Maybe I'm nitpicking here, but I resent calling all Normal content "casual." It should not be thought of as such by the devs when they design it, and we players should not excuse Normal duties for being too easy on the basis that "it's just casual content." Normal in FFXIV should mean what it means in any other video game: the default difficulty, not too easy but not too hard. A reasonable challenge for most people. Sure, if you've played the game extensively and you're very familiar with the mechanics, you're going to have a breeze with it. That's true of a lot of things when you put in literally hundreds or thousands of hours.

There are games that I've played so much of, including lots of content in FFXIV, that tempts me to think "Wow, I can't believe I ever found this challenging." But that's because I got better at the game, it wasn't the game becoming "casual."

"Casual" is like some Facebook word scramble game, or a cozy farming sim, or whatever your mom plays on her iPad. We don't really have much in FFXIV that is actually casual, maybe Island Sanctuary or seasonal events. Something stress-free you play to relax, maybe even something you can literally set down at a moment's notice and nothing bad will happen.

If all Normal content is "casual," then why do so many people still dread Aurum Vale? If Pharos Sirius is a casual dungeon, how is it possible to still see wipes in there even amongst experienced players? If Alliance Raids are all casual content, then what difference does it make if you get Crystal Tower versus an Ivalice or Nier raid? Is Tower of Zot casual? Is the Mothercrystal trial casual? Are variant dungeons casual? I know a lot of folks are underwhelmed by the mechanical challenge Thaleia gave us, and in some ways I'm inclined to agree, but are we really going to say it's "casual" content? I don't think that makes any sense.

I'm just saying, not all Normal content is made equally. Some of it really is a cakewalk, tuned for beginners. Some of it is still fairly demanding for experienced folks. What I want for "mid-core" content is not to have to set up a "learning party" in Party Finder and MAYBE clear an Extreme or the first floor of Savage if we can invest 2-3 hours. I want basically something a smidge tougher than peak "Normal" difficulty, still able to run it through Duty Finder, with a nice and tight item level sync. We may wipe a few times before people get it, that's okay.

What ever happened to optional dungeons? Remember those? Back in ARR, we had tons of them, and when they were the fresh new content they were pretty tough actually. Can't get that experience back again, unless perhaps if you erase your memory and run on minimum item level. Even then, I dunno, job balancing has been messed around with so much over the years. But still, there should be quote-unquote "Normal" stuff that you can do, and have a reasonably hard time with.