Are you talking about combat? Did you play Minecraft before the combat update? Before the combat update. I almost never died and played for months on a hardcore game before finally getting knocked off of a ledge in the Nether and falling into lava. However, one reason I stopped playing was the combat update. Suddenly I was terrible at it. I was constantly running out of stamina. To be fair, I've only played it a handful of times since that update, and I probably would have gotten a little better, but I felt like it changed the game too much for me.
Yeah, mostly the combat, though a lot of the worlds that were generated were amplified and I took a lot of falling damage as well.
I did play before the combat update and it's definitely harder now. In Blightfall I also avoid combat as much as I can. I did get end-game level armour by pure luck from a loot bag which has helped a ton in keeping me alive, but even then I avoid combat as much as possible. I've probably missed a lot of good loot because I'm too scared of running into enemies.