How Cataclysm killed WoW is how Heavensward will kill FFXIV.

[Berethos]

Raiding in Catacylsm didn't get streamlined with easy-mode difficulty until the end of it's cycle...[/I][/B]

I wish I could like this a dozen more times.

The start of Cataclysm was actually marked by an *increase* in difficulty of getting things done, particularly when it came to heroic dungeons (compared to the much easier Wrath iteration). Getting into and completing raids used the same difficulty approach that had been seen previously, except that you now had to choose between sizes (10 or 25, not both). Streamlining of raid content during Cata came with LFR during Dragon Soul - the last raid/content patch, and after the subscriber numbers had already started to decrease.

[Khalithar]

The start of Cataclysm was actually marked by an *increase* in difficulty of getting things done, particularly when it came to heroic dungeons (compared to the much easier Wrath iteration). Getting into and completing raids used the same difficulty approach that had been seen previously, except that you now had to choose between sizes (10 or 25, not both). Streamlining of raid content during Cata came with LFR during Dragon Soul - the last raid/content patch, and after the subscriber numbers had already started to decrease.

Very much this. Wrath's raids were very approachable and were fairly regularly pugged (except for Ulduar, but I digress) and at the end of the Wrath cycle the final raid gave everyone a 30% buff to pretty much all of their stats. As a result when players got in to the Cata raids after being used to that, most of them got curbstomped as a result. The dungeons were harder and would destroy you in seconds if your group didn't play perfectly and the wrath way of doing dungeons (pull 5-6 groups and aoe them down) resulted in a very fast death requiring a slower more tactical approach. Until people got geared out from the raids eventually that is, but that's fine, as far as I'm concerned once you have the gear you should be able to ignore mechanics and just brute force things down. Plus the ones that actually had the best gear were players that had been forced to step up and play well, again until Dragon Soul and LFR came out.

I actually enjoyed Cata for actually requiring me to step up and get better at my class if I wanted to do the content. Then Dragon Soul came out with LFR and to me the game went downhill from there, I got my deathwing kill in normal mode (I refused to touch watered down boring LFR stuff) and then I quit the game as I didn't like the direction the game was going in or the changes they made to pld in MoP.