I think that one of the main issues of the game (okay, there are a lot of main issues, but this is the main-main issue imo) is that nobody has ever had a real idea of what it was that they were doing. What do I mean? I’ll explain.
When the game was first brought into existence, it was an exercise in game development by a couple guys who wanted to hone their abilities. No plan for the future, just a base game that might entertain a few people for a little bit if they got bored. But then it got popular, popular enough that it was worth continuing to update and change, bit by bit. But the devs still weren’t planning anything extreme; the number of encounters and dungeons was small enough that Realm’s CO-OP MMO RPG RNG-based permadeath bullethell traits suited the atmosphere the game provided. No fight was too complex, players worked together, and the process of maxing was difficult enough that players could be kept engaged for long stretches of time without the game becoming stale; there was always more for a player to do, and losing a character that was the summation of countless hours of work was easy. The game was working perfectly, more or less.
But then things started to change. As the player base grew and the game changed hands, new ideas from new developers were added to the mix. There were new encounters, items and goals, and this made the game far more complex than it was earlier; still for the best, many would say, but it was different in a way that would become far more apparent as time went on.
There also became a greater need by the developers for income; this of course ended up with tops being sold in the Nexus and useful pets being a thing. Both things, many would argue, were detrimental to the game’s well-being and stability, but they filled a need the developers had, and it worked.
Until it didn’t. Pets became a central part of the game, showing a clear point of progression for players which couldn’t be eliminated in a split second like the standard character, whether that progression was in the form of hours of farming and dedication or by simply throwing one’s wallet at the screen until they could permastun. Now players had a clear goal which would eventually make them overpowered, and as more and more players obtained these pets, it changed the game forever. New content could spam more bullets at players and inflict all kinds of debuffs, but pets changed everything.
This is not to say that pets in and of themselves are necessarily a terrible idea; they fulfill a need for developers (remember that events do this as well, even if they harm the playerbase in the long run), and they give players a long (or expensive, if they choose that route) path to allow them to greatly improve all of their characters without risk while also increasing the pace of the game. Had this idea been implemented from the beginning and the entire game been balanced around these pets (perhaps making them less powerful as well or implementing other limits), they could very well be a positive aspect in the game today. However, they were not implemented properly, and as a result have caused a significant amount of imbalance.
The moves by DECA to give out huge amounts of pet food to players for free via the login calendar has helped newer players to get powerful pets more quickly (and somewhat decreasing the pay-to-win aspect by bringing f2ps within range of p2ws far more easily), but this also just means that the game is nowhere near as challenging as it once was. Combine this with discords and events, and the game goes from a technically challenging one, to one filled with algorithms (class composition in raids, stand in certain spots at certain times to shoot the thing when you’re told to do so). Once those algorithms are cracked, the game goes from easy to trivial, and the game that once inspired creativity and expectation is no more.
I think that when people talk about how much they dislike DECA and Kabam and long for the WildShadow days, they are really just longing for balance. Remember that the game wasn’t balanced back then purely due to some sort of genius that only the developers of yesteryear had; instead, the game was balanced because it hadn’t yet had a chance to become unbalanced. This game evolved in fits and spurts, and no one had a clear plan for how the game would progress in the future.
This game is awesome, it really is. I have played it as my go-to game for about four and a half years now, and still enjoy it, even if I am beginning to lose interest in certain aspects; the existence of pets in their current state and constant event spam haven’t helped things. Certainly things will need to change if the game’s current players are to be kept entertained for future years, but we’ll just have to wait and see. Just remember that the current, unbalanced system isn’t the fault of one particular entity; it’s just the result of a bunch of people never thinking that it would make it this far.