Primal mounts and their effect on player health/sanity.

[Assirra]

There comes a point when the drop rate is so low people don't find it worth their time, and as a result don't bother. If the drop rate was more reasonable I'd have cleared the primal fights way more than I have now. With current drop rates I'm not bothering because theyre too rare.

The same happened with the tank mounts that were meant to encourage people to play tank jobs. The requirement was set so high people who don't already main a tank job didn't bother.

The problem is if you make it to easy to get, people would get it and never bother anymore. Just look at the conjurer pony. People would get to 30 and never bother using the spec again.
The tank thing at least encourages for people to keep tanking. If you give it to every tank the second they ding 50 you have people leveling a tank for that and then not switching to tank since all they wanted was that mount.

[Xenor]

The problem is if you make it to easy to get, people would get it and never bother anymore.

I understand that. The key is to put it somewhere between too easy and too ridiculous to bother. If it were an achievement reward for killing a primal 50 or 100 times that is an achievable goal to work towards. But as it stands it's a 1 in 100 RNG chance where 8 people are lotting (RNG again) for it. 1 in 800 on average. People like to see progress and RNG means you're at the same place after 500 kills as you are after 1 kill if you didn't get lucky. I want no part in that. Same reason I never cared about Leviathan mirrors, the maths told me an Animus weapon was a far better time investment.

[Keewee]

The key is to put it somewhere between too easy and too ridiculous to bother.

That's exactly it. If you make it too easy, the players will all have their mount and nobody will do it anymore, and if you make it too hard, most people won't bother doing it because, well, who has 800 battles to lose. What eventually happens is the exact current situation: finding a group to do Leviathan XM when you want a weapon is almost impossible, and it's hard even when you're in a LS or FC because noone is motivated by the drop rates of the mirror and mount.

And the comparison to PLD & WAR mounts is good: I will, as a PLD, get the lion at some point, but it won't be because I was motivated to play PLD for the mount, but because I already was PLD and will eventually achieve the number of required fights. And it will come as a surprise, I'm sure. And let me add it won't be deserved at all (compared to other jobs).