Granted, as far as other MMO's go this is hardly "hardcore" content. This is the easy mode to the hard mode in those games. It's not surprising, though, that the over-all skill level of a normal XIV player is lower than that of someone from those games, perhaps partly due to the braindead gameplay for the first half of the year.

The player penetration is just too high for this to be considered legitimately "hard". People clear it in 5mins and make it look like a joke. A true hard-mode would pack a punch regardless of how many times you've given it a try.