So, I've played the game for about 15 hours or so. I have tried almost every class and i'm pretty fine with all the balancing. But one issue i have run into is that crafting is horrid. The first 4 items or so, that do not require a recipe and you can simply buy are amazing. Then once you start buying the recipes, you can craft like 1 item every 2-3 levels. Not so much because of the gold, but because you only receive like 1-3 coal and 1-2 iron per battle. So basically, between levels 4-7 you can get maybe 1-2 pieces of gear before you have unlocked the new stuff. In essence it would take a VERY long time to craft all of the gear. What you should do, is increase the drop rates on the materials... that way if you want, you can still use crystals to buy the gear or you can just play games and make it. The point is right now it's incredibly slow to build stuff... just make it faster so that you're not bored out of your mind trying to get gear. That's about all i got... and i'm not saying it's pay2win... just saying that this would help other people not see it as so.

Feel free to reply...

reply to WOOT? tell our feelings about yo feeling dat dis game feels like a p2w? lol

Thanks for replying. I in fact never stated that it was pay2win i said that though others may feel so this (what im advising) would help others to not feel this way.

Another thought, is that you could make it so that once you hit level 4 (you know how you get the slider that allows you to pick between more XP or more gold?) You could make it so that if you choose to side with more gold it also gives more of the uncommon materials. Just a thought, any feedback from the dev team?

From what I understand you should only buy recipe's for the level 7 stuff and then save gold (~3k) to buy recipes for the level 10 stuff. Without a sub you will most likely only be able to create 2-3 peices of the level 7 equipment by the time you reach level 10 if you saved your resources. TBH, if you like the game I feel you should sub to it by level 10 which will increase your gold and resource gain granting you access to the level 7 equipment you didn't finish in almost no time and getting you started on finishing your early lv 10+ set. The resources necessary for the level 10 stuff are not that bad.. the only thing I'm not sure about is copper. I have a sub and I'm saving my gems for max level and I feel this is the best course of action.

Trade Gold for Crystals?
It is possible to trade crystals for gold, but not the opposite. So the gold is basically useless, when we can only buy recipes with it.
And it's better to trade it all for experience in order to level up, than to keep it imo.
I'm on level 11. Will it change later in the game?

Gold is necessary for the improvement of weapons and armor in the forge.The best epic armor requires more than 40 gold in one attempt to improve it

Soon the craft system and upgrade system will be totally reconstructed. It will be more user friendly and without any attempt fails.