why not let player rise to the challange

[Kaethra]

What I don't understand is why people want to be mono-gamers. You can do more in life than just play FF14

What does that have to do with anything? Are you suggesting someone who knows a rotation beyond 123 somehow has no life?

Let me break it down for you, since you've bought into the casual vs hardcore bigotry. Gaming for many is a hobby, and like any hobby many are better or more serious than others. Cycling for example, sometimes people ride for the exercise, sometimes they do it for the thrill of it and buy the expensive $1000-10,000 bikes and gear. No one would suggest that cycling is their life unless they doing it professionally (and some games allow for this too). One of my hobbies is collecting fire arms, I have over 20 of them, about $15,000 worth. I also like going to the range to fire them (not all at once of course). They're not my life, I don't have one hidden away in each nook and cranny. Video games are also my hobby, specifically MMOs. I like the strategy that comes with having a group or several groups together with different roles and strengths and tackling the encounters. That doesn't make it my life.

Let me explain where casual and hardcore comes from. This will explain why it is a bigotry that if mods were savvy of, would action people for bringing it up.

It started about 15 years ago. It happened in a few games around that same time. But the one that I saw it begin in the most was in Everquest. Prior to the Planes of Power expansion there was a bit of an equilibrium if you could call it that. Between those who grouped and those who raided (in those days soloing was hard for most). The amount of gear needed to do most content was from groupable content. If you were in Luclin in a smattering of classic, kunark, and velious stuff, it didn't matter. It was usually good enough to most of the group areas.

PoP released and that's when the requirements changed. Just to do the leveling stuff you needed some better gear than the smattering of gear players had acquired. The gear progression required by raiding content was now being applied to the group content. You needed a certain amount of HP/AC on a tank just to survive one mob, and so forth. Now players were being judged on the effort they spent on their characters. I'm not saying this wasn't the case before PoP. But this time it was required, just to do the content.

Some resented it. They didn't care to be measured in such a way. Some of you might be able to empathize as this is when parsers started to become a thing, and players were being compared to one another. Gear was a little more important than skill in some cases simply because of the simplicity of the 'rotations'. I say that in quotes because many classes were just one or two buttons to be pressed on cooldown. Can't really mess that up.

Anyway, those that were being rejected from the new content they just purchased were as expected a little miffed about it. That's when the terms casual and hardcore came about. In their words, to play casually meant they had a job, a life, and priorities outside the game that kept them from attaining the ability to do the stuff they were being barred from. Those that did have the ability were 'hardcore' and were capable of doing the content because they spent their life playing the game 8+ hours a day.

Hardcore was used a slur (and still is), out of jealousy. In retribution, those players being called no life's didn't really take to it well either and hence the term filthy casual came about.

The irony is, for anyone of us who have played MMO's for a minute know that raiding is typically the least playing playstyle out there. Most raid groups in various games spend 2-4 hours raiding, twice a week. That's 4-8 hours a week. Where as a 'casual' plays every day for a time that matches and in many cases doubles or triples that of the prior. this is due to lengthy respawn timers (in the case of open world, like EQ) or weekly dungeon/loot lockouts (WoW, FFXIV, ect).

The point is. The casual vs hardcore dynamic is based on misconceptions, bigotry, and just plain jealousy and envy that ought not be there. I think many would seek to refrain from such terms if they experienced the origins. This little history lesson will do little to change people's minds. But at least it will make them think on the subject. Why are you calling someone who's in a better spot in the game than you, hardcore? Is it really because that's all they do with their life? Well.. many will find, if they actually do a little soul searching and thinking objectively, will find that isn't the case.

Just like any other hobby, some take it more seriously, but that doesn't mean they devote their life to it.

[silverlunarfox]

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I feel like you've taken this far too seriously. casual vs hardcore doesnt mean plays one game vs plays many or even how much or what you play.... Its not bigotry but simply different titles for how you enjoy gaming personally. Yes some use it for personal attacks but whom you quoted did not.Maybe it wasn't worded perfectly but I understood his point. Then you went and took it the "bigot history" route yourself..... I've noticed lately in many gaming circles this is less and less an issue. Yet here you are bringing it out of the dusty bin where it resides...

I'm a filthy casual sometimes, sometimes I am a midcore player, sometimes I hardcore as they come. Theyre just words describing how serious I take a game.

Some people don't understand mono-gamers because there is just so much out there for gaming, esp lately. It's been a good few years for games. But I know mono-gamers and they are perfectly happy being that way whether they play casually/mid/hardcore. And thats ok.

I've said it before, in many games. There are two types of players:

1. Those that get it.
2. Those that don't.

This also is not true. It's not black and white. I know plenty of people that fall in between the two and then some. Some make their own point. lol.

ESO does this.

Please no.

I'm not going to keep bringing up points to a brick wall, which is what I see from the current postings. Maybe you've been insulted this way in the past. I don't know. But the first lesson I learned way back when I first picked up a 360 with Halo 3 and a mic, was don't let randoms on the internet affect you personally.

TO OP: In FFXIV its great that players can rise to the challenge if they want to, and they don't have to if they don't want too. You make the decision to play every time you start up the game. You make the decision what to play every time you bring up your Duty Finder. The most important thing is that you have fun doing what you're doing.

[Ayer2015]

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There was defiantly a lot projected onto my statement from their post which had no relevance to my point; which was simply relating to the devs being comfortable with people taking breaks from the game, which I find many players very resistant to.

[Ayer2015]

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I fail to see how "hardcore" or "casual" gamers have anything to do with the rate in which content is developed and the fact the game's development cycle is structured in a manner to allow for the playerbase to have a life outside of the game. We already have various degrees of difficulty in the game to cater to subsets of the player base.