Why do casuals act as if it's the end of the world when suggesting?

[RayneBoemir]

I really struggle with a lot of the "easy" mechanics some of the group content has to offer. Its quite frustrating. Ive been gaming sucesfully for decades, finished all the souls games except Elden Ring (yet) so it's not like Im an idiot, or lazy or slow but I dont seem to get a lot of the mechanics that other players do in higher level content. I am fast, and if I see something coming I can dodge it all day long. But by the time I figure out the tell for a mechanic, it seems I dont get that particular dungeon again for ages, and by then Ive forgotten whats even happening and have to start all over again.

So yes, anything outside of Ex, Savage, or Ultimate being too difficult, can certainly feel like the end of the world and unnecessary. When Yoshi P says that if you want harder content, go play Ultimate, I agree with him.

That is natural though depending on how often you did said content even if you have not done it in a while it should start to come back to you as you do it.

[RayneBoemir]

People just bail or ignore those mechanics. Last time I got Qarn, the tank refused to open the doors to get the pieces because they said we can just fight the mobs that spawn at the end. They only did the mechanics that prevented them from progressing. And if you have enough of those mechanics, people just bail. So then they become content that is only cleared with premades. SE looks at people bailing, looks into why people are bailing, and changes things so people don't bail. Because they don't want to make content that people are just going to refuse to do.

People also bail because people refuse to cooperate. This was the case for Steps of Faith. Ok who wants to do towers and impale the dragon? *crickets* often times I would have to do it and no one else wanted to. This often means that developers now make things be more individual based rather than design things with teamwork in mind.

[TaleraRistain]

People also bail because people refuse to cooperate. This was the case for Steps of Faith. Ok who wants to do towers and impale the dragon? *crickets* often times I would have to do it and no one else wanted to. This often means that developers now make things be more individual based rather than design things with teamwork in mind.

I haven't seen DF worry about those in a long time in that instance.

They were an issue at first because you had wait for Vishap to reach the end before you could try again. That's what made people bail, since they knew they were going to be lying there dead while this dragon plodded on. A better example would be how incredibly punishing The Vault was when it first came out and how people would bail on that in a second because one person did one wrong thing and the fight was already lost.

They are making things that work on a more individual basis but that's not bad a thing. It means that one weak point won't bring everything down.

[Dzian]

Outside of savage there is not really a need in moving your camera to see a mechs, and even in savage you don't need it that much. One of my friends have a great sensibility over motion sickness and moving the camera is prohibited for her but she actually manage to beat Asphodelos without any help (PS4 and no vocal.). Outside some fight like E8S where the balls on Shiva head were really hard to see for melee, there is not an absolute necessity of a better camera... Would it be a good QoL changes ? Totally, but not a necessity.

Are we playing the same game? There's loadsa stuff where you need to be spinning the camera to see whats going on.

Few recentish examples:

Paradigms Reach - having to spin the camera too see what those giant tree clones are going to be doing.
Endsinger Ex. - watching out for planets popping behind you whist keeping tabs on her face.
Aglaia - having to move the camera frequently to see where the hammers and stuff are or which finger doesnt have the orb on or which fireball will move in which direction.
Hydaelyn - to see where those "wave" things are spawning or the direction they're flowing..
Alzadaals Legacy - seeing where the lazers and stuff are spawning. or which curtains are safe
Smiloton? - having to watch the face statues outside the arena sides..
Rabanastre - boss with giant spinning pot.. so big it's off the top of the screen even at maximum zoom unless you literally stand on the bosses feet and point the camera vertically down.

and a whole bunch of other mechanincs where the indicators arent even in the arena but on one of many statues surrounding it.. or sometimes up in the sky like having to look up to see how the meteors will come down into the ground and in what order.

There's loads of occasions where more freedom over the camera would be a huge benefit. doesn't make enounters impossible admittedly but it can be super nausseatting having to juggle it so much..

[hynaku]

You did get an option for difficulty for quest fights. You get ultima, savage,and unreal content. I don't know why your complaining that think they need to add anymore difficulty to the game. Maybe next they should add where the tank or healer just randomly disconnects in boss fights to add more of a challenge for you that like challenges. We sure don't need them to start putting out less content than we get even now.

[Ralphe2449]

Yet you treat that as a clear sign of WoW being "casual-unfriendly"?

One of its many signs

Which has what, exactly, to do with the "+15 reward".

Okay, rolling with your goalpost switch...

Are you pretending to not be aware that you get mythic gear in the vault by buying a m15? Or did you conveniently forget to pretend I changed the goalposts

In what world would you possibly need Mythic raid level gear while spitting at anyone and everyone who raids?

Ah and the person who pretended to be casual uses the typical elitist argument of "casuals dont deserve cool things and max gear cuz they are inferior to us l33t raiders"
Power progression is part of mmorpgs, if you power progression is 30 ilvls below therefore worthless trash, it aint worth playing when you can literally just buy easily m15 boosts each week.

it's not going to be enough to compensate for a lack of skill in PvP

Spoken like someone who clearly has not played random bgs since SL started

[kaynide]

Everything should be harder than MSQ to push people to learn the basics of the game before they reach max level. People that doesn't AoE trash packs, healbot and single-pulling tank should not be a thing past 50 and the only way to do so is to create some challenge on the way, nothing really hard but something that forces people into actually playing correctly.

And when you said that this MMO respects your time, clearly it's the reverse with how some people think that it is normal to go slow in dungeons...

Disagree; I think that is the beauty of the way the game is designed. There isn’t one required way to run dungeons. It is entirely up to what the specific party in the specific instance agree to do.

My wife, who will never tank outside of our specific circle of friends, isn’t comfortable taking many mobs at once. One grandma friend is not comfortable healing, but wants to experience the story of the job. They can level in roulettes together at a slower pace and enjoy the game their way.

In the same way if I take a massive pack of mobs and see the random healer struggling, I’ll slow up a bit or ask if they’re good or not.

There is no need for anyone to force a way to play the game, however (sub)optimal, and that is a good thing.

If we are talking niche content like EX or Savage, then sure, by all means optimize away. I would even say YES to making them harder. MSQ though? Nah, devs know if they make it too rigid, the average casual gamer is happy to quit and go back to the Sims or Cookie Crush.

The core content of the game is meant for everybody to clear to enjoy a story. Even grandma.

[Shurrikhan]

One of its many signs

Each of supposed which, thus far, XIV has been just as culpable of, or you've been incorrect or massively exaggerative about.

Ah and the person who pretended to be casual...

Playing under 5 hours per week, often as few as 2, is pretty damn casual, yes. How one chooses to use that time is up to them. Not bothering to consult guides and usually having time only to warm up, if doing so at all, while searching for a group, sticking to cheap food and pots so long as I'm keeping up with the group, etc., is likewise far from "hardcore". That did not prevent me from logging on after work, sitting down with a beer and music to pug some M+ on off-meta specs, and pretty quickly getting pasts 10s and, within a few months, past the reward cap.

Unless subbing for friends, I don't raid, because I don't have a fixed schedule and I don't much enjoy group sizes larger than a dozen or so. As such, it's damn nice to me that I can just hop online, do my job in a typically amiable group of 5, and progress (even if I do think the GV reward is weirdly distant from the base loot from the same difficulty tier). It was gear-intensive progression path, more so than PvP, but by not so much so that I couldn't rapidly catch up on alts, keeping up with those some 10 to 15 ilvl higher than I was. As someone who didn't care much for the strictures of raids and had little time per week, yeah, that was nice. One might even say, pretty casual friendly.

...uses the typical elitist argument of "casuals dont deserve cool things and max gear cuz they are inferior to us l33t raiders"
Power progression is part of mmorpgs, if you power progression is 30 ilvls below therefore worthless trash, it aint worth playing when you can literally just buy easily m15 boosts each week.

Except, you've listed the reason right there: Power progression.

Should someone who never does Chocobo races have immediate access to the best chocobos? Should someone get a complete Triple Triad deck just from having raided, never even bothering to go back and farm particular cards? Those are returns on investment in a way that matters to that content. They are forms of progression.

Extreme item level does not matter to doing the MSQ; it often even syncs you down. Extreme item level does not matter to doing dungeons; they generally even sync you down. So why would placating someone who refuses to do any content for which that progress is applicable warrant destroying that progression for those who actually do the applicable content?

Spoken like someone who clearly has not played random bgs since SL started

Both randoms and rated. And arenas. You seem to be forgetting that PvP was the quickest, easiest way to initially gear up, which, as it happened, was a larger factor for PvE than for PvP. Once I had enough ilvl to skip the duller, in my opinion, early parts of PvE progress, I didn't go back except to join a friend for the occasional 2v2 or random BG, but yeah, I've played it. And yes, there were alternate gearing paths that I could do just through MSQ and World Quests, but I'd much rather lose occasionally and actually enjoy myself than just run screaming from the slightest of uphill battles.

Again, I would likewise prefer that Random BGs, at least, standardize our total stat levels (so long as we still have control over those secondary stats and it's not JUST synced down, breaking Haste thresholds and the like), but it truly wasn't as big a deal as you make out. You weren't locked out forevermore just because of a gearing advantage. It wasn't as large a factor as you make out and there were many other players there likewise putting alts through their early paces, too. You have not been systematically tyrannized.

[Quor]

If the "In From the Cold" nerfs taught us anything, it's that the vast majority of the player base seems incapable of understanding context clues and is completely helpless without something akin to a bright neon arrow pointing them to exactly where they need to go.

It is my fervent hope that SE understands that said casual players will simply abandon the game when it becomes too boring for them, which it will in record time due to how absolutely braindead most content has become. SE will also lose the more dedicated fan base that was the source of this games revival and success in the process. SE will once again make the corporate mistake of prioritizing short-term profits over long-term sustained growth. I'm reminded of a line from the intro cutscene in Secret of Mana; time flows like a river, and history repeats. It seems as if the hubris of SE may once again be on the rise, with dedicated fans and new players alike, who both enjoy a challenge, being left behind in favor of the FotM fly-by-night casual crowd who will largely tap out after a handful of months.

[Kolsykol]

See, this is the thing. I'm 100% confident that I would be as good or better than most of the people progging savage in any given instance. But, as a casual player I don't have the time to sit there and prog for 2 hours, and I don't really have the ability to commit to a certain time/day with a static. As a casual player, 30 minutes is really the longest that I can really commit to a play session, some sessions go above that, but I can't really COMMIT to that. So I'm locked out of that strictly because of time, that's all. I agree that the difficulty is fine for casual players, but I just really can't commit to the time for it.

This is another instance of the overlap of "not taking the game seriously" and "don't have that much time to play"

That's totally fair.
I am fortunate enough to have a lot of time whenenver I choose.
So I can take a whole day and just grind out a boss, altho with that said most of that day will be spent trying to find people who aren't blatantly lying about where in the fight they are lol.
I spent a whole week on each fight in P2-4S because of that, because every single group I joined was full of people for example who joined a FoA/ clear P3S group when they couldn't get past adds or even put down the fires on the squares at the start.
It was easily the most infuriating experience and what held me back because I learned the fight really really fast but then had to spend a whole week on it because people are blatant liars and waste your time.

I think I cleared all of them in the middle of the night on reset day, that's when you'll find similar people who are just really desperate and have been having the same experience.
With P4S I ended up in a helper group I mean there were still issues with this but at least it wasn't as bad.
Next tier I am getting into on day 1 and will hopefully get clears relatively early on compared to this tier.
But I learned my lesson and I won't be as greedy with the coffers anymore.
Spending a whole week for a chance on the coffers when people lie so much isn't worth it, better to just get some help from people who have already cleared when you know the fight.