I find myself having low motivation to continue playing. I will, but the equal footing is currently a big lie thanks to the exploits of this system. I've been extremely lucky with any empresses, having collected 10 of them by this time. however my friend who recently quit exploited for half a day and got double my total Lp. And other people who have murder and 50 in UA. The exploiters took this system that the lower levels will NEVER reach the higher levels and turned it to a game where death is the only way to solve the equal footing.
Seriously, higher levels have higher int, more access to high tier foods and curios, and simply are all around better at gaining Lp. and even in death, a guy who exploited for a full day will need to die a number of times before he EQUALS to me, and that's while i farm ant empresses.
The people who exploit, though supposedly it's fixed now, just grinded away anyways. and those who didn't exploit are likely to be grinding ant empresses. Take grinding out? All they did was remove it for around 3 hours when people didn't have yeomanry yet.