The slow decline of FFXIV, a summary.

[ForsakenRoe]

This is a false dichotomy. Encounter difficulty will definitely raise the bar on every level. Job complexity, as long as they remain accessible, will do less so, for example. Raising only the ceiling, in a perfect world I do agree there, would leave enough wiggle room for the baseline casual difficulty not to change too much. Game didn't crater or failed spectacularly back in HW even with the most complex version of jobs in XIV history. Casuals just went by just fine. If anything, the game grew a lot from ARR which was piss easy in comparison.

The problem with encounter difficulty is that it tends to act in a very binary way: you either succeed or fail mechanics. Jobs and the battle system though? You can add enough depth that a player that wants a bit more out of the system can actually play with levers that are totally optional for clearance otherwise.

Perfect example of this in action: Look at the first 24man of DT, and the first 24man of HW. Apples to Apples comparison of the last bosses, you've got Echidna in Void Ark, versus Shadowlord in Jeuno. It should go without saying, that Shadowlord is many times more complex to execute than Echidna ever was . For example, I'd say the bit where you have to remember 3 cleave positions on the boss, then 2 from an add, then an Implosion from the boss, then an Implosion from another add, that sequence is more 'complex to execute' than the entire Void Ark raid put together. But unlike HW, the 'complexity' of Shadowlord isn't in the job, it's in the Shadowlord encounter itself. If a Healer player is less skilled now, tough, they're getting hit by the constant 270degree cleaves and dying after the second (due to the vuln). If a player was less skilled in HW, they'd... drop their DOTs, but they'd still be alive, and able to heal the team, and complete the content.

The 'complexity' hasn't been reduced per se, it's been shifted from a source where it was 'optional' in most content (you didn't have to be optimal to clear EX roulette or 24man or NM raids or EX trials, you could 'choose to focus on mechanics execution' and take more time to clear, but still clear), to a source where it's no longer 'optional'. You either interact with the complexity provided by 'the mechanics of the fight', or you die. No longer can a Healer player say 'I'm not so confident in my abilities, so I'm gonna focus on staying alive, and keeping my team alive, rather than trying to push for maximum DPS', because 'focus on staying alive and keep the team alive' is 80% of the challenge of the content. The skill floor has been raised, and the skill ceiling has been reduced, so now instead of a range of 1-100 in terms of 'player skill expression', we're now at a range of, say, 45-55. Which just results in anyone below the 45 mark feeling like they're not able to keep up, and anyone above the 55 mark feeling like they have to look to alternative places (ie other games) for a challenge

And somehow, SE's solution to this is 'make it so that if the Healer IS below the 45 mark, can't keep up with the mechanics vomit, and does die, don't worry because the Tanks have enough selfsustain to just power through the fight anyway!' How does that help the casual player? How does the lower skill ceiling help retain the Hardcore player who is always looking for the next big challenge? It's like SE wanted to insulate players who are not as skilled from the realization that there's players who are better at the game than them... But then they don't do anything to help those less-skilled players gain the skills to grow and become the high-skilled player themselves

Edit: It's even funnier, thinking about it. Previously, in HW, say an AST wasn't using their DOTs at all, preferring instead to focus on cards, healing, and the occasional Malefic when they had time to. They lost some damage, from not using their DOT. But now, consider an AST who cannot keep up with the mechanical complexity of the Shadowlord. They're going to be at 25%/50% damage lost, even if they were doing their rotation perfectly, because they've got Weakness/Brink of Death. SE hasn't solved a damn thing, they've just moved the issue to a different source! And even worse, it's so much more visible when someone's having trouble keeping up, because everyone in the party can see the Weakness/Brink of Death debuff icon!