This...

[Chrysania]

Question barrage, not necessarily to you only:
Do you think the majority of players are these lazy people? Do you think SE would get a wider audience by catering to them? Do you think it'd be healthy for the long-term commitment and the mentality of the community?

I'm asking this because I don't quite know the answer myself. I just would personally enjoy it more if there were actual challenges to overcome.

I think there should be more challenges, but those challenges should be ACTUAL challenges; better/more complex fates, perhaps even combat-lite puzzle dungeons/dynamic events.

Things that rely less on mindless grind. Its entirely doable, but churning out grind content is roughly the equivalent of making bologna sandwiches and calling it 'lunch'. Yes, its technically food, just like grind content is technically content, but its garbage. Its junk. Its not healthy for anyone; its filler.

A bologna sandwich will prevent you from starving to death. Grind content will prevent you from literally having nothing to do.

But that's it.

If we're talking quality challenge, I'd love to see more of it.

If we're talking herp-derp grind, then I cannot call that challenge, as the only challenge incumbent is the challenge of tolerating it.

Which is exactly the kind of challenge this game does not need more of.

My take: Most players are not lazy. Most just aren't total, slobbering idiots and will do the most time-effective, cost-efficient activities they can reasonably do to secure advancement, irrespective of just how that manifests.

The problem is that people are NOT stupid or lazy. They figure out how to efficiently level to max and nuke all the content far more quickly than developers seem to ever expect. Its been happening so long that you'd think they'd expect it by now, but they never quite seem to. Or, at least, they never seem even vaguely prepared for it, despite it being as predictable as a sunrise.

I think people want to be engaged, but they don't want to have their time wasted. They don't want to be frustrated.

Everyone has what I call a 'grind tolerance'. Some people have more grind tolerance than others, some less. Some have high tolerance for specific sorts of grinds, none at all for others; some have none at all for any of it.

MMO developers should not be trying to include so much grind that they're taxing damn near everyone's grind tolerances. They should, if they had any business calling themselves game designers with anything resembling pride at all, be firstly and foremostly trying to make their game so damn fun that you; all of you; will want to play it.

But that's hard. It takes creativity. It's called expensive, but hey, failure's moreso. Lets ask SE how 'cheap and easy' it was to rebuild XIV here because they went with such cheap and easy dependence on grindy, boring garbage in 1.0.

The grind is not cheap. Its like a bologna sandwich. It might seem cheap and easy right now, but stuff yourself with that crap and you'll create problems for yourself that are anything but cheap and easy to resolve. And might not be resolvable at all; some damage is permanent.

So no. We're not lazy. We're just not stupid.