agree though on 12 man raids but you can effectively 12 man Wing 1 already. But I do think FC needs to think about making specific 12 man instances or an instance that scales with the amount of players.
Slithering Chaos was at one point expected to be 12 man dungeon, which is kinda fail since we asked for 12-man raid instead.
Players always need the donkey carrot. You can do it like WoW; making the game easier and easier, so causual players can achieve everything in a very small amount of time and effort, and to keep their interest awake you throw out new content each quarter. But to guarantee this you need a huge team of workers. Blizzard can afford this, Funcom not.
The Oracle once said it: Everything, that has a beginning, has an end. This is for MMOs also. You cannot guarantee player satisfaction for eternity.
The question is: is there too much grind in AoC generally? Well, if you declare every content, which has to be repeated several times, as grind, then there is. But not more, than in any other MMO. Look over to Arche Age. There you have exactly ONE dungeon, they all crowd like hell every day. Or those weapons, which are only available by a terrible grinding in a particular Region. This is Grind. The faction questing in AoC offers you in the same time the opportunity to get familiar with the region, improve your skills and get better all the time. This really sweetens the "grinding" factor. In other game you have just to gather materials like an idiot. This is not the case with AoC. Well, maybe they could tweak a little bit, but honestly: how much T3 Runs do you need, to achieve the entire gear? Not that much.
Difference is you don't itemize the same a dungeon than a raid. I'm surprised you missed that point ;o
Dungeon instance = 90% blue vendor trash+some bags/boxes with Moonspills and Fine Quartz dust. Oh, yes, don't forget thoses minipets.
And 10% epic with dungeon stat budget (= same as we had with Kithaï/DS). What the point of needing 2 time more people to do that dungeon if you gain exactly the same as doing K-6 ?
Raid instance is epic gear, with better stat budget. Much more appealing, especially if the goal is to give something to do to medium/small-sized guilds which can't do 24-man raid.
Unless they might consider adding a middle-stat budget between dungeon and raid gear ?