The old games were considered unfair RNGfests which is what turned people off of them and almost lead to the series death. The dumbing down was nessecary to some degree and they did probably go a bit overboard in FEA but when this is the possible last game in the series if it doesn’t sell well your gonna be more cautious then anything else.

Though I remember having to be careful with my weapon durability when I played FEA. I can’t argue to much about overall difficulty because I only played the easiest difficulties.

All that said, even if it gets dumbed down, being an asshole to the new fans who came into the series is still a shitty thing to do especially when most of them were just mad about the addition of easier difficulties and permadeath being optional.