Why does everyone complain about STORY based MMO's?

[Ransu]

Not this again, indeed.

You can increase the difficulty of content without making it anywhere near Extreme or Savage levels. Insinuating otherwise is simply being disingenuous. Presently, the MSQ as a whole is essentially one massive participation reward that's almost impossible to fail. This does undercut the whole epic saga of the story when the supposed big bad can be facerolled. A prime example of this is Thordan. Even as a brand new player only ten months into FFXIV when I first cleared, I was disappointed by how much of a joke he was—to the point I stopped even dodging mechanics because not only was nobody else bothering. When I was hit myself, they did next to nothing. Did it ruin the conclusion of Heavensward? No. However, it certainly left a sour taste. Shinryu, conversely, was much better despite still being easy enough. Sadly, power creep as trivialized that fight but in his heyday, he was good.

As for that scene with Zenos. It's a cheat trope that isn't explained well. We never learn any Zenos can stomp us into the ground so easily yet a handful of dungeons later, we're returning the favor. He's just invincibly strong because the plot needed him to be.

Thordan and Shinryu both were relatively difficult when they first came out. Shinryu was actually nerfed a few times. All the old expansions had a modicum of difficult content mixed into them, but old content wont stay the same forever. Potencies have changed significantly since HW and SB.

Its just the nature of old content. They'd have to redo things to maintain the same difficulty as when they were new.