None of what I say will be popular around this sub, I know others have way more tolerance for mobile games than I do and that's okay! I don't begrudge anyone for still enjoying the game. It's genuinely one of my favorite games I've ever played.
That said, I would probably still be playing if it was a single player game with a box price. I'd even prefer paying for "expansions" with each new region if that's what it takes. I love the game so much, there is genuinely SO MUCH that made me sure I wanted to be in it for the long haul, but the aggressive mobile game tactics, aggressive FOMO, artificial time gating, etc. killed my desire to keep playing.
Everything I love the most about the game is in some way ruined by it being a gacha.
Wide variety of cool characters? Ruined by only being able to play a small pool of them, since investing in even one of them takes such a ludicrous amount of time and RNG. It got to a point that when a cool character released, I just didn't care because all I could see was how long it would take to even make them playable. The breaking point for me was grinding the same domain for useable artifacts for a single character (ONE!!! CHARACTER!!!!) for 3 months straight every day and getting nothing.
Amazing and beautiful open world? Ruined by the game's philosophy of GO GO GO, every moment you're not grinding for something you are wasting resources, no time to appreciate anything when the game's pipeline hates when you do "nothing." By the time I finished all my daily and weekly chores and constant stream of time-limited events, I just wanted to go do something else so I don't burn out before I can do tomorrow's daily chores and time-limited events.
Beautiful story? I loved everything I played up to maybe halfway through Inazuma, I was stoked on the lore and the direction it seemed to be going in, I loved all the side stories and character stories and event stories... but I was just exhausted the way the game wants you to go full speed all the time. It is not a game for someone who wants to savor things at their own pace. Keep up or you will be hopelessly behind as more big chunks of game get released. It sapped all the joy out of the story for me when I had to rush everything on top of the daily chores and constant event chores making me too exhausted to pay attention properly like I wanted to.
This is never gonna happen, but if they ever released a standalone single player version of this game without all the things that killed my enthusiasm, I will be the first person in lime to pre-order the ultimate triple deluxe edition.