Is progressive content or the community to blame for player skill gap?

[Yukiko]

Yesterday: more than 300 minutes DF waiting for "The Weeping City of Mhach"
Not only old Content becomes a marathon...

There is little to no motivation for doing old content again!
SE tried to use prickwalls with relicts and made it even worse because now you just farm it once and then you will never see it again...
Relict was just one example, look at how many stopped doing "wondrous tales".
The more gamble SE adds into the "progress" or "target goal" more and more players will just turn their back on it...
At beginning (2.0) a lot were farming pets or mounts, but at current state its not possible to collect all of them (look at pvp ranking)... you know why pokemon is famous for years?
Square Enix having good ideas, but they have awful taste of balancing!
When i see korean and japan players who love to grind things, saying they need a break and are not motivated to do those things in ffxiv, you have to question if SE is on the right path.

SE trying to defend on fanfest with showing us 24h grindings (example atma) and telling us "its not as rare as you think" but i do not think that motivates many to come back or start the quest again... Its like telling you all is ok and you do something wrong! When it comes to gambling, the fun stops and sorry but RNG is pure gambling!

Edit: I forgotten to say something about the weeklies - special because i mentioned "The Weeping City of Mhach"
It helps, but only one or 2 days after weekly reset because it IS a weekly cap... i can understand why they cap it, but that way it doesnt help much against the problem. Still, it is better than nothing!

[Kosmos992k]

Yesterday: more than 300 minutes DF waiting for "The Weeping City of Mhach"
Not only old Content becomes a marathon...

There is little to no motivation for doing old content again!**snip**

Indeed and wow that's a long wait, I will have zero chance of running that content in future based on this.

One thing that I think they could do is create some level 50, one star craft recipes such minions, glamours, weapons, special foods, special dyes and even mounts, and have each crafting recipe include at least one material that can only be obtained in dungeons. Recipes could require more than one of the material as needed, or appropriate, and each new material should be unique to the dungeon (and/or the hard version of the same dungeon) it is found in. Of course recipes for consumable items would be most effective since demand would never completely vanish.

This materials should be untradeable and market_prohibited so that if you want to craft the thing, you have to actually run the dungeon needed to get the material - there was something like this in Haukke Manor if I remember correctly. With every second patch, some new craftable items need to be added that use these materials.

Finally, these materials should not be available when running unsync'd, and will be awarded after the last boss fight.

Many will complain of being forced to run the dungeons. Except you're not forced, since the craftable items are entirely optional, and you might even be able to buy the crafted items themselves (not the materials) from the MB.

This would bring some motivated players back to the dungeons. I am sure many would still stay away, but increasing the number of players in this content would help new players and bring older players back to things they may not remember any more.

By adding new craftable items that use the materials with every other patch, SE refreshes the incentive to run the content to get the material. Otherwise as these items start to saturate the player base, the content would die again.

This would also support crafters to some extent as well.

To add onto that while yes people should avoid aoes its no big deal in dungeons if you do get hit by them you don't die and you hardly take any damage so people get used to the idea that its no big deal. then they step in an ex primal or savage and stand in an aoe and die instantly or wipe the raid.

Agreed, but that too is fixable. Level sync was meant to keep older content in balance to prevent overgeared players from ignoring mechanics and the like. Level sync should be tighter to ensure that things in old dungeons actually retain their original sting and danger.

[Chronons]

Snip

I completely agree, giving an incentive is the most appropriate way to generate interest. Id like to see mentor roulettes specifically for old primal fights or other content that is hard to que for synched (like Weeping apparently). Make them count as double towards the mentor mount or give higher amount of tomes and I think the problem would be solved.