I don't think most know what GRIND can/does mean...
Grinding is doing the same thing over and over. Simple, right?
People are complaining about the grind, so people say :
"LOL ITS AN MMO IT WILL HAVE GRIND!"
Yeah, duh. That's not our issue with the GRIND. Our issue is that the grind is boring.
PSA: Did you know that grinding can be fun? It CAN! Here's how:
"Repeatedly killing the same mob over and over is a grind. So is grinding out the same 10 dungeons over and over. Guess which one has more variety, more fluff, more flair, more fun?" If you can't figure out the answer to that question, then you believe grind can only mean one thing.
Next argument:
"YOU JUST WANT TO RUSH TO THE MAX LEVEL!!!!"
Uh, no? Did we say that? No, we didn't. In fact, most of us would be perfectly fine with the level grind taking 300+ hours, so long as it was ENGAGING and FUN and INTERESTING while we do it. But? If the level grind took 300+ hours and all you can do is kill the same mob over and over and over...suddenly its not FUN. We don't want to DO that.
Too many of you think that old school grinding is acceptable in today's MMORPG standards. It isn't. People have tried to make it work with other games, it fails, every time. There's a reason Korean grinders hardly work in the western audience, and if they come over here, they have to nerf it to make it not so damn boring.
Guess what? The main story quest line is a grind! But it's not as apparent.
You're grinding quests out in the main story. Go here, talk to this person, do this, collect this item, kill this boss, kill this enemy, turn this in. Rinse repeat. But guess what? It keeps us engaged by not making us stand in the same area, pulling the same mob, pressing the exact same buttons every second for hours and hours and hours on end.
"YOU SHOULDN'T GET ALL YOUR GEAR SO QUICKLY YOU RUSHERS!!!!!!"
No one is talking about being able to get their gear tomorrow. Or the next day, even.
The issue is that you have to grind the same thing over and over and over and over again for over a hundred hours. That's not a fun grind.
EXAMPLE:
If it took us 150 hours to get Darklight for our jobs, and we could spend those 150 hours doing any mixture of 5 dungeons, or primals, or whatever else, would it not be better than say, 150 hours of running AK over and over?
"HEY WAIT, WE CAN RUN OTHER THINGS FOR TOMES!" Yeah, but it won't take 150 hours. It'll take longer. AK is the best bang for your buck, that's why people run it. It already takes a LONG time to get your gear, and that would be okay if all the options at 50 offered the SAME amount of reward.
It's not the same reward. That's the issue. If you're going to make me farm 4 different dungeons, but one gives the reward much quicker than the other 3, which one am I going to choose? Which one will any logical or sane person choose? The quicker option. Why? Because BOTH already a long amount of TIME.
If they said, "it takes 20 hours to get your darklight if you spam run AK, or 30 hours if you spam run any of the 4 dungeons in any order that you'd like", more people would be willing to do the 30 hours. The 30 hours option would be MORE enjoyable for MANY people. It's not about the time, its about the REPETITION of VERY LITTLE CONTENT.
There's SEVERAL ways to make a grind fun. I don't see why its so bad to ASK for the grind to be fun, or why apologists have to defend Square in their boring grind just because "ITS AN MMO LOL"