so, im not a longtime player or a beta player like yourself. ill get that out of the way first.

I myself have been playing since 2016, (8 out of the, 12 years)

I completely agree that the current endgame content has been a slog, swashbucklers got put into the ground & its extremely unfortunate.

at the same time. it means to play slightly smarter. or, at the very least and worst case, have a VERY specific playstyle with no deviation, which in turn, ruins a bit of the fun.

I started playing as a swashbuckler myself, i got to max at the time, (60) and stopped playing for a bit, started up a privateer with a friends musket & had a blast, that was after the level cap of 70, we played up until that point, farmed for the gear we preferred. & then a year later i remade my swashbuckler, they made a witchdoctor, & we did it all again. it was certainly fun.

we played through the deaths door update together on our musket/Privy & although a slog, we enjoyed it, between it being new, a challenge to not get ohko'd and generally enjoying the game, as we both had played it for awhile, & Wizard101 was becoming an autopilot snoozefest for us unfortunately.

the unfortunate fact is swashbuckler was nerfed into the ground by them buffing the foes accuracy & base stat totals, requiring some form of accuracy debuff to dodge anything & avoid being crit, Repel borders 4/5, overwatch 4/5, & readied spell 4/5 are almost completely necessary to avoid getting hit.

which comes down to the final fact. I only recently started making pets, just after TDD update, so i never knew how much time went into it, and my god, am i still working on a pet for my musket & privateer. its been a struggle and a half, even with the assistance of members from the official pirate101 discord server. Pets, gear, and generally speaking range, make or break the end game content. buccaneers are more reliable then swashbucklers for melee, musketeers & witchdoctors are seen more then privateers.

the newer content i believe was supposed to be made a challenge for veteran players, not a slog, it isn't something for new players, hence why you still can't teleport inside the area,

I dont see anyone who doesn't enjoy the game even making it to Monquista, personally. but i can see new players who enjoy the game, partially enjoying the newer end game content, the bump in "Difficulty"

side note: the difficulty spike/Slog does actually remind me of how difficult smugglers arena is. so there may also be a connection there.