Quote Originally Posted by Kaurie View Post
I feel like you are looking at the dev resources a little bit too simplistically. Part of the problem is not the amount of resources, but the inherent design of the game. FFXIV has shown that they have no problem pouring resources into making overly convoluted systems which would otherwise be a simple thing in other games (hall of the novice, SSS, Diadem, LoV etc.) They have the resources and the time, the issue is they have the design choice that their players will ultimately lower everything down to the lowest common demonstrator, so why create a more interesting/complex system that they'll tear apart anyway? In other words, the community will make it boring, so we'll just make it boring on release instead of wasting our time. It's a similar stance they have on anything that offers an "illusion of choice". Some people prefer it that way, I certainly don't, but that is the purposeful design that Square is taking. It has been successful, so why stop?
This, but I feel it's not just the players. Or rather, that it isn't the players at all. The players are adapting to playing the game as designed, and the use of tokens and tomes with nothing of actual use or interest in a dungeon makes for speed running and tunnel vision to be ideal. There is literally no reason to explore branched paths or do optional objectives. Waste of time. So yes, players will dumb down content, but that's because the game design is a bit dumbed down as well. Unfortunately.