Why do people avoid getting better at the game?

[Jojoya]

Ok. Finally something to work with. I was beginning to lose hope with the actual main topic getting pushed off. I can agree with possibly making trusts the story mode difficulty since they don't have roulette rewards anyways. As for some expert adjustments, I do have some input to give for it.

The first Troia boss we technically can't call a boss. It is more of a glorified sequence of trash pulls. Maybe it tests if the healer and DPS brings stuff to the tank, but regular trash wall to wall pulls already should do that.

The second boss for the latest dungeon looks intimidating with the updated teleport strikes, but is made to look like a joke with the optimized strat. All the AoE slashes are X patterns, so the center is safe for about 70 - 90% of the time. The way to bump this up in challenge is to have the AoE sometimes alternate to a cross to force players out of the center. The circles used to denote the order of teleport can be altered to show X's and +'s to give enough visual clues.

The problem goes beyond what mechanics are used in a dungeon, though.

For players to get better, they need to:
1) want to get better (instead of just wanting rewards).
2) have the physical ability to get better.
3) have resources that assist them with getting better.

The big problem is #1. How do you get players to want to improve? They're here to have fun playing a game. Put a series of obstacles with ever increasing difficulty in their way and it stops being fun to them. They quit instead (or they find ways to cheat). That's not good for a MMO that has ongoing operating costs.

Considering so much discussion revolves around better skilled players basically stuck in the same content as less skilled players for leveling alt jobs, perhaps we're tackling the problem the wrong way.

Maybe what is really needed is a second leveling path with much harder difficulty for those who want the challenge for their alt jobs. Increased XP would be the compensation for the increased difficulty.

Players who use the normal leveling paths but later decide they're ready to improve could then use the harder path to improve their skill. The increased XP may or may not be useful to them but in the situations where it isn't some other form of compensation could be found.