Is D&D too hard?

[Fizban]

What defines "of significant effect?" . . .
Don't get me wrong, this whole argument is purely academic since, as I said in my previous quote, you can just eyeball it and do well enough. I wouldn't expect anyone to actually do all the necessary formulation and math to get a precise value but it doesn't change the fact that details matter if you're trying to be precise.

Whatever your eyeballs find significant. Though as the numbers center around 4/day/level, unless they're completely eschewing use of some level of spells, it's not that hard to see when they've used a slot from every level, or that they've used all their slots that you know can impact their foes. Rating hp loss in spell slots is mostly useful if they're actually going to use slots to restore that hp, you're just anticipating it like any other spell use.

How does an artificer fit into this idea when a -huge- portion of his day to day power comes from wands and staves?

We'll clearly disagree on how huge a portion of the artificer's power comes from burning consumables. Much of which depends on how many they have, which depends on what they're able to craft, which depends on types of treasure acquired (cash vs items to sell) determining how much they can spend on it.

Could you please elaborate on this? I am not sure what ways of discincentivizing this you are referring to or why you assume I don't consider them valid. Also, how do these methods not also include some metric for how many encounters the players "should" face in a day?

As I said, you could just not award xp for fights where the PCs use an extravagent amount of resources. Thus 15 minute days give no xp until they fight something sufficiently difficult that it should take an entire day's power to win, so they either stop doing it, or refuse to fight anything but big nova brawls. You said you would never be so harsh as to not give xp for a fight, so clearly you don't consider this valid.

The DM is a person too, telling them that their opinion doesn't matter but a player's does is absurd.
This also assumes that the players know what they want and are in full agreement, which is something that is very rare. Virtually every guide to playtesting I have ever read says something along the lines of "People are pretty good at noticing when something is wrong, but terrible at telling you exactly what it is, and even worse at telling you how to fix it."

Your perception will not change that of the players. One player is not more important than the DM, but two players is half the party. Desired consumable use if a fairly safe bet when it comes to direct answers, it's not a nebulous playtesting issue. And when I said deal with it, that includes the options of asking them to compromise or kicking them out- if making the change on your end is a deal-breaker.

Yes. If you only care about numerical rewards, it says a lot about you're playstyle. Even the most "kick in the door / hack and slash" players I have ever gamed with care at least a bit about working towards their character's goals and motivations.

And it takes a serious investment for someone who showed up to play 3.5 DnD, one of the most complicated mechanical tabletop games, to care so much about "progress" that it eclipses the other two. Treasure and xp are a foundation of the Game in Roleplaying Game, and I smell dissatisfaction with both in your player descriptions. Furthermore, though it sounds counter-intuitive, the more agency the players have, the less fulfilling "progress" is. Apparently this was intended to be an impartial hex-crawl? So they're not on a continuous adventure path against the BBEG, and they're not pursuing the challenge of personal goals vs intentional DM interference. They're just. . . going around clearing bandit camps and climbing radio towers and maybe plot shows up if they feel like it.

I remember another poster saying once that the best times their supposedly anti-railroad party had, were the parts of the game were the most on-rails. Riding down the rails, plowing through obstacles and doing the stuff expected of you, is the most rewarding of the nebulous "progress" set for a lot of people, though they might not realize it. The trick is to make the rails so fun and inviting they don't see them as rails. In absence of proper structure, many people default to simple power acquisition, as in: treasure and xp. And all your players' complaints seem to be about treasure and xp. . .

Also, I just had another poster get onto me for calling XP and treasure rewards. No wonder I am confused.

The particular terms doesn't matter. The point is the game gives out treasure and xp because people like getting treasure and xp, your players have identified a dissatisfaction with the consumables/treasure system, and you've admitted to using an xp system that has known potential to reduce satisfaction.

Although hopefully I can figure out a way to come to terms with them without actually removing consumables, at that really fundamentally changes the game and takes away their "safety net" if things really do go bad, which will only lead to more drama and grief.

Not as much as you might think. As long as they have a Cleric of sufficient level, there's essentially nothing they need to buy scrolls or potions of. The safety net can be replaced with bigger, flashier consumables that don't even have saleable gp value, like an Angel or Genie (or Devil, Demon, etc) who owes them a favor and can be summoned up with their whatever-name.

Such a game would, by necessity, be very slow paced, have (next to) no risk, have (next to) no challenge, and not really require any care or skill on the players.
Although they might find this fun in the short run, I would find it dreadfully boring, and as with the monty haul games I have run in the past, I can't imagine the players wouldn't quickly grow bored and move on.

You seem to have missed the part where I said they should be playing classes without daily resources to nova. No nova, challenge stays mostly the same. And if/when they get bored and decide to fight more often, great, problem solved.

The actual problem is that it's unlikely they'd actually agree to switch to no-resource classes, because if they feel like they can barely win with normal spells, they'll never win without them.

Also, "interesting" fights are the last thing they want. They want straight forward fights where they can charge in and hack stuff to pieces (or stay back and blow it up with fireballs).
The biggest complaints I have gotten so far were fights against a fomorian whose goal was to throw them off a bridge rather than kill them, and avatars of the god of violence that when one was killed two would take its place. Both were very interesting non-traditional encounters, but both were absolute bitch-fests.

I mean, that bridge fight is still straightforward, they just get the extra fear of being thrown off a bridge. Which probably seems unfair because they can't do it. As for the latter, yeah I'd probably cry foul at a homebrew enemy that duplicates itself on death, without any further context. Especially if it was a puzzle boss vs a party you know doesn't like puzzles.

For example, as I said above I let players convert unused spells into scrolls. One session (in a previous game) the wizard player missed almost the entire session, came in with about 5 minutes to go without casting any spells, and then demanded I let him convert his entire repertoire into scrolls.

Both a problem with the free scroll mechanic, lack of rules regarding late/absent players, and this particular player being a butt. I must assume there was another reason they were showing up, as anyone should know if you're that late you shouldn't bother.

and always ended the adventure having spent less than they took out

You mentioned before spending 50gp consumable to get 100gp, which I assume wasn't an actual example- because that's a terrible deal. But it does seriously beg the question of just how they were spending so much cash on consumables when you're giving them infinite free scrolls and still have to point out they "left with more than they took out."

Basically, I use something similar to 5Es long rest variant where it takes a full rest rather than one night to recover, and I use something akin to the Adventure League downtime crafting system.

I don't know what a "full rest" means, but if you slowed down resting then you don't get to complain about resting slowing down the game.

Oh, trust me, if I let them my players would never face more than one encounter per day and would spend years in town grinding money from professions if I let them.
They always find some argument for making extra money; they will find other adventurer's and meet them in the middle, they will live in a shack and live off bread and water to avoid living expenses, they will trade outside city walls to avoid taxes... always some scheme to squeeze every last copper out of the system and then complaining "but realism" if I shoot any of them down or try and enforce consequences.

Too bad. Consequences *are* realism, and DnD doesn't have a "realistic" economy anyway. This is where you put your foot down and tell them you showed up to run 3.5 DnD, not their fantasy business spreadsheet. If they want to settle down and roll Profession for the rest of their lives, great, game's over, Smash Bros?

Your capitulation and reinforcement of this is not helping. You let them have free scrolls, but I think you also said they could convert them into money, as in these aren't stockpiled spells but actually just free money? And you've given them an extra downtime crafting system that almost certainly results in more than the normal rules. They get rewarded for whining about money, and then apparently have to burn tons of money every time they actually fight, which only gives them more reason to whine about it.

Also, I don't get why the proposed high level heroes are expending all of their resources drained by low level enemies in this example. Are you implying that I "scale up the world" like a bad Bethesda game, or do you assume my players are so dense that they can't infer that their level 20 demon slaying heroes could beat the crap out of the orcs they fought at level 1 because I haven't spent the time actually running them through a dungeon 15 levels below them as a demonstration of their power?

You said you vary the number of fights (and indeed, your players seem to think you're picking CRs out of a hat), and using underleveled fights with the same target resource expenditure means you must use more of those underleveled foes. Now apparently this was a hex crawl game and you set dungeon levels rather than auto-scaling, but that doesn't change the fact that each area has been rigorously leveled and your players apparently have some idea of the expected level (if they're refusing to go to underleveled areas but also not getting wiped for bashing their head against overleveled areas).

Also, the players in my game can and do periodically meet and wipe the floor with the same enemies that they struggled with earlier. . .
Which is not to say I don't agree that there is value in varying the challenge of missions; some should feel harder and some should feel easier. The problem is, my players complain about both; if its too easy they complain that I am wasting their time by not providing them with as much XP and treasure, and if it is harder they complain that it is, well, too hard and therefore "imbalanced".

Well if its a hex crawl they're self directed and you're not wasting their time, and if they walk into an overleveled area it's supposed to be their own fault. Your descriptions do not make this sound like a hex crawl- as Quertus said, something doesn't add up. Either your players are blaming you for their choice of progression through a truly impartial open world, or it wasn't very impartial to them. And the ever murkier question of consumables and free wealth generation only makes it worse.