Sev Alcatraz wrote: It feels like a job
This is the worst aspect of PC. From talking with other alliance leaders and other folks players are running themselves ragged. Sure folks may have made the mistake of taking on too many districts, but it's getting to the point where enemies aren't even showing up to fight.
The land rush was probably the worst aspect of the whole thing. In hindsight CCP should have just in stealth mode changed it to where Corps could only land 1 or 2 districts, so we wouldn't have ended up with all of the alt corp BS that was an initial concern or massive land grabs by single entities. There are now people that would like to be in PC, but don't feel like sinking 160 to 240 million plus just to secure one spot that will get crushed by the bigger groups.
Right now the only way to be involved in PC is if you want to fight to own land, which is unsustainable. Faction Warfare isn't robust enough or different enough from pub matches to capture the attention for long of serious corps that want to duke it out with other player corporations. Faction Warfare needs to focus on organized player groups making pushes for the empire of their choosing, and there also needs to be ways for smaller groups to attack districts in PC for ISK or resources and NOT for ownership. There is also no progression to taking a district it's just the same fight repeated 2 to 3 times.
If your corp or organization gets pushed out of PC land ownership there really isn't anywhere to go. I watched organizations get removed from PC and then have their numbers drop by the thousands. You then end up with these experienced, high power players flooding into Instant Battle and kicking the crap out of newer players, which makes the new guys want to leave the game. A vicious cycle has been created that does nothing but drive people from the game. If you are successful you get burned out and if you aren't successful you just get pushed out of the game. There has to be more to Dust than two game modes. There has to be more progression than there is now. Honestly, there just has to be more.
The problems are deeper than that though. I don't think CCP has turned a deaf ear (CCP Nullarbor and CCP FoxFour among others have been champs making the changes they can to improve the system). Right now there are so many significant issues with the core gameplay that the larger picture like planetary conquest and faction warfare can't get the attention they need.