The really sad part is, all the "challenge" in this game is completely artificial. One-Shots, tons and tons of AoE, ridiculously large healthpools, and unforgivable mechanics like Titan's landslide.

If SE wants to add real challenge to this game and make open world PvE less face roll, then they need to improve the AI. Improve the AI and you can dial back the ridiculous number of one-shots and AoE attacks. Take Guild Wars 1 for instance. Sure it had its fair share of artificial difficulty, but the AI was also more intelligent than FF14's. The enemy mobs in GW1 did not have (nearly) as predictable rotations as the AI in this game. Enemy and allied NPCs alike would generally use the correct skills for the correct situations. So the AI had its issues, like attack chains for assassin NPCs or avoiding AoE. Regardless, this, for me, created an excellent environment that was both challenging and rewarding without being downright frustrating.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy this game, or I wouldn't be here. I'm just of the opinion that better AI = better game experience.

TL;DR the first step to truly challenging content is creating more intelligent AI that thinks and acts according to the situation instead of performing the same, predictable attack pattern over, and over, and over.