what would you consider hard content?

[Purrfectstorm]

When I think of hard content, I think of content that is hard for an individual to execute perfectly. Content that when you make a mistake it puts a strain on the rest of the group to recover (with the strain getting bigger as the mistakes cascade into an avalanche) but NOT being an insta-wipe. Too many fights in this game require an entire group to play close to perfectly and it's really frustrating when one person is way overgeared AND has utterly mastered a fight that they're still held back by other players.

I think it should be fairly common to wipe on hard content, but that the content should be reasonably beatable within the hour time limit of most duties given a decent level of gear and player skill. I think SE should lean far less on "mechanics" (by this I mean simply, you need to follow a script exactly) and one shot attacks (especially ones that remove a player from a fight, like landslide for example).

If you want a good example of what I consider to be the right degree of difficulty: Ramuh EX. The mechanics are clever (orbs, chaotic strike, etc) and there is room to recover if someone gets KO'ed. There are still one shot mechanics but they don't feel as heavy handed as Titan EX for example. I think most of the EX primals are okay. I enjoy Titan EX with a good group (a rarity) but it's miserable with people who die to weight of the land/landslide (i.e. before the hard part lol).

I used to enjoy first Coil T1-4 but I've gradually given up on Coil and I often do EX primals when they're no longer really relevant, just because the frustration level/toxicity of other players drives me away. For this reason, I would much rather content be gated behind grinds than by difficulty. What I like about offline RPGs is that if you can't beat a boss you can just level up more and/or get better gear. Echo/better gear is not making some of the fights in this game as easy as I'd like.

Easing mechanics or allowing alternate strategies (T2 enrage or Ramuh EX Titan-egi tanking) only serves to make the game more interesting. Mechanics don't have to be boring (I don't think Ramuh EX is boring) and fights don't have to be instantly beatable, but if you go into a fight like Garuda EX with almost double the minimum gear level (i120-i130 vs. i65) AND have echo, then you should win within the hour timer (and thankfully most groups probably can win). However, the same can't be said for a number of other fights where no amount of gear or echo will make a difference.

Now the players who really like a challenge can clear the content when it's fresh (there will always be fresh challenging content) but players unable to clear Titan EX or T5 a year and a half later? I think that's a bit much. Maybe I'm asking for an easier game, sure, why not, that's what I enjoy. I don't think it's fun to beat my head into a wall for hours and not get anywhere. With 8 person content where everyone has to play perfectly, there is too much room to lose because of one person.

TL;DR: Right degree of difficulty: Coil T1-4, EX primals except for Titan. Wrong degree of difficulty: T5, Titan (Note: I've beaten both but still think they're too much even at this point in time).