So much of what you detailed is occupied primarily by stutter subbers and casuls. Those aren't good revenue avenues
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I know to you casuals are basically irrelevant but doesn't stop them from existing and encompassing a large portion of the playerbase. They're also here providing ways for people to spend their time that aren't interested in hardcore content. That's why there's literally pages and pages and pages of venue ads and social activities (Aether is a great example) even during dead periods. If no one was there supporting said venues and providing them income then they wouldn't be covering the PF like a monsoon every day.
You do realise that the casuals and stutter subbers make up the greatest revenue share in online games? That's why studios focus so much on accommodating them and making their games accessible to that audience. Its also why the really casual friendly MMO's like XIV are thriving while the really hardcore ones struggle. XIV's community is largely made up of casual and what you might describe as midcore players, so this idea you have that the hardcore endgame playerbase is core and SE needs to bend to their will is really off base.
Mentor by the way
https://i.imgur.com/u3opGcB.png
Why is crafting mentor a thing anyway?
What do you teach people? how to make a macro?
I don't care for any kind of mentor, but crafting mentors you really don't want advice from.
Whenever I get a crafting mentor 99% ott they play worse than sprouts..
These days the people I encounter with questions prefer to just use macros compared to being taught so most of the time I'm just asked to send them to a website that has them. Crafting needs to be made harder if Square wants mentors to have a use aside from a middle man to macros.