I lost my motivation, Can you help me find it?

[BreathlessTao]

Gold Saucer

Agree. It should have been fun, but the fact that they made GS such a massive grind in the first place already took the fun out of it. TT completely screwed up with cheats left, right, and center; chocobo races pretty much the same with unctontrollable chocobos that you spend ages to rank up only to toss aside for the next and repeat again, not to even mention people who didn't mind not even controlling the bird, just getting in and going AFK.... And indeed, it's quite odd that not a single new item was added to the prizes... Whoever was so into those old ones already got them, whoever hasn't been, won't suddenly start caring. Let's not even mention the gender unbalance either. (And just one example, the twins' books for SMN/SCH prizes, as neither has a weapon available there, have been suggested, I think, well before the expansion... not even a word on any of it.)

PvP

I'm not even into PvP, but Frontline looked (and felt, the ~3 times I tried) fun... was ruined by GC/queues. This new mode they just added? I didn't even unlock it! I saw the new gear and the exact same thoughts - yet another longrobe/longskirt reskin, yeah, thanks, not gonna motivate me.

Housing

Could buy two medium houses now, just look forward to it - when they add new wards again, that ain't even gonna get you one, because they'll jack up the prices once more (based on calculations about gil owned by players, no doubt, nevermind all the RMTs and bots). But yeah, the fact that there are 1440 plots per server for both ALL FCs and ALL INDIVIDUALS, and they thinking it's ok, especially with all the housing items they keep pushing out ("cannot be retrieved once placed" to preserve rarity, biggest idiocy i've ever heard, i swear)...... beyond ridiculous. @_@

Crafting

BWHAHAHAHAAA....crafting x'D stopped doing that thing when I realised they expected me to shell out millions for materia to have everything ridiculously overmelded, after capping all the classes of course. No thanks. And the way they talked about the scrip system making things "more accessible" for everyone?... Yeah, I laughed. Bitter laugh, bad joke, but still a laugh.

Lastly, was I the only one shocked that we didn't get a 3rd free retainer with all the new craft mats?

This is what was said here.

So let me get this straight, if everyone went and got the micro transaction retainers the server would crash?
I'm not buying it, its just greed IMO.

One of my biggest gripes right now, indeed. For all the times we hear the excuse of servers this and network that... Man, that issue surely disappears quickly if we can pay a little extra. Disappears so much that we can pay a little extra for triple the amount of additional retainers as before. Servers and networks, yeah right.

I would also post some stuff about the none existence variety of glamor in this game, but I've posted enough about that on the forums now as it is.

Sadly, also true. Either the nth reskin, or an item that's so convoluted to obtain it doesn't help anyone but the RMTs and the top ~1% of players, already ridiculously rich, to get even richer. Or they're unfairly gender-locked, creating a lack of balance, for no reason. BEEP that. >.<

Waiting half a year for a house,
Dressing my white mage up as a nun,
Or making a ton of gil/MGP that I will never spent is not my idea of "fun".

Waiting for a house since 1.0. Been saving since 2.0. /hi5
Dressing my SMN/BLM in long robes and the same long skirt model time and time again. With the not-so-occasional repaint of the very same item as three levels before. /hi5
I'm not even "making" gil tbh, I just save up what the game awards me.... no idea why, I can't see an actual house for myself down the way in any reasonable time. :/ MGP I stopped caring about, do one daily cactpot and /shrug.

As a former Hardcore player (or so I believe myself, playing for 30-40 hours per week since launch) and now down to a low-Casual (playing 2 hours Max per week), I can see how boring it has become, forcing you to do lame side quests just to give you extra XP and then, unlocking Aether Currents so that you will end up flying.. that is if you can climb over the unreachable rocks, forces you to go all the way around to find the only route..

I used to love exploration, now I just want to get it done with, so that I can enjoy the Main Story.

DUDE, I so feel you on the currents. @_@ Second most infuriating thing in the expansion, right after Moogle Hell Churning Mists.

They had Casuals in mind for this game; I highly doubt it.

There, said it. I feel they pretty much forgot about the casuals somewhere between 2.1 and 2.55.... but yeah, that's the gist of it.