I don't understand why everyone is complaining about the new city system. Before the change, the cities I noticed were mostly "late at night" (between 11:30 pm and 1:00 am Altdorf time) or "early in the morning" (5:00 am +) because I also have to work on the side, these are definitely not the times when I play. In fact, in the 1.5 years I've been playing now, I've been able to do 2 cities. Both times it wasn't worth the effort. Since the change I could have registered for the city 4-5 times, but sorry, if I want to be farmed by SoV premades, I queue for SC, it's faster to finish. And since at least one lake is always open, that's the better alternative.
I think the main reason why solos are coming less/not more to the city is because you have 3 ******* days to build a group...
And as already written above, there are usually "enough" instances.
In terms of motivation and progression, you either "love" the game or you don't. I usually play Monday and Tuesday from 8pm to 11pm Altdorf time in a small guild with only reallive friends, so the majority of them regularly don't manage to finish the weekly. On Monday we managed to take the 15 BO's, get 30 kills and got 1 keepdef. And that gentlemen is the problem. We had fun and "good" rps but the crests that came around aren't worth mentioning and so is the prospect of the "next" set. However, the change to a single currency gave some new motivation, because it might be possible to carry Warlord or SoV at some point.
In the end, however, you need a dominant side, otherwise little or nothing moves (see Monday). Which again leads to the same "problem", for the "losing" side almost nothing comes around again. I'm not saying everyone should get the same "reward", but I think some fine tuning is needed here. I mean, almost nobody tries to take a keep at EU prime time (?8:30 pm to 10:30 pm?), if only to avoid giving the "other side" a deff bag.
As far as balancing is concerned, after each side claims the other is the stronger one, it must be almost perfect

. Slayer cries about Choppa, Choppa about Slayer and everyone cries about the stealthers, so it doesn't look so bad

.
But what can you do now to bring players back, I think the best answers are actually the wrong ones at first: New content or "simplify" the existing one.
But all of these are probably more of a problem for casual gamers and as someone once wrote: "Casuals ruin MMO's, don't let them convince you otherwise".
Sorry for the wall of text that doesn't add much other than maybe a few thoughts

, I'll be out then.