What went wrong? Is it the game or the grenre?

[Nadrojj]

Game and genre in general has gone too casual where you barely need to put any effort in to be end game, there is nothing special about having all content cleared currently. All but Twintania are puggable with 100% randoms. I miss the days of EQ1 where getting items or even max level was an accomplishment in itself. You could tell who was good and not by the gear they had, it was okay when not everyone was on the same raid content and people went at their own pace whether that was casual or hardcore, not everyone had to be the same. It gets tiring the mindset that everyone has to clear everything with ease.

Wish I could like this a million times more. In a game where you can get 50 in a few days you see players devour the content and then get tired of it. The only difficulty you see is T5 coil and EX primals. The same 3 primals we've had rehashed and harder, two dungeons we've already had, but harder, and then a raid that has lower gear drops than most of us currently have grinded out seems to have been a huge mistake to me. There is nothing new, fun, engaging that was delivered to us in 2.1. Housing? 90% of the population cannot afford it. The one thing you have been pushing down our throats that really had the community excited is the one thing that is out of the vast majority's grasp, and I think that left the population as a whole with a bad taste in their mouth. I know a few people who have told me they don't log in because there is "nothing to do" they're full i90 on their main job, they don't want to fight ex primals for weapons =/= relics, they don't want to keep dying over and over to twintania, they don't want to deal with hour long queue's for DF/CT only to be trolled and they are tired of crafting something, listing it on the AH then 15 minutes later seeing the same item put up by 15 other people for less than they just put it up. There are plenty of reasons why were not seeing people log in, those are a few of them I was given by the friends who don't log in much anymore.

Along the lines Sub's point that I quoted there really doesn't seem to be a sense of accomplishment in this game. You can level your job to max level in a matter of days, you can level all crafting jobs with super easy leves in the matter of days, hell everything takes a matter of days. You can get a relic in a day if you were so inclined. Just yesterday I went from Hydra to titan in the matter of an hour, once the rest of my FC actually logs on we'll down titan and I'll have my third relic. The intended best weapon for your job achievable in a day. If you don't have grindy engaging content there will be no reason for a lot of players to log in. In this day and age most people who play MMO's are casual, and that's ok, but a game that caters to the casual crowd will always see these type of population spikes. The hardcores will log in, do all the content get bored and stop logging in until the next patch, the casuals will log in play their 8 hours a week and say how much they really enjoy the game until life gets busy, they don't have the time and they stop playing.

Going back to the dreaded OMG GIVE ME FFXI arguments we always see here, that game had a notoriously low drop rate when it came to items that players wanted, but hated how rare they were. This kept their playerbase logging in, everyone who wanted an E Body was in a HNMLS camping faf/nidd or doing Ein. Yeah the grind sucked, yes the low drop rates were miserable but that feeling you got when you finally got your hands on an item you've been working toward, that was the feeling that got me hooked on MMOs. I'm sad to say I haven't experienced that feeling once in ARR. Finally beating titan and getting my relic, yeah that was cool but it still didn't compare to seeing

Nadrojj obtains a pair of strider boots.
Nadrojj obtains a Eurytos' Bow.
Nadrojj obtains a Kirin's Osode.
Nadrojj obtains a pair of Leaping Boots.
Nadrojj obtains a Emperor's Hairpin.

Not a single time in ARR have I had a feeling I could relate as strongly as to those achievements listed above. ARR is a game that works well for the masses but it doesn't really instill within you the feelings that other games have. Sorry for the long post that was somewhat all over the place. I had high hopes and continue to still have high hopes for this game, I really want to call this game my home for the next 8-10 years. Please deliver Yoshi.

[Meshico]

pair of strider boots.
Eurytos' Bow.
Kirin's Osode.
Leaping Boots.
Emperor's Hairpin.

Not a single time in ARR have I had a feeling I could relate as strongly as to those achievements listed above.

I get a huge sense of accomplishment when I got my full Acolyte, Mages Gear it was amazing, and then i got my Cavalry Set which was super awesome and now i'm working on my infantry set!

Those are good...and about the closest thing to NM's out there...the only difference is you'll get one of these items almost guaranteed every run, granted it might be the same item, but then again it might not.

And Emperor's Hairpin was useful for so many level's...and those level's took soooooooo much more time.

But I don't mind my gear is only useful for like 5 level's...I will wait for the silly Vanity system and use it then I enjoy the endless grind for this gear so much more ( more like the reward than the grind )

[Nadrojj]

I get a huge sense of accomplishment when I got my full Acolyte, Mages Gear it was amazing, and then i got my Cavalry Set which was super awesome and now i'm working on my infantry set!

Those are good...and about the closest thing to NM's out there...the only difference is you'll get one of these items almost guaranteed every run, granted it might be the same item, but then again it might not.

And Emperor's Hairpin was useful for so many level's...and those level's took soooooooo much more time.

But I don't mind my gear is only useful for like 5 level's...I will wait for the silly Vanity system and use it then I enjoy the endless grind for this gear so much more ( more like the reward than the grind )

No piece of gear that I've obtained in this game has given me the man that was worth all the hard work I put in for it. Your full sets of gear prob took an hour or two of running the same instance, then worn for three or four levels then replaced. There is no longevity to the items you listed. Emperor's Hairpin for example, I got the drop on my theif, kept it and wore it on my ninja and ranger. A piece I'd never sell, was proud to wear and could be worn by pretty much all of my jobs. This game lacks rare items, and that's a shame.