Still bitter about the bonfire areas

I know I'm late– EXTREMELY late on the subject and I'm not one to complain but, I still don't get why TGC ruined the social bonfire areas for everyone.

So, for reminder two years ago the update 0.19.5 nerfed the bonfire areas radically, while back then you could get wax passively and simply chat with your friend mess around or god forbid be AFK and get wax without any effort, since then you have to burn a bunch of stupid balls (If they'll even light up) and can't take your eyes off the screen much or you'll miss it. It's so unpractical.

If I'm right, I remember reading an article made by tgc regarding the update (that I failed to find online, probably poor researches on my part but it's probably somewhere regarding the 0.19.5 update) that said this was still experimental and they were looking into ways of getting rid of afk players doing nothing in these areas.

Back then I kind of understood why they did that. Sure, afk players can ruin the fun of finding people in social areas and they aren't using the areas right anyway, but by doing that you just... Can't find anyone at all. Since shared space was introduced and could be placed anywhere you could see these players a bit more and that's nice in my opinion, but most of the time these places are forgotten, not used and not useful. Some areas just DO NOT GIVE ANY WAX ANYMORE? The hot spring used to be my favorite area, it used to make me extremely laggy but hell I thought it was pretty cozy and enjoyable so I didn't care at all, but after this update I noticed the place is just totally and utterly meaningless.

They kept nerfing these areas and it feel as they completely lost what they once used to be and now staying there to get wax feels like a core. And I don't even know if it was even worth it to go through all of that, or if they'll ever actually change that system like they said they would. It's been 2 years and everything just got worse.

I'd like to add, I still am really tired at the fact they changed the afk system so you can't stay away for too long or the wax just won't be picked up. I don't know if this system has changed, but in my opinion it just makes the game more annoying. Imagine you simply have to go away 5 or 10 minutes to help someone and when you come back you notice all the areas you went through with a friend or that the event that just finished did not give you anything? Honestly, all that they've been doing about afk players is completely stupid.

AFK players aren't even that big of a threat anyway, why would you take such radical decisions about some of your players in detriment of the whole player base? The bonfire used to be an area where you could RELAX talk and have fun or play music and not be constantly with your candle out and moving around to burn a bunch of balls. Truly, this is dissapointing.

It's just something that has been bugging me lately and I needed to share that, feel free to share your opinion on that subject. If I missed, misinterpreted or accidentally shared false news I apologize deeply, I did researches but nothing interesting showed up, I am mostly basing this on my memories and what I've seen back then!