For all the "hardcore" players who get frustrated that players get the same stuff they did without putting in the exact time and effort you did; you're playing the wrong game. You should have subscribed, in mass, to FFXIV 1.0. Yeah, that game. You know where the fatigue system was in place that prevented anyone from advancing past a certain point each week. Where if you went balls to the wall for 8 months any new player would have to go balls to the wall the exact same 8 months you did to see what you did. You know that awful game that no one wanted to play that wouldn't let you regen your mana out of combat, easily shop for a sword in the markets, gather without some Vegas style mini-game, and had no auto-attack.

The game you wanted was there, and I didn't see the millions of subscribers wanting hard content that you claim there is playing it. Almost every "hardcore" player is that internet superhero thinking they're pretty badass when they haven't even touched the content they're claiming to want to keep hard and in some cases couldn't even complete it if they wanted to. If you power-ran this game and ran out of stuff to do before the free trial period ended that's your own fault, not Squenix's.

Don't compare an MMO to a console game. Two different beasts. Developers can make a console game as punishing and as evil as they want and not care at all. You know why? Because once you bought the game that's all the money they get from you. They could care less if you EVER beat level 1 because they already got their $59.99 or whatever from you. A pay-to-play MMO really only makes money on the subscription fees, and when the game is not fun people leave and they lose money. The game has to cater to the majority of players paying for subs which are not horribad players like you think. Most of us are average or above-average players with limited time and outside responsibilities. I am perfectly fine with something being hard and for the hardcore short-term, but every 2-year-old learns that once you're done with a toy someone else gets to play with it. Get off your high horse because no one is throwing you a parade for beating Bahamut's Coil, and if beating it isn't enough of a reward for you then oh well.

And to the players thinking that the content self-nerfs with level cap increase: you are so wrong. If you haven't paid attention to the fact that ALL content in this game is level-synced and cannot be outleveled you're really not playing this game at all. Coil could perpetually be synced to level 50 (or 52 at most) and gear be scaled down to make no difference whatsoever. The content will need a nerf because no amount of leveling will fix being synced to 50-ish. Also, the content looks to be gated the whole way through. Coil may need to be beaten to access Crystal Tower, so coil will need an adjust to get more people through the first gate at some point.