Going to the same route as WoW. The game is TOO easy

[Dzian]

Then you should have said then what you just said now instead of generalizing a whole group of players by just saying 'Casuals'.

/rantmode

The problem is that "casuals" has lost its meaning. people read casual these days and what they see is "Easy" and its the same with other words like "accessible" people see that and again see "easy". pretty much everything gets seen as easy instead of what it actually means.

A casual gamer is not a gamer does not want everything to be easy because they spend less time playing games. they still want satisfaction and challenges.
accessibility again doesn't mean things have to be easy. it's like when goverments aim to make education more accessible they do not mean throw out phds to every monkey that wants one.. and the same is true in xiv. savage raiding is designed to be casual friendly and accessible. it's literally something you could log in for a hour hit the raid finder and go... (admittedly not many folks use raid finder but thats a community problem not a design problem the content itself is accessible and friendly to gamers with less time)

Another point that has come up a few times on various websites and articles over recent months is that there is this growing disconnect between gamers and the industry. the industry keeps dumbing down and simplifying games in the hopes of drawing in bigger crowds. but gamers actually want some challenge, complexity and depth in there games. this is one of the reasons why some of the best selling games of the last few years have been remasters of classic games of years ago, because the old games have that challenge, depth and complexity that gamrrs like. where so many of the new games that get released basically flop because gamers just aren't interested in easy simple crap.

it's one of the biggest reasons so many popular games franchises have been killed second only to ridiculous monetization policies and micro transactions, because the developers try and dumb everything down and simplify it so much that it destroys everything that made it popular in the first place..

one can see growing evidence of this huge disconnect between gamers and the indusrty on various websites and communites. you can go to metacritic and find games on there that critics have pushed out said its amazing something everyone wants to play bam 95/100 score, then find 7,000 gamers have reviewed it and its got a score of 26.... andthe same goes the other way you get games critics slam to the floor but gamers actually loved.

there's also been comments recently about the industry being in decline because so many games are basically flopping and people just arent buying them but that's been proven to be untrue as well. because while many games are flopping and failing miserably because they're dumbed down and simplified so much they lose identity. many games that stay true to themselves smash all expectations.. god of war being a recent example, the devs said it wasnt made for the masses it was made to make fans happy. and it was an overwhelming success as a result. where all these games that get tuned down and oversimplified generally don't sell well. literally endless things on youtube and various developer forums about this.

If i recall yoshi even made a similar comment back in february about the future of the final fantasy franchise needs to forget mainstream audiences and focus on the fans...

14 has no real issue in pulling players in. it's big problem is in retaining them because so many players find it so easy thats theres no sense of satisfaction or accomplishment from playing it...

maybe its a generational thing though. the so dubbed millenial generation can't handle failure because they've lived such protected lives, which is why major depression and suicide rates are at record highs amoung the younger generations,

basically though gamers want challenges. even casuals.. there are times where i might only play my ps4 for 3 hours a week but i still play most games on the harder difficulties. i'm not fussed if it took me 3 months to finish a game because i played it on hard. be more satisfying than clearing the whole thing in a single night and thinking well that wasnt worth £50...

The easier gameplay = more players philosophy is generally false anyway This is especially true on the mobile side of things. Sure 100 million people have played Angry Birds or something similar. But how many of them played it for any length of time... Yes its kind of fun for a couple of hours but gets boring incredibly quickly and the result is people drop the games just as quickly as they pick them up.. which isn't good for business in the long run.