I have no idea if the game will ever recover, but i think that increased player agency in gear progression would make the game more enjoyable for a larger audience and result in a larger and more healthy playerbase.
I do not know what exactly the majority wants, but i would personally like a system with full player agency and the possibility to upgrade already existing weapons to absolute perfection (all stats at 100, free choice of perks and blessings) and i have seen many others mention something like this. This would mean that the gear progression would end at the point where all of your characters have every available weapon fully upgraded to perfection (until new weapons are released).
I do not know how much most people care about a progression system having a clear end or not, but i think that if the itemization is great and the rest of the game is also great, then it probably does not matter all that much.
This could be achieved by making a few additions to the existing system (diamantine sink, yay):
- add the ability to upgrade item modifiers
- add the ability to remove perk and blessing lock from an item
- add the option to select perks from a list, once the cost to reroll has reached 0
- add the option to selectively unlock blessings to circumvent bad RNG
If you want something more elaborate, feel free: