please stop make the game easier.

[Kamatsu]

Do you have a single fact to back that up? What game has had an increase in difficulty that resulted in a quantifiable player loss?

While I can't argue that games die because they become too easy (in spite of WoW's decline in player base as homogenization set in as well as raid finder being added) most predominantly due to lack of interest in finding correlation, I can certainly argue that adding additional difficulties has had positive impacts. Terraria, as an example, added 'expert' difficulty to it's game and it was received in a positive light. The game still sits at overwhelmingly positive (whether this is a result of the game being good or not doesn't matter because a harder difficulty was added and therefore we know it did not have a negative impact on the game).

Due to time constraints, I'm just going to address the above. Sorry I don't have time to address anything else.

Guild Wars 2. The base game was dead easy. While it did have mechanics that pushed for things like dodging, CC'ing mob's, etc... you didn't have to. You could get through the story missions, every zone apart from the last 3, every 'quest' just with auto-attack (skill #1) and a healing skill. It didn't require a lot of skill, and the last 3 zones which started out stupidly hard got nerfed hard due to massive complaints about how hard they were. Note - the vanila game was EXTREMELY solo friendly, you did NOT need other players for anything at all... so it was up to you whether you grouped up or not.

Then came along the expansion - Heart of Thorns. There had been a vocal minority on the official forums crying for all aspects of the game to be made harder, for more mechanics to be implemented, for mobs to have smarter AI and work together, etc (hmmm, this sounds eerily familiar...). ANet listened to these people and HoT was harder than the base game, it was no longer solo friendly, it was much more group orientated. The mobs were more densely packed and had lots of CC skills they used on players - so to navigate maps required a lot more active thinking, proper use of skills... or be part of a zerg of players. Not only that, they locked many hero points (points used to unlock class skills) behind group-only champion fights (ie imagine having to fight the super-tough boss fate mobs just to get relevant job skills in FFXIV). To progress through the story you had to complete certain repeating 'fates' on the map to level up a map/zone specific 'skill'... in the base game it was easy to solo these, in HoT they were extremely hard to solo... and generally only got done with groups of players.

Result? within the 1st 2 weeks after the launch of the expansion the official forums were filled with thread after thread, post after post, from many, many different people complaining about how hard the expansion was compared to the base game. How it was unfair that people who were used to casual solo gameplay were being asked to 'git gud' and play with groups or never progress. 2-3 weeks after the expansion launched the forums started filling up with "Where is everyone?" threads as people started complaining they couldn't complete events due to no one around, that maps were never filling with people, that they couldn't find ppl to help them with the group-only-champion fights either via map chat or party-finder.

And after NCSoft earnings report came out... it showed a massive 67% drop in earnings for Guild Wars 2 after the launch of the expansion. While you will always expect a drop in revenue after an expansion, but never a drop of that much. It was so bad that ANet made a public statement apologizing for making the expansion so hard, as well as nerfing the mobs on the maps so it was easier to navigate maps solo, the 'fates' were made to be able to be done solo instead of group-mostly, the group-only-champion fights were changed into veteran mobs that could be solo'ed, etc.

There's a game that came out with easy gameplay, easy playstyle (much easier than FFXIV btw), listened to those who clamored for harder content, more mechanics, etc... and found out the hard way that the majority of their player base was not at all interested in harder content, or harder mechanics. So when I see in the few MMO's I play the exact same calls on the official forums to make the game harder, more challenging, more difficult, more group-focused, more mechanics heavy, etc... I get peeved off as I've seen what it does to these games and don't want to see that happen here.

And BTW, Terriaria is an 'apples and oranges' comparison as it's a completely different genre of game, different style of gameplay and appeals to different gamers/mindset than an MMO. So the fact that ppl who play that game liked/applauded harder gameplay has no relevance to this game.

It would be like saying that because I seem to be advocating against harder overall content in FFXIV that I dislike hard/difficult games. The hundreds of hours I've played in Dark Souls 1, 2, 3, NioH, X-Com 1 & 2 on Classic/Impossible/Legendary Ironman, etc beg to disagree.

And btw, I'm not against difficulty as per such. I'm not against making mechanics in the game need to be paid attention more. I am against calls to make all content harder, to make story stuff more like the non-required (hard) dungeons, etc. I am against keeping old out-dated content "hard" just for the sake of some ppl's ego. Do I think there's a place for hard content in a game like FFXIV? Absolutely, just as there's a place for dead-easy content. Keep the story stuff easy, let the non-essential stuff be harder, and revamp older non-essintal dungeons to introduce more mechanics and such... and have MSQ solo-fights actually have toned-down mechanics from the later/upcoming dungeons/trials/raids so ppl have actually dome it prior to these fights.