It's not big enough of a deal to me to defend it, or to sharply critique it at this point. As a regular player and AP owner, there's still plenty of other stuff in Forsaken alone, not Black Armory-related, that I can work on. The Black Armory stuff will always be there. I got my main character to max light before the end of the season, and did not have time to even beat the main campaign with my other two due to the myriad quests and activities available in D2:F I worked on til now, and I play almost every day for at least an hour or so. That should give you an idea of where I fall within the casual-hardcore spectrum. I literally do not care at all that I have to level a little more to be able to play the first Forge. The reason this game works, in my opinion, is because the core gameplay (i.e., the sandbox) is intrinsically fun. Casting supers is fun, landing crits is a blast, precision kills are reinforcing, jumping around on platforms is entertaining, connecting that final melee blow is great, stacking buffs during encounters is nice. On top of that, you get new toys and shiny things from doing the fun things in the game over and over again. Collecting meaningless loot out of chests is cool, picking up an engram that materialized out of an enemy corpse is neat, seeing that new emblem or gear piece pop up on the right side of the screen is good, finally getting that exotic you wanted is awesome. Essentially, I have to level up more (i.e., have fun with my friends and get new toys and goodies for doing it) before I can successfully beat the first forge (i.e., have fun with my friends and get new toys and goodies for doing it). Right now, I don't see the problem, especially if you are a player who likes to keep playing and continue to vertically progress. This pass is indicated as extensions to the endgame. TL;DR For me, the sandbox is fun, and getting rewards provides an extra layer of fun and engagement. So I don't mind needing to level up (have more fun) before I can beat the first forge (have more fun). I actually haven't even tried the forge yet because I was doing other stuff and having fun. IN CONCLUSION, I'll save my opinion of this model for releasing content toward the end of Season of the Forge because that's when we'll know whether we are getting enough bang(s) out of our buck(s). I think it's kind of silly to immediately label the AP as trash in the first couple of days.