There are quite a few things I believe this post is confused about, especially when it comes to the comparison between TLRs, raids, and gyms, so I will try to address them.
1) Gyms have a fixed amount of challenges - TLRs and raids don't: Aside from the uncommon circumstance of Gamefreak creating new types (something which insofar happened only two times in over 20 years), the number of gyms is set in stone. Even if it takes, say, 2 months per gym (3 years to finish all 18 gyms, or more realistically 2 years to finish as many gyms as needed to get the main rewards), a player can rest easy knowing that, in a certain sense, he's not "racing against the game". He can spread his effort throughout many years, and yet he is not going to risk falling behind new content.
The same is obviously not true with TLRs and raids, however. Every 3-4 years, a new generation is released, and with it, at least 6 or so legends (often as much as double that number). Similarly, new raids come out as time passes, with a new expansion coming out every 2 or so years (depending on how lazy/aggressive top raiders are, ofc^^). Which means that, in regards to TLRs and raids, the risk of falling behind new content (and being unable to experiment all of it - or even a good portion of it) is a reality for most players. Whether this risk is considered acceptable or not is ofc controversial, but it's there, and it makes the comparison with gyms more tenous than ZhengTann assumed.
2) Gyms and raids do not mostly hold rewards which can greatly affect ASB play - TLRs do: Most of the prizes on the Gym ladder are luxury goods, such as counters and whatnot, which you can get somewhere else anyway. The only rewards which are more exclusive are:
1) TLR rewards, which of course only matter if one is interested in TLRs themselves (and indirectly in the rest of ASB, of course, but this is more of an issue with TLR themselves, not Gyms)
2) Raid Heirlooms, most of which can be obtained within the first 8 badges and which only matter if you are actually interested in raids - and besides, as I've stated many times, no Raid Boss has ever been designed (or ever will) with Heirlooms in mind
3) Heart Scales, which can be obtained as soon as the 3rd badge (not an unreasonable effort, by any means)
4) Victini
Out of these rewards, only Victini stands out as having a direct impact on your ASB performance AND being quite inaccessible for a long time. But it is just one legend, so I'm pretty sure that unless you are a Victini enthusiast, you can live with that.
As for raids, the only rewards you get from raids which you can use outside raids are, well, normal counters. CC, EC, MC, AC, KOC... People who play raids do it because they like raids, not because they are forced to in order to obtain a reward they need for something else. Again, in this sense, they are nothing like TLRs (or even Gyms, really).
TLRs, naturally, are the culprit here. They have a very exclusive set of rewards - legendaries. Most of them can only be obtained in said TLRs - except for occasional tourneys which generally do not reward you the legend(s) you are looking for specificially. This means that what TLRs do, how they are organized, is much more of an "other people's business" than raids (or even Gyms) could possibly be.
3) Flexible endgame content should have compensating mechanisms: This ofc does not touch gyms because (as noted in point 1), there is a fixed number of gyms available. But it does concern TLRs and raids, and it's interesting to show how the two RPs handled these issues differently.
The problem with raids is pretty self-explanatory: for every new expansion which comes out, it becomes harder and harder for new players to experience it. The fact each expansion has tougher bosses, which require better artifacts, means a new player has no hopes of "jumping in" and experience end-game content right off the bat. It is a similar issues many other MMORPG out there face (such as the (in)famous World of Warcraft my RP is inspired to), so it is nothing new or unexpected.
So, unsurprisingly, I decided to handle this issue in the same way they have. Basically, as each expansion comes out, I introduce "compensatory measures" which makes game progression faster than it previously was. For example:
1) Stormrage Mountain raids now drop Badges of Justice (which used to be exclusive to Isles of Lost Relics raids)
2) Previously locked bosses (like Regigigas) can now be accessed and fought even if you have not completed the previous requirements
3) Extra raids and quest have been added (such as Raging Shore) with the sole reason of speeding up the process of getting to Revered/Exalted reputation and get useful artifacts for the next expansion
4) Several IoLR bosses on Normal mode have been nerfed upon releasing the next expansion, in order to allow newer player to have a better shot at them
All these measures serve a very apparent purpose. As the number of raids increases, having players finish them all becomes less and less realistic. At the same time, newer players who find themselves cut out from the possibility of experiencing the newer content may feel discouraged from playing altogether. So, I sacrifice the "old difficulty" of these bosses in order to give newer player a fairer chance at experiencing the same content veterans do.
Now, what about TLRs? Of course, to some extent, the issue is a bit less dire with them, because without artifact progression, you can take on TLRs in whatever order you choose to. However, it would be a mistake to believe that this means TLRs do not pose this issue, at all. Think, for example, of the number of legendaries the veterans have. I personally have seven legendaries (all acquired through TLRs), and a few people who've been around for as long as I have can boast similar numbers. But a person who just joined, say, 1-2 year ago, has absolutely no hope of catching up (unless the old vets stop playing or something I suppose?). Sure, you may be able to catch all the legendaries I currently have, for example. But by the time you have, I will have caught many more. It may take a decade or more before the initial difference no longer matters much.
Now, some of you may think "Who cares if newer players can never catch up?" Then tell me: why have we NEVER applied this same philosophy in ASB as a whole? Maybe some of you have not noticed but, since ASB's inception, we have introduced a HUGE number of measures with the specific intent of making it easier for newer players to catch up. Here's a sample (I'm not even sure if I can list them all):
- We have increased the number of starting Egg and TM moves to 5 for freshmons, up from 3 each
- We have reduced the MC cost of past gen TMs/tutors, Egg moves, and event/anime moves to 2, down from 3
- We have abolished the extra CC cost for buying single-stage Pokemon, as well as making nature changes cheaper in comparison
- We have released held items outside the Battle Subway and other RPs which originally had exclusivity over them
- We reduced the CC cost of training items to 6, down to 20, and eventually gave a free set of them to new players
- We took a more favourable stance towards flash matches, whereas we used to frown upon them as an excessively cheap way of training mons
And the list goes on. The combined effect is that players entering ASB today can actually hope, within 1-2 years at most, to build a roster comparable to the ones of old veterans (excluding the veterans' legends, of course!). Which brings me to the question:
Why would legends not count at all in this philosophy?
I can understand that legends are supposed to be "special", "exclusive", or whatever. And I fully agree that some legends are so powerful that they could dramatically alter the ASB metagame if a lot of people owned them. But it is hard to advocate for the former concern when we are speaking of legendaries which have been available (both in generational and TLR-release-time terms) for years, and that are so weak that most of them are C-viability rating, at most. I am talking, here, of stuff such as Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Raikou, Entei, Suicune, and so on.
I'm not asking, here, to give them out for free. Nobody would want that. And I'm not asking to give them out in an easier challenge than TLRs, either. But, we could consider giving them out in a less time consuming way (while still keeping them available in TLRs as they used to be), so that people can obtain them while still pursuing the newer, or more prized, content in TLRs. I'm pretty sure this is something we can all agree on - and not just in regards to UBs.
One last word about content going neglected. I speak here as the developer of the Raid Zone, so cut me some slack for possibly sounding a bit haughty. The truth is, I spend a lot of the time designing, playtesting, and personally reffing the content I make for players, without anybody helping me in any shape or form. I do care about the stuff I design. But I have the common sense of understanding that, as time passes, some of the content I have designed will be eventually "forgotten", in that nobody will ever play it again (well, at least, not unless overgeared).
Among these "neglected" raids there are some I personally loved to design and play, such as Eye of the Storm and Shrine of the Old Gods. Heck, some of the raids have not even been played in both modes, despite the fact I did spend hours playtesting each mode (which means hours over hours of my work still are, and prolly will forever be, useless). And yet, you don't see me whining about this all over the place, or putting my designer petty needs over players' enjoyment. It is sort of like being a Dungeon Master in a Dungeons&Dragons group: in order to be prepared for everything, and offering real choices to your players, you end up designing a lot of stuff which, one way or the other, will go unused. This happens even in professional game designing. A lot of what designers do does not make it to the final product. Or it does, but it becomes forgotten after a few years of new content. But that's part of the job. If you cannot accept it, frankly, you should quit designing job altogether. Not TLR design, but design PERIOD.
EDIT: Incidentally, Endless's post above me pretty much sums up my point about newer players quite damn well