the normal content is too easy

[Packetdancer]

That's certainly an interpretation. One that, as a former healer main, is easily countered by both the dozens of "stop dumbing my job down" threads from people who do higher end content, and all the casual posts that I could sum up with "now that healers are boring 11111111111111111 jobs, they're the perfect level of engaging! Healing in this game is sooooooooo stressful! Thank you Square for neutering these jobs, they're so approachable now!"

As a healer main, I am not in any way suggesting the current state of healing in this game is good. Believe me, I am painfully aware of how simplistic our jobs have gotten.

I am saying that if we want to complain about the state of the game, I do not think that you can put the blame for all of the current state entirely on the "casual" audience, as some folks often seem to want to.

Just because healers now aren't happy with the AST card system as it stands doesn't change the fact that folks—some of them the same folks complaining now—were also complaining that only the Balance was worth playing back in Stormblood, and those complaints about numerically optimal play with cards were not—so far as I can tell—from the "casual" side of the playerbase. The changes we've gotten may not be the ones we wanted, but I do think they're partly our own fault. I know if I were a game designer working on this game, the "well, they're going to turn every dungeon into a linear speed-run, no matter what we make" factor would absolutely begin to figure into my design considerations. After all, why bother spending time on puzzles and side-hallways and such if most of the playerbase will never do them? You could spend that time on other game elements instead.

That's not the only reason, of course; making the MSQ and game more approachable almost certainly is a factor. I just don't think making things more approachable is the only factor in play here.