Every inconvenience is a challenge.

[Peptaru]

Overcoming harship and inconvenient things itself is not fun. If you only focus on this little aspect, you're ignoring the most important reasons we play games in the first place.

We all play video games of various types because we have different tastes. Even those of us who play the same game have different tastes and are drawn to different parts of the game. But I'd say, for the majority of players, we play because, for whatever reason, we enjoy it.

To say then, for every player, the overcoming of inconvenience is a common source of enjoyment is so blatantly false. If you can't understand this then you're probably factoring in other things that typically come as a result of overcoming certain tasks.

Suppose there is some obstacle on a path. If there is nothing at the end of the blocked path, what reason is there for you to expend your time and effort to circumvent the obstacle? This thread makes the case that clearing the obstacle alone is fun...

Now, suppose there is a reward on the otherside of the obstacle. Clearing the obstacle itself does NOT become fun when a reward is added. All the obstacle can do at this point is add meaning and significance to the reward in proportion to the difficulty of overcoming the obstacle.

If you are following this post so far, then you might have already realized this, but... here's the big revelation:

Clearing an obstacle is only fun, when the actual act of clearing that obstacle is actually fun.

Allow me to paraphrase: People don't want to do work. People want instant gratification.
I love clearing obstacles to see IF there is a reward for doing it, but everyone wants to just go online, find out if there is a reward, precisely what the reward is, if they think it'd be worth showing off as town gear, then choose to clear or not clear the obstacle.... the joy of exploring and putting in some work, which i'd guess most true FF fans still feel, has died in too many people.