First of all thanks so much for the translation OP

This closely aligns a chat I had the other week or so with my JP friend (I play on a JP server for fun/old times sake), he was telling me on the JP forums and JP players in general were having the same gripes as you described.

Another forum thread about the "Carrot on a stick" http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-On-The-String

Addresses one of the issues, that item levels were irrelevant, and now that makes total sense, because in a mechanics based system items simply don't matter. And I will add that because of these issues that the OP mentioned, the consequence is that:



Aiming for item/weapon rewards is no longer motivational, after all why aim for that item if only one job can use it, it won't affect a fight much anyways and most of all I can't use it to help others clear the fight? Though not the primary reason to get better gear, one large reason that benefits the community is the ability to compensate another player's mistakes by covering for them one way or another.


Anyways I completely agree, my sub will expire at the end of the month finally, I've definitely lost my motivation to keep going and hope Yoshi sees the path they are going down is wrong.