We have midcore content... just too little too late.

[Raoabolic]

Honestly, yes. This has been a thing with MMOs from way before WoW. You put in the grind to get the reward. MMOs have always been Skinner Boxes from day one.

The journey is the MSQ, everything else is side content that is optional so it needs worthwhile rewards.

And the question shouldn't be why should you help with new X when Y drops better, but why doesn't new X drop at least equal to Y as a horizontal progression.

"horizontal progression"
FFXI and GW1 miss ya~!
But obviously we can't have horizontal progression in this game for obvious reasons. Same reasons why classes/jobs have to be balanced to the point of homogenization. Besides, this is SE's yen tree. Why disrupt the formula when there are more than enough happy with the current situation. The forums are just a fraction of the actual playerbase, I would love to see the numbers of active players that use the mogshop and the active posters here. I would bet that the mogshop users outnumber the posters, it's just a situation of majority rules. Sorry. :/

[MonteCristo]

"horizontal progression"
FFXI and GW1 miss ya~!
But obviously we can't have horizontal progression in this game for obvious reasons. Same reasons why classes/jobs have to be balanced to the point of homogenization. Besides, this is SE's yen tree. Why disrupt the formula when there are more than enough happy with the current situation. The forums are just a fraction of the actual playerbase, I would love to see the numbers of active players that use the mogshop and the active posters here. I would bet that the mogshop users outnumber the posters, it's just a situation of majority rules. Sorry. :/

This sums it up perfectly