Difficulty of normal content.

[Riotas]

Reading through the comments here and from the other MSQ-difficulty thread I get the (very bold) impression that maybe not all, but most of the people who find the dungeons/raids too difficult are
1. older people
2. people with some kind of disability/anxiety/handicap/low self-confidence/etc
3. people who get psychological issues when dying too often
(This is not meant offensively, I'm just not a native English speaker)

I think many people here who say that they just need to get better/skill issue/not willing to learn//use their eyes/etc don't understand that people who fall into these categories can't mentally process the fight as fast and efficient as a normal player. They want to learn, but they can't.
It's probably just a messy visual overload for them and all of their stress hormones are going crazy which further interferes their reaction speed. So it's a valid concern of how we can include these people.

On the other hand, people who fall under these categories are not the typical casual player or the primary target group of MMORPGs.
I actually think these threads are mislabelled, it's not "make the fights appropriate for casual players" but "add a barrier-free option to the fights".
The real average casual player does not have any mental issues and does not have any problems to play with other people or to die in a video game. Dying/Wiping in FF14 has no consequences in real life except maybe a psychological impact on the player.
But a mature healthy player should be able to handle that. This is not school, not your real life job, just one of many video games out there.

Personally, I'm neither hardcore nor casual nor disabled, but I still like the increased difficulty. I almost died in every MSQ dungeon on the first try, and since I was the healer, it often lead to a wipe. But the other players have always been nice and it was fun to learn the overlaps.
I think the devs should continue with the DT difficulty design, because
1. the average healthy casual player (and even some hardcore players) will probably die in the dungeons but this should not be an issue for them and they can still finish it in the end after few attempts, even if it means that the other 3 players need to carry them though the dungeon
2. the difficulty naturally decreases when more people have done and know the fights and when better gear is available. Next tier of gear is going to be released on 30th July. If you're in a hurry get MSQ and optional raids done I would maybe question myself if you're really still a "casual" player.
-> So this increased difficulty is maybe a challenge, but not a big problem for casual players.

Nevertheless I would add some barrier-free option to include the people who fall under the categories mentioned above. Some simple things to implement (I think) are maybe an opt-in echo-option/ unsync-option when entering the dungeon with NPCs.