Let me start by saying I think this game has lots of potential but I really do NOT trust Blizzard (or whatever the current corporate overlord is) to make it happen.
I’ll use the example of my Druid who just reached level 20. Theodora (honestly, the character model looks like Roseanne Barr with blonde hair but I went with a more archaic sounding name) is still fighting with a level 13 hand axe and the only reason she has that because my level 25 sorcerer found it. She hasn’t seen a single axe higher than level 7 drop the entire play thru.
So what are my options? Crafting weapons (or any gear) isn’t possible… this baffles me… it has to be the single most basic feature of any RPG – craft better gear as you level. And it’s completely missing from the game. So I have to go shopping for one at every weapon vendor in the region… and they usually have 2 or 3 blue pieces of trash and the rare time they DO have a weapon about half the time it’s a two handed one that robs me of my totem. (Edit: Well that sucks… turns out the weapon vendors all share the same lousy cache of weapons.) So I have to make the rounds, and if nothing shows up log out, log back in (Edit: No need to make the same trek around the map. Just keep hoping for a better instance on relog)
And how do I pay for that weapon? Why with a currency – gold – that is both hard to get and requires me to wander around after every fight to pick up the meager droppings. Seriously, you can spend more time running around picking up gold than it takes to kill the monsters that drop it. The pick up radius is something like 10 feet. I’ve had herb and ore pop up so far away that I had to back track to grab them. I want to FIGHT monsters not run around like a ninny chasing piles of 12 gold or 3 Gallowine.
There’s also the Obol (Murmuring Orb) vendors, they’re always good for a laugh… maybe one item in 10 isn’t total trash so I’ll need 500 orbs (on average) to get an axe that doesn’t suck. That means finding and clearing 16 local events at Mastery (and with my wet-noodle of a weapon that’s not happening) so more like 20 or more. Then maybe, MAYBE, if I’m lucky I’ll have 500 orbs after 2 hours of pointless grinding and then I’d finally get a weapon better than the level 13 one. (Edit: And that assumes the local event doesn’t glitch out and become impossible to complete. This happened twice today with my Druid. It’s stuck at “kill the remaining monsters” but there’s nothing left to kill)
But it still won’t be a level 20 weapon, because even the Obol vendors continue to give under leveled trash. And, I think, that’s the point… the whole point of this sort of design. It’s such a painful, tedious slog that the creators of this game have chosen to make that you’re going to be forced to TRADE for items. And, we all know what that is going to become… spending real world $$$ on places like d2jsp to get them.