It's a bit of a side-note, but it's something that I always try to keep in mind about the nature of conflict in stories. Conflict is almost always character driven. What I mean by that is that conflict is usually the result of two or more (or one, if we're talking about internal conflict) characters interacting either directly or indirectly. Those characters, or aspects of the same character, each have objectives -- NEEDS. And good conflict is best developed from the collision of those needs. Example:
Single mother goes to the grocery store, dragging her kid along. The child, who looks unhealthy and thin, is throwing a tantrum while they shop. She eyes a few items, then puts them back. When she rolls up to the check out line, her cart is filled with cheap canned goods and such, and the cart is mostly empty. She looked at a lot of things, but took very little.
Meanwhile, a young woman has a fight with her father at their home, because the father is refusing to apply for medicare to get support so that he can get insulin for his diabetes. She tries to talk sense into him, and he derides her, insults her, and chases her out of the house. She's still wiping her eyes when she gets to her workplace: she's a cashier at the grocery store. When she arrives, she is yelled at by her boss for being late, and reminded that she's on thin ice and if she screws up today, she'll be fired.
The stories collide. The single mother notices that the man in front of her isn't able to use his food stamps at that store any more: it's a new store policy, and the cashier girl's hands are tied. The mother looks panicked. She leaves the line, stuffs a few cans of food into her purse, and tries to bolt for the door. The cashier girl notices and stops her. They struggle ...
... and how the conflict resolves here isn't the point. The point is that we can infer that the single mother was planning on paying for her groceries with food stamps. We understand her need and obstacles -- she needs to feed her son, and her son is pushing her to the limits of her patience by being an unhappy and unruly child.
We can infer that the cashier girl NEEDS her job, because she's planning on using the money to help take care of her Dad. We get that her Dad and her boss are obstacles, challenging her to stay on her altruistic path.
What results is a conflict between mother and daughter, strangers, where the emotional stakes are high for both of them. This situation, however mundane, is a matter of life and death. Not every scene needs to be that intense, but the stronger the stakes, the better the conflict.
We can get all of that without those characters ever clearly stating their needs in the script or story. And that's the sort of story that I love the most. Those first two scenes that lay out the clues as to what's going on in the background for those two characters are absolutely imperative to sell the moment of conflict. We have to care about both of them.
And so, I never mind a good slow burn ... so long as the build-up is actually meaningful towards what comes next. Scenes that don't plant seeds to be used later on can sometimes hurt the pacing of a good story ... but so long as you're gardening, and you're not being too on the nose about it, it really can be effective.
That's a bit of a rant/sidetrack, but hopefully it helps! 
TL;DR The pacing only suffers, in my opinion (only!), when your scenes aren't planting seeds that will pay off when conflict happens later on in the story. And seeds are best planted in such a way that lets the readers discover them through inference, rather than spelling it out directly.
