2. Reduced grind //=// Zero grind. You have catch up mechanics to utilise that require extremely minimal time investment. It's not a lobby based game. It's an MMORPG. Minimised friction is a marketing strategy - not an absolute rule.

3. You can actually accomplish just that! Crafted Gear. Tomestone Gear. Duty Roulettes. Community support. All methods that require... arguably, less effort than farming dungeon loot to hand off to your friends who don't play actively. At least on an individual level. Acting like player retention isn't important in an MMORPG -regardless- of what the developer claims for marketing purposes, is... really silly. It's an ecosystem. It's not supposed to be 'one and done'. But if you want it to be that way, the forementioned systems... all facilitate that. QoL //=// Bypassing Progression.

You can quickly gear to minimum level.
You can play with your friends while doing it.
And you can take breaks, without any penalties whatsoever.

4. Dismissive rhetoric with ignorance for how it might impact the progression and engagement system as a whole.

Calling my views ‘weird’ doesn’t change the fact that I’m arguing based on how FFXIV’s systems are designed and function in practice. FFXIV strikes a deliberate balance between player engagement and accessibility — something classic FFXI and Everquest approached very differently. Both games that I've played at length, by the by. I engage with crafters and gatherers regularly, and friends who want to partake in gearing up via content. You have this twisted idea in your head that a marketing focus on QOL is the same thing as... removing all and any barriers to entry. In your mind, would we all just walk around in a lobby and insta-queue into every new piece of content, all at the same ilevel? These systems are designed promote engagement.

The only lee-way in this instance, is that, at the moment, prices on Crystal are skewed towards a full crafted set costing around.. if I had to estimate based on previous dealings, around four million? I don't really think that's a lot for an active player to jump back in and play, but you wouldn't even be paying that much if you had at least one friend or FC member that's invested into crafting - and the community is chockful of people who do -just- that. Who are happy to even toss shit away for free.

And replying to a few of the things you said to Kaurhz…

Your rotation has very little to do with your gear or stats, so that's irrelevant.
Crafted gear requires a lot of player investment and communication, along with economic growth - with entire systems surrounding it. Acting like player economic interaction in an MMORPG is some kind of irrelevant side thought is... weird.
Whatever arbitrary time investment we're talking is the bare minimum time investment it takes to grab some higher ilevel gear - in a game with plenty of catch up mechanics.

Glad to hear you spent some gil, validated other player's efforts and enjoyed your run!