All the hardcore MMO players here are still stuck in 2004 when MMOs were king.
Thats not the case anymore. No one cares about MMOs nowadays.
Infact, all multi-player games have burnt out their playerbase.
Take a look at how big a failure The Division 2 and Ghost Recon: Breakpoint have been. Ubisoft actually had to delay all their upcoming games to 2021-2022 because how badly both games have been received.
On another point. This game isnt growing.
So, forcing players to group in a stagnant MMO that has no future is stupid when the majority of the people are only here for the single player aspect of the game.
Also, increasing the difficulty increases the frustration. Increase the frustration for the solo players. They leave.
Once they're gone. The game goes into maintenance mode and then eventually gets shutdown. Because lets face it... There's not enough hardcore MMO players to keep this game alive.