@Casuals , do you think the message has gotten through?

[Mawlzy]

To be frank, I think casuals are babied so much by yoshi-p that they never gain a skill level beyond what you'd expect of someone in sastasha. It's actually pathetic when I see people die 3-4 times on an expert dungeon boss which is still very casual. People have no idea what their abilities do, don't know how to read cast bars, and expect people to carry them though the game. "normal mode" is absolutely the equivalent of story mode in other games, a mode designed to push players through the story with very little resistance. Yet people with 1000+ hours into the game still can't dodge a floor AOE or keep more than 50% ABC.

More evidence that the game needs skill sliders or a dual-track.

You don't want to play with the babies. They do not want to play with you.

Incidentally, if one accepts that skill is something one gains through practice (which I do up to a point; there are also massive intrinsic skill variations in a MMO player pool), you might solve your puzzlement by realizing how little instanced PvE one is compelled to do in this game. For those of us who play each MSQ dungeon/trial once, we get hardly any practice at all.

This is also why I would like to see Duty Support extended to all required content. I don't want to be a burden on the players who are good at PvE, yet I am compelled to play those awful 8-man MSQ things with other players.