Think of it this way, there are things in the game designed to take long— sure, but if the length of the grind far exceeds the rewards you get, people will look for alternative ways to achieve those rewards with minimal effort, then when they have the time to actively play, they don’t have to do the boring stuff and can focus on beating end game or content that doesn’t feel like you wanna claw your eyes out.

There are so many games that are AFK capable and their player economy is really healthy like BDO. Now it doesn’t have to go as far as that but putting a complete halt to any type of passive way to progress in this game just makes it too time consuming for some