Endwalker hates casual players

Instead of 2 weapon sets I won't get, now its 4! Especially putting BLU weapon in content you cant even play BLU, I never thought the devs were so out of touch.... I wont even be surprised if by 7.0, the new limited job is the next thing to replace the relic quest after Manderville dialogue took over that entirely. 4 man savage content now replaces Bozja/Eureka?...there's nothing to do besides 4 different (SAVAGE) contents, nothing for casuals the whole expansion.

raid (SAVAGE)
trial (EXTREME) - (UNREAL)
criterion (SAVAGE)
(ULTIMATE)

I'm sure there are multiple things for casual players to do.
But maybe not all of those are focused on getting top tier weapons and gear which mostly is used for Savage tier content.

What do you need BiS Equipment for? It's hard content, it should be kind of rewarding, this is an alternative route to BiS route if you don't want to farm p12s anymore. You will get casual BiS when Relic releases, just be patient.
Want Glam? Well - Glam often is behind raids, the most beautiful glams are imo. Do the fights or don't get it, always been like that.

Weapon Sets that Casuals don't technically need for anything but Savage.

Relic also comes out in less than two months and will be superior to what we just got.

You can be disappointed about Criterion all you want, but previously we weren't getting anything at all. This is at least a set in the right direction compared to them doing nothing at all.


I think the only gnarring thing is that this Savage allegedly won't be unsync-able in 7.0 whereas traditional Savage is.

I don't know if "Endwalker" hates me :D
I consider myself a casual player. Since version 2.0 with Bahamut, I haven't been actively involved in a proper 8-man raid. Just for curiosity's sake, I've tried and defeated some bosses. However, I can confirm that all my contacts who raid use plugins and tools to facilitate boss encounters. This ranges from ability call-out plugins to auto-markers.

There are plenty of idiots on YouTube who show guides while having all those plugins or third-party tools visible.

There are things for casual players.

• Island Sanctuary.
• Seasonal events.
• Sidequests like the endeavor quests.
• MSQ.
• Beast tribe grinds and custom deliveries.
• Expert roulette.
• Deep dungeons like EO.
• Variant dungeons.

It's just that there isn't much midcore content for people who have more time than that and want a little more challenge than that but not to the degree of extreme, savage and ultimate that is more like deep dungeons or bozja and eureka.

Not a hot take.

Extremes are casual content.

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Originally Posted by Troxbark

Not a hot take.

Extremes are casual content.

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Many extremes aren't even mid-core. lol

Nah, Endwalker leans too much for casuals in my opinion.

They gave casuals a whole island and stripped down the relic grind into a tomestone farm. There's also the variant dungeons.

The only additional content hardcore players got was the criterion dungeons and more than 1 ultimate.

I don't want content moving forward to feel more barebones than it already is now.

Casuals didnt get too much, the others should have JUST AS MUCH. Thats the real problem...

FFXIV is built for casual players.

There's a pretty big audience for players that want to be optimizers, but are not into the super tough challenge mode fights that they currently have in the game and that is the group that is having problems with the game right now. The intent with the weapon from savage with that extra 5 point gear boost was supposed to be a tiny perk over what people could get otherwise just by upgrade item, but they tied the item upgrade to the progression system needed to get the weapon that is five points over that, and locked everyone else out of getting the upgraded tomestone weapon until a later point as it is supposed to be a reward for those who are doing the harder content.

Optimizers aren't trying to get better gear for the sake of clearing harder content, they are doing it because they want to clear existing content faster and compete with others in the community on numeric factors. Things like how fast someone can clear a dungeon and the like are the kind of challenges they are after rather than being able to clear ultimate or kill the final tier special boss.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

Many extremes aren't even mid-core. lol

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When people use the term midcore for content, they mean content that involves more than logging in for the time it takes to complete a seasonal event, expert dungeon or island sanctuary and doesn't allow to completely turn off your brain to do it where reprisals and tankbuster mit don't matter and so on.

Extremes do actually achieve paying attention so it is midcore content. The people who don't pay attention are the ones that wipe to gales, void stardust, arctic assault and all the mechanics in the new ex. The new ex even sees wipes if there isn't good mitigation or reprisals for simple raid-wides or raid-dots, or good heals between casts.

Yes, there are midcore statics but that is specifically a term to describe how much time or commitment a static has and not necessarily the same as what midcore content is tbh.

Seems like a noticeable number of Users are missing the Thread Creators Point.
Almost to a Joking Degree.

The Hardcore and Casual would agree with op on the basics.

As for the Midcore. What Midcore, This game doesn't have any consistent midcore this expac.(You can argue if ExpZones are or aren't, but they are really a step between Casual and Mid)

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

When people use the term

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Nah. You don't need to explain the term. There is pretty much no mid-core in XIV. There is either patronisingly easy or go find 7 other people and deal with their main character syndrom and parse. Because nothing says casual content more then an extreme where people demand excellency or leave after 2 to 3 pulls. The genuine casual players I know barely make it through a dungeon. Nothing wrong with it. Not everyone wants to put time into learning. But XIV only caters to the two extremes of the spectrum.

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Originally Posted by Bonoki

I think the only gnarring thing is that this Savage allegedly won't be unsync-able in 7.0 whereas traditional Savage is.

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Wait, what? You mean Savage Criterion or like Anabaseios?

No, endwalker hates midcore players, lol. there's plenty to do for casuals

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

Nah. You don't need to explain the term. There is pretty much no mid-core in XIV. There is either patronisingly easy or go find 7 other people and deal with their main character syndrom and parse. Because nothing says casual content more then an extreme where people demand excellency or leave after 2 to 3 pulls. The genuine casual players I know barely make it through a dungeon. Nothing wrong with it. Not everyone wants to put time into learning. But XIV only caters to the two extremes of the spectrum.

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I agree that finding 7 people, the pressure to perform and anxiety are off-putting for many players, but it does feel like midcore content.

I think the strength of eureka and bozja was that even if 75-95% of the players there couldn't do it, they could watch from the ground as a few people killed it and did all the mechanics or used certain actions correctly and this was true in NMs, CEs, CE raids and DR. There was only pressure on 8 daring people to perform against a special boss, while there wasn't much on everyone else.

To a degree, hunts and alliance raids are midcore content just because they are willing to let people die in 1 hit, knowing that the sheer amount of people there means someone will resurrect. Hunts are more rewarding because there is a mount and often gear progression tied to them. It's just that this is such standard content and if that is all there is, it isn't enough to hold the expansion together for these middle road players. Deep dungeons are also good because someone with higher aetherpool can often carry those who don't, but it didn't feel like that quite replaced what we had with Bozja, nor what we had with HoH + 4 eureka areas in Stormblood.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

FFXIV is built for casual players.

There's a pretty big audience for players that want to be optimizers, but are not into the super tough challenge mode fights that they currently have in the game and that is the group that is having problems with the game right now. The intent with the weapon from savage with that extra 5 point gear boost was supposed to be a tiny perk over what people could get otherwise just by upgrade item, but they tied the item upgrade to the progression system needed to get the weapon that is five points over that, and locked everyone else out of getting the upgraded tomestone weapon until a later point as it is supposed to be a reward for those who are doing the harder content.

Optimizers aren't trying to get better gear for the sake of clearing harder content, they are doing it because they want to clear existing content faster and compete with others in the community on numeric factors. Things like how fast someone can clear a dungeon and the like are the kind of challenges they are after rather than being able to clear ultimate or kill the final tier special boss.

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FFXIV, like all MMOs late stage, caters to raiders hand over fist. That's why once MSQ is done, casual and midcore players are told to go play other games.

Raiders decide everything. Job design, the meta, fight design. Nearly all moment to moment gameplay you experience is driven by minmaxing raiders whose entire life is playing this game with plug-ins.

I'd also argue the only reason EW spiced up casual content a bit is because the devs were course correcting from how braindead they made the game in the effort to appease raiders about jobs and gear.

There's a hot take you can all quote and cry about.

This forum was built for pretending to be victims.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

FFXIV, like all MMOs late stage, caters to raiders hand over fist. That's why once MSQ is done, casual and midcore players are told to go play other games.

Raiders decide everything. Job design, the meta, fight design. Nearly all moment to moment gameplay you experience is driven by minmaxing raiders whose entire life is playing this game with plug-ins.

I'd also argue the only reason EW spiced up casual content a bit is because the devs were course correcting from how braindead they made the game in the effort to appease raiders about jobs and gear.

There's a hot take you can all quote and cry about.

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Like all things there's more than one axis to deal with when talking about target audiences. The only real thing that can work for classifying someone in terms of hardcore vs casual is the number of hours they put into the game, but that has nothing to do with the content that they take part in. Generally, what content people take part in revolves more around the interests of the individual. The reason I mentioned that optimizers are the ones being the least catered to has to deal with the design trends going back from the beginning to now. The content they built is good for someone who is more into the achievement of clearing things and the idea of gear is that it is supposed to be like a trophy for completing that particular piece of content. However, using numbers that impact outcomes attracts a different sort of player than someone who is after achievement.

And in end game there are casual people who do savage (used to be 6 hours a week but the last three tiers sort of forced 9 hours as the minimum), as well as people who are hardcore that do crafting (Omnicrafter that spends insane hours coming into the game to go grind out all the scrips they need and watch the market boards like hawks, so they can make the most gil possible. Usually to try and go buy a house). Heck, there are hardcore mount farmers that spend forever farming current tier cats from extremes. But I don't know what a hardcore optimizer is supposed to do other than do savage, and they probably hate doing savage because they aren't there for the fight, they are there for the gear so they can go do other content where they can experience using it.

FYI they don't like putting the upgrade item in the criterion savage for the very reason stated above: It is a source of optimization in content that is supposed to target achievement hunters. It is literally meant to be niche, but they added it due to apparent demand from the player base.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Like all things there's more than one axis to deal with when talking about target audiences.

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But my post does not mention hardcore players. It mentions minmaxing raiders because once again, nearly all moment to moment gameplay outside non combat options (are non combat options the primary reason people play MMOs???) has been shaped by them -- rewards, job design, fight design, gear progression, gear access. When devs say "players asked for the two minute meta" what they mean is raiders asked for the two minute meta. When players say "my class has been simplified to the point of boredom" what they mean is "raiders asked for the changes to my job to make Ultimates more fun/accessible for my job". Yoshi P says players are in unison-- what he means is he listens to people who play the endgame on loop because that requires a sub over the extended drought periods between MSQ beats. And the best engame they can think of is savage raiding and Ultimates. As for Criterion-- if I am understanding you correctly you are seriously trying to tell me people don't like the piss poor Criterion reward bc it doesn't match the target audience? That's insane. People don't want BiS or anything close to it in Criterion because raiders are terrified of people getting raid equivalent gear outside of raids, terrified of some other form of progression than what already exists.

This is why you get so many people on the forums who are legitimately confused constantly by the state of this game-- because the dev team is listening to a tiny % of people who, most likely, spend the most on the game. Ask Bungie how that long term strategy is working for them.

The devs are not listening to the harccore house designer, the hardcore crafter, the hardcore island sanctuary user. They could give an f less. Those are all things to distract you before you go on hiatus/unsub after the forum goads you into "go play other games".

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Originally Posted by Illao

What do you need BiS Equipment for? It's hard content, it should be kind of rewarding, this is an alternative route to BiS route if you don't want to farm p12s anymore. You will get casual BiS when Relic releases, just be patient.
Want Glam? Well - Glam often is behind raids, the most beautiful glams are imo. Do the fights or don't get it, always been like that.

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So for raiders it's "here's an alternate thing if you don't want to do p12s", but for casuals it's "do this or don't get it, no alternatives". :rolleyes:

I don't mind hard content if there are more mid-core content like extremes. At least those are workable on party-finder. Savage really is a lot easier with a static but not all of us have the capacity to join a group for scheduled gameplay. It sucks.

I just wish there was more harder content in between casual and high-end. The last Blue Carnivale was nice but it was literally non-repeatable content. Extremes are fun for the first few clears up to mastery but farming them for mounts is just a chore. I wish there were more rewarding, doable mid-core content for casual players. Teaming for a video game is just draining.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

FFXIV, like all MMOs late stage, caters to raiders hand over fist. That's why once MSQ is done, casual and midcore players are told to go play other games.

Raiders decide everything. Job design, the meta, fight design. Nearly all moment to moment gameplay you experience is driven by minmaxing raiders whose entire life is playing this game with plug-ins.

I'd also argue the only reason EW spiced up casual content a bit is because the devs were course correcting from how braindead they made the game in the effort to appease raiders about jobs and gear.

There's a hot take you can all quote and cry about.

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I think that's spot on. The MSQ is supposed to be easy so solo MMO enjoyers can get through it.

And on the other hand we have boring jobs because someone broke out a calculator and decided that [insert old ability] is a DPS loss so it got removed.

Now we do things like weaving in gap closers or using heal abilities for DPS gains only, along with the removal of positionals or boss circles the size of the moon because uptime. lol

To be fair I think a couple of things also got removed to make things accessable for casuals like aggro management or 1 button DPSing on healers while alienating the people who originally liked the design.

All of the above is subjective. I just don't think catering to both extremes is all that enticing in the long run. But that's just me.

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Originally Posted by HotaruTanets

Nah, Endwalker leans too much for casuals in my opinion.

They gave casuals a whole island and stripped down the relic grind into a tomestone farm. There's also the variant dungeons.

The only additional content hardcore players got was the criterion dungeons and more than 1 ultimate.

I don't want content moving forward to feel more barebones than it already is now.

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24man raids were also dumbed down quite a lot, too. Went from interesting engaging fights in Ivalice (with party/individual responsibility mechanics) to... just dodge the aoe you've seen a thousand times before in MSQ dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

But my post does not mention hardcore players. It mentions minmaxing raiders because once again, nearly all moment to moment gameplay outside non combat options (are non combat options the primary reason people play MMOs???) has been shaped by them -- rewards, job design, fight design, gear progression, gear access. When devs say "players asked for the two minute meta" what they mean is raiders asked for the two minute meta. When players say "my class has been simplified to the point of boredom" what they mean is "raiders asked for the changes to my job to make Ultimates more fun/accessible for my job". Yoshi P says players are in unison-- what he means is he listens to people who play the endgame on loop because that requires a sub over the extended drought periods between MSQ beats. And the best engame they can think of is savage raiding and Ultimates. As for Criterion-- if I am understanding you correctly you are seriously trying to tell me people don't like the piss poor Criterion reward bc it doesn't match the target audience? That's insane. People don't want BiS or anything close to it in Criterion because raiders are terrified of people getting raid equivalent gear outside of raids, terrified of some other form of progression than what already exists.

This is why you get so many people on the forums who are legitimately confused constantly by the state of this game-- because the dev team is listening to a tiny % of people who, most likely, spend the most on the game. Ask Bungie how that long term strategy is working for them.

The devs are not listening to the harccore house designer, the hardcore crafter, the hardcore island sanctuary user. They could give an f less. Those are all things to distract you before you go on hiatus/unsub after the forum goads you into "go play other games".

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Not sure where you are coming from but I can tell you that the people who actually do hard content wouldn't really care if others got access to the higher iLvL or not.

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Originally Posted by Troxbark

Not a hot take.

Extremes are casual content.

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Lol nah. Extremes are absolutely mid-core. Casual content is anything a player can step into with absolutely no pressure, no pre-gearing, no skill practicing, no role responsibility, no video guide watching, no substantial time investment, no long term grind, no expectations. Many casuals still do not participate in synced Extremes because the upfront investment, albeit minimal, is still more than they care to engage with the game.

Not to mention, the motivations to play extremes, especially current iLevel extremes, align more with mid-core grinds (mounts) and signifiers (weapon drops/crafting). The average casual player will look at potentially needing to repeat a piece of content 99 times for a specific reward and either (a) not bother or (b) be happy to wait potentially years until they can grind it unsynced with no challenge.

Extremes may represent the bottom-most threshhold of mid-core content, but they are still mid-core. When over half your playerbase does not have Kirin or any of the Lanners, and only 4 percent have Lynx of Imperious Wind, Extremes are beyond most casuals' interest.

I dont think it's fair to say that casual players dont need gear progression. Even if they dont participate in savage or ultimate, it does help in 24man raids and dungeons.
Also, it's quite rewarding when you finish gear for multiple jobs.
There should be more horizontal gear progression instead of just one path.

Not wanting to play the content is your choice. But I do think it voids the right to complain when you openly state as much. Like others have said, we'll get our final relic step in a couple months and it'll be BiS anyway. Plus Savage can always be unsynced easily in the next expac. As it stands you can get by with a tome weapon and have zero issues getting decent clear times in normal content. If you want more oomph, the new EX isn't particularly demanding aside its one wall mechanic.

Counting Island Sanctuary as "casual content" is so funny considering it's just making a list 5 times a week 99% of the time, there's nothing else to do there. It's not something you're supposed to spend time doing. Saying it's casual content is like saying sending squadron on missions is casual content.