Why Casual Friendly Would Stop ARR From Dying

[EinSoFZ]

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.

To me that's a rather self defeating isolationist perspective. The entire point of an MMO, to me, is to play with others. It's not always possible to party but, I think we should not be making major decisions based on rather one mostly solos or parties; in that case I'm always going to choose the party side of things. Part of a successful MMO is one that fosters an close knit community of players who share the experience. I reject the notion of people saying they don't have time or that they prefer to solo.

I may get flack for this, but an MMO is not for you if 30 minutes is all you can invest daily (or rather an incredibly short amount of time weekly). It is not for you if you dislike meeting and partying with new people or making new friends. There should be solo content, but it should be added such that one would PREFER to party if given the opportunity. Content that can be done alone should not reward people even as close as content that groups us together. That's how the majority of online games work and will continue to work.

Stats appropriate for solo play on good solo gear? How would those differ exactly? No....just no. Want good gear? Work for it and use it when you solo.

[urban]

why cant people with less time be like one of my friend...*m going to flame for this but oh well* he work, have kids, yayaya all that nice stuff we all hear. he dont have much time so he say ( Fk it when i have time to enjoy then i'll play it ) evn when he do have time he still dont play it instead he call me to go BBQ with him and i go. He dosn't ask or demand SE cater to him. He cater to himselft if he have time he play if not oh well.

[charlemagne]

To me that's a rather self defeating isolationist perspective. The entire point of an MMO, to me, is to play with others. It's not always possible to party but, I think we should not be making major decisions based on rather one mostly solos or parties; in that case I'm always going to choose the party side of things. Part of a successful MMO is one that fosters an close knit community of players who share the experience. I reject the notion of people saying they don't have time or that they prefer to solo.

I may get flack for this, but an MMO is not for you if 30 minutes is all you can invest daily (or rather an incredibly short amount of time weekly). It is not for you if you dislike meeting and partying with new people or making new friends. There should be solo content, but it should be added such that one would PREFER to party if given the opportunity. Content that can be done alone should not reward people even as close as content that groups us together. That's how the majority of online games work and will continue to work.

Stats appropriate for solo play on good solo gear? How would those differ exactly? No....just no. Want good gear? Work for it and use it when you solo.

I don't think it's that difficult to work out how different gear is more appropriate for soloing then party play and yet both be good pieces of gear in the right situation. Most of us would have had several gear sets in xi for different situations. Why is it a problem to have the gear suited to soloing obtained through solo quests? Personally I'm one of those who played 4-6 hrs+ per day but I still think content for both players like me and casual players is important in the game.

[Kiote]

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.

I'm sorry, but this is not the Solution. People who want to Solo through easier content should not get the same rewards as people who put in the effort to complete every challenge put in front of them.

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...

This is the solution. Casual does not mean solo. Casual means you do not need a large amount of time to make progress.

Square needs to make content that is completed in steps or has to be built up to. Not meaningless time sinks. Checkpoints.

If you can only play the Endgame Dungeon for 30 mins and it take 4 hours to complete there should be a checkpoint. A place you are not required to stop, but a place you can jump to when you come back. Nyzul island is the perfect example of this. 20 sets of 5 that saved your progress. Anyone who completed a set could start at the next set. Anyone who hasn't completed has to start from the beginning.

The same concept can be applied to dungeons. You enter the dungeon, and any who has made it to checkpoint one can use a device to port to checkpoint one. Anyone who has not cannot. This wouldn't just allow for Casual players to advance through real content, but it would allow for Devs to open up content to more diverse and more in depth adventures.

No Easymode. No Soloing Party Content.


Checkpoints.

[Zehira]

Casual or not, just as long as XIV don't waste my time for nothing... Something like this:

Before enter the Ifrit battle...
Player2: Oh shit, I forgot my lantern please give me 5 mins while getting it..
10 mins later...
Player2: Damn, can someone teleport me please? I am out of anima..
Player1 agreed and teleported Player2...5 mins later..
Player3: Sorry I have to work in 30 min see ya!
Player1 is seeking for a replacement for 20 mins...
Player8 joins!
Player4: Sorry, my wife aggro I have gotta go..
Party: FFFFUUUUUUUUUU

Otherwise, correct me if I am wrong, should content finder fix the problem like above?

[MrKupo]

Casual or not, just as long as XIV don't waste my time for nothing... Something like this:

Before enter the Ifrit battle...
Player2: Oh shit, I forgot my lantern please give me 5 mins while getting it..
10 mins later...
Player2: Damn, can someone teleport me please? I am out of anima..
Player1 agreed and teleported Player2...5 mins later..
Player3: Sorry I have to work in 30 min see ya!
Player1 is seeking for a replacement for 20 mins...
Player8 joins!
Player4: Sorry, my wife aggro I have gotta go..
Party: FFFFUUUUUUUUUU

Otherwise, correct me if I am wrong, should content finder fix the problem like above?

I think this is what casual is. Players that seek games where they can get into the content right away and leave it just as quick.
A casual player wants to be able to play the content without committing themselves to it completely. What I mean is, lets say you start a party and it's a great party. The only problem is you only want to do one raid because you just don't feel like doing any more than that. A raid shouldn't force you into more raids. It's not about time, it's about feeling forced into playing a game.

The same thing goes for the effort you put into creating a build that can run certain content. A casual wants to be able to level up to that point and be able to play it, and not be forced to go out and find the perfect weapon with the perfect stats and the perfect strategy. IMO, when a party leader needs to paste in a hyperlink to a 10 page strategy for a fight, then that's no longer casual.

Casuals want to participate without committing. A casual can spend all day playing a game, that doesn't make them hardcore.

[Velhart]

At OP:

Uhh, WoW does most of that already.

[NoctisXZ]

To me that's a rather self defeating isolationist perspective. The entire point of an MMO, to me, is to play with others. It's not always possible to party but, I think we should not be making major decisions based on rather one mostly solos or parties; in that case I'm always going to choose the party side of things. Part of a successful MMO is one that fosters an close knit community of players who share the experience. I reject the notion of people saying they don't have time or that they prefer to solo.

I may get flack for this, but an MMO is not for you if 30 minutes is all you can invest daily (or rather an incredibly short amount of time weekly). It is not for you if you dislike meeting and partying with new people or making new friends. There should be solo content, but it should be added such that one would PREFER to party if given the opportunity. Content that can be done alone should not reward people even as close as content that groups us together. That's how the majority of online games work and will continue to work.

Stats appropriate for solo play on good solo gear? How would those differ exactly? No....just no. Want good gear? Work for it and use it when you solo.

It's nice to see a like minded individual..

I honestly couldn't agree more with you. I could never find the logic in someone who would buy into this genre of game and expect to be able to accomplish MAJOR tasks in the span of a 1 hour sitting. And it never did dawn on me how they could also come into this genre of game and expect a primarily solo experience given that it's an online game.

If you can't invest the time or don't like the the fact that you have to interact and cooperate with other players to accomplish major tasks than you really have absolutely no business playing, I'm sorry.. it's 100% childish to demand a fundamental change to how something works just to suit your needs.

You don't go out and buy an FPS and the second you start it up you rant and rave that it's an FPS and not a racing game, do you?

As it has already been mentioned .. FFXI had the perfect model with certain endgame events. Events like Limbus, Nyzul Isle, and ZNMs offered worthwhile rewards to any player who participated and didn't force them to accomplish the entirety of said content in one sitting. Instead you could complete it in stages at your leisure.. the higher the step you were on the more worthwhile the rewards were.

That is exactly how casual content should be handled..

But you see.. it's not that simple. Because more often than not what it boils down to with the casual audience is that they want the best rewards presented to them on a silver platter, has absolutely nothing to do with time. There should be no alternative way to acquire the best pieces of gear a game has to offer if you can't invest the time or effort.. if you needed those things to be able to enjoy the game or complete other content than it would be a different story. But as it stands it isn't and it never has been.

So yes.. you might see it us complaining that it's not fair that a more casual player is also able to to acquire the best gear in a game but to me it's not about that. It's about the self-entitlement.. that's what I hate. You do NOT NEED those pieces of gear to be able to play.. so to demand that you be able to acquire them in some alternative way is just plain on childish.

When you go to an amusement park you're not going to be able to experience every attraction in a few hours if at all.. unless you make time for it. Same principle...

[IloveYouPumpkin]

and allows casuals, even 10 year old girls, to get the best gear in the game

[Almalexia]

Casuals want to participate without committing.

There are literally hundreds of critically acclaimed and commercially successful single player games that I am sure the casuals haven't played. There are also dozens of multiplayer games with a non-committal, drop-in/drop-out system. These accommodate the casual lifestyle much better than any MMO ever could.

Instead they come here. Are they lost?