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

[D6Damager]

I don't know if you were here for before shadowbringers, but the casual content that you're talking about used to be harder and was a nice comfy challange before going into energy draining savage. Then shadowbringers came around and halfway through it they decided to make all normal content easier and then kept doing this until now.

You are absolutely correct, but that doesn't seem like the direction they are taking anymore since SHB (nearly 3 years ago now + a pandemic).

I also think it's safe to assume that all the players from the 'WoW exodus' are not all going to stick with the game. People will make up all kinds of reasons for why they think they are leaving; but at the end of the day this game isn't WoW and isn't going to appeal to all MMO players (and that's OK).

[MagicalChase]

You are absolutely correct, but that doesn't seem like the direction they are taking anymore since SHB (nearly 3 years ago now + a pandemic).

I also think it's safe to assume that all the players from the 'WoW exodus' are not all going to stick with the game. People will make up all kinds of reasons for why they think they are leaving; but at the end of the day this game isn't WoW and isn't going to appeal to all MMO players (and that's OK).

But then....as a veteran player who's been with the game since 2.1....Who's literally subbed for years on end....what do I do? No other game let's me look like my miqote or express myself like this one does. But all the content feels like it's designed to push me away.
well except the new PVP that's pretty great .

[Niyuka]

Old players are not wanted by SE. MMO design has been about chasing the "millions" of supercasual players that are now firmly lodged in Idle games in mobile. If you just simplify, streamline and shorten your MMO enough, suddenly a huge influx of players will arrive that have been waiting, and you wont even notice the old people disappearing.

The game is, according to the SE defenders here, still far far far too hard and punishing for a vast majority of players, who just wish to open their hearts and wallets if only they could complete every content one-handed with their DPS paladin build and their broken USB steering wheel as controller that they love since it brought them joy in Need for Speed 2.
Also, not everyone wants to press buttons all the time! Savage DPS requirements are still far too hard, why do we get all these emotes if we cannot use them in between watching out beautiful skill animations? And of course my 6 year old nephew wants to join in on the fun, so we need to create a class he can play and complete the content with.

[Thorio]

The game is, according to the SE defenders here, still far far far too hard and punishing for a vast majority of players

I don't think anyone is saying that.

[MiaShino]

I don't think anyone is saying that.

There was entire thread about Endwalker trials (mother crystal specifically) being far too punishing for newer players. What amused me most about that confusing newer players with her swapping weapons is Shiva teaches you about this at level 50. Shiva swaps Sword/Bow/Staff before doing mechanics and her mechanics depend on equipped weapon.

Plenty of players posting here that would have much much better experience with the game if they actually interacted with it instead of watching Netflix.

[MagicalChase]

I don't think anyone is saying that.

There's literally a guy in here who's saying that and then calls everyone who disagrees a "hardcore minority"