I've been back in DR for about 6 months now after a 5 year break. A lot of the issues that spawned out of 3.0 that existed then now seem to really be used by everyone. The game feels incredibly unbalanced at this point. Every guild has some kind of balance issue, but I want to point out some of the major balance issues currently. Dragon realms used to be a game of strengths and weaknesses which IMO made the game exciting.

-Sorcery system. It's great using skills outside of your guild, but there are no limits other than sig spells.
- A moon mage with unleash, or anyone with unleash for that matter, can buff every stat and skill in the game + barriers. Add in the Sect ability and there is minimal chance you will even burn a scroll using this.
- It's very clear there are more than a few spells that need to be signature because of the impact they have on the game. The IC topic has been beaten to death, but it totally breaks the balance of the game. It's not alone and there are other problematic spells as well.
- Sorcery system alone puts NMUs at a MASSIVE disadvantage.
- Whats the drawback to sorcery? Backlash seems minimal to non existent for the massive advantage it provides.
- Wasn't the point of limiting spell slots to push people into different character builds? To make characters in each guild have strengths/weaknesses? Yet you have 3 free slots to cover those weaknesses with sorcery.
- No limits to how many buffs you can have.

-Barriers
-These are just not balanced at all. I find it odd some barriers have draw backs like shear, AC, CH,Chalic... Yet there are plenty that do not. Stack enough barriers or put up the right barrier and you totally negate any type of skill check and essentially become immortal. There are no limits to damage reduction and no limits on how many barriers you can have up.
-Very few ways to dispel a barrier. All of which are will based. Stack barriers, stack mentals, throw up psyc shield and those barriers are not being removed. Is death just not part of the game anymore?

-Tactics
- I can't believe grapple is still broken. Limits were put on the duration of disabler, but there is NO limit or duration to the best disbler in the game - Grapple. Force someone prone then grapple them, there is nothing they can do about it unless they have way better tactics, or their guild has an ability that breaks grapple ( and from what i've read on here no abilities should be breaking grapple, but plenty do ).

-Thieves guild entirely
- Thieves have always been the all or nothing guild. Big hit glass cannons. Stealth seems entirely broken now. My WM with 1400 perception can easily search out my cap stealth ranger and thief without watch.
- No cool down on point. Even PVP seems to be scripted now ( is prime now the fallen? ) spamming point FTW.
- People have always complained about their 1 shot potential... Which i suppose is valid, however currently thats all they are built for. Magic users have SO many tools to ignore stealth and backstab.

-Weapon based guilds
-Barbs, rangers, thieves, paladins all are second class citizens in Elanthia against competent players. Weapon damage just cannot compete with cyclic damage spells and spells like SA, AE, BG, DB, Insta target triple burn. I guess you could try to shove them prone, grapple, and try to bite their head off....

I get some people don't like PVP. That's totally fine. But wow if you thought some people in pvp were toxic before, try letting those toxic players become invincible.

I think its great some development is happening in some aspects of the game. However, going through the update notes for the last 5 years little to nothing has been done in attempt to balance the game.It just seems as if no one cares about it anymore. Diversity, strategy, and consequence made the game unique and entertaining. Now it seems very bland because most character are more or less the same to an extent. So many things exist now to reduce or remove consequence. Compared to 5 years ago prime has turned into the fallen. Most people afk and maybe spend a minute or two using the empath guild as a chat room. So much OOC stuff, no attempts to encourage or enforce role play. Very few events, and the ones that happen have minimal turn out.

Has the game finally entered the state of just milking the player base that is left out of MT money? It really sucks to say but the lack of development and change to the game has turned it into a chat room with ranks.