In some ways I can see why people are saying it's "easy", but I also think it doesn't have to be played that way at all. And play style is definitely going to make a difference. For the people who like to play small households or single Sims and are only pursuing magic with one Spellcaster, no pets, no children, no roommates, no other family, etc, ... I could see advancement feeling like it goes a little too fast. Also, for people who have a lot of play time in the day and can get many hours in, they might be more likely to get farther, faster.
However, in my own experience, I've played about eight hours total, with a household that has a Witch I made a long time ago, her teen Witch daughter, their cat, and a Vampire toddler, fathered by Caleb (who is a total stalker and won't stop bugging my Witch and asking her to go places. Like, several times a day! It's like, okay Edward Cullen, just step back and relax, I'll call you. :D ) It's been almost a Sim week and my Witch has, I think, three potion recipes, three spells and two tomes in her inventory plus a bunch of harvested random ingredients. Her cat is her Familiar (but he won't sparkle! *cry* ...maybe ol' Edward/Caleb will sparkle instead). The teen I think knows one spell, two potions, has a dueling curse, and no Familiar yet because I want her to find or earn one, not "buy" it, and see what creature comes to her. Also, their house has caught fire twice because they have about eight fireplaces in it (and the Witch saved her cat but left her son stranded upstairs, yikes!), the teen is barely making it to school most of the time and has left early to go do magic stuff, and the toddler is so neglected I finally gave him a birthday to age him up to a child because the Witch is such a bad mother, lol. He's now a gloomy Vampire child. <3 And all of this has been done with me actually cheating needs up so they don't have to sleep (even though they've been passing out in the magic realm sometimes because I forget and won't take them home, haha.) And, my Witch doesn't even have a day job and if she did, I'd have gotten nowhere at this point. Oh, they also got caught in a blizzard while harvesting in Glimmerbrook so they autonomously flew to the bar to get indoors and spent Winterfest in the pub with other Spellcasters while the toddler was stuck in daycare for the holiday. (See? Worst mother ever. But who's really going to ride home on a broom in a blizzard? They were miserable just making snow pals.) I also play rotationally, so this is only one of about five or six households that are going to have different levels of Spellcasters in them. It's definitely going to take me a while.
So although I can comprehend the simplicity of the system, I can't really understand blasting through the actual gameplay. I don't disrupt my regular stories to conquer new DLC. I continue to play the game as I always do. With cheats. (Lol)
