Old content has become so easy that it is no longer fun

[YukikoKurosawa]

You need to look at it from a larger timescale than just 5.0-6.0.

Ilvl might not be the answer, but potency and job changes certainly have killed the normal modes as time has gone on.

The issue isn’t that the game is easy — mom and dad are easy in the new expansion and slaughter sprouts left and right — it’s that too much of the game isn’t on the spectrum of difficulty until hundreds of hours in. Trivial.

You need to understand something........nobody wants to do hard content in a pug. Not that mindnumbing, literally-impossible-to-fail content is the right answer, but there's a sweet spot in the middle, wherein it's not extremely hard for a group of strangers but you still need to stay awake and follow the mechanics alongside performing your job correctly. Even the absolute easiest content (ignoring things that have been giga-nerfed like Cape Westwind, Castrum, Prae, and Thordan) still requires you to be awake and do the mechanics at the very least. Which, when having to deal with coordinating with a group full of strangers, that I find is often high enough level of engagement for me. If I want to be really challenged I'll either seek out people doing extremes or savages via PF with min item level/no echo.....or play a single player game, better yet.

However, you are complaining about max-item level normal mode content being too easy. Not, content overall being too easy, but, the content literally designed to be easy. I dont know if you boosted, but there are extremes you can run, min ilevel no-echo starting from lvl 50. I enjoy doing them every now and then in party finder. So "there is no real challenge until hundreds of hours in" is just false. There are people in this thread saying they're quitting the game because the easiest-by-design content, at max item level, is too easy.

Like you're complaining because normal mode content at max item level isnt hard. Of course it isnt. Why would you think it would be. Not that I'm disagreeing even normal mode content could be more challenging, but you can only make it so hard before it becomes unpuggable, and I think they've already achieved about the best they can do for most of the content. Any easier and it'd be truly faceroll, any harder and it'd undoable with pugs. If you want an actual challenge it already exists from 50 and up, if you are willing to seek out likeminded players and use the tools available ingame to make it a challenge.