I've been playing this game since 2.1 and I feel the same as you OP. My boyfriend and I were just talking about it this morning and a bit last week as well. It’s nothing that is going to make me quit this game but I feel you 100%.

I love this game and find all the dungeons and raids are very fun to play.... but it is severely lacking in actual repayable content. There is no glory gear and there is absolutely zero horizontal progression. Everything is a gear treadmill with the welfare/tome gear or raid gear as the only options. No matter which treadmill you stand on there is zero reason to get on it in the first place! You can wait a few months and surpass that gear in a couple dungeon runs and everyone else’s past accomplishments mean nothing. This is exactly why I have not cleared relevant content since coil. I love this game but the gear system and the reward system is terrible. Why should I ever clear primals when I know were going to get way cooler crafted weapons later? Why should I farm for mounts when I know they’re going to nerf the drop rates later? Why should I clear raid content when I know I can get glamour/mounts/minions/crafted items later when I have a higher iLvl from my welfare gear? The answer is I don’t have to, so I don’t. The only people I know that still actively clear that content do it for the fun of learning the fight when it’s at its most difficult. That just doesn’t compel me but way more power to the people who love doing that!

When people say Glamour is the true end game that is very true. A majority of the time that is literally the only reason to filter through old content again later. It is fluff systems like our glamour and our social fun-loving community that has kept me here. If not for the great group of people I have in my Free Company and Linkshells I more than likely would have quit this game a couple years ago.

This game is focused on making your own arbitrary goals via achievements, crafting, gathering and so forth. I’ve found that my friends who don’t do this tend to quit playing a few weeks within hitting max level. They come back every other content patch or so but don’t play at the same level as those able to set their own goals that the game does not give us.

This is also why so many people raid log and why Gilgamesh is a veritable ghost town the last few weeks (went to Kugane around 10am EST to turn in a Leve and I was one of 3 people I saw between the aetheryte and Leve counter.) … People hit their goals and unsub or don’t log back in until later. The people that stayed logged in have set other goals that have little or nothing to do with the ones given to us by clearing content where gear is obtained. The bulk of this game is played in extremely casual content.

Yes, I feel like there should be more substance in the raid/dungeons and so forth but I don’t think we’ll ever see it OP. I think the system we have now is the system we are stuck with until the game starts to bleed subs. Either you want to clear the content for fun or you don’t want it. Either is ok.

I also don’t feel like we’ve lost content. I can understand that feeling though. I think it’s more a matter of the content we’re getting to replace the things they took away are terrible. They took away reliable content and gave us things like Lords of Verminion and Diadem in its stead. We’re getting the same amount of content but the problem is some of that content is literally unplayable (even more so now with things like diadem, there is no reason to go in there anymore. Diadem is something that should be updated every single odd patch with catch up gear but I don’t think SE will ever do it). Some of it has been OK like PotD & Aquapolis. We had a lot of the same kind of content in 2.0 (lots of trials in different aspects of the game and lots of dungeons in every patch), I’m OK giving that up for other content like PotD and Aquapolis. Like I said, I can see where you’re coming from though that is feels like we’ve lost content but we really haven’t, just some of the stuff we’ve gotten is a huge steaming pile of poopy.

Right now, it’s a game of set your own end-game or play something else until Bahamut Ultimate / Omega 2.0. It’s always been like that and I think it always will be.