Current State of End-Game Contents - A Blog Post from A Japanese Player

[Alkimi]

Even in FF XIV 1.0 (like Ifrit Extreme) it was more forgiving, but still MORE challenging than 2.0's Ifrit Extreme. I remember a few runs in random /shout parties in 1.0, where we had 4 - 5 deaths (back then, we also had people who could use a Raise GC Item), and we were still able to recover and kill Ifrit EX. That wouldn't be possible in 2.0.

1.0's Ifrit Ex was not challenging in the way you would expect. The only difficulty in that fight was fighting the unresponsive UI and horrible servers. 2.0's Ifrit Ex only has 1 insta-wipe mechanic, failing to kill nails in time, exactly the same as 1.0. You can also recover fine from many deaths in the new version and still win.