World of Warcraft died because the developers only catered to casuals and world prog

[Xatsh]

FFXIV since ARR has been 90%+ casual focused... and the game has been booming lately. Honestly the more things are simplified and content is streamlined the more popular the game is becoming.

To be honest I feel the vast majority of MMO players fall in the casual to very casual range and this game is designed for those players. It is not designed for mid cores or hardcore players in any way. Is there some challenging stuff... yes. But it is optional and more or less separate from the primary game.

FFXIV is a mmo for those who want to play a casual experience, in my opinion a MMO-Lite style game. This game is designed so you are not required to do anything, you are not punished for taking breaks, and you do not need to make spreadsheets to optimize your character. Progression is simplified, jobs are simplified, crafting/gathering/economy is simplified. Crafting is seperate from endgame more or less. PvP is separate from PvE. Raiding outside savage and ultimate are designed for easy clears without much prior knowledge, group coordination, and extremely rewarding in terms of gear distribution.

And Since the beginning this has been Yoshida's vision of the perfect mmo and he has not deviated at all from it. So I would not expect the game to change at all. Especially with the success it is seeing.

[Skiros]

FFXIV since ARR has been 90%+ casual focused... and the game has been booming lately. Honestly the more things are simplified and content is streamlined the more popular the game is becoming.

To be honest I feel the vast majority of MMO players fall in the casual to very casual range and this game is designed for those players. It is not designed for mid cores or hardcore players in any way. Is there some challenging stuff... yes. But it is optional and more or less separate from the primary game.

FFXIV is a mmo for those who want to play a casual experience, in my opinion a MMO-Lite style game. This game is designed so you are not required to do anything, you are not punished for taking breaks, and you do not need to make spreadsheets to optimize your character. Progression is simplified, jobs are simplified, crafting/gathering/economy is simplified. Crafting is seperate from endgame more or less. PvP is separate from PvE. Raiding outside savage and ultimate are designed for easy clears without much prior knowledge, group coordination, and extremely rewarding in terms of gear distribution.

And Since the beginning this has been Yoshida's vision of the perfect mmo and he has not deviated at all from it. So I would not expect the game to change at all. Especially with the success it is seeing.

Except the recent influx is from midcore WoW players looking for an MMO to go to lol, not casual players who can't handle a three-button rotation. The game has changed significantly from HW to ShB, and if you think there was no deviation you are honestly deluded.

[LaylaTsarra]

Except I have been playing FF14 since Heavensward and I probably have played way more of FF14 than you ever will.

Not more than me you can be sure. You don't even come close but really you're just here to stir the pot.

[Shougun]

FFXIV has long been on a casual supportive trajectory environment and has continued to see growing success for it.. Doesn't really paint the signs that it's a bad choice. That said I personally would consider much of the mid-core part of the casual audience, and think thus catering to them too is important. I don't even think 'not' giving hardcore players is a goal- it's just they're not 'the' audience to cater for (but ultimate and such is still an important existence).

Also I think it's interesting because I often hear WoW didn't cater to casuals and that's why it has so many problems. With loads of content for people who are mid-core+ (some overlap I guess from the two major groups of casual and hardcore). Lots of people talking about that one off content, and raids always pushing people to hit a strict schedule and put in a lot of grind. In fact so much that I have frequently heard the major difference between FFXIV and WoW, besides say graphics, jobs, music, whatever- is the fact that FFXIV is far more friendly to your time investment and in general less oppressive and thus more mid-core (- (to casual)) friendly).

I do think some jobs should be vaguely considered "complicated" while others are vaguely not, and it might not be bad to see clever and difficult optimizations give you a bit more damage (room for some mastery, yet not so much that it's wet noodle vs lord of damage). But yet, at least to me, it seems apparent the success of FFXIV has consistently been each expansion, more friendly to mid-core(-), more approach-able, less strict on time investment schedules, and each time it's done that it's generally just done better overall.

[Izar_Chillen]

[WhiteWitch]

[Yeol]

What is your definition of midcore? Examples of midcore content would help understand what you're asking for.

The devs have stated in the past that the majority of the player base are performing below their standard. Hence the nerfs and simplification of jobs and some content. The difference in performance back in HW days was very huge and the devs didn't like it. The nerfs were intended to bring the bottom players closer to the top.

The devs have access to all statistics. Success/fail rates, the number of attempts of all duties, how long players remain subscribed, the number of active players, etc... I'm guessing they are happy with the ratings they are getting.

[Padudu]

Memes being made about the OP now, man has truly ascended

[Avidria]

Wow has been slowly killing itself for years because blizz doesn't know or care how to make a game that's actually fun to play anymore

[Veranolth]

WoW hasn't really catered to casuals for some time. Even the system bloat isn't well-liked by the world first raiders, and for the more casual players it's just busywork content with time-gates implemented to stretch the content because there's not much to do.