>Chalking this up to modern games not having enough grinding honestly feels like exactly that kind of crab mentality itself.
Hope my post didn't come across that way. Morrowind's storyline and side-quests didn't feel grindy and learning how to break the system and level up quicker was part of the fun back then, before internet guides were a normal way to break the meta.
Skill has gotten really 'unpleasant', there's a lot of first person shooters that have features that require a lot of unnecessary discernment. Recoil that doesn't act the way it should, wikis full of extra item knowledge needed, dual monitor just for maps, hyper-precise timing and firing. A whole raft of "unfixed bugs" left in the game that you have to know. It's not so fun to be skillful at a game.
Getting through Prince of Persia in one go without resetting feels heroic. Killing some random guy in an fps because he didn't understand the recoil mechanics and getting a bunch of loot is just abusive.
I can understand people wanting skill and difficulty that feels good and willfully accomplished against the odds.
Chalking this up to modern games not having enough grinding honestly feels like exactly that kind of crab mentality itself.