Casual players leaving for frustration or hardcore players leaving from boredom.

[Mixxy]

OP, what about people who just play the game for fun? Personally, I don't care how difficult the game is. I'm not playing an MMO for bragging rights. I only care if they've found a way to make it fun. FFXIV is about as easy as a major MMO can get, but its also a great amount of fun. So if you want pure difficulty, you could go play one of those awful Korean MMOs. You know, the ones where it takes 8 months to get to max level and you need the best gear in the game to do the easiest content in the game? Those aren't very fun though.

tldr: Quality > Difficulty

[rhemi1]

OP, what about people who just play the game for fun?

'Fun' is an entirely subjective beast and to many people, fun is doing difficult content with your friends and getting good rewards for your hard work, while always having something to do in the game to progress your character.

These people don't have fun when they log into the game on Monday, down all 5 turns of Coil in an hour, then log out for the week because they have nothing else to do in the game. ARR needs some content, and it needs it fast. 5-6 encounters every 3 months just isn't going to cut it without a lot of supplementary content to compliment it, and that's really where ARR lacks.

[Nadrojj]

OP, what about people who just play the game for fun? Personally, I don't care how difficult the game is. I'm not playing an MMO for bragging rights. I only care if they've found a way to make it fun. FFXIV is about as easy as a major MMO can get, but its also a great amount of fun. So if you want pure difficulty, you could go play one of those awful Korean MMOs. You know, the ones where it takes 8 months to get to max level and you need the best gear in the game to do the easiest content in the game? Those aren't very fun though.

tldr: Quality > Difficulty

^ This opinion is the reason why we have the ff14 we have. Catering to people who play the game for fun, not bragging rights. While there's nothing wrong with that it seems that SE/Yoshi are scared to add content that hardcore players want because casuals will say it's too hard and leave. The are better off taking the casual easy route and making more money by retaining more casuals than adding hardcore content and losing casuals when they get fed up because they can't beat said content.

[Zell]

^ This opinion is the reason why we have the ff14 we have. Catering to people who play the game for fun, not bragging rights. While there's nothing wrong with that it seems that SE/Yoshi are scared to add content that hardcore players want because casuals will say it's too hard and leave. The are better off taking the casual easy route and making more money by retaining more casuals than adding hardcore content and losing casuals when they get fed up because they can't beat said content.

I think the content is hard but maybe i just suck. Took me 40 tries to beat Titan Extreme. Took me 20 tries to beat Garuda extreme. Took me 5 tries (as tank) to beat Ifrit Extreme. Took us 3 weeks on Turn 4. It's been 3 weeks on Twintania and furthest we've gotten is Snakes. This seems to be pretty challanging... but again, maybe we just arn't that good. Or maybe we're worse than the average player.

[Nero]

I think the content is hard but maybe i just suck. Took me 40 tries to beat Titan Extreme. Took me 20 tries to beat Garuda extreme. Took me 5 tries (as tank) to beat Ifrit Extreme. Took us 3 weeks on Turn 4. It's been 3 weeks on Twintania and furthest we've gotten is Snakes. This seems to be pretty challanging... but again, maybe we just arn't that good. Or maybe we're worse than the average player.

No worries.. the majority has not beaten T5, a lot of people did not even enter Coil yet at all. There is no rating which would say "hey, you are an average player". As long as you enjoy playing with your mates and enjoy the content, that makes you a "better" player then the usual elitist prick. But that's just how i see it, other people probably have an different opinion.

TDLR: Tho not the majority, SE need to feed the hardcore to keep the game alive.

That is straight bullshit. Neither the Hardcore or the Casuals are the ones keeping the Game alive. Those who are pay the Game monthly are the ones who keep the Game alive and those can be from both groups, or none of them and just be an "average", which is probably the biggest part of the community. And also.. dps calculations are not exclusive made by "hardcore" players, they are made by people into those kind of Stuff. I know a couple of them and they are not really hardcore, they just like math lol.

[Nadrojj]

I think the content is hard but maybe i just suck. Took me 40 tries to beat Titan Extreme. Took me 20 tries to beat Garuda extreme. Took me 5 tries (as tank) to beat Ifrit Extreme. Took us 3 weeks on Turn 4. It's been 3 weeks on Twintania and furthest we've gotten is Snakes. This seems to be pretty challanging... but again, maybe we just arn't that good. Or maybe we're worse than the average player.

It's all relative, it's a learning curve for sure. Once you get the mechanics down with your group you'll be able to clear it first try every time. We got stuck on road blocks along the way (admittedly we haven't beat t5, but that's mainly because once the news about the echo came out people just decided they'd rather not put the time in to beat it before the nerf, which makes me wish they never announced the echo) we took a few weeks to learn titan and clear, a few weeks on t4, but once we got it down we were fine. Once you start clearing this stuff you'll see it's not that difficult, just takes coordination and making sure no one really screws up. I was more referring to the fact that they need more engaging content, more grind type content to keep players engaged. Open world content, no more dungeons, rare monsters, rare drops, things like this keep players logging in hoping to get their hands on items. 14 has none of that right now, everyone is i90 myth/allagan, and you'll see the same thing next patch, everyone will be wearing a mix of the same stuff. Nothing to really set you apart from your peers, and that's a shame. While players hated it the open world 24 hours spawns in final fantasy 11 kept players logging in for years, just for a shot at a rare item. While I don't want to see that exact model introduced, if they did something along these lines it would't be a "monday" game.

The issue I have with them catering the game more toward casuals is that they have players who want to play this and want to put in a ton of time, there is just nothing for them to do.

[Athol]

^ This opinion is the reason why we have the ff14 we have. Catering to people who play the game for fun, not bragging rights. While there's nothing wrong with that it seems that SE/Yoshi are scared to add content that hardcore players want because casuals will say it's too hard and leave. The are better off taking the casual easy route and making more money by retaining more casuals than adding hardcore content and losing casuals when they get fed up because they can't beat said content.

I play this game casually. I mostly craft and I hope they add more challenging content for you guys. I have zero interest in hardcore mmo grinding this game and it has allowed me to enjoy it a lot. No mmo is perfect and they seem to be doing a good job developing this game.

[Morticous]

^ This opinion is the reason why we have the ff14 we have. Catering to people who play the game for fun, not bragging rights. While there's nothing wrong with that it seems that SE/Yoshi are scared to add content that hardcore players want because casuals will say it's too hard and leave. The are better off taking the casual easy route and making more money by retaining more casuals than adding hardcore content and losing casuals when they get fed up because they can't beat said content.

some of us don't feel like faceroll easy is fun.

[Anty]

^ This opinion is the reason why we have the ff14 we have. Catering to people who play the game for fun, not bragging rights. While there's nothing wrong with that it seems that SE/Yoshi are scared to add content that hardcore players want because casuals will say it's too hard and leave. The are better off taking the casual easy route and making more money by retaining more casuals than adding hardcore content and losing casuals when they get fed up because they can't beat said content.

i would consider myself causal even though i play quite a lot. I also do coil here and there. - i wouldnt say its super hard though. It all comes down to teamwork and ppl doing their jobs, but nothing special imo.
But i think the devs think that causals all lobotomized ppl. that cannot react and start crying if they dont get geared up within a week...