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

[SummonerSenah]

I much prefer how FFXIV is set up over the super slow progression from FFXI, personally. It's not because I want things handed to me, but because I don't want the game to be a chore, which is what XI felt like to me. After a while I only played to RP with friends, and when they stopped playing I did as well. I find FFXIV a lot more fun to play, and that's even when my friends aren't online.

[TrystWildkey]

Do you have an example of a Boss fight in any MMO that doesn't rely on this to some extent?

You're actually helping to prove my point. Most games will rely on patterns and rotations, as you said "to some extent." My issue with ARR is that it exclusively relies on this. There's no room for even minor variations in your skill rotation, and there's no room to make a single mistake in positioning. Making the game too easy for people who are pro at patterns and motor memory, but having a huge hurdle for players who aren't pro at patterns. True, most gamers are in between those two extremes, but that's where the boredom comes in to play. Once you realize that everything is a pattern, and your rotation is exactly the same, where is the fun?

[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.

[Arkghyom]

Gimme stuff or I'll quit!

[Susanoh]

Echo buff doesn't get put in till months later. What are the players that aren't as skill suppose to do in the mean time? How long did it take to put echo buff in coil? Resort to buying runs? Terrible design is terrible. I know when I set up Titan EX I don't want to take anyone that can't dodge 99 percent of the time because how punishing it is to bring players that are not as skilled in.

Just look in your player finder from time to time and you can see how bad end game is for casuals and the less skilled.

If a fight is designed so that less skilled players can enter and be easily carried through it by others who are paying attention, then it isn't a challenging fight at all. Anything designed to be easily accessible by unskilled players is going to be absolutely steamrolled by a good group. It sounds like you'd rather just have no challenging fights in the game at all.

[Guyjin37]

To be honest, for me--a not-quite-casual, not-quite-hardcore player--my decision to continue playing or quit will ultimately come down to motivation. It has nothing to do with difficulty.

The major strike against FFXIV for me now is that everything is on rails and there is no randomness or element of chance. There is no slot machine lever to pull that can keep me interested, ultimately. I need a carrot on a stick, and like SWTOR, there is none.

What I mean is that progression is so linear. Loot is set, so if you're after a certain drop you have to fight a certain boss, and if he doesn't drop it, you just repeat until you get it. The game is completely devoid of that "jackpot!" feeling because if you put in enough time, you can quite easily accomplish any goals you want. No random factor whatsoever.

There are no rewards or random drops from world enemies, so why bother fighting anything other than in duty finder dungeons or raids? And since that is the only way I can get stronger, why should I do anything else at all? Log on, do random dungeon, do weekly raids, collect planned rewards, log off.

I enjoy leveling other classes but get bored of doing dungeons over and over.

I love upgrading my equipment as I go along but there is little variety or choice, and stats are both overly simple and very tightly controlled.

Everything is pre-planned, streamlined, and completely inorganic. It just gets stale, and once you figure out the pattern your motivation is toast.

[Doo]

If a fight is designed so that less skilled players can enter and be easily carried through it by others who are paying attention, then it isn't a challenging fight at all. Anything designed to be easily accessible by unskilled players is going to be absolutely steamrolled by a good group. It sounds like you'd rather just have no challenging fights in the game at all.

Most mmos do a pretty good job balancing it. FFXIV isn't harder than any other mmo, it's actually one of the easier ones.

[Gamemako]

Most mmos do a pretty good job balancing it. FFXIV isn't harder than any other mmo, it's actually one of the easier ones.

What's harder, in your opinion?

[Susanoh]

Most mmos do a pretty good job balancing it. FFXIV isn't harder than any other mmo, it's actually one of the easier ones.

You just went off on the game because the extreme fights aren't friendly to unskilled players looking to get carried through content. This would suggest that you want the game to be made easier, so that these unskilled players can do everything. Now you're saying FFXIV is one of the easier MMOs. I'm not sure even you know what it is that you would want.

[lxSch]

I do not consider myself a casual or hardcore player (i hate hardcore content).

1. Game is very casual-unfriendly: brayflox, titan, stone vigil and garuda are horrible and should not be put into story quests (SE could have done it like with sch WP quest).
2. Story should not require lv50 dungeons: i would like to finish watching the story, but have no desire to head-bash the wall of 50+ dungeons with continuous wipes.
3. There is nothing worthy to grind - no levels, no materials/items. I just run through the same locations every day for tribe dailies and never visit any other locations - my open world content ends on it.
4. There are no meaningful guilds. Common chat for chatterboxes is not a guild, people don't have any worthy benefits for being in one. As a result i see lots of 5-10 online guilds who will never get at least 200 stable online (like in other mmos with much less population). World feels small and very lone.
5. No trade and craft - just another absent feature. I don't visit any cities to check the market - only teleport between sylph and amal'ja maps for dailies, world feels smaller.
6. Low level dungeon runs feels frustrating because i cannot improve there - level sync means i will always be weak and run them as fast as a new player. I keep doing them for 4.5k gil rewards, but i think i am at my limit.
7. Combat is arcade type - i have to move my char to avoid scripted skills, like in 1980s console games. I do not play any games but rpg and rts, this arcade combat issue makes me feel like i am playing a nintendo 198x game, and is the biggest reason to stop playing after the sub time ends. I remember the only combat i ever had that is not arcade - whm lv50 quest, i thought i have to heal that npc through incoming damage and actually started trying to put top healing (but found out it was scripted too). I would like to improve my char like in other rpg games, but so far dungeons have a huge gap for rpg mistakes and a tiny gap for arcade mistakes. I would like combats to be a big rpg check first (using cooldowns in time or wipe, etc) and small arcade check 2nd (i play with 3-4k ping being in europe, how i am supposed to dodge 1-shot skills?).
8. No space to improve my character over the basic - everyone are in the same i90 gear: no variations, no builds, one character = one fixed role, which is boring and short-sighted.

I think solving these issues would make average players to stay longer and consider re-subbing for new content.