With each update I've become increasingly worried about the direction that FFXIV's content is headed in.

First there was Darkhold: a spamable dungeon with a 100% chance to get loot at the end from each chest. Everyone had full sets of everything from that dungeon within a month easily, then sat around twiddling their thumbs waiting for new content again.

Next there was Ifrit: a spamable fight with instanced chests so everyone got a chance to get an item. Problem is, it's a random item so you might not even be able to use it. It was incredibly frustrating when within our first 10 runs our tank got the staff and I got the sword. We'd love to have traded, but the items drop directly into our inventories so we can't even help our friends. So you have a low chance of getting a drop (let's be generous and say 10%) with a 1/7 (14%) chance on top of that that it's the drop you want. That's a 1.4% chance of getting the item you want. Later on they added Inferno Totems so you could save up for an item you actually wanted or pass the totem to your friend to help them get something they wanted. Good idea, but the problem again is that it's a random chance drop with a lower end drop rate and you need 10 of them.

Next was Moogle, another spamable fight whose loot system was a carbon copy of Ifrit's and has the same problems because of it.

Followed by Aurum Vale and Cutter's Cry: spamable dungeons with abysmally low drop rates. One of the absolute worst types of content in any MMO in my opinion. It's a cheap and lazy way to prolong content and create faux difficulty. The sad part about this is I loved Aurum Vale and liked Cutter's Cry (except for Chimera because of the fact that melee are practically worthless during the fight, but that's a different discussion). The dungeons were cool and had interesting mechanics in them that made them stand out. But then they were ruined by the fact that they were spamable. Darklight has such an abysmally low drop rate that players have to spam the dungeon for a chance at it. This is not fun. This is tedious and burns players out on these dungeons really really quickly.

Next of course came Garuda: Another spamable fight with practically the same loot mechanics as Ifrit and Moogle and has the same problem of the instanced chests dropping items directly to your inventory. But Garuda had one major difference: 100% totem drop rate. This was a step in the right direction. Viable progress every run towards your goal item. I would have preferred if they just had the weapons drop to your loot list so you can pass them, but it was at least something.

Finally we have Hamlet Defense: more spamable content with abysmally low drop rates. The militia gear isn't even all that great for battle classes. There are a few nice pieces, but it's hardly Darklight tier.

Then in 1.22a we got the first part of the AF weapon quests: where you need a key item from your GC that costs 25,000 seals and 3 seals: one from each hamlet defense. When I first heard about this, I was very happy with it. Finally, something that rewarded effort over luck. But alas, it was not so. After buying the GC key item I started doing level 2 Hamlet Defenses and found out to get the seals it was once again spamable content with abysmally low drop rates on top of the fact that chances are you're only going to get one to drop at a time if you do manage to get lucky, and you need one from all 3 hamlets. So once again it's mostly luck based: You have to wait so once every 3 days you can try for a specific hamlet, hope that the server has turned in enough supplies to turn it over to level 2, hope that when you clear that the seal drops from the chest then hope it drops to your inventory or to the inventory of someone who's willing to pass it to you. Then you have to do this 3 times.

And this is what worries me. Every single bit of endgame content we have right now is spamable. Because it's spamable, if they want to make the items you obtain by doing this content be "rare," it must have low drop rates. If it didn't, everyone would have full sets of everything again and there would be no sense of pride for getting gear because it's common. The problem is, this content does not reward skillful play or effort. The content instead rewards people who are lucky. That is it.

I want content that rewards skillful play and effort more than luck. Enough with the spamable content with abysmally low drop rates. Implement 1-3 day lockouts on content and dramatically increase drop rates. For something like Cutter's and Aurum Vale, I would have loved to see it be a 2 day lockout with each chest at the end having about a 35% drop rate on Darklight gear. If you do a 5 chest speed run, you have a pretty high chance of seeing at least one piece which keeps people motivated to keep doing the dungeon. The dungeon doesn't get stale because you're locked out for 2 days so you're not spamming it 8 times a night. The content stays viable for just as long as it is now, it's just much less tedious and frustrating.

The problem with lockouts of course is the fact that once you're waiting on your lockout, you don't have much to do. The thing is though, if everything we had right now had lockouts, there would be plenty to do. Aurum Vale on cooldown? Do Cutter's. That too? Garuda. Moogle. Ifrit. Hamlet Defense, hell, even Darkhold and Toto-rak for seals! If they had lockouts as well then perhaps people would do leves and chocobo escorts more! (I think they need a buff in rewarded seals for sure though, but that's another topic). By the time you finish all of that content, it'll be close to 2 days so you'll be able to start again soon.

So please SE, I'm begging you, move away from the "spamable content + abysmally low drop rate" model for everything. IT IS NOT FUN.