How do people calling themselves casual feel about the difficulty level?

[Marael]

I'm a casual player, I guess. I play maybe 2-3 hours a week. I'm married with kids and a full time job. And I just can't sit around and play video games for five hours a day anymore like when I was a kid. Now I play them later at night for a few mins, once the kids are in bed, to unwind from the day before I go to bed myself. I have all of the crafting jobs lvled up, because I could do that easily on my limited time. I don't have everything else to 50 yet, nor will I, because I don't like the jobs I haven't leveled yet. I haven't set foot in coil. I haven't done EX primals. I haven't done Ultima Hard. I haven't done Pharos Sirius, or the two hard mode dungeons. I have done the crystal tower a bit, mostly for the nostalgia factor. My bard is ilvl 80, I guess that's ok-ish, still work to be done on it. I did titan about 4000 times before I finally got it done due to a craptacular middle-of-nowheresvile internet connection. But hey, them's the breaks when you only have one option for internet and it completely sucks. I don't mind difficulty, in fact, I enjoy trying to work out strategies to get things done. The problem with that is, that no one else is willing to do it. They flip out, scream at everyone, and leave after one single wipe because everyone in the party isn't completely perfect. That's why I avoid "endgame" content. I'm sick to death of dealing with people like that. And I'm really burnt out on the whole endgame drama BS from other MMOs. I'm cool with never doing any of the harder content, because having to deal with people like that makes it very stressful, and when things are stressful, they are neither fun, nor are they relaxing. Like I said, i don't mind difficulty, as long as I can try again until I get it done, and work with people as a team to figure out the best way to do it. But I've run into so many people who refuse to, and throw tantrums and leave the party instead, that it's not even worth it to waste my limited play time to even try anymore. I'll probably get around to some of that stuff later, but I'm in no hurry to get it done. But meh, my time is too limited to waste it dealing with A-holes.

[skaterger]

Ex hardcore player here, now semi-casual due to work commitments. Like others have mentioned, this game is all about reflexes and movement. If you can master frogger, you win this game. There need to be more fights which require coordination and strategy, controlling multiple adds (think Moroes in karazhan, 4 horseman in naxx). To be fair there are a few decent fights in coil but sadly t2 is now a fiasco and the only fun fight left in the game is twin. Hoping that t6-t9 will bring more diversity to the fights.

[Kosmos992k]

The difficulty level would be fine if the story was not gated by the most difficult content that also happens to be highly intolerant to lag, and a requirement for a static group of 8 characters to complete some of it.

Personally, I feel like you could make end-game as hard as you like so long as progression through the main story line does not depend on the uber hard content that so many yearn for. I play to enjoy my time, like a mini vacation, not to take on a second job. So, the difficulty level needs to allow me to ave fun and relax, and not stress out because we wiped again. I don't think the issue is difficulty so much as it is punishment, as in the game punishes mistakes with lethal penalties making it almost impossible to fight your way back into a battle that has gone badly.

[Xayoc]

I absolutely hate this. Failing to dodge due to latency issues should not mean instant death and ridicule from my peers.

The problem is that people with 'latency' issues use this as an excuse/crutch to not improve. I know someone with very high latency (Japan on a NA server) who has very little issues with Titan EX. If you anticipate the upcoming move you can dodge it, there really is no excuse except being bad to not dodge mechanics.

[Inanna]

This may be a bit off topic, but I think the issue is less about casual/hardcore but about variety and play style.

There are a number of activities to do up to end game, but we're kind of stuck with extremes/coils. Other types of difficult end game content would add to the variety and people's play styles. For example, and this may be a silly example, Timeworn Maps with extremely difficult traps or new zones with terrifyingly high level mobs. Then again, there would need to be a reward worth it to bother with these alternatives and I would not know what that might be.