Why Casual Friendly Would Stop ARR From Dying

[Azurymber]

It's not at all hard to understand.

Player with 30 minutes a day to play: "I should be rewarded just like the guy below me who plays for 10 hours+ a day. I pay the same fee legacy or not. I pay for the same game. I should get the same rewards."

Player with 10 hours a day to play: "I put in so much time and effort I should get the good rewards but the guy above me wants the same rewards but he only plays 15 minutes - 30 minutes a day. That shouldn't be the case, there should be a separation of content."

The reason people see casuals wanting things handed to them is because they want the same rewards as people who aren't what you'd consider casual. It shouldn't work like that and that is why new MMOs fail, they try to cater to everyone which eventually makes your game very easy to leave because you done everything in quick succession, you have to wait for their next content update which may not be for half a year..why stay with such an easy MMO?

Casual vs Hardcore doesn't matter much as it does the way it gets handled, and every developer handled it poorly, which is why games are overly easy and overly generous. Not every casual player wants handouts, but they want to get the same benefits and rewards as someone who plays more than them or they'll consider it unfair or not casual friendly.

That's where the generalization comes from, the loudest group always win and the loudest group wants handouts. XIV 1.0 originally went the separation route but it was incomplete, the Guildleve system was supposed to be mainly for the casual playerbase, which the upcoming dungeons/hamlet defense/etc was supposed to be for the more "hardcore/people with much more time to dedicate to the game."

MMOs have generally always been about time dedication because of the consistent world and you spend your time in the world that was designed by the team, not a world designed by your liking and designed to fit your playstyle, this is why new MMOs have always failed, because they try way too hard to cater to the wrong group of people, because the first to go from an MMO are usually:

A. The "Hardcore" playerbase.
B. The playerbase inebetween MMOs, i.e "This is a new MMO lemme check it out..nope it sucks, doesn't have 21 years worth of content at launch..NEXT!"
C. The typical playerbase..i.e "So I did all of the main storyline and some side quests that were all the same and did the 4 dungeons available..what now?
Developer: "You have to wait 6 months for the content expansion, till then, PVP FIXES!
Player: "....NEXT!"


Meanwhile the playerbase that tends to stay are the ones who like the particular series the MMO may be from or the ones who can't afford to go to another. So unless SE handles the content very well, making this an overly casual game will indeed be the death of it because why play this casual game when you have a multitude of other MMOs out there, F2P ones as well? Besides the fanbase, the playerbase SE hopes to pull in will be coming from those said MMORPGs..if they see everything is exactly the same but with less content...there's a problem.

So SE is on thin ice as fair as a strand of angelhair, they have to approach this balance almost perfectly or they'll bleed people within the first month. You also have to remember XIV has this stigma against it: It has failed once before.

I don't mind putting in tons of hours. But i dislike dungeons. Yet nearly every elite piece of gear in modern mmo's is from dungeons. Why can't i spend time soloing whenever I feel like it to get good gear?

[Scy]

I don't mind putting in tons of hours. But i dislike dungeons. Yet nearly every elite piece of gear in modern mmo's is from dungeons. Why can't i spend time soloing whenever I feel like it to get good gear?

Well, i can agree a little bit. Gear for those put in the time solo is a good idea, but id be a little disgruntled if i went into a dungeon with a well oiled machine of a party and beat one bad ass boss, a nasty sub-boss or two, and a handful or crap tone of mobs for some awesome gear and someone else that did some solo stuff got gear just as good. It would eventually be a degradation of the motivation to do things s a group. Why group up when i can do it solo. I know it doesnt mean this would happen, but it likely would. You just gotta face it, doing stuff solo might earn you some really good gear, but it wouldnt be right for it to be the best. I can come up wiht a few rare or utterly difficult to achieve scenarios, but why not just leave it alone? GC gear isnt horrible, but its not the best either. You can earn it solo, in a sense. Wtf...why am i even attempting to explain this. w/e its like any other argument thats been around. Republican or democrat? religion or science? no ones ever going to be happy. maybe just close thread and /wrist?

[Jynx]

I don't mind putting in tons of hours. But i dislike dungeons. Yet nearly every elite piece of gear in modern mmo's is from dungeons. Why can't i spend time soloing whenever I feel like it to get good gear?

Because a good game should have multiple avenues to play content and seperate rewards for each of them. Let solo players get some cool stuff that only they can attain and give group players some cool stuff only they can attain.

Personally Housing, Gardening, and other things in ARR seem to be aimed at the solo-player that if they invest their time will get greater rewards. Lev-quests will always exist as a form of solo-battle content and I'm sure many quests will do the same.

Group content (Dungeons, raids) will have their own rewards and incentives to do them, if you make it all attainable by playing solo you remove the need to group and encourage people to be anti-social in a game genre designed to be played with others. Much like how I dislike SE encouraging segregation with the regional servers, I dislike encouraging people to play by themselves to do everything.

Star Wars Galaxy plays like a single player game with optional multiplayer features, it's part and parcel why the game flopped hard after people ran out of content.

[IloveYouPumpkin]

Gardening

Sorry I have to interrupt... ; ;

Gardening? ^___^

[Duelle]

Sorry I have to interrupt... ; ;

Gardening? ^___^

Indeed. My BS meter went into the red from reading that one.

[Jynx]

Indeed. My BS meter went into the red from reading that one.

While we have no information on gardening itself, it's been ham fistedly regarded towards. Wether we have such a system at launch is obviously up in the air with no confirmation but it would be hard to dismiss how heavilly Yoshida emphasized agriculture during the Live letter on housing.

[Duelle]

While we have no information on gardening itself, it's been ham fistedly regarded towards. Wether we have such a system at launch is obviously up in the air with no confirmation but it would be hard to dismiss how heavilly Yoshida emphasized agriculture during the Live letter on housing.

I was reacting more to the comment about it counting as "solo content" within the context of character progression. Which would very much be BS.

[Jynx]

I was reacting more to the comment about it counting as "solo content" within the context of character progression. Which would very much be BS.

Does content require character progression to be fulfilling?