The different views we have is because the past experiences we had, we had a much better return on PED spent in the past so it doesn't make sense to accept anything lower now.
You can't expect to have a happy customer if in the past they could play the game for 100USD/month and now it cost 1000USD, doing same things. Of course, MA can say that they want to sell their "entertainment" for more now, it doesn't make sense but they could do that and we need to adapt. I adapted and I almost stopped playing.
It is, obviously, very possible that I'm wrong here since I'm just theorizing, but I don't actually think that MA became greedier or that they raised the cost of their entertainment product, but that the increased cost of playing for some of us is to be "blamed" (well, not really blamed, but you got the idea) on the other players.
I think is obvious for everyone that MA must keep a share of all money coming in the system (for paying expenses, for supporting development costs, for their own profit share, for PPs profit share, for deed owners profit share, etc) so the cumulated returns of all players will be lower than their cumulated expenses (money out = money in - MA rake). Let's presume for the sake of explanation that MA's rake is 2% (not saying that it is that or that it should be that, I just picked that since many people claim that's casino's rakes). Now, if MA would be a casino, where all players have pretty much equal chances, our average return would be identical, said (money in - MA rake), or in our example, 100% - 2% MA rake = 98% return rates.
But MA is not a casino and we're basically in a PvP game (not the kind of pew-pew-pew, I killed you, but an economic PVP one)... for every player getting returns above the average threshold (98% in our example) there must be another player getting return bellow said average threshold, because the sum will always be constant (98% in our example). So, the average hunter would not get profit or break even, but instead
would get the average returns (98% in our example), the hunter that hunts more eco than the average hunter would get higher returns (>98% in our example) and the hunter that hunts less eco than the average hunter would get lower returns (<98% in our example). The bigger the difference from the average player (either higher or lower), the bigger the difference from the average return (98% in our example).
Ok, far now all was simple and I think everyone already knew or at least understood this. Now the problem that a lot of people seem to fail to understand is that said average is not a constant, but a variable. As time passes people get better gear (think only rings if you need an example), better skills (so more people can use maxed gear), better knowledge (so fewer people do stupid things like using not maxed gear) so the average gets better and better. That means that in order to be able to maintain returns from before, we all have to adapt and also improve our gear and playstyle at least at the same speed as the average hunter; otherwise, we'll just fall behind. It's as simple as that... in a world where the average hunter is using a modified ares ring, buying the improved ares ring wouldn't make us more eco than before rings were introduced (and give us hope to same returns) and not even allow us to keep up with the trend (and give us hope to similar returns), but just allow us to not fall so far behind (and minimize our losses).
And that's not something specific to EU, but to all competitive playing fields... for example, if Eddy Merckx would be summoned in present with his 1972 bike and be asked to compete in a cycling event his personal record (which at that time was a world record that lasted for over a decade) would not even allow him to end in the first half. And that not because his skills/gear/times would be worse in absolute values, but just because they would be worse in relative values compared to the competitors. Or as Will Rogers once said, "in life is not enough to choose the right path; if you don't move fast enough you'll end up stumbled by the ones coming from behind."
So, if you want to maintain your cost to play (as in return rate, because otherwise is obvious that when you multiply the amount of money cycled you'll also multiply the absolute value of loss) don't get stuck in your old habits and don't stick with your old gear... instead keep adapting, keep improving, at least at the same pace that the average hunter is doing it, because otherwise, you'll inevitably fall behind and then come here on forum complaining that loot took a nose dive while you haven't done anything different (not talking specifically about you, but just addressing to a generic you). Well, not doing anything different was exactly the reason why this happened and was expected to happen...
