This is the Era of Anniversary? Really?

I don't usually comment on this kind of stuff, but this is egregious at this point. This anniversary has been flat-out pretty bad overall. Usually, when a game hits its anniversary, the playerbase usually gets fun new features that everyone can take advantage of and enjoy, whereas with this game, we seem to have gotten an overhaul designed explicitly for people spending money...A LOT of money. Even the people who did like to spend on this game are seemingly feeling turned away (myself included) simply because CG has made it more expensive, and more of a grind than it's ever been to unlock 1 new character. It's not enough to pay for a character to get to 7 stars anymore and gear them up, because now you have to engage with the new leveling system, which requires a brand new currency and new upgrade materials. (Well, at least until the new Era Units become legacy in about 3 months or so- because that's what people have been wanting)

It's a shame, considering the game has always been somewhat predatory when new content dropped, pushing people to the new stuff and spending, however, it never felt like it was mandatory to get the new stuff to keep relevant. Now, the new meat of the game is a pay-to-win mess where half the time the leaderboard on the new and shiny colloseum mode is filled with low-level cheaters, and when it's not, it's filled with people who have spent hundreds of dollars on a single character. Colloseum isn't even fun to play; you basically just hop in every day and hit auto until it's over, because there's no real strategy or team building involved. They introduced this brand new game mode that should've been a new way to engage with and enjoy the game, but it's like a bad joke.

Anything involving acquiring/using the new Era units feels like a struggle because we can't do simple things like just level them up or slot them into teams. Even the new Era challenge is a joke. It's here for a week at the moment, and most people seem to be stuck at the 1st tier, if they can even beat that. Overall, unlocking the new character and engaging with the new content has been very underwhelming, and this game feels like it's trying to speedrun getting shut down at this rate.

I can't help but be disappointed, alongside pretty much everyone else who has been playing this game for years. This is really the Era of Anniversary? This is what the past 10 years have been leading up to? If the game keeps going in this direction, I'm not sure how long I and others will want to stick around. I really hope CG is paying attention to this feedback and looks to alter what they've done with this update in a positive way. No amount of justification from the development team or spreadsheet data showing why they needed to nickel and dime us into the ground will excuse them from putting this nightmare of an update before the fun and enjoyment of the playerbase, during arguably the time when we should all be having the most fun and singing the game's praises. 

They've never been the best when it came to monetization, but this is borderline the worst.