First post, so be gentle.

With all of the negativity (most of it warranted) that FFXIV is receiving, I thought I'd quickly point out a relative success when compared to FFXI.

They successfully made this game in a way where people could log on for an hour or two and always get things accomplished. As a one-time FFXI hardcore player that has gotten older and has more responsibility (as people tend to do), I've really enjoyed that I no longer have to dedicate 4-10 hours to playing if I want to gain any solid traction while leveling. So that is at least one thing that SE can hang their hat on.

It has been very clear from inception until now that SE isn't going to compromise that success entirely (and they shouldn't). But I feel like they often are equating "casual-friendly" with "easy". Those are two completely different things that someone with a limited amount of experience might think are the same.

Casual-friendly simply means that not everything depends on a massive time investment, and not everything has to be done within a party structure. That's it. But as individual battles go, everyone wants to be challenged, casual and hardcore alike.

With the NM nerfing and allowing R50's to steamroll through R25 dungeons, they are focusing on making an easy game easier. Why? FFXI wasn't easy, and people loved the challenge. Think about how much players loved trying to bring down AV? THAT challenge is what keeps people motivated. Knowing that they have a very difficult task in front of them that, when completed, proves that they are good at what they do.

So the short version of what I'm saying is... make this game harder. You won't be sacrificing the small wins with the casual fan base.