Quote Originally Posted by Altena View Post
Difficulty is subjective. That is why some people would consider it hard, while others consider it easy.
There are also many elements that require quite a lot of grind, which is why some would consider it reasonably "hardcore".

I think you are over-inflating people's opinions of this game however. I haven't seen any comments saying that it is the hardest MMO on the market..
Subjective or not, FFXIV is absolutely the easiest MMO in terms of open world and solo content. SCOB and EX Trials (Titan & Ramuh) are actually on the higher end of difficulty.