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

[Laphael]

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.

That list is dishonest about the topic.

First lets remove all the non-battle-content because that content is for everyone, not just casuals.

So lets take a closer look at the "normal difficulty" side and the "higher difficulty" side
- MSQ = onetime for everyone low difficulty because everyone needs to be able to do it
- 1 dungeon per patch with 0 reason to play it more than 1 time
- 4 normal raids (loot: gear + minion)
--- with 4 savage raids (loot: higher gear + mount)
- alliance raid (loot: gear on par with tomestone... + minion)
--- chaotic (loot: 2 mounts and more)
- base OC (loot: glam, worthless stuff, 1 mount)
--- FT (loot: TT card, field notes, mount, sanguinite for +2 OC gear)
- normal trails (no loot)
--- extreme trails (loot: mount)
- treasure hunt low difficulty good loot
--- ultimate high difficulty - glowing weapons, glamplate stuff
--- Unreal (lots of mounts)


Raiders complained about criterion rewards, but take a look at all that casual-battle-content with close to no rewards at all.

[Valence]

Difficulty =/= casual. You need a premade party, scheduling, etc for the challenge floors. The bad side of the random traps is a run can go sideways to a wipe very quick 'wasting' a good chunk of time reclimbing. I've seen many not reattempt because they don't want that time lost again. The best way to imagine casuals: is it easily picked up and put down? No? Not casual.

With a light party and a clean run, sure it is casual friendly, now find 3 others to 'marry' until you clear the 8+ (hoh&EO starting at 21 being less time consuming to clear to 100 than starting at 51 going to 200 in potd) duties with no wipes in a row. Could be 15mins each duty could be up to an hour depending on the run, luck, skill etc. That equates to near 7 hours per attempt for hoh/EO double for potd. Now schedule that with 3 others. Sure, it can be picked up whenever, but I've personally had 7 saves reset because of scheduling issues and needing to use the save.

Ok fair enough, but I mean, if you're further restricting casual to that it absolutely needs a duty finder to be played solo... In a MMO? I feel that's pushing it.

Honestly I fucking hate this casual/midcore/hardcore bullshit anyway. Nobody agrees on what it is, and those words are meaningless.
Do I agree that the optional floors of deep dungeons require more than a story dungeon to do? Yes I do, I consider them on par on difficulty with CLL/Dalriada or certain alliance raids at release (Ozma, Diabolos, Ivalice, Nier), but that's subjective. Does it mean that a lot of ARs aren't casual at release when it comes to difficulty? Maybe idk.
Do I agree that the optional floors of deep dungeons require more organization and commitment than anything "casual" the game has to offer? Yes, it definitely requires creating groups, and committing because like any roguelite, it requires progression and a full run cannot be done in bite sized content clearable in 15-30min and you're done with it. It definitely restricts the audience.

I don't know if it's casual or not. It's gonna feel casual to some, and not to others.

The other thing I know is that EO is definitely not casual by any means in comparison though and that's where they dropped the ball.

[Volgia]

DDs casual? Please, do tell me the many people who easily clear the higher floors of any DD out there. The higher floors are called challenge floors for a reason. They're even adding a higher difficulty boss after clearing it to try and entice you to actually try DDs because I can tell you haven't touched any of the orbs solo by your posts. Should be easy for you to do? Why not do it to prove it's casual?

You don't start that content at the highest level floors and you only need organized parties later on, it is 90% casual content, with again 10% of really hardcore difficulty. Before you react so aggressively please take a moment to think, jesus christ.

[Uzephi]

Before you react so aggressively please take a moment to think, jesus christ.

I never knew asking questions as being aggressive. Quite honest question. You claim it's casual, then please tell me how the higher floors are casual. If you can't 'complete' it in a casual sense, is it considered even partially casual? The basis around needing the coordination and planning for a successful clear inherently causes friction in many casual play styles to consider it casual. Aligning schedules for that many successful duties with the same people each attempt puts quite a barrier for many you seem to dismiss or just ignore.

[Auro_Seldaris]

That list is dishonest about the topic.

First lets remove all the non-battle-content because that content is for everyone, not just casuals.

So lets take a closer look at the "normal difficulty" side and the "higher difficulty" side
- MSQ = onetime for everyone low difficulty because everyone needs to be able to do it
- 1 dungeon per patch with 0 reason to play it more than 1 time
- 4 normal raids (loot: gear + minion)
--- with 4 savage raids (loot: higher gear + mount)
- alliance raid (loot: gear on par with tomestone... + minion)
--- chaotic (loot: 2 mounts and more)
- base OC (loot: glam, worthless stuff, 1 mount)
--- FT (loot: TT card, field notes, mount, sanguinite for +2 OC gear)
- normal trails (no loot)
--- extreme trails (loot: mount)
- treasure hunt low difficulty good loot
--- ultimate high difficulty - glowing weapons, glamplate stuff
--- Unreal (lots of mounts)


Raiders complained about criterion rewards, but take a look at all that casual-battle-content with close to no rewards at all.

Remember that Yoshida said they understood there was a "rewards and incentive" problem with content like Criterion? Remember when he said that Dawntrail would have "about 50% more rewards" for its content? Pepperidge Farms (and I) remembers...

[Volgia]

I never knew asking questions as being aggressive. Quite honest question. You claim it's casual, then please tell me how the higher floors are casual. If you can't 'complete' it in a casual sense, is it considered even partially casual? The basis around needing the coordination and planning for a successful clear inherently causes friction in many casual play styles to consider it casual. Aligning schedules for that many successful duties with the same people each attempt puts quite a barrier for many you seem to dismiss or just ignore.

Do I need a specialized party to do floor 1 - 60 of PoTD? Nope. Same for HoH, and same for Orthos. The upper floors are hardcore but the content itself, 90% of it, is CASUAL.

[Uzephi]

Do I need a specialized party to do floor 1 - 60 of PoTD? Nope. Same for HoH, and same for Orthos. The upper floors are hardcore but the content itself, 90% of it, is CASUAL.

How is 60 floors of 200 90% please math correctly.

Edit: also, HoH and EO only up to floor 30 doesn't need a fixed party, so 30 floors of 100 also isn't 90%

Potd is actually more casual friendly since 101+ is just 'hard' version of 1-100. Casuals actually miss out on content with EO and HoH if they can't get a reliable group to clear it since every floor set is different in those.

[Altina_Orion]

Lord Almighty! Just stop!

The discussion is about the game only providing content to high-end raiders, not about difficulty....

THIS ISNT THE CASE THOUGH, OC itself is very casual content even though forked is not (it's just under EX level). You got cosmic exploration. You get ocean fishing expansions and a new deep dungeon coming up. You get 12 normal raids, 3 alliance raids, like 12 dungeons, crafting and gathering activities, the hunt, fates, etc. The issue is that casual content is so unengaging sometimes that you don't consider it as content. Trust me, the game caters no more to raiders than it does to casuals, but it SUCKS at catering to either of them. Open your eyes. 7.3 is ALL casual content, literally nothing for raiders.

[Altina_Orion]

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.

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.

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.

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.

People don't understand this and its baffling. Like, look at the patch notes, its MOSTLY casual content.

[Altina_Orion]

DDs casual? Please, do tell me the many people who easily clear the higher floors of any DD out there. The higher floors are called challenge floors for a reason. They're even adding a higher difficulty boss after clearing it to try and entice you to actually try DDs because I can tell you haven't touched any of the orbs solo by your posts. Should be easy for you to do? Why not do it to prove it's casual?

DD is absolutely casual. People solo them all the time, with a group of 4 its not much more hard than a regular dungeon.