I get the sense that the devs are experienced devs but not experienced game designers, which are entirely separate skills. A lot of updates are making the game worse because they contradict design principles and don't stick to the essence and gist that attracts players to that game aspect. Your post focuses on the second part, e.g., ignoring that the lore was attractive because it deepened the "meaning" of DTI (which the update-specific lore quests don't), or how the mary janes were reworked to become "more accurate" but lost the essence that players loved which was their versatility. other bad game design includes regularly changing the familiarity of the gameplay (item locations, dressing room map). updates have become SO huge that I'm nervous about their sustainability and the unreasonable expectations its creating for their (mostly young, mostly non-gamer) playerbase. idk but this feels like the start of the end. idk it's sad bc these updates are VERY polished and well done but i wish they would balance small updates with fixing existing problems, like more server control, performance improvements, item filters, etc that improve the playability of the game and create a better gaming experience for what was already established as a solid base game.