Quote Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor View Post
A lot do. Or rather they care about the proverbial carrot. Take away mounts from the extreme primals and I guarantee each and every single one will be dead content within a month; two tops. How many people complain about running the same two dungeons? If they could hit 2000 Scripture in a week and gear up their main job. How often do you think they'll keep running those same dungeons? I barely run them even with the tomestone restrictions. It's simple human nature. Most people won't do something unless they are in some way benefited. At least not consistently. No matter how nice and helpful someone may be, eventually they'll get tired. And this doesn't even take into consideration crafted gear becomes completely worthless. Who's going to buy gear of the market board for thousands when they can spam Gubal Hard ten times? What about Alex Normal. Clear it once and just spam dungeons for Scriptures. Even if you bump everything up to 260, people will then farm whatever happens to be fastest.

None of this insinuates players only play for gear. It merely posits most won't run content 20-30-50 times for no reason other than "the dungeon looks pretty."

A perfect example are the 24 man raids. Crystal Tower was dead content until the Anima forced us all back into it. How many people would run Void Ark/Weeping/Dun Scaith if they could get everything they wanted in a couple weeks-- less if they're willing to farm?
It's really not possible to have a productive conversation on this topic if you want to keep conflating the specific issue of gear with the broader concept of having any reason whatsoever to do the content. Ponies are decidedly not gear related and are the perfect example of things that will keep people doing content even if you let them gear up quickly and easily. There are still pony farm groups, actual pony farms, not birds, even to this day. The gear is worthless, but the cosmetic reward never loses value so long as there are people who don't have it and want it. Gear is a very temporary incentive even at the best of times.