How do we develop Better Casual Content?

[ovIm]

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1. Battle content has to be the feature. (All else is sidegame and mechanics)

I feel like this is the biggest and most important factor here - people offer much side content, but really, we all spend hours to unlock combat skills for our class to use, and that core gameplay (while now much more watered down than before) is what one would say they want to do (at least, it is like that for the people I talk to in this game, and for me)

[Sinstrel]

I wish the XIV community in general would shift the conversation away from:

"What rewards and progression does this peice content offer?"

and closer to:

"What makes this peice of content fun?"

What content in the game is so enjoyable/fun to you that rewards don't even matter to you? I think if Yoshi & Co. can just create content that is fun to do, it will become timeless and endlessly repeatable by those who genuinely are having fun with said content. At present, for me personally, a lot of the existing content is no longer/never was fun and I've only participated for the sake of getting the "thing" (glam, hairstyle, title, etc.) so after I got the "thing" I never returned to that particular peice of content.

As far as what content is fun for me currently that I can do regardless of rewards/progression? Bozja, Crystalline Conflict, Chocobo Racing, Slice is Right GATE, Deep Dungeons occasionally. I hope the development team can enrich the existing content and expand on the things that people find fun or draw inspiration from these peices of content to create something amazing.

[AmiableApkallu]

What content in the game is so enjoyable/fun to you that rewards don't even matter to you?

For me, this is, in all seriousness, Mentor Roulette.

The daily gil-and-tomestone rewards are far too small compared to other roulettes. The Astrope mount is definitely not my style.

So, yeah, I queue for the roulette when I just want to have some fun and be surprised by something random. Sometimes, it's a good gamble. Sometimes, it's a bad gamble. Either way, that's why I queued.

[Turtledeluxe]

"What makes this peice of content fun?"

I agree. I don't think this particular team asks that question when designing content consistently enough. When I look at something like Island Sanctuary, it seemed like they forgot about a fun idea and went for something grindy and Job like. When I think of MMOs, I think of things like the Fall Guys event, Eureka, Bozja, Chocobo Racing etc. Things players can do together, accomplish tasks, joke around and gpose. I understand that isn't everyone's perspective. Some players like to do things alone, and that's fine. But I do think the basic question for nearly everything, whether it's a mini game or a side quest or fates or even jobs, the team should always be designing and even updating with fun in mind.

That's also what's cool about relic quests imo, because they have so much potential to bridge different content together. A lot of the game feels overly compartmentalized these days imo.

[mallleable]

'Piece of content' is such a yucky term.

Rambling aside, I do agree that whatever general/casual whatever you want to call it gameplay that should be added or expanded upon should be, y'know, fun, and meaningful to play on top of having meaningful rewards.

[Nero-Voidstails]

I think they should release the midcore content sooner so everyone have something to do not gonna lie

[Volgia]

I think they should release the midcore content sooner so everyone have something to do not gonna lie

To me this conversation about casual vs midcore vs hardcore always ends up being a conversation of single player vs multiplayer. The moment you require a player to know their abilities and rotations to clear content you're tagged as hardcore, cuz people expect things from you and that makes "casual" players so very anxious.

Midcore content is kind of a vague conception. Extremes are midcore, and even the first two stages of a savage have this difficulty. Bozja and Eureka are casual content, just grindy, you don't need any significant skill or optimization to clear that kind of content.

[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.

[Tint]

The first core problem with getting interesting casual content is the ability to switch jobs. All casual content is designed for an item level you can reach without any weekly lockouts.

The second core problem is the tomestone gear. It is simply too strong.

There is no reason to invest your time and get rewards from content when you are already overpowered in the first place and the rewards are worse than the tomestone gear you basically get for free with time.

To get better casual content the tomestone gear has to be nerfed and we have to lose the ability to switch jobs due to higher item level requirements. This would make running normal raid more worthwhile for example.

They don't really have to develop more casual content, they simply have to use the casual content we get in a better way. Most of it is dead on arrival (dungeons, story trials, normal raid. Alliance raid has a bit more longevity, but lacks rewards as well).

But I guess that would be an unpopular change.

[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.