Since always?
The tier of difficulty for this game has always been dungeons > 8-mans > 24-mans > Extreme > Savage > Ultimate.
Because dungeons are the most pervasive content in this game, that is why they cannot be difficult. Everyone has to be able to do them. And considering how much difficulty some players have with not standing in the pretty, orange circles on the ground—and how much people complain when something the least bit challenging arises within the MSQ (see: Final Steps of Faith and Castrum Fluminis complaint threads)—dungeons cannot be any harder than they are now, otherwise people will start complaining that their “casual content” is too hard. Previous challenges in dungeons (see: original Pharos Sirius and Demon Wall’s bees in Amdapor Keep) were met with quite a bit of opposition and complaints until they were nerfed, and all subsequent dungeons continue the easy trend.
This is not to say I wouldn’t welcome it—I’d much rather the Expert dungeons not be easier than the Leveling dungeons, and I enjoyed the glory days of Weeping City and Dun Scaith back in HW. But this game is, at its core, a very easy game. If you want more difficult content—if you want an actual challenge—I would invite you to try Extremes, Savage, and maybe even Ultimate. That’s where you find your challenges at.
