There should be three grades of content:

1) Short term
2) Long term
3) Difficult

I feel like much of the current content falls into the short term category. It's a good place for people who are new to cap to get some better gear -- before they dive into materia -- and learn more advanced tactics.

Long term are things like Dynamis and Relics. XIV desperately needs something like this soon. But a lot of people need to separate duration from difficulty. Relics weren't hard to obtain, they required only dedication. I know a lot of LSs even merc'd the Dynamis portions of a relic. Meaning one could obtain a relic without ever really doing Dynamis, aside from getting clearances. Still, an MMO should have some sort of optional long term goal that benefits those who go after it greatly.

Finally, the difficult aspect really hasn't been delivered yet. I have high hopes for the Crystal Tower Yoshida has mentioned a few times. These should be the optional bosses we remember from every Final Fantasy. Something without gimmicks that requires a group to perform at their best no matter how many times we do it.

There are ways to keep everyone happy. It just feels like we need to wait another year to get there.

In short, difficulty matters not because we will all figure it out. Let us have fun engaging content.
I think this post was spot on. Someone may rock at First Person Shooters and suck at Platformers. Difficulty is a personal experience, ultimately, no matter how it's designed.

There will always be people who dump 12+ hours into new content to be the first to beat it. So as a developer, SE needs to also find a balance. Who do they make it difficult for? Es pecially in XI's case where they're trying to add content in the same patches they're adding basic systems to the game?

It's not like there's already some of those semi-casual long term goals in the game that they can justify wasting a 1.x patch on something like ground kings. They're trying their best to add just enough to keep us busy till 2.0.

But I agree that "engaging" is a clearer word than the more ambiguous "difficult."