Quote Originally Posted by Striker44 View Post
I wouldn't call it a double standard, more someone not realizing or accepting what FFXIV is about. If someone is purely interested in combat, why play a game that straight-up markets itself as primarily a story-based MMO (one of the reasons it's frequently called an RPGMMO instead of an MMORPG). There are other games that heavily emphasize endgame raiding and see the story as just something to blow through as a means to get you to endgame. FFXIV isn't that game. It would be like playing an FPS set in WWI and being disappointed that it doesn't include modern tanks and jets.

Remember, when WoW was far and away the "best MMORPG on the market," it attained that status precisely by being more casual-oriented than other MMO's at the time. And end-game raiding at that time was practically nothing more than tank-and-spank with occasionally one other mechanic at most involved. The "hardest" part of combat was actually just managing to get 40 people together to do a raid.

There's also a direct link between WoW shifting to a "raid or die" mentality focusing on ever-more-difficult combat and eSports, and it's loss of that "best MMO" status. Put quite simply, the unofficial "best MMO of the moment" title has a long history of going to the game that is most casual-friendly and doesn't focus on "harder" normal content.
It is a double standard, game is called a MMORPG, genre is known for having things like grind and gameplay-centered fights since the genre is a thing, Sure the newest best MMO will casualize the genre like WoW and Everquest did back then, but they kept the important gameplay loop of the genre, and that IMO is where I draw the line. What the next step? next MMORPG casualization step? if you wipe 3 times in extreme the boss commit senpuku so the casual player can get some shiny mount?

Also WoW did not die cause it was raid-focused and ''anti-casual'' FR not just show you never step in a wow raid in LFG difficulty ever. Nah the issue was bad dev management stockpiling since the last 5-7 years or so and just ignoring the player base interest in general, that and locking MSQ content behind time-gated content. to put it in FFXIV way, it wouldn't be bad to being forced to do pandemonium on normal difficulty once in the story, but it would be if they made it so you need full gears set of that place + good materia to even accept the next quest.