Quote Originally Posted by Colt47 View Post
...this is just another symptom of the population going far more casual than raid / competitive.

I don't think there is anything wrong with this, just that it means they need to find ways to retool certain content or find alternative ways to get certain craft materials traditionally farmed by these groups.
This is industry-wide, though. Not just with FFXIV. I remember reading an interview with a Blizzard developer saying that a very small percentage of their playerbase raided, and a very small percentage of their playerbase did competitive PvP. The majority of their players played casually, which they defined as mainly solo questing and regular dungeons, while dabbling a little bit in raiding and PvP. That's today's MMOs in a nutshell.

The days of hardcore raiding are gone. And if you want hardcore PvP, you're playing a MOBA or an FPS.