Gaia have LIED to us, here's why:

[Santa Nick Claus]

Not to digress from the Alchemy aspect of this argument, but let us not overlook all of the Facebook games and phone aps that are being kicked out, rather than fixing current site issues and advancing established features. It's no secret that Gaia took resources from other departments and put them on these other projects. Those in charge are on my 'naughty' list.  

[actual ghost]

Also there's the fact that way back when the quest system was actually a thing--you guys remember the quest system, right?--it was announced that anyone would be able to get backwings, so long as they put time and effort into acquiring them. Alchemy doesn't require time. It doesn't require effort. It requires huge gobs of gold that no normal user can even hope to get consistently.

I can not even conceive of how they could fix this broken system other than by doing a complete rehaul. That means changing recipes, changing the methods to find those recipes and ingredients, and apologizing for the shittiness of the old system.
But this is Gaia, and they are not well known for fixiing things or listening to their users.  

[Hamsterliciousness]

8DStance

Also there's the fact that way back when the quest system was actually a thing--you guys remember the quest system, right?--it was announced that anyone would be able to get backwings, so long as they put time and effort into acquiring them. Alchemy doesn't require time. It doesn't require effort. It requires huge gobs of gold that no normal user can even hope to get consistently.

I can not even conceive of how they could fix this broken system other than by doing a complete rehaul. That means changing recipes, changing the methods to find those recipes and ingredients, and apologizing for the shittiness of the old system.
But this is Gaia, and they are not well known for fixiing things or listening to their users.

I really really miss the quest system, but they abandoned that like white on rice. I have quests on there from the actual quest system, but they won't remove them because they "just don't have the time".

I like how they're giving the aquarium "lite" fishes and giving them out through dumpster dive and they're really cheap on the MP, but there isn't enough variety in the drops to balance out the very very very imbalanced equation.