I feel like this is a map to the problem:
- Players like it if the game can be completed for free, even if that takes a long time. Example: we tolerate Zuul’goth and Dawnbringer despite their high costs.
- Players tolerate it if the progress towards free things can be accelerated with money. Example: you can buy gems to ensure leaderboard positions, buy souls, etc.
- The devs don’t tend to like letting players select a specific reward, but have relented. Example: we got Soulforge, even though the “Path to…” bundles are still random.
- Players don’t like “missable” items, that is items that cannot be obtained except during one small time period. Example: the holiday pet made people grouchy.
Weapons are missable, and the only way to correct it is with real money. But even the real-money ‘solution’ for weapons is ridiculously slow and subject to randomness. If a player tells me “I am never going to be able to get Earth’s Fury”, I can’t prove that player wrong or even suggest an upper bound on “never”.
I don’t think “let us buy every weapon for $$$” is a solution that will make the most people happy. It doesn’t meet the “players will tolerate it” criteria because it’s basically saying, “The only way to get missable items is to pay up.”
So we also need a solution that is “free”, and Soulforge is the most logical solution. If 2-4 weapons rotated just like mythics do, we could argue players have a way to get Earth’s Fury. I would argue some weapons are worth a mythic-level investment of diamonds. This should be implemented in addition to adding more weapons to the store’s rotation. That way people who want to pay money can pay money, and people who want to F2P can F2P, and people who sit between can sit between.
No solution’s going to gain much traction unless it has an F2P aspect.