Everything below is merely my selfish, biased, narrow opinion.
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To Undone:

Regarding your patch notes change from December 6, 2022, for Embers Adrift:
"
Mobs lvl 25+ have had their damage values increased.
...
Fixed issues with NPC global cooldown being too slow. This reduces the gap between auto-attacks and abilities for NPCs which should give them more appropriate DPS levels.
"

Well, I have to hand it to you, Undone, you've managed to make me want to quit playing in one patch.
Since launch, I've witnessed dozens of players hit level 25, see that it takes 5+ at-level group-required mobs to make 1% of their level of XP, and logout, never to return.

Since launch, I've witnessed dozens of players hit level 30, see that it takes 8+ at-level group-required mobs to make 1% of their level of XP, then logout, and never return.

Trying to raise Hunter for the last half of every tier, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of carcasses required.  Ok, wait a month, then add a patch that adds level 25 skinnables to a level 31+ zone.  More people quit.  I mean sure, we can all camp the L30 bunnies in Redshore for 15 hours a day and gather the THOUSANDS of carcasses required to get Hunter to level 40, sure, we could all do that.

Now, we're seeing tanks fighting yellow triple chevs dying in less than the casting time on the heals of two healers.  If you're not a tank, you're dead, full stop.  But heal aggro (healers performing their ROLE generates astronomical threat values) is so over-the-top that you might as well have healers tank everything, because they're all healing spambots, now.  As in, all the healers?  They can't actually use ANY OTHER ABILITIES because from the moment the fight starts, all they can do is desperately attempt to keep tanks with 500 or 600AC alive fighting a yellow con triple chev.

So, what are we supposed to do?  Fight green & blues only, for 1-5% XP per hour?  That's the design goal?  If it is, TELL US.

What you've done since launch, Undone, is make incremental changes that are reducing your target demographic.  You're narrowing the niche to the point where all the people that started playing with optimism, thinking this could actually be a game worth playing, are quitting.  You've managed to attract an audience, and alienate them, all in less than two months since launch (October 15th, 2022).  I mean, honestly, it might be a new record of some kind, to have the most promising grouping-require MMO in history, and INTENTIONALLY destroy any hope of a sustainable player base in less than two months.

Here's a pro-tip, from a paid-full-time-wages-as 30 year software developer;  Not enough players are going to play your punitive game.  Exactly not enough.  You've made it exactly punitive enough so that not enough people will play.  Congratulations, well done.  Mission accomplished.

If you want a constructive post?  Here's one.  Reduce all triple chev damage output by 50% until you have a chance to have PUBLIC testers test ANY combat changes you might think of in the future.  And that means all auto attack, all abilities, everything.  That MIGHT get us back to close to where the game will be playable again by a large enough population to keep paying for your servers and bandwidth.  And you need to hotfix that in, not wait a week for another patch.  Hotfix.
And whatever testers told you that these changes would increase subscriber retention, attract more players, make the game more fun, or was in any way a positive result for the game?  You need to fire all those testers and use the general public.  NOT YOUR BETA TESTERS.  Because those people are giving you bad information, consistently.  They are all too emotionally and financially invested to be even slightly objective.  Obviously, given today's results.

It honestly just astonishes me that you thought this was a good idea.  Your leveling curve is ALREADY worse than original EQ1.  Already.  Now you want to make death a common occurrence on the mobs required to level up at 5% per hour?  Is 1000 hours of play time for 1-50 your design goal?  Is it 100 days of play time to max level?  What's the actual goal here?  Tell us.  What is your current design goal for the amount of hours, mobs, whatever measurement system you want to use, for an always-grouped, fighting at-level white/yellow triple chev content, full group to go from level 1 to 50?  TELL US.

And while you're thinking about ways to fix this?  ENABLE OR RE-ENABLE THE CLIENT-SIDE COMBAT LOG FILE.  For the love of all things holy in whatever universe you live in, what kind of production MMO doesn't permit their players to submit to support and/or parse their combat log?  An old-school hardcore one?  Oh right, ALL the old-school hardcore MMOs have client side combat log files.  Yes, all of them.  You know why?  Because those developers wanted accurate feedback from their customers about how things actually are working, rather than hiding behind forced ignorance.  They don't want impressions, feelings or opinions.  They want the client side combat log file.

Slowing down your players is not a problem you need to solve.  There is no mathematical value you can come up with that will reward the casual enough and not be taken advantage of by the hardcore.  Conversely, there is no value you can use for any progression based system that slows down the hardcore "enough" but still allows the casuals to proceed at a reasonable pace.  Don't try to solve this problem.  Reward the casuals.  They're the bulk of your subscribers.  If the hardcore hit 50 and roll alts, great!  If not, they're the exception and a tiny fraction of your paying customers.  DO NOT DESIGN AROUND THE EXTRAORDINARY PLAY TIME OF 1-10% OF YOUR CUSTOMERS.  It's a hole with no bottom, and all you're doing is punishing everyone to make a subset quit.  If you don't want people playing your game for 10+ hours a day, then say that, right now.  Then those terrible hardcore players will all leave, and you can enjoy a quiet peaceful casual game with a few hundred customers, who will take 100 days of /play time to reach level 50, fighting single chevs with a full group.
Today, you lumped in the casuals with the hardcore, and punished EVERYONE.

I am extremely disappointed with these two changes, Undone.  You had the opportunity to make a great social grouping-required game, and all you've done since October 15th is make it worse, with today's patch being the worst change to date.  I'm just shaking my head continually, because it's just so frustrating to see yet another great MMO opportunity flushed away down the toilet of hubris.