Why do casual players seem entitled to cosmetic items added in game?

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

than casual players who have even thought about entering an extreme in its current expansion.

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Obviously? Clearly? Because if they did current content Extreme/Savage raiding, they wouldn't be a casual player.

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Originally Posted by Lilapop

Obviously? Clearly? Because if they did current content Extreme/Savage raiding, they wouldn't be a casual player.

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Congrats on ignoring the point I was trying to make and hyperfocusing on creating a gotcha moment instead.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

Congrats on ignoring the point I was trying to make and hyperfocusing on creating a gotcha moment instead.

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Your point wasn't ignored. Your point isn't even a point. Us disagreeing doesn't mean your point was ignored.

I am an intense casual player. I have tried a few Extreme Duties but only because a blue checkmark led me to it.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

Hardcore players are a binary. They either log in 30 seconds before raid, expect someone in their static to give them food and pots, say "see you next week" and then log out before even leaving the instance, or they have 30k+ achievement points. There is no in between.

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The problem is that the meaning of hardcore and casual has gotten so damn muddled over time.
Where it used to mean how much time you invested into something it nowadays is mostly used to describe the skill level of players, that's how you can have "hardcore" players at complete opposite ends.

One of them basically being a raid logger that doesn't invest much time since all they care about are the raids, the high skill challenges.
While the other hardcore player spends 8 hours a day doing everything in the game.

The same problem comes up when talking about casuals.
Are they casual because they only spend very little time in the game, but still manage to clear savage while playing maybe 6 hours a week?
Or are they casual because they've never done anything harder than alliance raids but spend 8 hours a day chatting at the limsa aetheryte?

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

The problem is that the meaning of hardcore and casual has gotten so damn muddled over time.
Where it used to mean how much time you invested into something it nowadays is mostly used to describe the skill level of players, that's how you can have "hardcore" players at complete opposite ends.

One of them basically being a raid logger that doesn't invest much time since all they care about are the raids, the high skill challenges.
While the other hardcore player spends 8 hours a day doing everything in the game.

The same problem comes up when talking about casuals.
Are they casual because they only spend very little time in the game, but still manage to clear savage while playing maybe 6 hours a week?
Or are they casual because they've never done anything harder than alliance raids but spend 8 hours a day chatting at the limsa aetheryte?

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Don't forget to add in the players that SE added a "very easy" mode to solo-instances for, so they can get through the story to reach endgame.

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Originally Posted by hydralus

Don't forget to add in the players that SE added a "very easy" mode to solo-instances for, so they can get through the story to reach endgame.

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How is that a problem? I believe in most solo instances you're not using your own kit. The only way to prevent highly-skilled players from complaining it is too easy and less-skilled that it is too hard is to have different difficulty levels.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

How is that a problem? I believe in most solo instances you're not using your own kit. The only way to prevent highly-skilled players from complaining it is too easy and less-skilled that it is too hard is to have different difficulty levels.

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The problem more comes from the fact that in order for a game that shoves players together to complete content and where content is made so that everyone does the same content to progress there needs to be some measure of a skill floor or the game simply falls apart

Right now 14 functionally has no floor. Solo instances can be completed on very easy mode where your characters natural regen exceeds the damage the boss does and the NPC’s will kill the boss for you. Instances with other players can basically be fished for either getting a tank who does everything for you or leaving you dead on the floor and completing it without you.

It’s a problem for the core design of content if people who physically don’t understand anything about their job reach level 100 because even ignoring hardcore players the gap between “I don’t like extremes and up but I know my rotation and strive to meaningfully contribute” and “physick is the only button on my hotbar and I don’t know the WAR is actually doing 99.99% of the healing because I think my physicks are doing all this healing” becomes so deep and wide there is functionally no content that satisfies everyone. Even though very easy was made an option the normal difficulty instances in DT were god awful compared to say in from the cold or the azim steppe one (minus cutscenes) due to complaints about in from the cold even though it has a very easy mode

There is a reason why even single player games don’t let you just curb stomp everything in the mid game and reach the endgame or let an NPC do it for you if you fundamentally don’t understand the basics of the game

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

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Yes I understand all those arguments and even agree with some of them, but how does using an NPC 6-button kit in a solo duty help a player get better with the job they play in group content?

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Yes I understand all those arguments and even agree with some of them, but how does using an NPC 6-button kit in a solo duty help a player get better with the job they play in group content?

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Because

1) not all solo duties use the condensed kits of other jobs
2) a lot of the time people who can barely play will play more than one job including those ones
3) understanding how a condensed job like those works is useful for understanding how to properly play a full job as they are created from combos, alternate combos self healing buttons and oGCD actions you want to keep rolling. All things that will benefit you to understand when swapping back to your real job

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Yes I understand all those arguments and even agree with some of them, but how does using an NPC 6-button kit in a solo duty help a player get better with the job they play in group content?

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As some people like to say -- derisively, I might add -- "Read your tooltips."

There is some amount of skill in simply reading what a button does and thinking logically about how it might fit in with other buttons and the combat around you. It is actually an important part of the leveling experience to ask yourself, "Why did the game give me this action or trait? When should I use it?"

If you get thrown into one of those play-as-an-NPC solo duties and lack the curiosity to read your tooltips, you might very well lack the curiosity needed to get through any other bit of combat this game throws at you.

Better to have the haircut for 20M (and falling) on the marketboard than $10 in the mogstation, surely? Tradable rewards like this are great, they can be a prize in FC/venue giveaways, they can be a gift to an in-game friend, it's something to spend your money on, and with the new reward system it's motivation for experienced raiders to help newcomers clear the content.

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Originally Posted by hunter2

Better to have the haircut for 20M (and falling) on the marketboard than $10 in the mogstation, surely? Tradable rewards like this are great, they can be a prize in FC/venue giveaways, they can be a gift to an in-game friend, it's something to spend your money on, and with the new reward system it's motivation for experienced raiders to help newcomers clear the content.

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I mean, earning 10$ is generally much quicker than earning 20m gil, so I’ll take online store over above 10 milion gil prices

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Originally Posted by AntoniusQuil

I mean, earning 10$ is generally much quicker than earning 20m gil, so I’ll take online store over above 10 milion gil prices

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Why are you playing MMOs? If you really want to swipe for everything and make no effort at all then there's gachas for you.

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Originally Posted by Rueby

Why are you playing MMOs? If you really want to swipe for everything and make no effort at all then there's gachas for you.

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FFXIV in particular because of the story and really nice cosmetic items / glams (plus really enjoyable pvp)

I started playing MMOs as a kid, but there comes a point in life where finding the money to buy x item becomes much easier than finding the time to grind for it, and I’ll be honest with how hardcore raiders react to all complaints from more casual players about some stuff being locked behind hardcore riding, it’s nice to see them complaining for a change when stuff like shadow wolf or cruise chaser end up in the online store instead of being locked behind endgame raiding.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

It is actually an important part of the leveling experience to ask yourself, "Why did the game give me this action or trait? When should I use it?"

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This actually brings up another issue, XIV is terrible at this.

After multiple expansions of them not doing anything about the leveling experience and when skills are acquired you often find yourself asking "Why did the game give me this action or trait?" and the answer will be "I have no clue."

Role abilities are a good example, you get Interject at level 18 but when do you actually use it? Basically never in 95% of content. Which is why you see groups wiping on the Ark Angels in Jeuno because all 3 tanks and X amount of phys ranged forgot they even had the skill.
Or why does Warrior from level 40 to 50 have to use it's AoE combo to gain Storm's Eye?
Why does Ninja get Trick Attack at level 18 but can't actually use it in combat until 45?
Etc

At this point the job kits below at least level 70 are just incomprehensible and for newer jobs even that isn't high enough to make them function properly.

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Originally Posted by Lilapop

No, no. The term I used is vocal majority

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Nah, you're wrong. But being wrong is fine. Everyone is wrong sometimes, some people more than others.

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Originally Posted by AntoniusQuil

I mean, earning 10$ is generally much quicker than earning 20m gil, so I’ll take online store over above 10 milion gil prices

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People like you who don't want to earn anything are ruining gaming.

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Originally Posted by hunter2

Better to have the haircut for 20M (and falling) on the marketboard than $10 in the mogstation, surely? Tradable rewards like this are great, they can be a prize in FC/venue giveaways, they can be a gift to an in-game friend, it's something to spend your money on, and with the new reward system it's motivation for experienced raiders to help newcomers clear the content.

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Personally, I take the $10 on the cash shop and here's why...CAR, like other content of its kind, will not have a long shelf life. When the content ends up dieing so will the amount of it rewards on the MB. Right now, yes, there are a lot of hairstyles and its price is going down, but in 6 months and farther, this likely won't be the case. As ppl stop running CODCAR the amount of hairstyle on MB will drop and in turn its price will rise again as it becomes rarer and rarer. Now is a hairstyle on the cash shop will most likely always be there and the price will always be $10 unless SQ runs a sale(which they do a couple times a year).

That said, I would rather it not be a cash shop item but instead be in content that will have a long shelf life over content that doesn't but if my only two choice were put in CODCAR or the cash shop I would pick the cash shop every time just for the security of it always being there at a stable price.

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Originally Posted by MrJPtheAssassin

Personally I take the $10 on the cash shop and here's why...CAR, like other content of its kind, will not have a long shelf life. When the content ends up dieing so will the amount of it rewards on the MB. Right now, yes, there are a lot of hairstyles and its price is going down, but in 6 months and farther, this likely won't be the case. As ppl stop running CODCAR the amount of hairstyle on MB will drop and in turn its price will rise again as it becomes rarer and rarer. Now is a hairstyle on the cash shop will most likely always be there and the price will always be $10 unless SQ runs a sale(which they do a couple times a year).

That said, I would rather it not be a cash shop item but instead be in content at will have a long shelf life over content that doesnt.

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Trying to design all possible rewards for a nebulous future player who may want the reward in 3 years time is near pointless in a game that doesn’t take steps to maintain its content.

Even in areas people usually point to as sustainable long form content (which I love) eureka and Bozja they don’t actually function like they did day 1 they basically just nerfed them into being soloable once they had reached the end of their expansion. Same as “maintaining” rewards for old savage which is basically just “lol unsync it”

If the game isn’t going to maintain all its content (which is extremely difficult as all content that is group content is almost impossible to maintain its integrity while also ensuring both old and new rewards are equally useful) then limiting rewards by the thought of a nebulous future player is just an exercise in ensuring every reward we ever get can be bought with tomestones or in the gold saucer

Honestly, this thread is sort of delving into a core weakness of "MMOs" that people don't like to talk about and that is giving basically all control of the game experience to the company owning the servers running the game. Great example is comparing this to something like Pal World that is a survival monster collecting game with a lot of grind. If someone hits end-game in pal world and they don't have the time to dedicate to breeding 50+ combat pals for a raid boss, they can change the settings for how long it takes to hatch eggs, increase the amount of items dropped or found, and basically give themselves echo if the need it. In FFXIV everything is set in stone and if someone wants to even have a chance at getting something from a piece of content, they have to stick to the exact level of difficulty the game developers set for it.

And hard content does deserve to exist in the game, but accessibility is also key to the content and that isn't just talking about having the ability to physically sign up for the content. The truth is that the entire direction of hiding mechanics to make things hard, or making the tells shorter to make things harder, while also having things instantly kill an entire group if they mess up, is a cheap and dirty trick to hide the limitations of the game system and encounter design. Either the mechanics are hidden but survivable, or the mechanics are visible but lethal. Path of Exile 2 has a lot of fights that are freaking hard to beat with certain characters, but I can tell what is going on instantly and it is fair because the player knows all the information within clear view thanks to the isometric view point. Go into Cloud of Darkness or even m4s for the first time and when there is clear information that is visible to the player, they can do nothing to adjust unless they already adjusted or knew where to look. The "death hand" mechanic being a very good example of hidden information that isn't clear to the viewer.

Also, FYI it is the lack of clarity on the attacks that has forced people to want simpler rotations, not just dps requirements or lack of organic ways to deal with encounters. People have to spend time looking around the arena just to figure out what is going to happen and because they dropped the visual aids it completely nullifies the point of having a simpler rotation. The developers literally gave people something they wanted so that they could play the game better and the game designers were so terrified of the amazing power to see the arena, they made everything harder to see. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by NamiRocket

Nah, you're wrong. But being wrong is fine. Everyone is wrong sometimes, some people more than others.

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I'm wrong about the term I used? No, no I'm not. The term is in my original reply. Objectively, that isn't wrong. You tried, I guess.

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Originally Posted by Lilapop

I'm wrong about the term I used? No, no I'm not. The term is in my original reply. Objectively, that isn't wrong. You tried, I guess.

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My face? In my hands.

Always a joy to see someone corncobbing in realtime.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Which is why you see groups wiping on the Ark Angels in Jeuno because all 3 tanks and X amount of phys ranged forgot they even had the skill.

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Maybe this was a throwaway example that doesn't actually happen (in which case please disregard this comment) but I've yet to see any wipes in Jeuno at all on Light. Is this just hyperbole or does Jeuno have this as its reputation?

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

Eureka is basically wandering trash mobs and FATEs. Mechanically, it's the same as ye olde overworld map, except elemental affinities matter and different kinds of trash aggro on different kinds of mechanics -- which, if anything, makes Eureka more Final Fantasy-like than MSQ combat.

That's as casual as casual can be short of removing combat entirely. The one bit that isn't is an optional raid that unlocks after the main story concludes, and the process has you click through like three or four, "So, you do understand that this raid is challenging, yes?" dialogs.

What did you actually see in your "peek" that you think is beyond you?

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Years ago, I used to know this dude in his 60s. He'd hop on World of Warcraft and go out into, like, Redridge Mountains or something like that and just kill bears. He wouldn't quest, he'd just kill bears for hours and hours. I couldn't understand it, I would never do it myself, it would be mind numbing. But he found comfort in it. He liked to get on, kill bears on his warrior, then log off when he had his fill. Extremely casual for him. He didn't talk to other players, he didn't upgrade abilities, it was just him and the bears.

I always think back to him and that time whenever someone talks about content that's grindy or maybe a little tedious and they equate it to being hardcore or difficult. It's not. It's time consuming and not for everyone, sure, but it's also probably the most casual way you can play a game like this outside of literally just standing in town and dancing every day.

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Originally Posted by AntoniusQuil

FFXIV in particular because of the story and really nice cosmetic items / glams (plus really enjoyable pvp)

I started playing MMOs as a kid, but there comes a point in life where finding the money to buy x item becomes much easier than finding the time to grind for it, and I’ll be honest with how hardcore raiders react to all complaints from more casual players about some stuff being locked behind hardcore riding, it’s nice to see them complaining for a change when stuff like shadow wolf or cruise chaser end up in the online store instead of being locked behind endgame raiding.

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So, you enjoy throwing money at a blatant reused asset and act happy for it because raiders didn't get it? I'm not sure whether to laugh at or feel sorry for you.

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Originally Posted by NamiRocket

Years ago, I used to know this dude in his 60s. He'd hop on World of Warcraft and go out into, like, Redridge Mountains or something like that and just kill bears. He wouldn't quest, he'd just kill bears for hours and hours. I couldn't understand it, I would never do it myself, it would be mind numbing. But he found comfort in it. He liked to get on, kill bears on his warrior, then log off when he had his fill. Extremely casual for him. He didn't talk to other players, he didn't upgrade abilities, it was just him and the bears.

I always think back to him and that time whenever someone talks about content that's grindy or maybe a little tedious and they equate it to being hardcore or difficult. It's not. It's time consuming and not for everyone, sure, but it's also probably the most casual way you can play a game like this outside of literally just standing in town and dancing every day.

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Man that dude would love eureka. As late as endwalker I'd see people going in and solo farming stuff for skill drops to sell. Also bunny fates.

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Originally Posted by Immut

Man that dude would love eureka. As late as endwalker I'd see people going in and solo farming stuff for skill drops to sell. Also bunny fates.

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I couldn't do quite what he did, but I do love Eureka. Though, there's also a little more going on in Eureka than what he was doing.

One of the main reasons I got so heavily into Eureka myself when I did is because it was just nice to go in there, kind of turn my brain off, and run around killing things. I feel like this game generally doesn't have enough of that and sometimes that's just what I crave. Killing mobs and watching the numbers go up. Generally meaningless progress, but it still gives that nice serotonin hit. Maybe it's the old school FFXI and WoW player in me, but it still scratches that itch as long as there are just enough other hooks that a game has alongside it.

I've been kind of harping on it for a while but I think there's a problem with the community of this game and how they see their relationship with other players as adversarial by default, when MMOs should be about cooperation. Players look at this hairstyle and think "I have to buy it because it's locked behind hard content" and simultaneously "Casuals don't have to earn it", when they should both be glad that they can continue doing content they enjoy. CAR enjoyers can sell multiple hairstyles. CAR unenjoyers can buy the hairstyle and go back to diadem or whatever it is they do (you can afford the hairstyle pretty quick doing diadem).

I really hope CODCAR (not the raidplan) lasts a while, because it's a step in the right direction. It has saleable rewards that are in high demand and it reward players helping other players clear content. It encourages a helpful approach to farming, since all the SERIOUS raiders should be fairly uninterested in the clouddark gear beyond a few key pieces and it's (theoretically) a better use of their time to join clear parties for the new player bonuses.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

People like you who don't want to earn anything are ruining gaming.

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This is not like that working. Person just better in managing his time in IRL, not in game. This is normal in an adult environment.

The gameplay is ruined by the companies themselves, when they starting abusing shop for everything (hello, korean MMOs and P2W).

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Originally Posted by Exmo

Maybe this was a throwaway example that doesn't actually happen (in which case please disregard this comment) but I've yet to see any wipes in Jeuno at all on Light. Is this just hyperbole or does Jeuno have this as its reputation?

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I had a "56 minutes elapsed" duty pop on mentor roulette as tank last week, which was Jeuno (Chaos DC). The last boss was already in progress when I zoned in. The raid came close to a wipe several times, effectively rescued by one SCH and one WHM (plus tanks). A few people were rezzed 6+ times.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

People like you who don't want to earn anything are ruining gaming.

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Oh good. We're doing this "you, personally, are ruining an entire category of entertainment!" stuff again.

Have you ever watched a movie in a theatre before by paying for a ticket? Why didn't you just make your OWN movie? Everything you need to make a movie is right there, in the world, in real life! Sure, it takes time and effort, but that's what makes making your own movie so rewarding! It's people like you that don't want to go to the trouble of making their own movies from scratch that are ruining cinema!

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There's a fundamental misunderstanding between people who "don't want to earn anything" and people who "don't have the time." One of the big issues MMOs have, as a genre, is that they'll often be completely brutal in terms of the time it takes to get something worthwhile done. And that just gets worse the older the game and the later in the game's life-cycle your goal is.

If you wanted this haircut, had to make a character from scratch, wanted to watch all the story cutscenes, and didn't want to pay real money outside of the purchase price and subscription, how long do you think that would take? A couple of hundred hours? How many days away is that when you can play an hour a night?

Then add in that the content involved is above-average in difficulty and has above-average requirements just to take part in it, and is it any wonder people would be more than willing to skip all that noise by paying possibly half, possibly a tenth, of the money they might make in an hour to enjoy the thing they want to enjoy right away?

I'm still not entirely sure why games haven't cornered the "why not do both?" market yet. Earn something via difficult content in-game, for free? Sure! Can't do that for some reason, but can afford a couple of bucks for it outside of that? It's on the store!

That sort of flexibility would hurt nobody outside of the people wanting gaming skill purity tests, surely.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

The issue isn't entitlement. It's more acknowledging a contributing factor of the issue on threads such as you yourself have made.

SE > Adds cosmetic item to game, locked behind savage.

Some raiders > It's not so much fun, why are there so many damn casuals that can barely handle AoEs in my savage parties?!?

Someone acknowledging the issue > This is what happens when you put cosmetic items behind savage. It will attract casual players into high-end content, that will suddenly want to do it for the reward, even if they aren't prepared.

Someone not actually reading the comments > CASUALS ARE SO ENTITLED THEY WANT THE REWARD FOR NO EFFORT.

There's several issues going on here, and not really correlated to entitlement. Most of the casuals that want this cosmetic are already trying to do the content. If people are proposing ideas then it is only to combat SEs fairly bad design.

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If "casuals" want the cosmetic and don't want to up their game, it's up to them. Every game has cosmetics locked behind difficult content, this has never been different in this one.
And a haircut is no different either.

If there ever was an issue, it's how to make said content last long enough for people to git gud and actually get a chance at doing it without having to wait for 3hrs in pf or scheduling at a precise date on a discord.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

People like you who don't want to earn anything are ruining gaming.

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It's people like you who are unable to admit to flaws when there clearly are any, but we'll all live on. Some of us more content than others.

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Originally Posted by Teno

If "casuals" want the cosmetic and don't want to up their game, it's up to them. Every game has cosmetics locked behind difficult content, this has never been different in this one.
And a haircut is no different either.

If there ever was an issue, it's how to make said content last long enough for people to git gud and actually get a chance at doing it without having to wait for 3hrs in pf or scheduling at a precise date on a discord.

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I agree with this insofar that the content needs to last long enough so that people actually get a chance of doing it. I do think people not doing it right now is entirely a choice on their matter, and I think the longer they delay this content the harder it will be, and the longer it will take. The issue with "Having to wait 3hrs in PF or scheduling a precise date on Discord", is entirely a developer problem, however, and is especially worse when long-term desired rewards are locked behind it. - and unfortunately the development team do not know how to make long-term content without tying the relic to it.

Can't believe there are people now defending MTX in a subscription MMO as a preferred way of obtaining items as opposed to actually earning it in game. Good lord.

Maybe you guys should just bookmark playerauctions.com instead of the forums

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

Can't believe there are people now defending MTX in a subscription MMO as a preferred way of obtaining items as opposed to actually earning it in game. Good lord.

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The logical end result of "hipster culture". Having the status symbols of a subculture, but just for fashion, not for the culture / status associated with it. You'd think that zombie graveyard of pay2win MMOs would serve as lesson of what not to encourage in a game that one likes, but alas, here we are.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

Except experienced raiders don't want new people anywhere near the content, especially when there's gil to be made by keeping the number of people running it per data center to a minimum. The grandest irony is that even if casuals DID want to do the content, they're explicitly forbidden from trying to when most PFs are asking you to have cleared all of current Savage/have BiS from there, and they can't just go and clear said Savage hurdle because its PFs ALSO have strict requirements set up to make sure they stay filtered out.

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You are literally making things up to justify your argument.
This is Light PF at time of posting. All of the ilevel/entry requirements are completely reasonable (most PFs don't even have an ilevel requirement). So saying everyone expects BiS and the requirements are strict is pure lies.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...1f1e0ae86cbe9&

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

I'm not completely adverse to difficult content, I just immediately shrink and duck out of doing it when failure drags OTHER people down with me versus messing up and I'm the only corpse, and that goes double in a game like Final Fantasy 14 where "dying/failing = you are bad, never queue again" is a common sentiment, and there's way more people that will jump down your throat for costing them a wipe then will tell you to just keep going.

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I'm just quoting this because it's actually a really, really good point to make.

Have I run really difficult solo content in a game a couple of hundred times to get the reward? I have! Am I willing to waste everyone else's time while I learn a fight they already know and suffer through me fat-fingering my keys a few dozen times? Absolutely not. Will that particular issue stop me from playing that high-level content at all? It will! And that's only compounded by the additional factor of Blazzta WuTang discussing his relationship with my mother afterwards. I'm too old and tired and disgruntled to put myself through that sort of thing a dozen times over 28 different hour-of-waiting 24 man parties.

So what's the answer?

Given that MMOs have always struggled with the "only 5% of our users engage with raid content" type of thing, I'm actually wondering if - maybe - the real thing that MMOs need to get raid participation up is the ability to practice the fights. No-reward (or first completion reward, to encourage trying) all-bot-run instances that let you see and practice the mechanics as much as you'd like before queueing up for the real deal.

That would give static teams the ability to play the content with progression rewards 300 times in a row if they wanted to, while also letting people with less time practice the fight's mechanics sans-reward on their own terms.

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Originally Posted by Tyintheron

So what's the answer?

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Find friends who either don't mind you causing wipes, or progress at a similar pace to you.
This is literally an MMO, making social connections is one of the primary purposes you play them.

If you aren't against actually doing difficult content and feel bad when you cause wipes, then find people who are similar to you in mentality/skill level and learn content as a group where the pressure is off and the goal is to just have fun learning at a pre-determined pace. It's not rocket science. What do you think us hardcore raiders do?

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Originally Posted by Tyintheron

Given that MMOs have always struggled with the "only 5% of our users engage with raid content" type of thing, I'm actually wondering if - maybe - the real thing that MMOs need to get raid participation up is the ability to practice the fights. No-reward (or first completion reward, to encourage trying) all-bot-run instances that let you see and practice the mechanics as much as you'd like before queueing up for the real deal.

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https://www.xivsim.com/