Has Wow Abandoned Casual Players

Community General Discussion
81

Been a ‘casual’ since BC. Everyone wants different things out of the game. For a lot of casuals, it’s not about how easy or hard they make Mythic Dungeons, they could care less.
So, I did professions and helped out my guild with supplies before raids. And I casually ran dungeons when invited by easy going guildies. I loved working toward earning mounts, cool gear, etc. But a couple of things changed.

WoW token. I used to love putting on music, a good podcast, and just circling zanger, scholazar, Uldum and gathering. It was good gold, a couple thousand a day. But since the token, it feels stupid to gather for 6 to 8 hours, put up ore or herb on AH, and log in tomorrow and get 1-2k gold, when for 20 bucks, I could get 200,000.

RNG. It’s fine in Raids, but in the world, it sucks knowing every time you are not any closer since it’s random. You can’t work toward it. And WoW doubles up. Gather 100 frogtoes to get exalted to unlock access to buy the mount, AND each of those 100 toes are tied to RNG. Oh and even in older content you are just leveling through, you can’t START working on that rep and RNG until you’ve hit max level, and need to move on to the next expac.
I think Nobelgarden did it right. They had a mount. If you looted 500 eggs, you could buy it. But it also had a small chance of dropping every time you looted. And if you got to 400 eggs and it dropped, heck finish the 500, and sell the one on AH. And in BC at least you could grind talbuk beads, or search for netherdrake eggs if you were close and wanted to push through to exalted.

Maybe I have gotten spoiled, when I think back to early days. But when I log on and see all the cool stuff, I kinda want some reasonable path to get some of it.
I apologize for going off topic from the raiding debate, but I think these kind of things are why casuals log on, look at their options for what to do today, and log off.

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82

WoW abandoned the players it was made for yes the game is an MMORPG meaning Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game however the current game lead who is the GM of a guild called “Elitist Jerks” and doesn’t even use Transmog is hell bent on turning it into a competitive esports game.

Like casual players are complaining about being abandoned when the Role Playing community was abandoned years ago.

Like this here is the reality of WoW
https://imgur.com/a/QsoTSSN

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83

Did not reputation mount bags give you this? But ya’ll whined and cried so hard about it until it’s no longer a thing.

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84

Precisely what I mean just because one doesn’t want to do the content doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Which people seem to think means there is nothing for them to do.

85

WoW was casual and alt friendly for ONE expansion. Wrath.

Then they gave up on that because it was too much work and focused almost entirely on giving raiders and pvpers stuff. And as each expansion did worse than the last, they doubled down on ignoring casual players.

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86

it’s always amusing people using the word casual because it means so many different things depending who you ask . the game is fine for casual playing , let’s say 1-2 hours per other day . let’s say you do four +6 mythics , all the LFR latest raid in between and some open world questing for the story . isn’t this casual friendly ?

87

Not all casual players, because it’s such a broad category. There are casual players who will log in and keep competitive with a specific game mode. If all you’re playing for is your IO score, you can do that as a casual player.

WoW isn’t a bad game for casual players, it’s just a bad game for a diverse audience. For specific types of players, it is obviously a great experience still. Perhaps a better one than it used to be.

The addition of M+ took a lot of people who weren’t logging in frequently, and gave them a reason to do so, if overcoming dungeons and difficulties with a group is your game. But the addition of M+ also created a second group of PVE players, on top of raiders (and not all, mind you, but enough), who loathe the concept of feeling driven to do any other form of content.

If there is a path to progression or any optimal way to get something that ties into a mechanic that could potentially increase your capabilities outside of the instanced content these people enjoy, there is outrage over it. People leave over it. And I don’t believe those people are the “hardcore” or “no life” players that are rebelling against value in the open world.

It’s likely the challenge/progression-driven casual players who have limited time to play, and they don’t want to feel like they’re gimped because they can’t commit to what they call “chores.”

It gets worse when these people decide they want to invest in alts. It’s why we don’t have a good leveling experience anymore, it’s why nothing you do in a patch matters anymore when the next patch drops, etc…

The game caters to these people. The challenge-driven casual instance player. And for the other casual players who aren’t challenge-driven and still want a solid RPG experience with a replay loop, we can’t have it unless they find a way to design something that doesn’t encroach on their enjoyment.

So that’s where we are right now. I play WoW for the questing, the new story bits, and the combat mechanics. I play different games for the better quality of the replay loop.

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88

define casual?

89

Casuals can still play just fine. I Do it every day. I feel like if anything, it’s more casual friendly now.

90

That was a good video… about Shadowlands.

Maybe something a bit more updated? Does a new player have to jump through 8 different hoops to raid in DF?

91

Not really. Just get to 400 ilvl (which is both very fast and completely free in the outdoor world) and they are ready to do normal (gear wise)

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92

This nails what is wrong with the game perfectly!! Well said Mr. Goblin!!!

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93

I’ve been leveling some characters the old way just by grinding mobs, and oh boy is that down right mind numbingly boring. WoW needs a casual revolution. But from the looks of it they’re going to cater to their hardcore cows until they die off or quit. WoW needs something to make it exciting again. Ol bess is on her last leg. One more xpack of player loss and it’s maintenance mode halfway through 2024.

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94

Despite what people may say, gaming in general has moved to a more elite club since it started to enter the mainstream in the 90´s, when casuals were the driving force.

All those websites with guides, addons that measure performance, timed content, achievements… it´s all there to distinguish the players and this creates elitism and toxicity.

More and more gaming studios adjust their content to this type of player, as the streaming industry is so big and generates millions like that for the gaming studios when “influencers” beat each other in video games.

Today, gaming is more like a job than a hobby and this makes it less attractive at least for me.

I dont watch streams, I don´t care who does what first and I couldn´t care less about my achievement score or raid IO. Unfortunately, I belong to a minority at WOW.

You need to understand that being a Casual ends, when you compete for something frequently. It does not matter if you run 5 Mythic a day, 1 Raid or 20 Arena, as soon you compete you are out.

That´s why you have no Casual athletes in sport, no Casual bank manager or President. You need dedication for these tasks, every day and they get the go before other things in your life.

So if just 5% were raiding in Vanilla, then those 5% were not Casuals, but 95% were. And this is how gaming was back in the days, it was filled with Casuals and this is on a steady decline in gaming.

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95

Casual is what you make of it. Not caring about gear treadmill and there are still many things to do.

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96

Nothing about that sounds casual.

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97

Account wide rep that we have been asking fo, for Years now, would solve that problem overnight.

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98

I don’t think it hates us but the devs don’t get us.

Now, compared to Shadowlands, Dragonflight is a HUGE step in right direction. Casual players have something to do, we have ways to get gear etc. (And remember, in my experience casual players don’t expect to have mythic quality gear, they just want to get that feeling they’re growing in power compared to where they were like everyone else).

The problem is eventually you run into the realization that the endgame, should you choose to engage with it, is an e-sport. Mythic dungeons are a sport, high end raiding is a sport, you are expected to know everything before taking the first step etc. You CAN make your own group, of course. But that doesn’t solve the major issue which is that for casual players the endgame just isn’t fun. For people who do not care about leaderboards, being the best of the best, and worry about one mistake ruining everyone else’s evening it’s just not fun. I think treating WoW as an esport is a mistake.

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99

I think so too.

Say little Timmy watches one of their dumb streams and says “I wanna do that!” To even get to the arena level that he sees on Twitch he has to go through weeks of prep. I don’t really see someone that’s not used to RPG MMOs doing that when there are better games for pvp out there that lets you jump in head first from the get go.

So, who are they trying to appeal to with these esport events?

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100

You realize there’s no reason to treat these like sports, right? You don’t have to do high end raiding or high m+ to be participating in endgame and still growing your power casually, there’s more chill versions for everyone to find what makes them happy.