What content cycle do people think the game was 'ruined'?
Was it Sortie, Ody, Aeonic Weapons, Omen, Dyna-D?
This should have been it's own thread.
I'm not sure if you can point at one piece of content and blame it for everything that's wrong now.
Bad design decisions that aren't popular with the community like sparse entry KIs, shared loot pool, bland zones for rehashed content, time gates, stretching content way past it's sweet spot in terms of effort/reward ratio and overall a way too large gap between what you can achieve solo and with a group.
Omen: didn't like the fodder part even if you went for a boss run, otherwise decent
Dyna-D: even without alliance gathering and loot distribution it takes too damn long, incredibly sluggish and laggy.
Geas fete: Almost as good as abyssea and among the better content. Liked the idea of aeonics even tho I would have wished for more lenience for job compositions on the Tier 4+ NMs.
Odyssey: Requiering 3 main jobs, the whole idea of farming points just to be able to farm more different points, moogle mastery level ups take way too long and should have been more efficiently aquiered solo than with a group, for example by chest opening with THF main.
Sortie: Zero hints - once you've finished about half a bachelor degree in order to know what they expect you to do it's kind of fun... for about 15-20 runs.
I think they also scratched a lot of solo players the wrong way when they announced job adjustments and then left a couple of jobs out of the update cycle or by ignoring the entire trust system.
"Balance" adjustments that couldn't have been more blunt and uninspired like the nuke wall, astral conduit or geo bubble nerfs.
All that adds up to where we are now.