The general player base needs to improve

[Dzian]

I should've probably clarified my personal view on how I view players, which is casual, casual-midcore, and hardcore.

I think a big part of the problem is that these categories have pretty much been thrown around so much that they've lost all definition. Not aiming this st anyone particular but..
What is a casual player?
What is a hard core player?

There's so many answers for each of those that it becomes a meaningless
Term when used in discussions such as this.

"Ramping up the difficulty curve will push the casuals away"
Really. Who will it push away? I think a lot of players who would like to see an increased difficulty curve would actually consider themselves to be casual players for one reason or another.

I've never considered myself hard core. Even when I was doing coils in ARR I was a self proclaimed casual monkey That would do coil on an when I could be bothered basis. No static no raiding groups just set up a pf whenever I felt like giving it a go. Absolute minimum of dedication but at the same time the fact i cleared coil apparantly meant i was some hard core elitist jerk.

And while I never did savage in Alexander I did clear all the ex primal and farm various weapons and stuff but again on the same casual monkey when I can be bothered attitude but running around with primal weapons apparently meant I was hard core....

It's only got worse over time as well. It's practically impossible to accurately describe a casual / hard core gamer these days. To some people just being a raider makes you hard core even if you enter savage like once a week and it takes you several weeks to get a clear....

He'll people even said potd 101-200 was hard core content and impossible for casuals. Yet you could quite literally get 3 friends and spend 20 minutes a week doing it. 10 floors here and there as casual as you liked

[Senliten]

I think a big part of the problem is that these categories have pretty much been thrown around so much that they've lost all definition. Not aiming this st anyone particular but..
What is a casual player?
What is a hard core player?

Hilariously enough, this was just talked on about over at the EQ boards, but i'll be honest to say a few answers over there feel like a common staple that would be a general concept of what the two and how the two are differed from.

Hardcore... learns to actually play the characters they play and utilizes all of the abilities the class has to offer. This doesn't just apply to their main, it applies to most of their alts as well. They will get good gear, good augs, max out all of the GOOD AA's for the class first and then just max out the AA's. Get all heroic AA's even though it's going back to old content.

Casuals... generally don't care about most of the above. As long as stuff dies, and things are enjoyable - all is well.

Note... neither is a negative. It's simply how the game is played by different people. The negativity comes into play with some people jump from EverQuest to Forum Quest and start making silly demands.

The item bolded is something I feel resonates heavily back over here, and where I feel the current situation stems from, especially with the usual posts of crying to "nerf content that requires some mental concepts of how to play the basic concept of this games mechanics." (i.e ShinEx, Rhabanastre, Amdapor Keep, back when it was one of the first few 50 dungeons we could do, etc..). As someone previously stated, this is an issue that must be resolved from both ends. Dev's need to stop catering to every single posts about crying to make content easier and take a firm stance to tell people to 'learn, contribute, and play'. And players need to learn that this game is not 'netflix fantasy' and it is an MMO that requires you to work together with other players and do what is expected of your class and of the game at the most basic of levels (dodge the pretty lights, stack with stack markers, place markers, do whatever visual or sound que that is given by the content which is more generous than other MMO's and its content out there, etc..), but because players have to go and do this, they want to cry that they have to move more than 2 feet and can't simply mash until it works, hence the 'silly demands' we see to 'nerf this or that.'

I'll be honest, I am still to this day wondering why SE even nerfed AK, the day I first saw the Bee's no longer spawning for burn i had a complete WTF moment and asked long and hard how was it even hard, when it was simple situational awareness and knowing the basics, be they obtained from learning the dungeon or just reading up on it somewhere.