A request for Endwalker Dungeons (No more Undertuned)

[Shurrikhan]

But a curve would stop some from seeing through FF14's highly regarded story, and that is something they've shown to prioritize over making each of its many steps challenging.
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Will we ever get a "proper" difficulty curve?
I don't think so. Especially not with the ever ballooning amount of story people need to play through before they're caught up.

There's nothing about the plot that'd prevent a "proper" difficulty curve. That barely noticeable increase, each time, in difficulty, is exactly what makes a difficulty curve "proper", after all.

The relationship is quite the opposite: the more requisite steps, the more "stuff to do" you can allow from the endgame experience without making any single step too difficult.

And, similarly, the more engagement you center only outside of the MSQ, the larger a gap you create between player "types" and the more accordant toxicity you stimulate.

[ItMe]

There's nothing about the plot that'd prevent a "proper" difficulty curve. That barely noticeable increase, each time, in difficulty, is exactly what makes a difficulty curve "proper", after all.

Nothing about the plot would prevent a "proper" difficulty curve... outside of the fact that it's always updating with more and more with no end really in sight, as I touched on below where you cut off my quoted text.
I just don't understand how a curve could realistically be implemented well with FF14's structure.

The relationship is quite the opposite: the more requisite steps, the more "stuff to do" you can allow from the endgame experience without making any single step too difficult.

That's true. More steps = gentler curve.
In that part of my comment, my observation was more about a different problem with how many, many steps there are. In a regular simgle player RPG the difficulty curve will follow you through 40-80 hours of story. But in FF14 once you hit more resistance from the MSQ, considering it is hundreds of hours, it could start to feel more like a slog. Especially with so gentle a difficulty curve I think most of it will be more akin to slowing you down more than meaningfully challenging you.
Not to mention that wether it feels like a slog or not the curve would magnify the amount of time it takes to get through the already long (and ever growing longer) MSQ.

And, similarly, the more engagement you center only outside of the MSQ, the larger a gap you create between player "types" and the more accordant toxicity you stimulate.

Depends on how they do it.
Right now MSQ is not difficult, and after that you have a plethora of midcore options to act as an intermediate step to more hard-core content.
Having difficulty centered outside the MSQ is kinda what they're already doing and for the most part it seems to be a functioning approach.