Yoshi-P is still right about taking breaks to play other games

[Katashi90]

Then why release content at all? Your argument would be the same if they just stopped development all together. The only "required" content in this game is MSQ because it locks you out of alot of content if you dont do it. Everything else is optional, and your choice to do it or not. You can already value your time regardless of how much content there is or not. What you need to actually think about is valuing your money

It's live-service game that requires upholding servers, that's why they break content down into smaller patches. The social aspect is what makes it a MMORPG and they need servers for that. And just like I said, PvE content generally comes with low replayability, especially for gameplay systems that aren't action-focused. Time-gating the ability to acquire the gear, is the artificial way for them to lengthen the window for newer content releases. That's why this game has no need to make anything grindy at all. Making a content grindy only serves to time-gate newer players from accessing it when the content loses relevance. The ARR Relic grind may able to satisfy players back in those times when it was the only thing to spend their time on, but for newer players there's no way the ARR Relic weapon is worth doing compared to completing MSQ to post-Endwalker as their priority. You can't nerf its requirements either because there will be veterans whom finds it a major disrespect to the time they'd spent grinding it when it was released. And if the grind is tailored specifically towards open-world activities, sprouts will have harder time because no veteran goes their way out to do these older content without being incentivized to do so. The Duty Roulette is the perfect example of such. Every sprout has to queue their MSQ trials/dungeons(unsupported by Duty Support) and wait for long hours before Duty Roulette assigns them enough veterans to help them get a clear. No veteran goes their way out to queue for Nidhogg MSQ trial, no veteran goes their way out to queue Kugane Ohashi to see if there're any sprouts whom needed it, it's all dependent on Duty Roulette and its daily bonus rewards that makes it possible.