I'll throw in my two gil -

I played back in 1.0. Remade my character on a non-legacy for 2.0 (Brand new, full leveling to get enjoyment from the game.) I've been an end-game raider since pre-2.1, though I didn't advance as fast as others. With 2.2, I advanced faster - hit turn 9 (Cleared T8 early) and had my i110 weapon early on thanks to the bias given to DPS jobs.

However, I will say - this recent trend with Relics and weapons in general, has me burning out, and I've started to look towards other avenues. I'll admit I've started to look at Wildstar - and it's been tempting to want to quit FFXIV Because of how bad the grind in it for things that I feel should've been personal challenge/skill oriented, instead of.... whatever this abomination we have right now is.

I'm sure, though, that even Wildstar will be a grind. Hell, 15 levels in and I already said "Holy **** this is a grind" a number of times. Even still, I think that's more acceptable as a grind than this end-game grind to get an i110 weapon for -one- class, when I as a DPS / tank play multiple (Main goon, Main warrior, Main Black Mage, Main Bard - these are my jobs.)

I much preferred the old method. Content that could be mastered by any player - Titan Hard Mode served as a -great- gate. I think that part of the issue was putting Titan HM as progression to reach Coil-content : They made relics required. If you had to clear Good King Moogle EX as well as Levi EX and maybe a custom set of Relic bosses for the new Atma/Novus quest, I would've been much happier - because we'd be getting new content mixed with challenging content. Things that we could progress on and enjoy as we mastered each class/role in those fights.

But instead, we basically got sent back to leveling and spamming Myth runs - and I'm sorry, I just don't find those fun. But, that is an overly subjective arguement - I could be a minority, I could be a majority, I'll never know - I just know how I personally feel.