This is the ***I dont get. Like how is exping on dinky mobs from level 10, according to him, somehow challenging?
I think the problem is that a lot of the difficult endgame content is walled behind time gates, gear, jobs, and participation. Once you hit 99, you aren't going to waltz out of a zone trying to reach Jeuno and get murdered, so it seems like a lot of the risk and challenge that existed before is gone unless you go deeper.
Some guy getting on during free login that heard the game was super easy can't walk up and try Kalunga v25, for instance, or even do Odyssey at all for 45 days. They aren't locked out of Sortie but they are never going to get to the more difficult bosses without effort and a group (ironically these types also yammer on and on about how there is no community despite there being a lot around Sortie and Odyssey in particular). Similarly you aren't going to see them in Dynamis-D. These require groups, gearing, and time, no different than 75-cap endgame content, but they never got to that point so they don't know that.
My feeling is that a lot of these types never made it past the 75 grind during 75-cap and never participated in endgame content then, so for them the grind through the levels is the 11 experience. When they login and see how trivial it is now, they brush the whole game off as easy, because they get to 99 and think they've beat the game (I've heard at least one person more or less use those exact words). Sure they can look at the wiki, but there is no way for them to go and try some of this content to see how difficult it actually is. Now a discerning person would see some of this and think they should read more on it or try it before passing judgement, but they aren't in that category so they just run on about how easy it is and cancel their sub.
There is also a really strong echo chamber effect about this, where some of the thumpers go on and on about how easy the game is now despite the fact they haven't experienced any of the current content. It gets repeated even though it isn't true.
I mean, no ***. content from 4/8/12 years ago is trivial in a MMO. That shouldn't be a groundbreaking revelation and is true of almost any MMO out there that is receiving updates.
However, my favorite part of the game is no longer a thing. That being the community. 90+% of shouts are RMT or people trying to sell things. A majority of players are multiboxing or spamming trust for most things. A large chunk of the "playerbase" is bots. Why team up for malignance armor farm when I can just cleave merits and then solo easy with trust until ***drops? Sortie launched and the first thing people do is make videos on solo farm strats. It's just not an environment I personally find fun.
Yea, there are solo strats for Sortie. Have you tried them? They aren't efficient and you'd be lucky to get 20% as much as a group would.
Keep in mind Sortie was specifically designed to be a bridge between other easier endgame content like Omen and Ambuscade to Odyssey. SE said it was aimed at lesser geared players and soloable to an extent, so yea, there are going to be solo strats because some people need to work up to being a group. No one I know doing well in Sortie and getting a lot of +3 gear is doing it solo.
As for the community complaint, that is just not the case. There is absolutely a strong community component to current content, Odyssey in particular. I'm in one Discord that is specifically aimed at coming up with strategies and forming parties for v25. I've met a lot of players I've never run with before doing that content and we're all coordinating/discussing strats. The fact this doesn't exist for easier, dated content like HTBFs and Omen is because it isn't needed, but that element absolutely still exists.
This is more or less highlighted by my post above. The endgame content now is really difficult to break into and try for people that aren't already really well geared and already have progress on it, it's time gated and resources to enter are limited. It's also punishing and time constrained, which doesn't leave a lot of room for people that aren't already experienced in it. It's a sort of chicken and egg problem, but these things you complain about being an issue in retail really aren't as much of one as you probably think.
There are legitimate reasons to prefer 75 cap, that's fair, preferring Horizon is fine, but if you aren't doing the current content then you really shouldn't be commenting on what it is and isn't.