Why Casual Friendly Would Stop ARR From Dying

[Chardrizard]

He is just saying if its solo content it will be bot-able, doesn't mean everyone that solo use bots. However, You can't bot party content.

[strallaalaa]

what does that have to do with wanting the best of the best gear threw solo content? the answer is no, if they do it then you will be playing this mmo by u'rself anyway. it don't matter if you do bot or not. i can bet you that is how half the players would get theres. it doesn't even matter if they don't, solo for best things is just asinine idea. we both might be paying the 12bucks a month but in the end if they cater to you then it's not a mmo and i don't pay a monthly for a less graphical version of offline rpg's.

[Nel_Celestine]

what does that have to do with wanting the best of the best gear threw solo content? the answer is no, if they do it then you will be playing this mmo by u'rself anyway. it don't matter if you do bot or not. i can bet you that is how half the players would get theres. it doesn't even matter if they don't, solo for best things is just asinine idea. we both might be paying the 12bucks a month but in the end if they cater to you then it's not a mmo and i don't pay a monthly for a less graphical version of offline rpg's.

Here you go then, the hardest of the Hardcore MMOs. Enjoy.

If you don't get the reference, here's a link to the trial page.
EVE Online

[strallaalaa]

wasn't trying to be rude, it's not like if you had the time to read the rest of the thread that i have said i hate all solo and casual content, i don't. in ffxi there is tons of it and i loved doing it in between all the check this out "real content" with party play involved in it. i think if there is any game that will balance it better then any mmo in past 10years since ffxi it will be ffxiv. but in my opinion i think SE in the end is after all the casual money but will in the long run cater more and more of the content for longer progression content.

[Nel_Celestine]

I've read the topic from stem to stern. There is a handful of us trying to show where balance is needed. Most everyone else is trumpeting one or the other side. I'm sorry but you have come over VERY heavily on the HardCore only or GTFO in your posts until this one here. As for your picture, I don't get the reference.

[Ralos]

As for your picture, I don't get the reference.

I took it as "The healing always takes place in the kitchen" (Dane Cook reference)

[Mudd]

I don't get why people just assume if people have limited playtime they want things handed to them. It's not casual or hardcore gamers who demand instant gratification it's people who feel their time is too important to waste on a MMO.

These are not the people you should aim at pleasing because they are the first to leave regardless of how far back you bend to please them.

Very good point.

[urban]

This has nothing to do with what's "right". It has to do with what makes a game successful.
Allowing casuals access to end-game item gives XIV a competitive advantage over other games by attracting people who -just- want to be casual, and being able to attract large parts of the population who don't play MMOs because they are time-sinks.

However the system can be balanced.
You can make is so armor sets (hands, feet, legs, body) can be attained 2 ways. Either quickly via dungeon, or overtime via daily points OR achievement points

Then you can make hardcores able to get the best head
and hardcores get the best -new- armor for 4 months b4 casuals get a chance at it

And make legendaries or epic weapons based on playtime, not on long grinds. Ex. each daily lands you 5 special points, and when you get 365*5 of them you can get the first legendary weapon. Put another way. If you play -every- day after 1 year you will -always- have the best weapon in the game.

This create a huge incentive for continual playing, continual paying, and as a result, a constantly populated game that makes lots of money which can be invested in epic expansions.

i have to disagree... the game wouldnt be that exciting because i dont have to play for a few weeks or month or day butttttt.... because i know a r/ex weapon, item, gear. etc is waiting on me to log in to get it...that almost sound like a (giving hand out) in a way.. where all the hard effort by other would be meaningless. it sound like for a casual player you're almost saying..if im a casual player playing solo i should get "the above posted by you". im not flaming you ^^ meh..i'll sum it all up.. please make this game easy, no challenges and i dont play much so i dont have a group or Ls.

BTW im not talking about all casual players
im just replying to OP post.

[Dzian]

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..

I'm a casual player. and in response to that quote my belief is and has always been that a well structured game should tailor for everyone. All players should have the means to get everything at some point. Play time should never be a deciding factor on rewards. (within reason at least)

What I do sometimes wonder though is am I the only guy that considers himself casual and wants rock solid content. Seriously come on, easy mode is not fun. Now lets go back to the quote above for a second and lets hypothesise for a little about Crystal Tower. I'm going to rip off Nyzul Isle and say it has 100 floors and for every floor you climb you reach a check point. So next time you go in you can start at that floor if you reached the check point. No problem. Now even if I only play an hour a day and as such it may take me a full week of trying to clear just 1 floor I have no problem at all with that. You're group of more hardcore people with more time on there hands could perhaps burn 1 or 2 floors a day maybe even more if they're super skilled, but the point is that it would be structured in such a way that it is possible for everyone to reach floor 100 eventually.

It doesn't mean the content has to be easy each and every floor could be a challenge in itself. Floor 1 could be Darkhold. Floor 2 Aurum Vale. Floor 3 Cutters' Cry etc... (Not the actual dungeons but an example of floor structure) Most of those aren't particularly difficult but if you think back to the beginning of those dungeons where people didn't know what they were doing they were quite tricky to clear.. 100 floors of that I'd be quite happy even if it took me a week to work out the strategy for each individual floor. If it's something I could just run in and find myself sitting on floor 8-10 that same evening I'd honestly be thinking WTF.....

I question that this is the general idea the 'casual' player base has. I'd call the players who think that way idiots, not casuals.

Perhaps I'm an idiot then. I do believe that content should be accessible to everyone in some form. I believe skill should be the measuring stick not the number of hours in your day. While admittedly there comes a limit where you need at least a minimum amount of time each day I think something akin to my example above is a fairly solid system for everyone.

It's something 11 did really well. and as much as I hate comparisons between the two when you look at systems like Limbus Einherjar and Salvage even the ZNM system. They were accessible to everyone. You could take a group of people and clear a lot of those Limbus zones in an hour or so with just 5 or 6 people. If you had a bigger group of people you could work on 2 or 3 zones at once and form up your big group one weekend to take down Ultima/Omega. Einherjar was similar 30 minutes no time extensions. Accessible to everyone. You needed a fair level of skill/gear to clear the wings in the time limit sometimes but it was accessible at least.

ZNM again could farm zeni anytime at all randomly pull a couple of friends and work through a lot of the lower tiered stuff and maybe organise bigger t3/t4s for a weekend or something.

So yeah my view is content should be accessible to all but in no way easy moded. If you clear crystal tower in a month and get a shiny piece of armour congrats, if I clear it 6 months later and get the same piece, that should never mean the content was made easier...

Why must people be so vehemently against anything being a challenge? Do you just want to log in and be handed the best gear in the game? What is the point of playing?

I'm casual and I want lots of challenges. Challenges give me a reason to better myself. Both in solo and in group content. Lose a boss fight or some content and think ok how can I improve my performance. Better gear maybe? Different skill rotation? or maybe use different sub skills? All questions that help me become better at my jobs. If things are easy then I'll never improve.

I've been called a great Paladin many times. can tank alot of stuff with relative ease but every single time I tanked Chimera I'd kick myself because even if we won I never quite felt good enough at it even if the party say I did well. Always looking for ways to up my game, thats why I like challenges. overcoming this challenge may teach me something I can take to this challenge and make it a little easier. and so on..

[charlemagne]

This isn't such a hard thing to overcome. Simply make content designed to be solo'd that rewards with good gear that has stats geared to solo players. Make party content that rewards with gear that has stats more appropriate for party play.
What will make this game a winner is providing content for everyone.
Content>Gear.