If you continue to dumb down the game, you will lose half your player base

[s1mulacrum]

"If you want a challenge play Ultimate" this is straight from the developer's mouth. Otherwise, the game has thrived for years being casual friendly. If you're bored and unhappy then switch games, there's tons of more challenging games out there and they aren't going to change what has been successful for them.

I agree that this is what people should do, but it seems like you don't understand the point we are making while also making it for us. FFXIV got its big influx of subs from the WoW exodus. WoW lost subs in part by doing all of the things FFXIV is currently doing. If people do leave the game b/c of this pattern of changes (as we both suggest), then that shows that these decisions are making people leave. The OP's entire point is that SE will lose players, which is the opposite of successful.