Is anyone else disappointed by the lack of Long Term Goals?

[BloodPact]

What's wrong with that? Must everything be instant gratification now?

As long as you had fun getting it. What's the problem?

Explain to me, please, how something is going to be instant gratification if it doesn't take over a year to acquire, in a game. There is at least a 12 month gap between the so called "instant gratification" and the "hard earned" <insert pixelated item name here>. FFXI was constantly shoving gating to us in all directions. Anything that mattered in that game was either behind a super absurd time lockout or an even more retarded drop rate percentage. And for the best stuff, of course, both.

Is that fun? If I tell you that you would have to go through the effort of only lifting your right arm and I'd give you a prize next week instead of giving the prize to you at this instant would you be happier / more satisfied? The effort you put for that price was the same, I just withheld it from you because of X reason (in SQX's case, extending the life of content.) Arguably, if I told you to lift your arm every day until that time which you are given the price, that requires more effort, but repetition is considered by most as something tedious and not fun, which directly contradicts what usually one plays a game for. Difficulty, complications are fun. I'm all for Savage modes of everything and all that sort of stuff. Overcoming those things really is the achievement. Dragging a reward for days on end like a carrot on a stick is not really leave people with a sense of gratification, but of relief that the damn thing is finally over.