I think difficulty by inflating numbers like HP and Damage is horrendous, I don’t think it’s worth going into because it exists in so many other games and it’s never been praised ever but it keeps happening anyway. It has worked well in isolated places like Path of Exile maps or Pestilence areas in wicked but not as an overall difficulty.
Don’t care about fast travel whether it exists aggressively or not, I don’t care either way.
Wand and Staves sharing runes in this state of the game is just a terrible idea, why would I use a staff ever again? Do you not ask yourself these questions when you make changes like this. The damage increase of a 2 handed staff compared to wand is not even close to good enough to lose the bonuses gained from off hand equipment. It’s also shredding the identity of weapons even more, if a wand and staff function exactly the same I’m going to pick the one that gives me the most benefits and the other one is pure trash and may as well not exist. Maybe you want the game to have as little meaningful choices as possible.
You made the damage taken reduced enchantment on items worse which I don’t think is a bad idea since that enchantment was mandatory but then you didn’t even mention how the diminishing returns actually functions you just wrote that it has it. If I have the enchantment on 2 items and then get it on a 3rd item does it roll lower? Is it just invisibly less effective, by how much? Is it based on total amount with a soft cap? Do I just waste my time figuring it out on my own and every regular player is just confused forever.
There is still no reduction to pestilence zone cooldown time. If I want to make my character stronger I have 2 paths to achieve this not including upgrading items at the blacksmith/tailor. Use embers to roll my items and upgrade them using torn resources only found in pestilence plagued areas. The problem with this is once I have cleared every area of pestilence which takes a MAXIMUM time of 2 hours, there’s absolutely nothing I can do to progress my character’s power, so do I just run around the game with no goal?. If you don’t make another realm to get more pestilence areas you have no other choice but to log out and wait for tomorrow. Do you want people to play more hours or not? It’s insanely confusing on the choices you’re making whether you want people to stay logged in or not. I’ve farmed the maps for resources I’m good man I don’t need 3 chests of wood, ore and gems. I want 3 chests of upgrade materials and perfect items harder to achieve but have a clear path on how to obtain.
