How do we develop Better Casual Content?

[Volgia]

I mean, this sounds partially like survivor bias opinion, some people just get wildly bad experiences in PF and a load of people don't have the option of running statics, I've talked to a lot of people who quit raiding after failing to M4S after 2 months, just enjoy prog is kind of a crappy answer. Not to mention you're advocating for no new content for casuals, just for them to run 2 year old content when its easier. you'll have a niche amount of people who have any remote interest in that vs 100s of thousands who want new casual content thats fun and engaging, not leftover slop.

I've always advocated for new content but there is a limit to how engaging you can make a piece of content for 4 - 5 months. It's impossible. Savage/Ultimate players complain about not having anything to do all the time, "Just raid log a week I guess". You could time gate harder, but that will make more people stressed and frustrated. There is a LOT of casual content in this game, housing / crafting / glamouring / roulettes , but if you've exahusted it all then it's hard to call you a casual. You've moved onto something else.

Like if you think hardcore players are "eating" because they got a single chaotic raid and a single ultimate you are dead wrong. Hardcore players, like week 1 clearers, will eat through this piece of content and have nothing else to do for 2-3 months.

Most people who attempt an ultimate are not incredibly hardcore, this is a myth people who are too afraid to try and clear extremes and savage fall into. They raid once or twice a week and end up clearing in 4- 5 months.

That being said, if this piece of content isn't for you and you just simply don't like it, wouldn't it be better to just do the casual content on your own pace and play something else when you get bored of it?

On the PF thing, I've experienced really bad runs and groups and really fun ones. A lot of players here have a violent aversion to conflict and confrontation, to me it's simply worth to have fun in PF even if I do experience some assholes along the way. It's just the nature of interacting with other people.

[ZoReee]

I've always advocated for new content but there is a limit to how engaging you can make a piece of content for 4 - 5 months. It's impossible. Savage/Ultimate players complain about not having anything to do all the time, "Just raid log a week I guess". You could time gate harder, but that will make more people stressed and frustrated. There is a LOT of casual content in this game, housing / crafting / glamouring / roulettes , but if you've exahusted it all then it's hard to call you a casual. You've moved onto something else.

Like if you think hardcore players are "eating" because they got a single chaotic raid and a single ultimate you are dead wrong. Hardcore players, like week 1 clearers, will eat through this piece of content and have nothing else to do for 2-3 months.

Most people who attempt an ultimate are not incredibly hardcore, this is a myth people who are too afraid to try and clear extremes and savage fall into. They raid once or twice a week and end up clearing in 4- 5 months.

That being said, if this piece of content isn't for you and you just simply don't like it, wouldn't it be better to just do the casual content on your own pace and play something else when you get bored of it?

On the PF thing, I've experienced really bad runs and groups and really fun ones. A lot of players here have a violent aversion to conflict and confrontation, to me it's simply worth to have fun in PF even if I do experience some assholes along the way. It's just the nature of interacting with other people.

This sounds like more of a total game issue then that no content is fun to repeat, its only fun to clear

[Volgia]

This sounds like more of a total game issue then that no content is fun to repeat, its only fun to clear

Is it? The game has a myriad of things for you to experience and enjoy, golden saucer minigames, mahjong, jumping puzzles, combat roulettes, triple triad collectibles, sightseeing challenges, crafting, criterion dungeons (non savage), bozja, eureka, blue mage challenges (and an upcoming beastmaster job), deep dungeons, they dumbed down every single job so you could learn it faster, beast (or company) tribes challenges, all of this you can do without the pressure of other people asking you to git gud, so in my mind this game has almost 80% casual content, all of what I've mentioned is enough content for more than a year.

This is added on top of 4 current savages, 2 extreme trials and an upcoming dungeon should you desire to go deeper into the game. All of which have rewards you must beat the fight multiple times to get.

If you don't like that, that's up to you. If you're truly a casual, how can you say that there is nothing for you to do for the next 5 months?

[Valence]

Is it? The game has a myriad of things for you to experience and enjoy, golden saucer minigames, mahjong, jumping puzzles, combat roulettes, triple triad collectibles, sightseeing challenges, crafting, criterion dungeons (non savage), bozja, eureka, blue mage challenges (and an upcoming beastmaster job), deep dungeons, they dumbed down every single job so you could learn it faster, beast (or company) tribes challenges, all of this you can do without the pressure of other people asking you to git gud, so in my mind this game has almost 80% casual content, all of what I've mentioned is enough content for more than a year.

This is added on top of 4 current savages, 2 extreme trials and an upcoming dungeon should you desire to go deeper into the game. All of which have rewards you must beat the fight multiple times to get.

If you don't like that, that's up to you. If you're truly a casual, how can you say that there is nothing for you to do for the next 5 months?

Did you seriously shove criterion (non savage) and savage BLU into casual content? Bwahahaha.

I do however agree with you that to SE's eyes it probably seems that all of this (minor criterion/BLU savage) makes a big bulk of the game and falls indeed into the casual umbrella, but what they do not seem to see is that in terms of actual pve, well, casual has been run... relatively thin. Housing, gold saucer, TT, sightseeing, doh/dol, etc, are not actual pve.

[Volgia]

Did you seriously shove criterion (non savage) and savage BLU into casual content? Bwahahaha.

I do however agree with you that to SE's eyes it probably seems that all of this (minor criterion/BLU savage) makes a big bulk of the game and falls indeed into the casual umbrella, but what they do not seem to see is that in terms of actual pve, well, casual has been run... relatively thin. Housing, gold saucer, TT, sightseeing, doh/dol, etc, are not actual pve.

Oh, I meant Variant Dungeons and Blu collection spellbook, but the Criterion and Blu Savage fall more into "hardcore". It's hard to parse exactly what players want out of casual content here, my guess would have been more challenging dungeons they could play, you know, make the roulettes more challenging, but they went the other way by stripping almost everything that made dungeons interesting in service for their TRUST system.

But as I said, in terms of actual PVE, it's all casual. All of it. FATES, Dungeons, Normal raids, Alliance raids, it's all pretty casual. It offers no actual meaningful challenge or difficulty curb that requires skill or optimization. Nier and Ivallice were somewhat challenging but players complained it was too hard and they didn't sign up for the dark souls experience so, we got the snoozefest that was the Myths of the Realm AR.


Look at it, as opposed to "Hardcore" content. Hardcore is 4 savages and an ultimate every 9 months. Extremes are too easy for hardcore players, they eat that content in an hour, but even then it's one per patch. Compare it to the overwhelming amount of stuff you can do "casually" and without any time investment. It's 80% / 20% at best.

[Valence]

Oh, I meant Variant Dungeons and Blu collection spellbook, but the Criterion and Blu Savage fall more into "hardcore". It's hard to parse exactly what players want out of casual content here, my guess would have been more challenging dungeons they could play, you know, make the roulettes more challenging, but they went the other way by stripping almost everything that made dungeons interesting in service for their TRUST system.

But as I said, in terms of actual PVE, it's all casual. All of it. FATES, Dungeons, Normal raids, Alliance raids, it's all pretty casual. It offers no actual meaningful challenge or difficulty curb that requires skill or optimization. Nier and Ivallice were somewhat challenging but players complained it was too hard and they didn't sign up for the dark souls experience so, we got the snoozefest that was the Myths of the Realm AR.


Look at it, as opposed to "Hardcore" content. Hardcore is 4 savages and an ultimate every 9 months. Extremes are too easy for hardcore players, they eat that content in an hour, but even then it's one per patch. Compare it to the overwhelming amount of stuff you can do "casually" and without any time investment. It's 80% / 20% at best.

I honestly think people just want fresh and engaging things. Not the same stale formula. There was a lukewarm cheer when casual dungeons saw their difficulty ramp up a little as promised by Yoshida just before DT, and really, the difficulty "increase" is only on bosses, and it's not mechanical, it's just on execution because the thing they changed is the pace at which bosses throw mechanics at you, which is the laziest thing they could have done, but i'm going on a tangent here.

They just want for the low hanging fruit, which was difficulty and a willingness to make casual dungeons less of a snoozefest (it was said alongside those words by Yoshida, just more politely), when in reality they could have introduced variety and creativity, instead of vapid and lazy conformism. Yes, it requires more work, and yes, Yoshida expressly stated that the dungeon formula isn't going to change any time soon because of productivity considerations and because they're happy with it anyway. While it made me incredibly depressed to read this, in a way I still commend the man for finally stating clear directions to us instead of keeping us in the dark until done deeds.