New Player, wondering why this game isn't more popular!

[Ramathyr]

Hi all, is this place still active? Last new topic post was almost a month ago! O_O

2 hours in and I'm really enjoying the game, and I usually uninstall MMORPGs within an hour. Weird how I never heard of it till the PS4 port announcement. Seems like a nice mix of Megaten and Dragon Nest so far. I l o v e the anime inspired MMORPG and I enjoy the Japanese voices. It's great having an NPC partner. My worst fear is that it is "P2W", so before I invest my limited time..I must ask.

Quick questions based on posts I've been reading in here:

Why is this game so unpopular? Not enough advertising? Too grindy/hard (doesn't bother me, I played Everquest and Lineage 2 man!).
Do you really get "one shotted" later? Are healers useless then?
Why are sounds so non existent? (I hear my character walk 5 steps and suddenly it's silence. Is my client bugged? Overall game seems very quiet, it's weird.)
Is there a way to heal NPC partners besides dismissing them in town?

(Why did the forum censor the word L O V E? lol...)

[Blazef2]

Welcome to Onigiri, and as to answer your questions
1)Onigiri is only unpopular because CS hasn't been releasing the new content quick enough, the players complete the new content quickly, and for the lower level areas people clear those quickly and just blaze right past those areas. Mostly all the players are at the end.
2)Def/CON is basically useless in the game, the mobs deal too much damage to you in the first place. As for healers, they have only 2 roles: SP slave and RS slave, If you are talking about general heals then yes healing is useless.
3)That is not a bug it just stops making noise.
4)Use Prayer crystals to heal them back up to full, but partners aren't useful for combat unless it is one of the gacha partners.

[Firon]

Same as what BlazeF2 said, but adding some stuff:
2. That's part of the reason. The other part is that certain equipment later requires you to keep hp under a certain percentage, and if you've got a decent build (meaning the game forces you to stop relying on healers), then yeah, you're going to get one-shotted. The reason that def becomes useless mid game is because it's a waste of magatama slots. Staff users are generally just people who have at least one staff equipped, since you don't need any specific build for invigorate (sp), ougi rapid storm (movement speed) or resurrection (which was only available for the new year) ie. these skills are unaffected by skill force.
3. No idea what you mean by this...
4. gacha partners = cash shop partners (none currently available atm). You can only heal partners when they die. Pets can be relatively useful -which are free.

5. We got a "l o v e expert" spamming the forums a while back, so that would be why.

as for p2w, ougi skills are from the nyankoropon = rng based cash shop. Spears aren't really dependent on ougi from what I've heard and have a decent amount of magatama available through quests (you don't need to buy them- farming them yourself takes a really long time). You can also manage with the pow weapons (sword, axe, odachi -not all at the same time, ofc) if you don't mind not having aoe.

anyway, welcome and hope you enjoy the game.

edit: Unfinished sentence -.-"