christ it's been a year and so much changed
Guess I'll just sum up my experience in the past year. I had no luck with LRs until very recently where I pulled Simon Says and Holly. Considering their rarity besides Tower ranking events, that's fair game (and not very fair RNG). As for Tower events, I had a very bad experience in the first one and I haven't touched any until the current one since I wanted to give it another chance. From what I read, I heard the game's rank-heavy now, and I agree with that part especially in Tower events. Thankfully though, the classic event style in the second half of each month didn't really change much, so that's pretty much almost the only thing keeping me playing the game.
Overall, I don't think the game's reached the point of being a pure ranking bloodbath, since I still do get something for playing at least, but to get the most out of it, I think a player needs a lot of dedication to ranking to get the best of what the game can offer. I personally think of the Tower events as a way of catering to more competitive players and the regular events, well, it's still the same as always; either rank or just get the FAW. I'm not a fan of amalgamation materials being locked to ranking though, but they've been bringing certain ones back occasionally that can be exchanged for event materials, so that's fair enough.
Has my opinion of the game changed much? Not really, surprisingly (still slightly iffed at Tower events though). The introduction of Tower events made regular events a monthly thing, and I'm starting to miss the old frequency, frankly speaking. Login campaigns are always welcome. I'm surprised they didn't do it earlier, though.
That's about it, I guess. I might not have covered every change in the past year, do let me know if I (very likely) missed something.