Someone invited me to duo GOTR with him after I finished this horrendous grind to get my Raiments of the Eyes set and Abyssal Needle. I told him no. He wouldn't take no for an answer. I gave him the following TED talk to explain my answer. Enjoy.
The game is set on so many fucking timers for inexplicable reasons. Oh need to go to a specific altar? Too bad, the portal guardian is only opened for 15 seconds! Oh wanted to go into the portal to mine guardian essence? Too bad only opened for 25 seconds!
Worse is you actually have to keep an eye out on the amount of time after the previous portal closes to use that as an estimation for when the next fucking portal will open
So all this time you are just looking at the various different timers and making different micro-decisions on what the fuck to do at any point in time
Do I make guardian essence now with my guardian fragment, or do I hang around and wait for portal to spawn?
Which altar do I enter? Can I make it in time with the current time I have left? What about whether to make elemental or catalytic? How are my points? Is the catalytic rune expensive and therefore makes profit, or is it shit like mind and body worthy of being avoided?
All these fucking questions and decisions that ultimately, if you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER AT ALL
Then the fucking rewards system
IT'S ALL ENTIRELY FUCKING RNG
Each search on the Rewards Guardian gets you, what, 1/7.778 chance of getting abyssal pearls, or 1/6.94 if you've got all essence pouches
If you do get abyssal pearls, you can get a range between 10 to 20
So no consistent pearls input for each and every game, nope! Sometimes you get a fuck ton of abyssal pearls all at once from half an hour of games, sometimes you run dry and don't get shit for hours
And guess how many do you need for the entire Raiments of the Eyes set?
FUCKING 1350 wenrjffsdkjvbkjtf234y5r9237tfgwebf
1350, with a chance of 1/6.94 to get 10~20, what the absolute fuck, even mobile games with shit-tons of microtransactions and shit-tons of various and different currencies to separate in your mind the real life currency you spend and the in-game currency you convert into to buy lootboxes isn't this fucking complicated
And oh fuck no that is not the end, for what if you need, *silence for tension*
THE FUCKING ABYSSAL NEEDLE
ONE OUT OF FUCKING THREE HUNDRED CHANCE
THREE HUNDREDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
THREEEEEEEEEEEE HUUUUUUUNNNNNNDDDDDRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Do you know how many GOTR games where I come out of thinking, "Okay I have like 10+ points in each category, that gives me 10 searches, should be good right?"
"Garbage. Garbage. Absolute garbage. Why the fuck are you giving me runes when I can just be out making fucking runes?"
AND TO FUCKING TOP IT OFF
THE ABSOLUTE WORSE, FUCKING WAR CRIME SHIT
THEY PUT IN
A FUCKING NEEDLE
A NORMAL FUCKING NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
JUST TO TAUNT THE FUCK OUT OF YOU
"Hahaha you desperately wanted to get the abyssal needle so you can stop doing this God awful shit and just go back to mindlessly travelling back and forth between bank and altar"
"NOPE HERE'S A BLOODY NEEDLE WORTH 9GP ON THE GRAND EXCHANGE TROLOLOLOLOLOL"
So you have to wait around outside for games to end, spamming clicks on gate to try and enter, nope, others got in before you, nope 200 players already, gtfo
*jumps to another world* *repeats the whole fucking process all over again*
God forbid you from leaving for a while to do your herb runs or your birdhouse runs
I know lots of people are upset about this (trust me, I've Googled "fuck guardians of the rift site:reddit.com/r/2007scape a lot a lot a looooooooooooooooooot of times XDDDD), but this one is pretty minor imo compared to the other two
There are alternatives for other shit I don't like in this game, such as Blast Mining, Tempoross, Blackjacking. There's no alternative to getting 60% extra runes outfit + pouch that holds 30 essence in 1 slot
I dislike the fact that I'm here to runecraft yet I'm forced to spend half my time there mining. I'm here to runecraft. I'm not here to mine