So the general impression that I'm beginning to take from all of the discussions raging about Exploratory Zones in the past few months is that...

Many?
Some?
A significant and non-trivial portion?

...of FFXIV players
• Actually do not enjoy playing basically any of the content that the game offers, up to and including most of the Battle content, because it's either frustrating (hard, defeats them, takes too many tries) or boring (too easy, overfamiliar, recycled systems and mechanics)

• Only do any content, if they do it at all, because they cannot resist the urge to check off checklists (even if it feels like an exhausting shopping-chore), or because they "need" it in order to do X (participate with friends, go to a zone for GPose, obtain a glamour, complete their character's narcissistic story, etc)

• Basically view content releases as a desperate excuse to keep themselves subscribed and logging in, because they don't want to leave the actual game itself / the world / their "possessions" / their character behind, and go elsewhere... even though they actually really don't like "playing" any of it very much
...Meaning that it actually, probably, barely matters "what" content is added, since a lot(?) of players won't really enjoy it either way, and will just do it "for the payoff" — and then, with great relief, stop and abandon it.

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Is this a manifestation of SE's fundamental content and systems design — that it's just not very satisfying or engaging at a basic level, no matter how they rearrange or repackage it?

Or is this a manifestation of a certain mindset of player that XIV has, for whatever reason, attracted and accumulated over time, which is reaching a critical mass to the point where the developers can just view both Island Sanctuary and Eureka as "functionally equivalent" — since they both end up as, for "a lot" of players: "I guess I'll do this because I have to, and it's something to do, and then I'm quitting it ASAP"...?

It just seems like "excitement", "enthusiasm", "because people enjoy playing it just to play it" rarely if ever seems to explain content participation. It's always based on either "1-and-done curiosity" or "tangible bribe, followed by dropping once obtained".

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Someone mentioned Normal Raids and it's like... yeah. It doesn't seem like players queue up for E3N at random just to "do it" because it's "fun". It's either 1-and-done for the Story, or grinded exactly as long as necessary to get a gear piece from the tedious tokens (and then dropped like a rock).

Would these players, functionally, even notice or care if Normal Raids were solo instances that just progressed the Story?

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Given that, how much design motivation is there, really, to even create most of the content that the game releases? Why not pare back? Why not just give up and appease people with zany scenes of Zero discovering what a bikini is, Urianger drinking from a pineapple, and Shtola being sassy again?