Why pay a subscription?

[Sidious]

You're under the assumption it's the difficulty that caused WoW's subs to drop. lol....

Did you ever think maybe people got sick of playing the same game for 7-10 years?

If you were correct this game would already have 40 man raids and they would not hand out relic gear.

So you think it's just sheer coincidence that as soon as they started casualizing parts of the game that didn't need to be casualized, subs began to stagnate and decline?

It's an MMO. They're dumping millions of dollars into reinventing it constantly. The game is completely different than it was before. It can hardly even be considered the same game anymore. So, no, I don't think it's because people "got tired of it". Especially because people are willing to play a game that is, for better or worse, mechanically very similar to it (ARR).

Are casuals allergic to logic or something?

FF 11 online was known for being super hard and it had a very low subscription base.

By the numbers, it's one of the most successful P2P MMO's of all time. It never had WoW's sheer numbers but it had a very dedicated, stable subscriber base that continues to this day, ~a decade later.

Why? Because XI built on its content until there was a mind-numbingly huge amount of content to participate in. Complexities and depth in the game keep people around.

Casual games are good for some short term fun, and then you burn through it and unsub. Period.