The great streamer Asmongold is joining FFXIV

[Vahlnir]

WoW caters to a hardcore playerbase and FFXIV to a more casual one, it's true, but I feel like when people say this they aren't...looking at it in quite the right way. They're usually saying it in a scornful way.

To me a casual friendly game has nothing to do with how easy its endgame is, it's how much of that endgame exists to do casually or just for fun vs gearing up for the hard content. WoW is hardcore because not many of its systems are "just for fun" anymore.

WoW's endgame revolves almost entirely around mythic dungeons and raiding, both of which have actually become esports. Aside from pet battling, every activity in WoW is about power progression and getting the player to engage in these more hardcore activities. Pet battling has not received much attention. Archaeology was abandoned entirely. The vanilla version of the games ("Classic" now) is actually more casual friendly. The leveling, questing and gearing parts of the game take more patience and are a huge part of the experience. Raiding in classic is very easy to the point that one raid was actually cleared by a group wearing no gear.

Final Fantasy XIV is more friendly to casuals because, like Classic, it has more casual content. Classic had the entire leveling experience, FFXIV has that and things like Palace of the Dead, treasure tomes, Bozja etc that don't make you feel pressured into doing Savage/Ultimate.

You aren't wrong, but it wasn't just Classic that was/is more casual friendly. It was Wrath, MoP and even Legion, and they still managed to cater to the more hardcore crowd just fine. Can't really speak for BC but I'd imagine even it was more casual friendly than what the game is now. WoW isn't really for players like me anymore, even though that was where it shined brightest in the past. Every time they've tried to design the game solely for the more hardcore end of the player base it ended pretty badly. Shadowlands is no different. They have and will continue to lose a ton of money from WoW every single time they try this.

[Ayuhra]

You aren't wrong, but it wasn't just Classic that was/is more casual friendly. It was Wrath, MoP and even Legion, and they still managed to cater to the more hardcore crowd just fine. Can't really speak for BC but I'd imagine even it was more casual friendly than what the game is now.

The game has only been getting progressively more hardcore. Burning Crusade had some EXTREMELY hard raids* that were very hard to access. I seem to remember something like 1% of people cleared Sunwell Plateau when it was current. But it had a lot to do outside raiding. There were some dailies introduced and that was probably the best version of the rep reward system we ever had with every faction being a little different. I spent most of my time doing the reps for new mounts and getting access to unique beasts I could tame as a hunter.



*Raid difficulty being a little tricky to judge. Burning Crusade had some mathematically goofy encounters but nothing that was as complicated in design as what we have now.