Quote Originally Posted by Aurida View Post
That's basically the entire crux of the argument, yeah. "This thing should be pointlessly and frustratingly difficult to gate people who aren't as dedicated and as hardcore as I am out of it; this way, when people like me do throw themselves at it for long enough, then it's impressive when we complete it, and then I and people like me can hold its related subsystems hostage."
It has nothing to do with gating you out. We simply enjoy it. You see it as tedious, we see it as satisfying when you put a lot of effort and patience into something.

Quote Originally Posted by Aurida View Post
Sorry, it's the 'selfish mindset' that everyone should be able to participate equally in the content rather than just a dedicated few? That's the 'selfish mindset' we're discussing here?
Exactly. It's not about participation, it's about fun. The casual player wants all crafting content to the type of content they find fun. The hardcore wants a tiny fraction of the crafting content to cater to their idea of fun and casual players can have the other 98%. Who's being selfish here?