the normal content is too easy

[Rhysati]

I've seen groups wipe 5 times in a row to some of the new story trials.

Well sure, but that's not because it's difficult. It's because they haven't memorized the mechanics yet. When you get a party with people who know the fights they usually got pretty swimmingly. Heck, I just did one for the second time since I first did it when the xpac launched. We wiped. But was it hard? No. We got unlucky, a healer stood in the wrong place and the other healer had already burned their instant-cast on something else. So we wiped. We picked ourselves up and breezed through it on the second go. And this was a pug.

But even still, I wouldn't consider a few trials that you never have to do again(hence why I never did it again after the first time and had completely forgotten it) as really pushing the limits of difficulty. I, for one, appreciated that it was at least not so easy as to be a snorefest.

But the dungeons? They are some of the most dull, boring experiences that literally reward groups to pull 3-4 groups of enemies all at once to speed along without even breaking a sweat. That shouldn't be how a dungeon works. Especially not current tier content. That doesn't mean it has to crush casual players or anything. It should just be a little bit of a challenge so it feels like effort you are being rewarded for. As it stands it is a boring chore to do so you can get tomes and that's just bad design.

Even when we do get normal content that's designed to be harder, people just avoid it anyways. Orbonne is my favorite 24 man this game has ever released and I never get to do it because everyone just ilevel cheeses alliance raids to get LOTA.

I think you are missing the actual issue. The issue isn't that it's hard so people don't want to do it. It's because there's no POINT to doing it. You aren't rewarded for the increased effort so why bother? If you have a choice between shopping in an empty store vs shopping during black friday but with the exact same deals available? You'd choose to go on the empty day. Why? Because it isn't worth the headache, effort, or your time to go fuss about with massive crowds for the exact same rewards. People go to black friday sales and put up with the difficulties because the rewards are worth their time investment. As a roleplayer, even the outfits from that tier of raids are low quality and nothing I'd ever use on any of my characters. I don't know a single other roleplayer who wants them either. And what do you get for your time and effort? The exact same thing you get on a much easier and less time-invasive raid. So why do it?

If the goal is to make the entire game feel completely unrewarding then they are doing a great job of it right now.