Rade

As for the subquests, this is most likely an oddity with how the game settings work. Starting with the Rise update, there's some condition that causes a lot of side-stories to become automatically hidden, so if you don't toggle on the option to view hidden stories, you won't see them when they're first unlocked. I assume there was some trigger when you completed the first season that undid that automatic hiding.
Everything becoming more difficult is part of the game increasing in difficulty naturally; Season 3 and the endgame is designed for you to tackle it with much better gear and in a party, so season 2 is upping the difficulty to help ease you toward that so you're not caught completely flat-footed once you get there. You'll need to work on learning your playstyle and the ins and outs of how to avoid taking hits and then counterattack. It helps if you focus on avoiding first and then figuring out where you can work in attacks instead of just running up, trying to hammer away immediately, and hoping you're able to notice the attacks fast enough. If you haven't yet, you'll need to start using hp potions and level 70 equipment, and in order to solo without too much challenge, you may need to work on enhancing your gear to higher levels. Alternatively, it becomes quite manageable when running it with a friend or two.

Changing from 8 to 4 for the majority of runs is something I support. It forces players to actually pay attention to the boss's attack patterns and learn the mechanics themselves instead of relying on someone else having aggro and letting other players take care of those mechanics, and also reduces the game's excessively high requirements to host compared to joining a party or soloing. I do think there are a number of battles where 8-mans should be readded, mainly those where the mechanics were largely built around it (Braha, Kraken, maybe Cromm/Bark), but they should remain rare and infrequent instead of the norm.

Turning the lower raids into regular missions is also a change I support. The game doesn't really properly start until you hit season 3 and level 90 content. That's the core of the game, and it has been since well before Rise, but it took far, far too long for new players to reach that point. They've shifted the baselines and condensed the early phases to allow for new players to actually get into the meat of the game instead of playing for months without getting to it. The revamped hero mode allows that lower content to still stay relevant and have a level of challenge, although its implementation is currently incomplete and needs to be filled out more properly.

The 'one and done' enhancing is something I absolutely support. The old system was downright terrible and required you gambling in an all or nothing risk to have a meaningful chance to progress. Because they've improved the ease with which you can get high-end gear and the ease with which you can get to a moderately high enhancement level, starting over after a single attempt is nowhere near as penalizing as it used to be, and you don't have to farm exorbitant amounts of AP to resurrect your weapon and get back something usable again. They also basically made it impossible to genuinely lose progress, as even when you can't take it any higher, you'll still have the same high-end weapon, and there are options available to pass the majority of upgrades you've spent on it onto another weapon once you get one higher. If you're working with 90 weapons, the most recent patch in Korea added an avenue to get a guaranteed +13 item, without spending a single cent, via new runes purchasable with seals of bravery.

The majority of crafting hasn't been done away with; it's still there in the same format and simply uses uniform materials that streamline it. The lower ranks of crafting were never used for anything except gaining proficiency to begin with; the range that qualifies as a lower rank has simply been extended, matching the way the early game has been condensed. There are a few problem points that need to be addressed, like readding popular vanity items that no longer appear to obtainable and adding back crafting heavenly leather.

I never said it was perfect and doesn't have problems that need addressing, but there's ample reason to hope that those problems will continue to be addressed as time goes on. The main area that I do think needs to be addressed is to dial down the massive increase in additional damage's effectiveness - it simply pushes the minimum times on certain content too low with what players can actually obtain now. I'm not being flippant and ignoring the issues players have: I'm pointing out that while some changes aren't good, most are when evaluated more holistically, and the pervading attitude of throwing vitriol about it is doing far more harm to the game than the actual update itself did - and the update did far, far more to improve the game than it did to harm it.

2 months of dailies for a +1 quality coupon is a pretty long wait compared to having a chance at 3 or 4 star right from the start. Crafting low level gear is merely an avenue to level up the skill to allow that benefit for high level stuff, and it's a benefit worth investing in for many players. Past that, it's for vanity items and gear that you like the appearance of that isn't available as drops.

Airtight items aside, the economy of the game is arguably the healthiest it's ever been. Virtually every drop has non-trivial value and a use worth holding on to them or buying them for. The inflation the NA servers have been suffering from for years has finally died down to a more proper valuation. There are a common items that can be obtained and sold in large quantities for decent sums, uncommon items that have fair value on their own, and rare items that are worth large amounts. Almost all of these items are readily obtainable with reasonable amounts of effort on your own, and generally are in supply on the marketplace as well.

The Rise update made getting and enhancing gear much easier, much less risky, and much less costly, and they're still rolling out improvements to that in further patches. You don't see people selling highly-enhanced gear anymore because they're trying to make it for themselves first (especially considering how much more potent they've been made), the lack of inflation means there are fewer and fewer people who have the large sums of cash available to make such a purchase for them to sell to, and it's not even clear how much gold the items are actually worth with the reworked economy anyway.

I'm really tired of seeing all the 'game is dead, Rise killed it' comments everywhere in this community, because frankly, that's not true. The Rise update addressed and fixed the vast majority of core issues with the game that everyone had been complaining about for years. It also changed a lot of things people weren't expecting, but if you look at those changes and give them a chance, it adds up to a better game experience that focuses in on what made the game good in the first place. There are some areas that still need further improvement, but because of how much the developers have been making further adjustments and changes in frequent patches in the Korean client, there's a lot of reason to be hopeful that those areas that are lacking will be filled in over the next couple of months. Rise was designed to rebuild the game's core and give it a solid foundation so that there will be room to grow and create lots of new and interesting experiences.

What's keeping the game from growing isn't the Rise update - it's the attitude of the players that are so close-minded toward change that are immediately saying the game sucks now and is dead and everyone should stop playing it, while creating biased polls where the only options are agreement. Ironically, many of those people are saying it while they're still playing regularly and putting in several hours on the game each day. That behavior is toxic and pervasive, and as long as it's the norm, the population will never be what it's capable of. I'm not saying you shouldn't offer criticism or voice your complaints, but the vast majority of it is just people satisfying their desire to insult something and jump on the bandwagon without thinking it over for themselves.

From what I read through google translate, all lower books except for the Fomorian Book are converted into class neutral items usable by everyone except Fiona and Arisha. Fomorian Books will no longer be able to be made, but preexisting ones will remain and still be usable by Evie and Sylas. They're adding a new 95 level secondary item that will have 3 crit and 1 crit resist on it, as well as some minor amount of other stats, as Plakster said.

Rates do seem lower overall than they were immediately following Rise, but if the effect on the economy remains this way, I think it's actually good for it to stay that way. Immdiately following Rise, there was almost no middle-value stuff to farm for anymore; you just had the mass quantity useful items with moderate prices (godly mats, magic powder, scrolls, etc.) and the extremely valuable rare items (silver bracelets, abomination/eochaid essence). Post Dullahan, purple chunks are rare enough to have real value, ranging from a few hundred thousand to somewhat more than a million. More desirable low tier scrolls are the same, with some reaching as high as several million. Everything you get now is something that sells, so it's now easy and reliable to make money if you stick to doing runs consistently. You'll get a lot of drops that sell for a few dozen thousand, a drop every few runs worth several hundred thousand or a million, and every once in a while after a long grind in the top-level content, a rare drop worth several million or more.