Difficulty of normal content.

[Mihka]

Um... wow. What I've learned from this discussion is that:

1. I'm eventually going to hit a wall in normal content because the hardcore crowd needs *everything* to be a ball-buster even though they already have their own exclusive modes.
2. The playerbase is not in fact as "friendly and welcoming" as they claim when a significantly large portion of if it so willfully, and happily even, tells people to "GTFO then" when some players run into difficulty.

[snip because char limit]

This has definitely been an eye-opener compared to when I first started playing during Endwalker, and I probably should start treating it more like a single player game to prevent future issues.

So, I highly disagree with this.

The game doesn't really have any hard walls in normal content, especially in mandatory content. Some of the hardest non-extreme/savage content is in level 50 ARR dungeons (Pharos Sirius, for example), and Stormblood alliance raids (pre nerf, it's fairly tame now). This is because there are things in that content where players can wipe the party/alliance if they don't know what they're doing. Endwalker, and Shadowbringers to a lesser degree, significantly reduced the game's difficulty, and Dawntrail is a course correction which means some people who've spent the last few years only doing extremely easy content are now running into a difficulty bump.

Regarding the "friendly and welcoming" community - Firstly, if you're basing your opinion on just this thread, you need to take a step back and understand why there is backlash. We've just had two expansions of content getting easier and easier, and a lot of us are finally getting content developed in a direction we want to see, only for people to demand it be pulled back down again. The developers actually pay attention to the forums, so it's important for people who disagree to make sure their voices are heard.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that the in game community acts VERY differently to the community around the game. In game, if you so much as look at someone the wrong way, they can report you and get you put in GM Gaol, so people shut their mouths and carry on. This often leads to the other side of the coin, which is toxic positivity and toxic casuals - people who take being bad players to its toxic extreme, because there's nothing you can say or do about it besides leave their party, blacklist them, and pray you don't see them again.

With regards to choosing to unlock content or leave it locked, this is something I really disagree with. You're quitting before even trying, and robbing yourself of content you might enjoy out of fear of what might be, not what will be. If you never try, you'll never succeed.