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

[Phe]

Currently stuck at Twin and Titan EX.

snake phase and after heart-phase? xD
Me too, but i'm still motivated tho.

What's kinda annoying is that you have always play through the phases that you don't even need to practise anymore.
always wasting 10 minutes to get to the point where it gets interesting.

don't give up yet - we will make it!

[KraggyKor]

1st successful run will only be the one that matters. All the rest will be doomed to become a chore for many.

Which of course is why a game like FFXIV where content is locked behind multiple gear-grinds needing endlessly repeating the same, stale content is a Bad Design (tm).

[Sadana]

Casual who plays many hours. I'm alright with the difficulty level. Not stressing over beating everything. It'll be there and I'll get it some day. ^_^

[Kayo]

Im casual, very casual. I feel the game is more difficult than the usual MMO at least. Mostly because things take much longer to die so there is more time to screw up and die. However, anyone who looks up strategies online really has no place complaining. Youre like the kid who buys the game along with the strategy guide then complains you wasted $80 on a game you beat overnight. Even the toughest games out there become trivial if you know exactly where to get the best gear available and what needs to be done and when.

[Iymala]

I consider myself and my significant other quite casual.... both of us have been hardcore in previous MMO's when younger, and feel the content in FFXIV is too easy. For reference we have cleared all EX Primals and T1-T5 of Coil. The challenge for raid content is quite low and really is just hoping one person does not fail at he dance and the "fun" mechanics of the game are seriously lacking. Dailies have been finished for months, crafting is useless, housing is a joke.... The fact that they made CT then are introducing Coil to the Duty finder with no loot lock out makes me shake my head at the pointlessness. If they were going to make CT obsolete so quickly, I wish they would have put their developing power behind something that would have had a long term benefit to the community.

I think for "casual" (in the terms of time invested) is often confused with unskilled players. For unskilled players, of course the content is difficult, but for a lot of players.... regardless of if their time investment is "casual" or "hardcore" the game is quite boringly easy.

[NaliaBrown]

I consider myself a casual player. I play a lot, but I play to have fun. I'm in a Free Company raid group that has consistently gotten to Turn 4 of Coil, but we haven't quite beaten it yet (we hope to get it done before 2.2 is released). I'm ilvl 84 on my DRG. I don't bother capping myth tomes every week because I don't really care that much. I'm decently geared for the content I'm running, and I'm fine with that. I (with the help of a FC party) beat Ultima HM for the first time last night. I still haven't beaten Garuda EX, but not for lack of trying. It took me a month to beat Titan HM the first time, but now I know it well enough that I'm not afraid of it anymore and I can stay alive most of the time.

I'm happy with the difficulty of the content, generally. Some of the fights are frustrating, but I can deal with that. I'd prefer not to have current content nerfed.

[KarstenS]

I consider myself highly casual [...] I have 6 WHM's at 50 [...] and 2 characters that have multiple jobs at 50

Very casual. lol.

[ColorOfSakura]

I'm a fairly casual player and my only issue is how unbalanced the difficulty feels as you progress toward endgame.

The game takes a sharp curve up in difficulty post-Brayflox/Titan Story Mode. I mean, the next story dungeon after Brayflox is Stone Vigil, and that's almost ten levels later. Sunken Temple and Cutter's Cry are both optional and Sunken Temple is a HUGE pain in the butt. I mean, you go from basically every dungeon prior to Brayflox being straightforward "kill the trash and then tank and spank the boss" to almost a crap ton of mechanics all at once. Brayflox introduces the idea that boss fights may have a few additional mechanics, but then you get to Sunken Temple (the Pug Killer) and it's just a nightmare for most casuals to take in at once. I know its meant to prepare players for the upcoming stuff, but it being optional means most people may skip it and CC and then they have to take on Stone Vigil and Garuda which are ridiculously difficult. Dzemael and Aurum Vale are both optional, and Dzemael is pretty straightforward while Aurum Vale is a healer's worst nightmare come to life.

And then you have Castrum and Praetorium which are basically cakewalks.

And the endgame content seems really...unsure where it should belong. Amdapor Keep is pretty easy (even the Demon Wall if you're geared decently), but then stuff like Wanderer's Palace and Haukke Manor (Hard) are way harder than the game suggests they are (Haukke Hard is listed as iLvl 48 and like...most DPS can't take down Halicarnassus's adds fast enough at iLvl 48.)

Overall the difficulty level feels a little harsh at certain points simply because the game very randomly changes up the formula without warning.

The endgame dungeons really should have higher iLvl requirements because as of now, they're pretty misleading. Granted, once you have high gear, the dungeons get easy, but they're pretty harsh if you take them at the level the game says they are.

[DoctorPepper]

Personally I find that the lower tier content like dungeons and CT could definitely be a little harder. I would Really love to see a 24 man raid that is on par with coil difficulty. I don't find that coil is extremely hard or extremely easy myself, I mean it gets easy when everybody is geared out but it's fairly tough when you're a new group. I want to see more content on the par with coil/extreme difficulty but I also see the need for some easy content like dungeons and CT so in the long run I guess I just want more mixed difficulty content. Sometimes people want to enjoy intense, difficult fights and other times they just want to lounge and take it easy while gaining some progression and that's where the lower difficulty content really shines.

[ColorOfSakura]

Snip

Yeah, I feel Square really needs to round out their content. I want to see more mid-range and low-range difficulty stuff, but there needs to be some really difficult hardcore content (especially a raid) for hardcore players to enjoy.

They really need to focus on releasing new parts of CT before they release new parts to Coil. Right now CT feels superfluous to the game. CT should also drop gear at higher iLvls than the tomes. Honestly, they should have made it so the new tomes get you iLvl 100 gear, CT drops iLvl 105, and then Coil drops iLvl 110 (and Coil's new turns would be released in 2.3, and CT would be in 2.2.) Make it so you have to have mostly iLvl 105 gear to run Coil. Give players a *reason* to run CT outside of "FF3 Nostalgia".