For incredibly obvious example of “efficiency rules everything”, check out the Old School Runescape community.

A ton of grown adults trying to recapture the childhood magic of one old ass MMO that practically anyone could play for free… by optimizing things down to the server update “tick”.

Doing things the “fun” way is sin, and looking for help getting through particularly grindy sections is liable to get you directed to the most ridiculously overoptimized solution ever that requires an absurd amount of effort to save an hour.

“The best way to tackle [LOW LEVEL GRIND] is to use [REWARD FOR UNRELATED HIGH LEVEL GRIND]. We will not discuss alternatives.”