It's okay to cater to "casuals"

Community General Discussion
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I agree that a bit more content for “casuals” (I don’t like that word, because I see it used in such a wide variety of meanings that it loses its meaning) would be good.

Now, I would never agree to prioritize that over what the game is truly about. This game’s core is instanced content. That should always take priority and the largest amount of resources from the devs.

A small amount of resources allocated to casual content, however, could be good.

And no, the game isn’t divided between players who participate in e-sport like events and the rest. There’s a big, really big amount of players who participate in raiding, while not being the “top 1%” we often hear about. There’s normal, heroic and even some less hardcore mythic players as well.

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Those 1% raiders gives Blizz more money than your kind. Blizz would prefer people who plays their game. Why would Blizz focus on people who never plays their game?

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but many DO want to do that stuff.
They pay sub fees the same as you do.

“Focus”
i think the focus should be on the ENTIRE game. not just your group only content IF this game is going to keep living a long life and attracting people who DONT want to raid.

This game is huge enough to be made to appeal to ALL of us…not just you.

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I think the problem is that, especially for the more ‘casual’ (open world/queable content) everything is designed to be as grindy and tedious as possible, making the ‘content’ of such not enjoyable if you are trying to progress in power any without doing the ‘hardcore’ (see organized) content, and, despite some versions of queable content being denoted as harder due to that lack of organization, it rewarding significantly lesser rewards just makes alot of people feel like they are being FORCED into that higher, and to them unfun, content to be able to advance and progress.

I do think FF14 handles it better in that regard, where higher difficulties aren’t, essentially, gear or BiS checks, but just checks of your skill, and they reward cosmetics, not stronger gear, meaning folks feel less forced into it.

Lets take ZM, the ‘best’ outdoor content (for many people) in SL. Advancement in the open world is gated behind currency grind and hard timer lockouts (‘research’) and that also affects the power of the gear you get, further dragging out your ability to do thing/advance. The reputation, which also ties into personal power, is hard daily capped so you are again, forced to do daily chores to advance. It is not fun, it’s not ‘engaging’ it’s tedium for the sake of tedium and to make a TINY amount of content feel like it is much more than it really is. A timer is fine if there is no resource cost, but if we have to grind for a lockout, that’s not really a good time for players, as it is for the MAU bulldonks.

And don’t get me started on how STINGY loot is this ENTIRE expansion. 1 equipable from a dungeon, and odds are it’s a down grade for you, and NEVER the slot you actually need to upgrade. Heck, in LFR I’d gone 2 wings without anything but anima/gold dropping, and that’s friggin’ ANNOYING.

TL;DR: The time gating of everything for non-organized content is fuggin’ rediculous/unfun and is a MAJOR contributor to why people say that the 1% of hardest hardcore players get all the focus/love from the dev team

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165

LMAO.
I spent $660 on boosting characters to blizzard in ONE month guy.
lmao

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One has to wonder why they’ll do it there but not here, since overwhelmingly, the “casual” response to hard content here is negative.

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The big dif is that the Hardcore Content in FF14 is PURELY for cosmetics, and bragging rights. No player power attached.

Also: it’s a test of skill not ‘are you 100% BiS and not shafted by bad luck with gear?’ cause 14 is stingy with the ‘gold’ but pours gear on you so you can continue to advance and grow.

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It also happens here. What you hear in the forums is the true “1%” of people who feels entitled to make the game another different game to what it is and they’re very loud. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the forums are a source of truth.

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I dropped $1000 a month on WoW tokens until the Soar nerf. I canceled then and spent my monthly token budget on Steam Games.

I’m a whale, Jhannae. I spend my wealth on enriching my WoW experience without ever having to interact with your kind. I have a brutosaur, a Spectral Tiger, all the BlizzCon rewards, 250 characters across 5 accounts, a red ogre idol, a realm first, and some enviable titles - check out my profile sometime if you like.

I absolutely play their game. I just don’t play it the way you want me to, and I never will.

If Blizzard caters to my playstyle as they have done since 2004, I will resume buying WoW tokens and paying my 6 months subs and purchasing character services.

If they fail to cater to my playstyle, I will take my money elsewhere and give it to more deserving game developers.

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170

Shoot people lost their minds over a mount that doesn’t even fly because they were forced to run premade for it.

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Im embarrassed by the money we spent on this game before it started irritating me and i shut down my other accounts. I just keep the two accounts now.
The audacity of that guy to dare to tell me how much money Ive spent on this game, lmao

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That’s cool that you think that, but when I was talking about the focus of the game, what they should prioritize, I was responding to this:

The “meat” of each content patch should not be solo player content in a multiplayer game. Should there be some? Yeah, but they should not prioritize it.

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so ‘focus’ on it, as you said and why I quote it.
if you ‘focus’ on multiplayer, you lose a lot of casual players who dont want to group every day of the week or have to depend on that to enjoy the game.
I stand by what I said…the ENTIRE game…ALL aspects of it…must be ‘focused’ on if its going to attract enough players to keep those server bills paid.

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It’s infuriating. I don’t know how much most “casuals” spend in this game, but I do know that spending money in online games is certainly not the exclusive domain of hardcore gamers, and everyone who is on the internet should know that by this point.

Hell, my sister spent $40,000 on Farmville.

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WoW’s greatest strength is that it offers content for everyone, from the casual to the hardcore, for PvEers and PvPers. And with the exception of a few mounts each expansion and even fewer cosmetics most of the rewards that are initially rewarded to the hardcore are available to the casuals after the expansion has passed. Though the Mythic raiding mounts have a much lower drop rate and require much longer to aquire.

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lol…I got a neighbor…well did before we moved last year…who was spending $1000 a month on some android game she plays.
Yeah. I can afford to do it, but aint no way id be doing that on a monthy basis lol

My guess is most raiders aint putting that much cash into this game. probably using gold to pay for their subs to begin with.

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During the race to world first for Sepulcher the reported amount of $$$ it cost was near $200k (USD) for just that tier. This is just for gold spent in game for the race.

Some raid teams likely spend a good chunk of change for sure and I’m sure all combined sell billions of gold in runs as well each season. But we have no idea how much money the game generates quarterly off of everyone unless they report it.

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While the forums are a small sample size, you can look at how Blizz responds to see that they’re obviously getting enough feedback that agrees to nerf difficult casual content regularly. Look at TG for a recent example.

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Your posts about interrupts are questionable but this one I can get behind

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ANd you wont be able to do it without the 1% raider who carried you. And LOL, thanks for giving your gold to competent players. Go use your wallet. You dont need more Korthia or Zereth Mortis. Just use your wallet and be happy with the game.