Imagine yourself being not the two years player, but rather a total newbie playing the game for the first time. You don’t know all the tips and tricks you know now. You don’t know the “optimal” way to survive and level up your character.
Imagine those “extremely difficult” settings you’re talking about are set by default. You start the game… and die during the first 5 minutes.
You start again, you manage to survive for 10 minutes, but in the end you die nevertheless.
You swear quietly, but decide to give the game another chance. You start once again and manage to survive the 15 minutes, but still die.
You might not even want to know there are many options to lower the difficulty to make it more playable for you.
What chance for you not to rage quit, delete the game and never come back to it again?
The problem is the game is too easy for an experienced player. Making the game harder (to satisfy veteran players) could push newbies away from the game.