Quote Originally Posted by Kaurhz View Post
Like I also said in my initial post... People were actually wanting -- and expecting to have a reason to play the game.
When I say, people get surprised this is an MMO is because any attempt to step-up the difficulty, the grind or to strengthen it as an MMO is met with anger from the community.

As an example I cited a lot, Leveling Dungeons were slightly faster, and one single expert had a creative and funny boss fight in the beginning, people were angry at Yoshi P catering towards the HARDCORES, because he said before DT came out that he was getting inspired by Elden Ring. IDK if it's an MMO or a 14 player thing, but people are super reactionary, it makes the conversations around this game really hard to engage in.

All the systems you described and remember so fondly if implemented today would make the community stomp their feet in rage. I know that I used to like the systems that were in place in Stormblood, but my friends who joined during the ShB drought think I'm a boomer talking nonsense when I mention how butchered the game became after Shadowbringers. They think that all of this was just an improvement.