if i had to refrence both ffxi and what you proposed avy, i'd just say maat . he stopped a lot of weak players in their tracks and forced [certain jobs, in unlucky cases, unfortunately] to gear up, med up and eat right.

the story/gc/etc quests and missions are such a joke in this game to the point where they've become an annoying grind and the fix that seems totally obvious to me is to think of a little gem called final fantasy tactics. you could plow your chars to high level with accumulate and then get fucked in the ass by the level 90 black chocobos, yakno, your choice. it's an extreme example but the premise is difficulty/monster level is relative to your current level and because the level at which you complete the missions and quests in XIV is so varied, it would apply a comparable challenge to whoever attempts them.

keep in mind that only applies to certain content like quests and missions and even moreso those of which apply to DoM/DoW!

i like how combat is, to an extent, currently; fighting multiple monsters at the same time is totally refreshing after playing XI long ago. you can still get bit in the ass if you get overly ambitious and you can still make mistakes in the harder areas of Eorzea, like the strongholds. the repops on monsters are unforgiving and if you can't quickly dispatch your foes then you get overrun pretty quickly. with that being said i would still like to see more challenging and puzzling content, whether the puzzling refers to some sort of actual in game puzzle, strategy, speculation/mystery/weaknesses, etc.

i also agree with whoever mentioned the current streamlining and fixing of the game. that's at the forefront and they're doing a great job-i don't doubt that future content will continue to become better, more intricate in some places and more refined. the XIV dev team is listening to the community to some point and that's great; i feel like it's going to take them a while to get there only because of their current goals which are to fix the disaster XIV once was...AND THEN THERE WILL BE CAKE!