Ever since Legion, the game has become more time consuming, and the gap between the average casual player and hardcore player has become pretty crazy. People keep harping that the game is more accessible than ever, but I think that’s complete nonsense. I could raid molten core pretty soon after hitting max level, I did half of ICC on heroic as a casual, half of Dragon Soul on heroic as a casual. I can barely even do Nzoth on LFR now.
Look at brand new max level players having 6-7 times less HP than a decently geared mythic player.
I am starting to think this is becoming more of a niche game. Even watching the streams of some youtubers, what they expect out of the game now is way beyond what any casual player wants.
All casuals really get out of the game now that LFR has been destroyed is world quests, rep grinds and the joy of getting roflstomped in random BG’s by bored high ilvl players. I guess there is low mythic level keys, but meh.
Game is not casual friendly at all anymore. It is now a game catered to people obsessed with min max (which Blizzard now designs content around). This will lead to even the hardcore burning out and the game hollowing out by the way. Seen it before in many games.
I miss when I could take my mediocre feral and do just fine in the hardest content in the game. Now? Get ready to watch hours of youtube videos, practice your rotation religiously, and then get told Feral is useless anyway as its not the meta.
MMO’s are about rewarding time investment, so the people who can nolife the game will be the most successful in current endgame content. “Casuals” are those who can’t dedicate the time to achieve the same things as those who can, and that’s perfectly fine.
They do need to fix LFR for SL, make it more accessible to people and less mechanics-heavy so casuals can actually experience the end of the story, but if you’re a casual you shouldn’t expect to get the same level of loot or reach the same difficulty level of content as those who do have the time to invest in reaching those.
This has been a part of the game since Classic. Anyone remember trying to grind out the darn Talbuk mounts with beads in Nagrand?
You’re right, but the catch-up system is fairly fast–especially compared to what it used to be. I jumped 20 item levels doing WQ’s alone yesterday on my alt.
I can’t speak for other streamers because I mostly only watch Taliesin & Evitel, but they seem to be defending casual players.
I have never done a level appropriate raid. I tend to avoid dungeons, for the most part. I don’t PVP anymore. I am sub-casual and I freaking love this game. There is probably much more for me to do than hardcore peeps. All about perception, I suppose.
I am a casual and I play just fine. I don’t do raids or dungeons, or even raid finder. I keep up on end game, as much as I want to anyway, on one character and even then not every day.
Mostly I level alts and solo old content for AH fodder. I’m having fun!
I play casually and I seem to find plenty to do. I actually like doing all the in game quest. If I get tired of questing I go mount hunting. If I want to do LFR I do. With mythics I run with my guild. There are things to do unless you primarily raid and that’s it
No. No no no no, I don’t want to remember the sheer amount of DUST that took. And the Ogre massacre I was part of. So many loincloths, so little time.
As for the OP: the game is more casual friendly than ever before. The sheer amount of gear that just rains down upon you is insane, it’s actually insulting. And this coming from someone who considers herself casual. The problem is, there’s casual and then there are people who don’t even want to try. Anyone in that category would be insulting to casual players. What did past expansion have that current doesn’t? The gear difference was even MORE, and LFR didn’t even exist pre-Cata.
This wasn’t generally acceptable outside of a guild group. And hey, that’s still the case now! We take our under performing Arcane Mage all the time. It’s about doing the bare minimum to know how to play your class, not expect free carries and whine when you aren’t allowed to do that. Honestly, folks who were carrying you before probably didn’t enjoy that, either.
separate Servers for difficulty levels
Mythic (Entire server is lip biting mythic demons hell bent on being the best in all of wow)
heroic (Above average players)
normal (Betty the wal-mart greeter)
idiots (anyone running around current content with a 114 with MoP trinkets on…)
It’s a lot more casual than it used to be in vanilla and bc for sure. The thing is now I can log on and do a decent amount in about an hour. Before it was maybe 2 hours for dailies and pre raid prep. Getting bis farmed up could be atrocious depending on the demand of your class. And raids themselves were not as trivialized as they are now. I say this as I haven’t raided since wod but I can youtube lfr my way through to get the idea and come prepped. A pug downing anything besides first few bosses and trash was more unheard of back then. And thotbot was still a major source of info for going into things. AMD that’s not counting the amount of time it took to attune people and gear them up with old raid content you have on farm each week where now they could pug or buy a few runs and do it themselves in just as much time.
I actually feel a tad bit jealous of the casuals - mostly because “ignorance is bliss”, right? Of course the casuals have plenty of reason to play current WOW. The hardcore players are the ones who take themselves a little more seriously are looking at BFA like it’s a tragedy. However, things are looking up with the Shadowlands info available today.
Hello, king casual here, I think I’ve done 1 M0 in BFA though I’m not entirely sure, 0 M+, 0 raids though I did 2 bosses in LFR because they drop recipes Forgot, I have no idea what it takes to get any essence besides the ones people always complain about because idc, I don’t do visions or 8.3 assaults or anything in 8.3 really and I don’t wear much corrupted gear because I’m not doing cloak unlocks on 59 characters
I don’t care about the power gap because I’m a full time collector So if you’re my kind of casual then yes there’s a reason to play I’m generally always in content older than the current xpac.
When I was a raider I always did this New raid coming out? Time to watch TankSpot or Fatboss videos, read guides on EJ, analyze logs of guilds who’ve cleared the bosses my guild hasn’t gotten to yet.
I’m casual and I love this game to no end. I have always something to do.
I don’t get bored or burned out like the hardcore people do because they only have one goal, mythic+ or raiding.
In the end, we, the casuals are the ones that are going to keep the game alive since you hardcore people tend to quit really quick once the raid has been out for a month or two.
Forgot, I have no idea what it takes to get any essence besides the ones people always complain about because idc, I don’t do visions or 8.3 assaults or anything in 8.3 really and I don’t wear much corrupted gear because I’m not doing cloak unlocks on 59 characters 
So if you’re my kind of casual then yes there’s a reason to play