Quote Originally Posted by Adrestia View Post
I’m genuinely curious, what is your original statement here based on?

Even many single player JRPGs have difficulty that increases over time. If difficulty increases, then there surely must be some people for whom, somewhere along the way, the difficulty becomes too hard to continue. If you go outside classic turn-based JRPG design, it gets even more exacerbated. I can assure you there are people who never beat Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea’s main story due to the difficulty. And those aren’t Dark Souls. They aren’t even twitch reaction games. The strategy required is just beyond some people and/or their “fun limit.”

You definitely can’t rescue the princess from the castle if you consistently choke on the jumps in 8-1. That’s not a flaw in game design. That’s what makes Super Mario Bros a game instead of a movie.
To be clear this isn't even a matter of difficultly, its a matter of perception. OP perceives FFXIV as becoming too "easy" and therefore not fun. Yet how many people would really continue to pay $13-$15 a month if they could only access half or less of the content that they wanted to played because the game was designed only for the most skilled players.

The community in WoW ruined the game long before the current expansion. All endgame content became gated behind max item levels that you could only get by already having done the content. Hardcore and Midcore got to have an exclusive club and feel superior to the casuals that only were allowed a watered down version of the raids.

The first sign of an MOO dying is not the hardcore or the midcore leaving.