How is this game different, though? Hunting for a weapon with perfect numbers because it is a few percent above the one you have now hardly constitutes for “gear treadmill”, in the first place. It won’t bar you from accessing any content, even Havoc content, like this. And however stupid it is, it still generates some happy moments and give all you do ingame some sense, in a long run. And “stupid people’s” money still as good as yours when it’s time for FS to pay the servers upkeep bills. They are better actually - as those are much, much more numerous than “smart people”. It’s also funny that you seem to have some grudge against dopamine - while playing a game the sole purpose of which being the dopamine generation lol. As if an extra source of it, even if it’s for some people, is something bad.
But out of curiosity: what is your recipe for keeping an average player interested in the game, achieving said “player retention”, then? Besides “honing your skills” or climibing some rating ladders, which never will work as incentive for majority of players in any game, for reasons I described above (they simply won’t be good enough for that matter a dime to them, due to different limitations they have). Honestly, I wouldn’t even dare to unironically suggest something like that to any of my friends, as in 90% of cases I would become a laughing stock. “Becoming better at game” as a life goal could work in our 20s, now it’s just a game, one of many, definitely something much less important than any of our IRL matters.