@Casuals , do you think the message has gotten through?

[Erzaa]

But they haven't released "Nothing but raids", the only new raid thing they released was Chaotic. Everything else has been the same content patch release since Stormblood.

Chaotic and Forked Tower: Blood are both new raids that are inaccessible to casual players, there's a whole thread with finger pointing over who deserves to go in and how hard or easy it is to complete.

Meanwhile, we get, what? Beast Tribes?

The problem isn't the lack of varied new content, the problem is the normal content has become dull and boring, they decimated most of the complex systems pre-Shadowbringers and now we're just on that late stage version of the game where no one is happy.

So, everything should be dull and boring except raids? Are raids all that matter? Why? Says who?

The game has also fostered a strong divide between casual/hardcore content. So if anything in normal mode gives you a bit of friction (STrayborough, M2N) people come here in tears asking why they don't toss that onto the hardcore pile, or wonder why no one is catering towards them specifically.

It's done no such thing. We've done it to ourselves. Casuals accusing hardcores of wanting difficulty increases, hardcores accusing casuals of wanting to dumb the gameplay down, as if those are the two only options. And each time SE listens to whichever voice is the loudest, they get accused of siding with one or the other. It's completely possible to make both sides happy.

You accused me of arguing in bad faith and nitpicking so IDK if responding to you is productive, but this is my stance on the matter.

You are though. You've gone on record saying "What we expect from an MMO?", as if every single MMO on the market just focuses on raids (SWtoR doesn't exist, SWG didn't exist, OSRS doesn't exist...) or "We're incapable of socialising" (what exactly are the Mentors and Sprouts doing in NN when they ask questions or make puns or mess around or ask for help? What about people who just sit around sometimes and chat? Is that not socialising? Is socialising only laugh at silly deaths in a hard raid to you?).

This raid first mentality is archaic. It wasn't even popular when it was popular. It's very possible for smart developers and designers to sit down and have a discussion and try and make new things and improve old things. The want just needs to be there.

And no, I don't want you to lose your raids, but trying to say this is an MMO, you just can't socialise, just raid and try it out, helps nobody. And the numbers show it. People are leaving in droves.

Just because I play an MMO doesn't meant I want to always socialise either. Sometimes I just want to be left alone, but like the feeling of being in a living, breathing world. Just like, in real life, just because I smile to a passerby and say Good Morning!, doesn't mean I want to go to the pub with them.

[Volgia]

Chaotic and Forked Tower: Blood are both new raids that are inaccessible to casual players, there's a whole thread with finger pointing over who deserves to go in and how hard or easy it is to complete..

Chaotic is hardcore, Forked Tower isn't inaccesible at all. Tons of casual players get through it just fine.

So, everything should be dull and boring except raids? Are raids all that matter? Why? Says who?

No one. You're the one making that conclusion in your head, even savage players would benefit from the regular being more engaging, you think we like grinding the same 4 fights for months at a time?

It's done no such thing. We've done it to ourselves. Casuals accusing hardcores of wanting difficulty increases, hardcores accusing casuals of wanting to dumb the gameplay down, as if those are the two only options. And each time SE listens to whichever voice is the loudest, they get accused of siding with one or the other. It's completely possible to make both sides happy.

Oh it has 100% done it. Famous YoshiP words, "If you wanna have fun healing, go do it in Ultimate", it's shifting blame, we didn't ask for the gameplay to only be significant in hard content, THEY did that.

Social commentary

This MMO has an aggressive amount of content you can do without talking to anyone, what it barely has is any content you can form a community around. You can go do the whole MSQ, PVP, Crafting and Gathering, the normal raids, the trials, the 24mans without having to talk to a single soul. It's another 90/10 ratio.

You might not know this but savage players aren't happy with the game either, our jobs and sense of challenge has been slowly stripped every expansion, and it was because CBU3 shifted it's design elements for mass appeal, it was not for the benefit of hardcore players in mind.

[Erzaa]

Chaotic is hardcore, Forked Tower isn't inaccesible at all. Tons of casual players get through it just fine.

Spare me the gaslighting with Forked Tower isn't inaccessible, when all evidence is contrary to that.

No one. You're the one making that conclusion in your head, even savage players would benefit from the regular being more engaging, you think we like grinding the same 4 fights for months at a time?

Of course you'd benefit from it. We all would. So, why is Forked Tower inaccessible to anyone but preformed large groups? And, as much as you might feel like grinding the same 4 fights for months at a time is not engaging (and I understand), that's still alot more content that any casual gets.

Oh it has 100% done it. Famous YoshiP words, "If you wanna have fun healing, go do it in Ultimate", it's shifting blame, we didn't ask for the gameplay to only be significant in hard content, THEY did that.

Ah yes! Also the infamous, "they're dumbing down the game because of casuals complaining". Do you really believe, casual players, who, on the one hand, can't do a rotation to save their lives according to these forums, and on the other, also complain about kits being too complicated, according to the forums? Casual players don't give a damn what an optimal rotation is, or getting buffs lined up.

When I'm in a Trial, or Normal Raid, or Alliance Raid, I'll never even bother checking if my buff lines up with anything at all, barring the occasional is there another scholar and I wait to use my Chain Stratagem or not. What other players are doing around me, is of no consequence, as long as the boss ends up on the floor and I win.

The job homogenisation is entirely on the dev team wanting to make balancing easier, and raiders demanding an easier time in lining up their different GCD cooldowns. If it were up to me, there'd be no such thing as buff alignment whatsoever, and the abilities would be no more than a single bar, and each would be different, unique and could be used in varying situations reactively. But, that's just me.

The whole idea that casuals are somehow to blame for job homogenisation is one of the biggest, fattest lies ever spewed on these forums, bar none.

This MMO has an aggressive amount of content you can do without talking to anyone, what it barely has is any content you can form a community around. You can go do the whole MSQ, PVP, Crafting and Gathering, the normal raids, the trials, the 24mans without having to talk to a single soul. It's another 90/10 ratio.

One, how's this a bad thing? Two, what's your point? All of those things are one and done. They've got no replayability whatsoever.

Why is having something fun, entertaining and casual, something that you can pick up and drop on the fly with others, somehow impacting your raiding experience? Again, socialising isn't just forming a raid group. Just because I don't want to lookup a guide, read it for two hours, spend another hour hitting a dummy to make sure I have a perfect rotation, then find a PF or join a static, just so I can get to play the game, how does that impact you?

Am I coming into your static and telling you to drop everything and come sit by me while I craft or something?

You might not know this but savage players aren't happy with the game either, our jobs and sense of challenge has been slowly stripped every expansion, and it was because CBU3 shifted it's design elements for mass appeal, it was not for the benefit of hardcore players in mind.

I'm well aware nobody's really happy with the game right now. But, of the two sides, you're the ones getting at least something for your subscription cost. Trying to persuade casual players that they should just be happy with 4 hours on a weekend, for a single patch, then waiting four months, or joining a Discord group and jumping through hoops, while you go out and replay your Savage raids and Chaotic Raids and 48 man preformed Forked Tower groups, over and over for gear, or mount, or whatever it is you do.

Don't think for a second I didn't see your glib remark on the other thread about how Forked Tower doesn't need a Normal mode.

[Alahard]

I mean reading through this form ( and others like it since OC)

Why are the arguments always hardcore vs casuals. ( especially since what defines each varies for each person, and so is completely worthless).

They should be -> why does square put out less engaging and less rewarding content for everyone lately. The biggest problem is lack of engaging content that every level of player can enjoy, especially outside of the pf system.

And the bigger problem is we used to have it ->

Bodja duels were almost perfect. Every skill level can approach it, with the less skilled players slowly learning the fate clear conditions and higher skilled players choosing to do it blind to practice learning mechanics.
We had a queuable mode for casuals, with bonus rewards for doing tricky problems, while also getting a savage mode that wasn't a nightmare to get a team for. Why did square introduce a system that makes everyone mad in some way?

Also to this day, im trying to figure out who the class design is for. While there is large problems with HW/SB class design ( piercing weakness forcing certain group combos, pld during HW as a whole), the greater variety meant it took longer for the easier content to become stale. Leveling another class had more gameplay weight, even with less overall dungeons in the queue. And back in the day I don't remember the casual players really complaining about the design ( it was the raiding group, and it was the stupid decisions like making pld useless in HW).


Square needs to do 4 things ->

1) Whenever they release content, it needs to bring with it the expectations that the previous version brought in. OC really needed multiple engaging/accessable endgoals within the zone, but only brought 1.
2) They need to bring this content out to the regular world in some way. Even in piece meal over patches.
3) They need a better content cadence. What I mean is we needed to wait untill 7.2, then wait a couple of months for fixes, then wait till 7.5 for the fix? Doing step 2 would at least alleviate it, and if they combined aspects with the outer world we don't have to waste a bunch of developer time on designing one unique zone. It also means the fulfilling outdoor content exist on day 1, and has a better consistent patch cycle.
4) They need to do something else for class design. Make it more varied. This way casual content is a lot less stale. A lot more people would be inclined to farm out gearsets for all the roles if they all had some unique, fresh gameplay that requires some intelligence to utilize. It wouldn't affect normal modes much ( since dps checks don't actually exist, and HW/SB proved that they were easily clearable anyways), savage players would like the increased difficulty, and it stops every run from feeling samey.

[Volgia]

Ah yes! Also the infamous, "they're dumbing down the game because of casuals complaining".

When I said "They" I meant CBU3, I didn't say the casual players, lol. That's why I added at the very end that CBU3 did this not with savage players in mind, but with the idea of complete mass appeal.

Spare me the gaslighting with Forked Tower isn't inaccessible, when all evidence is contrary to that.

You can literally walk into the instance by putting your cipher in and waiting for your other 45 randos to join. You don't need too much of a special expertise in the game to clear it.

Even if I agreed that FT is hardcore, it's still only 3 things: Chaotic, FT and Ultimate. You aren't talking about the rest of things they have released: ALL of Occult Crescent. All of Cosmic Exploration. All the hunt marks and fates on DT's overworld, the 3 alliance raids, the 7 expert MSQ dungeons, the Job Quests, Deep Dungeon, Manderville Quests, seasonal events and I can go on and on, the majority of what they release is casual.

Casual and Hardcore content only kind of share extremes and savages and that's it.

The argument of "it's not very engaging" doesn't matter, that's another subject, but they're certainly NOT appealing to hardcore raiders in this game.

[Valence]

To be frank, I think casuals are babied so much by yoshi-p that they never gain a skill level beyond what you'd expect of someone in sastasha. It's actually pathetic when I see people die 3-4 times on an expert dungeon boss which is still very casual. People have no idea what their abilities do, don't know how to read cast bars, and expect people to carry them though the game. "normal mode" is absolutely the equivalent of story mode in other games, a mode designed to push players through the story with very little resistance. Yet people with 1000+ hours into the game still can't dodge a floor AOE or keep more than 50% ABC.

I really doubt that people dying repeatedly in experts have anything to do with their actual abilities and castbars tbh. Those barely matter.

It's not a popular opinion but ShB wasn't exceptional
The first thing that pop in my mind when i think about it is a "bland square"
Meaning : everything is well executed and polished but it has no soul. The story is well writen with a good pacing but it doesn't delivers emotion like with HW. The gameplay is good and polished but isn't as fun and engaging as SB patchs.
Overal it's well done but, for me it was really the confirmation of the decline after SB started it.

HW delivered emotion?
Guess all of this is subjective. I got varied ranges of emotions from most expansions (yes, even from DT to a small degree exactly once in Origenics) and all of them of very different kinds. I don't find XIV to be outstandingly good at conveying said emotion by virtue of being ten times too verbose and speaking like an old book and tiptoeing around actually moving moments, and I honestly don't know which expansion managed to give me the most of it.
The gameplay though? Plummeting with every expansion.

You have to stop exaggerating at some point. To say that you're struggling with normal content? That's fine. It's a game, no problem. But you have to keep a certain amount of lucidity and not make false statements. Here, the fact that you're struggling to complete this type of content doesn't necessarily equate to a design error in the encounters.

In any case, the majority of players can complete this content: all you have to do is play with people who will pick you up when you make a mistake - which is possible, because there's no general wipe in normal content when an individual mistake is made.

Which false statements? That they don't like this type of design? How can this be false? If someone hates "boss puzzle emotes" and fails because of it, and isn't having a great time because of it, not only it's their right to think that way, but being "picked up" again and again until you get carried to the end doesn't sound like the best of experiences tbh.

[Erzaa]

You can literally walk into the instance by putting your cipher in and waiting for your other 45 randos to join. You don't need too much of a special expertise in the game to clear it.

Can I? Then explain to me the body check requirements, the specific Phantom Job requirements, the whole bruhaha over snipers, the rez restrictions, the getting kicked out in less than 5 minutes because some random first mechanic just throws you off the map, and the losing an entire level and having to grind it up again for no discernible reason?

I don't know what world raiders live in, but that's not pickup and go casual content.

Casual content is something you can go in with whomever and limp to the end. Then do better the next time, and the next time even better, until you can do it perfectly.

It's not, this person didn't stand here at the right second, so now everyone's dead, and it's certainly not, I didn't peer into the future to know in advance that I had to stand three steps to the left so I don't die and get booted back into the zone with a lost level.

Even if I agreed that FT is hardcore, it's still only 3 things: Chaotic, FT and Ultimate. You aren't talking about the rest of things they have released: ALL of Occult Crescent. All of Cosmic Exploration. All the hunt marks and fates on DT's overworld, the 3 alliance raids, the 7 expert MSQ dungeons, the Job Quests, Deep Dungeon, Manderville Quests, seasonal events and I can go on and on, the majority of what they release is casual.

MSQ of a patch, Hildy is what? 4 hours worth of content? Then it's DF fodder for 20 minutes a day? Same for AR.
I'm not even sure you can qualify Hunts as content, but whatever. It's like saying, you haven't caught every fish, so what're you complaining about?

Everything else you're mentioning is just niche. Savage Raids, Ultimate Raids, Baldesion Arsenal, Forked Tower, Deep Dungeons, all niche content. There's nothing wrong with it existing, it should exist, but it's never going to be popular to the majority playerbase, nor should it be trying to force itself to be, that's the point.

I'm not going to tell another casual player, well you haven't cleared PotD, so you've got nothing to complain about.

And again, I'm not saying raiders have it easy, but you definitely are having alot more to do than the rest of us. It's been a raid heavy year, between EX, Savage, Ultimate, Chaotic, Forked Tower, and another Ultimate confirmed too. Plus the upcoming EX again, the Unreals. It's all raids, everywhere raids.

Casual and Hardcore content only kind of share extremes and savages and that's it.

They don't share savages. 20% - 30% of your playerbase isn't sharing anything. Savage isn't casual, even when it comes to Unreal or EX, it's a toss up for alot of people if it qualifies as casual or not, but Savage definitely isn't.

The argument of "it's not very engaging" doesn't matter, that's another subject, but they're certainly NOT appealing to hardcore raiders in this game.

Of course it matters. Content for everyone, should be for everyone, everyone should be engaged and having fun. That was the entire point of Field Ops, that's what everyone else who doesn't raid, spent the last year waiting patiently for, barring forum complainers. That's why they had to ban comments live on their live letter when they were getting torn to shreds.

[SpritePR]

chaotic is not hardcore at all while FTB requires hardcore commitment. I cleared chaotic in a few hours vs needing a week+ for ftb. (you can get carried through both but ftb requires more effort overall)

[Valence]

I don't know what world raiders live in, but that's not pickup and go casual content.

Raiders tend to be a little deluded when it comes to what a casual is. They think a casual is that shapeless blob that will consume absolutely everything that's not savage content, and that they're the prime audience for everything. Or that said casual content is one uniform blob that is to be consumed whole in its entirety. Being a casual gamer doesn't mean being wired to enjoy fate farming until you die of boredom, hunt trains, doh/dol content, maps content, deep dungeons, dailies and leveling, housing, roleplay, msq and sidequests and everything in between OR nothing at all. Casuals aren't binary critters.

If anything the real issue that most casual players raise is how poor and thin casual pve has grown in comparison to raiding.

As a raider the time spent between casual pve and savage+ content probably lies around a 10:90 ratio. Now that I've stopped raiding, casual pve went up a little to cover what savage fed me otherwise in gear, but that ain't much.

[0blivion]

Chaotic is a beefed up Extreme with cheesable bodychecks and a DPS check that is nonexistent even when you're absolutely braindead. FTB requires sincere organisation and the will to actually pull your weight, but is - aside from boss 2 as well as boss 4 daggers - also just a beefed up Extreme. And Extremes are very much casual content because of how free they are (we don't talk about 4head breaking PF).

In case you're literally an NPC who only does normal content, you still get way more than midcore to hardcore players:

- 1 dungeon per patch
- TT
- farmable series rewards you can literally grab from sandbagging in Frontline
- 4 normal raids every second patch
- alliance raids every second patch
- base OC because you can farm a fuckton of glam plus a mount
- MSQ is inherently casual content
- treasure hunt
- cosmic exploration
- continuous gold saucer rewards
- ocean fishing exists
- housing is casual content. as a housing main i do get to say this

Like seriously, the only actual hardcore content in this game is Ultimate and some particularly nasty Savages. Savage is midcore, and again, all Savages become trivial in two patches' time. Casuals have enough. FTB isn't even hardcore unless you consider not being an antisocial leech hardcore.