The two things that I think caused the most damage was the EN Community Tier List and Dreamwaker's Butterfly.

While in itself not a problem, the EN Community Tier List started the trend of people taking the Meta a hell of a lot more seriously then they did, as people didn't take Usagi-Sensei that seriously. Instead of being about Waifus and Fun, it because about whether ships are good or not, whether they're worth using or not. What's the most efficient way of playing, DAMN any other Play Style, it's wrong. And when the Meta Began to be taken far more seriously, people began comparing the strengths of factions based on what EN Community declared was the Optimal way of playing. And Faction tensions began to rise quite fast as not every faction is designed for their Hyper-Optimalized way of play.

Dreamwaker's Butterfly was almost as bad. The introduction of URs created a huge amount of tension as it became a pissing contest on who had the most URs. It's worse as there are clear favorites. With the Japanese at 6 of All Types, and the British soon at 5. This does nothing to help already polarized people get along, Sakura fans hate constantly being attacked, other factions feel they don't have enough, and some people just want one.

You know what, no, what happened is people stopped caring about newer players, back in my day, I was told off for complaining about Ink-Stained Steel Sakura Rerun delaying Aurora Noctis. I was told that Reruns were important for newer players.

I was told off for complaining Tallinn was the best Hipper on Launcher, that Murmansk was the best Omaha, I was told that some factions needed better ships to encourage people to try them out, and that they had limited options so their ships had to be better.

This is a subreddit of late-game players who feel the entire game should be feeding their [Insert-Faction-Here] obsession....I'm no different, except I don't care if the Sakura get a UR this year, they're in a good position. But I still want ships that'll be useful [outside of challenges] and interesting an Ultra Late-Game player.

r/Azurelane is what a Late-Stage Azur Lane community looks like, hyper-factionalized, at each other's throats, bean-counting, and apathetic about the new player experience.