How do we develop Better Casual Content?

[Turtledeluxe]

Install a new dev team.

Cos that's pretty much what they need to hire. A whole team dedicated to developing non hardcore combat centric content faster, and maybe handle job updates too since those now take 2 years.

[RinaB]

I'm not talking about open field content at all.

[Valence]

I think the consensus is that open field content is pretty bad currently because outside of MSQ, treasure spots, gathering, Fate farming and hunts (and some side questing) they're just not used. Its just giant massive areas you fly from node to node essentially.

I've tried discussing this in other threads but all I've learned is that a lot of people appreciate it precisely because it's brainless on autopilot while they watch netflix to relax..

Mao thinkings is another problem to consider. SE pushings DDR-style boss fights does not just affect high end contents. It also influences how SE designs jobs. Even if more casual contents gonna be made, jobs are gonna look more and more not funs. Is why Mao went backs to WoW after being away for 8 years (is LOTS of funs....Mao can even be Dragon). Mao hopings that SE wakes up and stops painting themselves into corner buts at this point, Mao losing that hope fast.

Sune honestly thinkings that Mao being amazing still holding hope. Sune convinced that SE's current design is how SE standings out from competitors.

[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

[Valence]

If you repeat the same content always in the same exact way, shape and form without variations, then yes, it becomes very tedious and boring very fast. Some people do deal better with this than others though.

[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?

[AllenThyl]

but you chose to be disingenuous

Next time you want to throw out the accusation of "disingenuous", make sure you are the first one in the conversation to state where you got your numbers from, instead of just plucking them out of thin are and pretending that the numbers themselves somehow make your point with no context.

also under your numbers(lalaachievements) expert dungeons are cleared at the same exact rate of normal raids

Completion rate of "In the Glow of a New Dawn" (DT MSQ): 59.9%.
In other words, basically the population that finished with DT MSQ (which is the most casual of content), went and also cleared the normal raids and the expert dungeons. They are no "midcore" content, they are the casual content.
Quite frankly, this whole discussion with you makes me think that you just hope to not get grouped with the "casuals", who are often unfairly receiving unjustified flak. So you frantically try to reclassify easy and "casual" content as "midcore", because YOU PERSONALLY only manage to clear this easy content. If people aren't comfortable for whatever reason to go into the more difficult, that is perfectly fine. The easier stuff like dungeons, hunts and FATEs exist to serve as grind for mounts / minions / glams. But don't go around as if you have a solid grasp on the player skill level or the difficulty of content you have never seen from the inside.

I searched for an even better definition of hardcore content

"Hardcore is when clearing with new players is almost never going to happen before lockout, unless they're all of a decent skill level." - I think that's insanely fair and doesn't play lets dig into the achievement clearing numbers of random websites.

Cool. So "casual" content in the same vein is when basically guaranteed clearing with new players in a lockout, even if they aren't really of decent skill level. Because that applies to all the content you listed as "midcore". Dungeons, normal raids, alliance raids, field operaions, they are all "cleared" within a lockout. In case of Bozja, failing a fate / CE means nothing except lowered reward and maybe a bit of mettle loss. People just soldier on to the next fate / CE, since there is no real failure state. The instance doesn't evaporate and deletes people's characters.

Feel free to advocate for more of the casual content you enjoy, that's perfectly fine. But don't pretend that it isn't just mindless and low-skill stuff.

[Asari5]

ew raids are midcore? yeah sure...
once upon a time dun scaith was midcore ivalive was midcore... but not anymore xD... myths of the realm never has been midcore

and for high end raider extreme is casual content. its different for everyone. an objectiv definition would be nice but barely anyone is able to look at it while ignoring their own bubble / difficulty player play in

[Gurgeh]

First of all we need to define casual


To me casual is content that:

1. Battle content has to be the feature. (All else is sidegame and mechanics)
2. the content will have considred how it can be accessible to an exising group of friends who may have different priorities, rather than requiring a dedicated social group selected acording to an 'aligned' priority.
3. you can enter with little preparation. i.e. You can be confident that people are not going to be annoyed if they have to explain a mechanic to you, if if your going in blind.
4. it entirely is self sufficient within the gameloop (not requiring external discords and the such.)
5. That you can get geared up for in about with about 10 hours playtime of existing casual, assuming previous casual patches/loops are completed in similar manner. (Expensive omnicrafted gear would not suffice
6. you can always participate in if you don't want to organise your own PF.
7. you can always participate in if you don't feel you can't yet make 'promises' to other people about your performance.
8. if it is to be joined via PF, you can be confident that people aren't going to kick you, or keep you out, because you've hidden yourself or opted out of fflogs.
9. doesn't incentivise people to abandon instances because a clear isn't guaranteed (or discourages such behaviour).
10. it will incentivise people to get more comfortable with the content through farming and repetition, appealing to both those who are motviated by rewards and those who are motivated by 'play'
11. it should be a recogniseable 'adition' to exsiting casual content, very often this should be a 'reasonable/incrimental' increase in challenge over other casual content.
12. the enouncounter is not likely to be subverted by optmisation as a means to some outside higher end, it should not become get in get out (hunt trains are a good example of this, where encoutners are something to be skipped, the aim is just collect materiaor marks with as little 'enagaement' as possible.)
13. queuable in the above manner for the majority of an expansion.

How might this casual conent look?:

Well I'm going to be frank. The first thing is attention to no 2. And I'm afriad that casual content is likely to be about friends and healthy player demogrpahics.

• You just HAVE to fix Cross DC PF.

You won't be able to queue any content if the player base thats unlocked it has left for another DC.
You also won't have any friends if you've just left a DC you spent 2 or more years building your network on.
All other endevours are futile until this is addressed. Fix This.

I think providing casual content should not ever assume that you avoid challengng the player. To the contrary if casual content is to feel fresh it has to offer a new challegnge.

• FFXIV is not the immature game it used to be. It is mature. All your end game casual players are mature. I think it needs to be recongnised that while it used to work in the past the 3x3 dungeon format will always feel stale even when a brandnew re-skin comes out.

Make High-End content more accessible to the 'casual' player.
If you can get a 'current' casual player into higher-end content that 'does' count.
Think about marketing. Are you sure that 'Extreme' was a good description? Are you sure that 'Expert' is a good description?
To this end:

• The Speed with which you release Savage after a brand new expansion is plain 'ignorant' if you want to get casual players into Savage.

I really can't believe how long you are willing to leave casual players without content, yet you need to pander to he high end player almost from the moment expansion is released. It's so idiotic it's not even worth contempt, its farcically incompetent if your aim is to get people playing.

I wanted to get into savage. Thought I would be able to. I assumed that being fully caught up at the previous expansion the game would walk me into it...

Like F, me and 'every', 'EVERY'casual player I knew was still doing the MSQ when savage came out. And I was playing daily (but only in afternoons). In fact I was the first to finish from my friends.
The people who finished? you guessed it? All ultimate players form last expansion.

• Next expansion... delay savage by a further 2 months. Allow everyone to get tome geared up in at least two jobs. By all means have crafted for pentamelded that is better than entry tome.
• Give the casual player a way to overgear a little, but one which is less optimal than that aimed at your week 0 hardcore player. For confidence. (And one that doesn't compell them to prostitute themselves on Balmung for gil or use MB bots)

I missed Savage M1, and so now I've got to wait another two years? Well I know there is no point becuase I'm not giong to be ready on time for that savage either.
I Need to feel part of the current event, like I'm used to to for dungeons, trials, normals, alliances, and everything before now.
Its what gives me my confidence that I 'belong'.

What do I want? I want the Extremes fights, but more accessible and welcoming.
How would I do it?

• At present there is only a flag for 'completion', add flag for 'phase 1 complete' and 'phase 2 complete'. The aim is to allow people to DF queue for Phase 1, Phase 2, Complete.
• Noone would be able to make you feel like you don't belong if you've got the flag for 'P1 complete'
• create a mentour system, that rewards players who have completed the fight five times, just for sticking with a party of DF queued 'phase 1', 'phase 2', 'complete' for 40 minutes. Just give them 1/2/3 totems for whatever you think will be sufficient.
• And incentivise NEW/CASUAL/DAUNTED players with rewards! The current reward just puts people of. We can't even 'hope' for 100 clears. Offer 1 mount at the end of the expansion just for clearing each fight 'once'.
• OR you know , you could even add a shiny weapon. For brand new players they'd feel so freakin proud if they had weapon to show off for doing their first 'really' challenging fights.
• Offer a shiny weapon per extreme. Bought from vendor with tokens. Tokens you can only get from doing any Extreme WHILE it is still high-end. guaranteed drop.

Even those who have done the fights don't notice the weapons as something special
Really, that absolute nothing you do to make that scary Extreme enticing to players who've spent three years churning OP dungeons and raids is just... I don't have the words honetly.
You spend all that money developing fights.. and then you waste it for the lack of some 3D modelling on some shiny weapons.
If you can't still differentiate from 'ultimate' weapons then you just need better artsits.