So... The Dev team wants us to have a challenge. That is okay, but there is a huge difference between a challenge with adequate awards, and rending jobs useless. By changing the mechanics of the game, sure we will be challenged, but more adversely two jobs are essentially getting their best attributes taken away. I've been playing sense NA release... and this seems to happen every time we as the players find a way to use the mechanics of the game to our advantage. It saddens me greatly that the game has fallen as far as it has. Maybe it is time to get a new dev team, we have a new project manager. At the rate this team is going, unless the new expansion is something that renders everyone speechless, FFXI will fade away. There are plenty of games that one can play that are FREE that have just as good if not better customer support, Devs, and content. One of the huge advantages that FFXI has over all these other games is the history and the fan base it draws on. As several people have mentioned in this thread that the gear from the new content is not worth the risk, they are partially correct. Everyone has their own style of play, but honestly not everyone has the skill to do the events. Does this mean that those players should have to go with out the good gear? What if someone falls in with a lower skill crowd, and can't get in to a higher skill group because those who normally have the higher skills tend to stick together and not include new people. The dev team has basically just given every casual player the middle finger. WAY TO GO TEAM! This sure is how you get people to stick around and pay you money every month. Tell them "well because you don't have the skills you can't do this."