yesterday its was ~2player per 1 pack of mobs on every channel. Forum "gear score" and real ingame gear score is  different reality, vast majority of active players at ~720+ GS simple because its easy to get gear.

This. Just this.

We need more hard endgame spots not less and i say this as someone who is still 1 year apart from being able to grind there.

Progression must have a spot flow not just a speed one on the same old spots that anyone can farm 2 months after starting the game.

And let's be honest PA has been catering non stop for casuals in the last year or two, which is great dont get me wrong but at the cost of the other spectrum of players.

If you get the gear and the monster dmg required-> Great! Farm there, get your bis artifacts, maybe even sell some and get some money.

If you don't-> Just farm anywhere else in the game and preorder on the marketplace. Boots will be sitting in 3 months anyway.

I agree, it is good to have higher level spots. What is frustrating though is that these higher level spots are often not worth doing. Why would anyone do city of the dead if he can get more money with a chill grind at giants?

What is really bad however is PAs communication regarding the AP/DP requirements for the spots. 310 AP tells you nothing. I am 306 AP, 413 DP and with buffs this new spot is easily grindable for me. The sheet AP/DP is simply irrelevant, with all the artifacts, crystals and addons I would say even with 301 AP this spot is grindable. But not for someone trying it with a Kzarka and Dande or a bad crystal setup. PA should be more open with whatbthe actual requirements are for a spot.

Why not make the mobs difficult + increase HP on them, but make the spot grindable with reasonable initial AP requirement, like 600-800 AP?

For this spot you don't need gear because it's hard, but rather you need gear because PA said so! Idk bad game design...

313 with blackstar is enough to grind there. work on your consumables and other buffs.  

anyway, i dont think theres anything wrong with high gear requirement spot. if you dont have all this gear then that means there is still so many other places for you to grind. idk why you expect to be able to grind every new zone if you havent grinded out old stuff yet. 

Anyone with blackstar weapons & 301+ Sheet AP should be able to grind Darkseeker Retreat, but they may need to reconsider crystals, consumables, furniture/church/villa/horse, artifacts, lightstones, skill-addons. Sheet AP is only the tip of the iceberg, and two players with same sheet AP can have hundreds and hundreds of difference of actual AP. 

The feedback I have for PA, is they should make "Total PvE AP" a more obviously visible number, and they should update the monster zone information to relate to this number. Sheet AP is a source of confusion and is less helpful every year as more sources of hidden AP emerge in the game. 

So when the gearcapped players get the boots and two artis then the content just becomes dead again. It's a waste of resources to make "content" (I say this loosely because this is barely content) that the top players can even experience.

-Turos pity was fair and required a friend to farm, maybe annoying for some but totally fair.

-Winter zone farm was about perfect, two spots to farm and accessable to most players with decent gear.

-Lotml pity was stupidly easy and a poor design choice because it devalues the item.

-Ulukita requires too much hidden ap and locks out the majority of players, stupid design choice.

I'm not saying end game geared players shouldn't have areas to grind, there's currently tons of spots, in fact the only new content has been for gear capped players (dekia, new scuffed zone, revamped resting thoughts). There should have been at minimum a lesser mob that drops the stuff at half value or something. The funny thing is, even if you get these boots and artifacts, if you are gear capped there is literally nothing for you to do anyways since you can already clear the hardest content rofl. So enjoy your week of content while the rest of the playerbase logs off because there's nothing to do lmao

Clowncar developer

To grind the Darkseekers Retreat you must prepare yourself.

The spot is like any other new spots, it's asking you elixir rotation and good gear. Myself I have 308 AP in awakening, I totally see the difference from normal buffs rotation, cron church villa frenzy and a full elixir rotation.

Yes, the area will maybe be dead soon as players get their items.
However, most players I met are actually enjoying it a lot.
Beside the monster's density being too small, you can just take three packs of monsters to do your hour. You don't have to run or do some weird mechanics.
It's pretty simple.

I enjoy it too even if my hands hurt at the end.

Yall are ridiculous, lmao.  The spot's WAY easier than Tungrad Ruins or Dehkia Olun's/Ash.  Literally able to grind it while watching shows on the side. Grab your church buff/house buff/pop a frenzy and just kill.  Avoid night time if your DP isn't up to snuff.  Dodge the big dude's sword so you don't get knocked down. It's not rocket science and this spot is way more "friendly" to 700~730 gear score people than Tungrad Ruins, Crypt, Dehkia Olun's, etc.  Not in that gear range? The spots not designed for you.  Go grind any of the other 20+ spots in the game and put a pre-order up if you do not want to better your character to grind there effeciently. The amount of salt here is wild. 

We do not complain about how hard the spot is, we complain about that Darkseekers Retreat requires too much hidden ap which locks out the majority of players for no reason!

If you want to make the spot for Veterans, then make it as difficult to grind as Dehkia Ash, but for the love of god don't lock us out because we don't hit some abitrary number of AP...