So I've read the thread, and as someone who readily admits they're a casual I kind of just want to toss my two cents. This post is gonna be long, so this is the TL;DR version of it:

This is both a developmental and a community problem. Just one side isn't going to help raise the skill level of the player base. SE bends too easily and needs to put its foot down, but there's a lot of entitlement on the part of the players (both the folks wanting skill improvement and those vehemently against it) that really needs to be set aside if we're going to get anywhere.

Why do I think this is a developmental problem?

Because there is a huge difficulty gap between MSQ content and raiding. I'm a firm believer in that a good game with good design choices will have everything you need to learn about the game within the game itself. FFXIV, as much as I love it, doesn't do that.

They've tried with Hall of the Novice and other similar stuff, but it falls short. Hall of the Novice, for example, claims to teach players how to play in a group. In reality it just teaches you how to handle those solo instances with a bunch of NPCs better. Because yeah, in those you better take mobs off the healer for yourself as a DPS because the NPC tank sure as heck won't.

But in a group with other people? That's terrible advice. And nowhere during the DPS hall of the novice are you told to stand near your healer. Nowhere are you told what keys/buttons to press to target the same enemy as your tank (I know there's a hotkey for that on keyboard, but can't seem to find it on controller). And by the time you get there some folks don't have their AoE yet, so there's nothing in there about "It's best to AoE at #of enemies" etc. etc.

But worst of all is that it's optional. A tutorial is pointless if you can let brand new players skip it. I don't think it would be that hard to add a trigger in the game that says "we see you have a level 50 character on your account already. Would you like to skip this tutorial?".

On the flip side SE also needs to put its foot down on the difficulty they want their game to be. Being wishy washy only makes the issue worse. No: as a casual I don't want Dark Souls levels of difficulty in the content I want to play, because I don't find that fun. However I don't want my game to be a walk in the park either.

And believe it or not, that's most casuals. The players people in this thread are talking about are (usually) just plain selfish and bad players. You won't change those people no matter what SE implements.


Why I think it's also a community problem:

Quote Originally Posted by Tridus View Post
This is the problem with forum discussions on this stuff. The average forum goer is not the average player. Lots of players who have a significantly lower skill level and find this stuff difficult are barely represented here at all, while the high end skill level is vastly over represented. That skews things towards "everything is easy and everyone's bad!" when maybe the real answer is "it's not as easy as you think, and you're better than you think you are."
The above quote really can't get enough likes from me. People online are incredibly narrow minded (myself included). That's due to our ability to see people being taken away. We're all a bunch of avatars behind a screen. It's real easy to fall into the mindset that how you like to play and how you see the game is what most other people see or should see.

This next bit is not a response to any one person in particular. It's more to just help frame where I'm coming from:

Just because I'm casual doesn't mean I spend less time on this game than a raider or care less about this game and its community than a raider. Video games are my hobby. I play a wide variety of genres on multiple platforms and probably spend more time than I should on them, have since I was a child. I'm in FFXIV a ton. I just don't like grappling with the "hardcore" aspects of games.

I find them boring, believe it or not. The final boss of a Final Fantasy or similar game? I'm down for that. I'll gladly spend an entire weekend trying to figure out how to beat a classic SE boss. Constantly doing the same one or two end game dungeons, fighting the same bosses, for weeks on end? That's horribly boring to me. At least while doing the MSQ I see different locations and meet people along the way (not saying you don't meet folks while raiding. You clearly do, but it's a lot more organized and thought out rather than just casual/random happenstance).

That's not a slam against any raider here. That's just me stating why I, and a lot of other casuals, don't personally enjoy raiding.

I bring this up because a lot of people's view on what a casual is or isn't is heavily skewed, and as has been said, not many casuals come to the official forums to provide the other side of the coin to look at.

The people players in this thread want to change, frankly, never will. The people who straight up don't care if they stand in the bad. The people who snap back when they're given good advice. Like I already said: those aren't casuals (in the sense you're thinking), those are just selfish players. You're better off either ignoring or kicking those players than trying to make them better (of course try giving advice first. If they ignore you after that, that's their problem).

Which is why I can't understand why people get offended when they're told "play with your FC or a static." That's the point of guilds/free companies/statics in MMOs. To find people who enjoy playing in a similar fashion that you do so that you don't have to deal with random people that may disagree with you and how you play. If you willingly step into a dungeon pug you're going to be playing with anyone of any age and skill level. And you're far more likely to run into the community's bad eggs because, not surprisingly, they don't make the same effort to meet folks to form FCs and statics like you do.

To end this already long post, it's vitally important to remember that all kinds of people play this game. When housing was opened for this patch I saw one guy post on Reddit that he was really excited to tell his 11 year old sister he got the house she's been wanting for years for her.

That bears repeating: 11 years old. And I'm sure that's not the youngest person who plays this game or attempts higher difficulty stuff.

Unless you do get on Discord or Skype to personally get to know who you're playing with, you don't know if the people in a PUG with you are 5 or 50+. You don't know if they have disabilities or not. So simply just assuming bad play or lack of achievements is due to laziness is terribly narrow minded. It's just as bad as that player we all hate that cries "I'll play how I want" and not bother to improve.

Now should that hamper your gameplay? Well no, ideally it shouldn't. However that's the risk you take when you interact with a bunch of strangers on the internet at random.

So while I am all for folks asking for harder content or for SE to settle on a distinct difficulty curve for their game, I also think this game's community really needs to keep an open mind. We no longer live in an age where only folks of certain age groups and demographics play these games. If you're not willing to be open minded about that, then no amount of changes SE makes is going to help you deal with randoms better.

That said I'm overall actually pretty happy at quite a few of the responses in this thread, because most of you (including OP) have shown that you are open minded. That last bit was more for the large number of posts I've seen that indicate otherwise.