Quote Originally Posted by Kaurhz View Post
Eh,

It's relative to the target audience of that content more than anything, and I do believe that when Yoshida made comments, it was in reference to introducing more stress back into the game, not necessarily making the game itself more difficult. This stress can come in several different ways aside from difficulty.

I think from my perspective, I didn't find them much more difficult mechanically, but these encounters did have more pacing over what they've had in the past, honestly. So there's a bit of an adjustment there, and though none of them are really new mechanics... How the mechanics are signaled, I do find different, however.

I think if you are a low-skilled casual, then you are more inclined to notice difficulty, but I think if you are slightly above average skill level, even at casual level, then you are more than likely to be OK with it and potentially not notice much difference.

As dismissive as this comes across, it does reign true, but if you are really looking for that difficulty, then really you should be waiting until savage and ultimate releases as opposed to the early on Ex encounters and arguably story-mode content.
I think this is an important distinction people may be forgetting. Take the second boss from Vanguard. While still fairly easy, asking the player to repeatedly dodge fast targeted AoEs is a form of stress, especially at the targeted audience they're aiming for with dungeon design. My only real complaint is you do eventually realize getting hit by said AoEs is very forgetting, which makes dodging less of a concern. Nonetheless, the thought is there.

If you were ever expecting dungeons to have a real upswing, I hate to break it to you but that will never happen. They want casual content to be readily accessible to most skill levels. A problem several players have is underestimating their own skill level when posting about difficult. I think we all are guilty of that to some extent. Basically, most people posting online are better than they think they are even they're still casual.