I have no problem with the loot system. I played DCUO when everyone could need on a piece of dps gear. THAT was crazy. So I'm happy with the loot system. It works well.

About the community. I've only had to deal with trolls in-game on a limited basis. With that said, most forums I frequent do state that his community is one of the worst out there. I really began to question why after seeing it so much and came to a few conclusions:

1) The community has been in the spotlight for a VERY long time.

Not just the FF MMO community, but the community in general. People commonly associate ARR players with the player on a forum who trashes SE to no end because of say Lightning Returns or Kingdom Hearts. Even though they are entirely different games altogether, we as a community will still feel the effects of those players. I'm not saying the player base is a bunch of angels, but there is bound to be guilt by association.

2) The cash shop debates.

It was just ridiculous. Did people have a right to fear for "pay to win"? Sure. Did people have a right to "like farm" about it? No. I don't know about you guys and gals, but I seen some forumers who were ESPLICITLY making threads for getting the community worked up. They created thread after thread after thread about it, and where are they now? Did they quit? Well if they quit, was it out of protest or humiliation? The cash shop obviously isn't pay to win. There's a reason the topic died down. It's a shame those same posters can't come out and say, "Ya I'm still playing and feel kind of silly now". I'm not saying no one stated a legitimate and well thought out thread of concern, but those threads were overshadowed by the attention seekers for sure and the effects have resonated. Just a monkey on our back as of now.

3) The lack of a moderator presence in the official forums.

Most successful forums (or forums I believe to be successful and rather drama free) are the ones that have very obvious and direct moderator intervention. They place warnings in topics for all to see. Sometimes they just delete a post entirely and replace it with "Post has been removed by moderator for violation/flaming/off topic" or will have an actual warning sign with a comment and warning from a moderator. It's not that the moderators in those forums make themselves a part of conversations, but they don't ghost erase posts without any sign of intervention. I also see the moderators here just lock a thread instead of cleaning it up which isn't fair to those who were engaging in stimulating conversation.

4) People don't read that much in this forum.

You see it all the time. Someone will read a thread title, post what they believe to be relative to the title and not read the previous pages of the conversation to see if it's still relevant. I don't read every single post all the time either, but the skimming is just too much to stomach sometimes.

Anyway, I think those are some big reasons as to why people might think this community is so toxic from the outside in. Because when it comes down to it, I've experienced more trolling, baiting, flaming, bigotry, racism, etcetera in many MANY other games several times over.

I know these aren't necessarily the points you were making OP, just wanted to throw this out there.