Now, to preface this, I love the new content in the game. I'm glad to see it expand and I hope to keep it that way. The issue I *do* have is trying to force players to "power-through" something is, inherently, behind a time lock and requires hours and hours of grinding. I will be breaking my issues up into section - one with the issue and another with my suggestions to fix said issue. There will be a bullet point list at the end to keep for easier reading (as well as a tldr to further help those of you that don't want to spend time reading this whole post)

Breakdown of the Issues
Now, since I know that above thing was just an overall beginning to get you into this let me state my overall issues here:

Non-Storyline Content should not be locked behind a storyline.

Now, I am not saying that getting to the temple should have no reward but content locking somethings behind a storyline when they inherently have no storyline behind them should not be your main course of action. The lost grove is tedious, getting to the temple can take months - and is not just an easily finishable task.

Some of us (myself included) do not have time or mental will power to get through to the temple. Most of us have jobs and school - we do not have the time to fully grind through too the temple and it should not be expected.

I want those new items, but as someone who doesn't have time to grind and get to the temple I am unable to get them outside of spending mass amounts of gold to buy second hand from someone off the broker. This is not something that I want to do and not something I want too see becoming a norm in up coming festivals. To put this in perspective imagine if only 6/8 bosses were easily accessible for everyone and the rest were locked behind the huge task of finishing the temple.

Now I understand where the idea with this was going, but I - and other players - are not happy with this change for the most part. Content locking is not something we were expecting, perhaps had we had warning that we would not be able to access some content prior to WoL this would be less of an issue. As it stands now this is a wall that I think will be holding some players enjoyment for this mini-fest back.

Suggestions
Now I know right off the bat the issue with removing the content lock will be: what reward do I get for powering through and putting in time to get to the temple?

I would like to suggest that getting to the temple will, as it already has, a much increased drop rate for said items. You can have the chance - even if it's low - to get items from just the regular old base lost grove. This will allow everyone to fully enjoy the fest and items it has to offer while still providing a reward for those who have reached the ancient temple. The issue here isn't that temple players are getting rewarded - the issue is that certain items this fest are content locked behind a storyline that should not be affecting nonstoryline game play.

Main Points
- Don't lock fest items behind a storyline.
- Let Ancient Temple WoL items be a rare drop in 'regular' lost grove.
- Don't require players to grind the storyline within a month or lose out on items.

tldr: let everyone have access to new items without beating the temple

I like the idea of having the Adoring Moggy's Messengers be a rare drop in the forest/cave regions of the LG! It'll allow players who haven't progressed as far in the LG to have a chance to obtain these items and provide more motivation to grind the LG.

I like how these mini fests provide more incentive to grind the LG, but with the temple being released so recently and many players still working through the regular LG, restricting 16 legendary helds to the temple may end up discouraging players instead of encouraging participation.

Just to make sure that it is clear, the only items that are exclusive to the Kitten Sisters via the Ancient Temple are the Adoring Moggy's Messenger Held items. Every single other new Avatar Item, Pet Trait, and Themed Pet are available elsewhere - the majority of which come from combining the Candy Hearts. Candy Hearts can be obtained and consumed by even 1 day old players. Yes, the more progressed a player is the more options they have at obtaining Candy Hearts, but even a first day player can obtain them via Nurturing if they wanted to.

I am not really sure why this is being focused on all of a sudden as exclusive content has been soft/hard locked behind progression since forever - as virtually any other RPG/MMO-esque games do. With the addition of the Ancient Temple, the goal posts have moved further, yes. But our Level Cap has now also increased to 75. The difference between a Level 75 and Level 70 pet is significant. Content as it was 6+ months ago is much easier to beat now.

We wanted the Adoring Moggy's Messengers to be a very rare and valuable item from this event. Therefore, we put it as an exclusive drop from the Kitten Sisters which can only appear within the Ancient Temple. The items are tradeable and they are a great incentive for players to farm if they have already unlocked the Ancient Temple and it's also a great incentive for other players to continue progressing through the Lost Grove so that they can reach that point. These items will also eventually cycle into the retired boxes.

While the Lost Grove is far from perfect, it is our only endgame content at this point in time and will remain so for a bit longer until we can wrap around and get things rebuilt and sorted out. We want players to progress into the Ancient Temple. We want them to work on their Level 75 battling parties. We want them to start crafting and upgrading Primordial Equipment. In order to do that, we have to give players incentives to do so. And this is one of the incentives we chose to go with.

We have been seeing a good deal of overall progress lately with players pushing through the Lost Grove and even moreso yesterday and today, with a few more players finally pushing through to the Ancient Temple. More players have beaten the Crystalline Behemoth in the past 2 weeks than the previous 2 months before then.


In summary, we wanted the Messenger items to be rare and exclusive and special opportunities for players, who have pushed into the Ancient Temple, to be able to get their hands on. We then also wanted those who have not quite reached the Ancient Temple to have more incentive to keep progressing forwards so that they can also unlock the endgame content. Even still, literally everything else for this event is obtainable elsewhere. I really do not think this is as big of an issue as this thread is making it seem.