I get how it sounds, but I had the exact same situation in it freaking pissed me off to the point where I didn’t bother with any of the other side quests.

When the final upgrade requires you to keep a sword that was weaker than the sword you just got, and you’ve never kept another sword prior to this, it kind of makes sense that you think it’s okay to sell that old sword. Till it turns out you get another quest immediately after saying hey, if you have this old sword you can upgrade it. They could have avoided that whole situation if they just allowed me to buy it back. Or create it again, oh but it uses item quests that are exclusive to prior quests you can’t redo, so you really only get that one chance.

I beat the game. It killed any desire to finish the rest of the side quests/hunts. And I’m mad that everything that you get from the hunts requires a sword that got surpassed ages ago in the game, with no way to get it back or any hint that you might want to hold on to outdated gear that was worse than what you had.

Basically, in order to craft the best gear, you have to do hunts for material. But you also need that sword. No hint not to sell it. And no way to buy it back. So no reason to do the rest of the game as you can no longer craft the reward for doing so.

I have quit playing games over way less than that, lol. I have so many games I own but haven’t finished, and just as many that I’ve finished but would play again, there is no reason to stick with any particular one if I’m not feeling it.

If they continued playing simply because they spent money, they’d be yet another victim of the sunk cost fallacy.