dev1031 You are losing your main playerbase by making things too easy/fast/casual

[Shneibel]

You are narrowminded.

really ? this test http://www.funquizcards.com/quiz/per...inded-test.php say I am

More open minded
You are more open minded than narrow minded.

:<

[Jinko]

@kanjitai there are many games for you out there on the market already, we don't need more. Hardcore players don't have a game at all for them, share please? ;_; We wanna have fun too!

There are plenty of hardcore games out there, obviously what you mean is in the MMO genre particularly and as I have said before game developers are moving away from this for a reason, because casual gamers = more money.

You say casuals quit after a few months, so tell me why is WoW's userbase still growing ?

[Eekiki]

I disagree with the poster of this message 100%

Grrrr! Darned Diplomats! Stop saying things I agree with! ^_^

[Shneibel]

There are plenty of hardcore games out there, obviously what you mean is in the MMO genre particularly and as I have said before game developers are moving away from this for a reason, because casual gamers = more money.

You say casuals quit after a few months, so tell me why is WoW's userbase still growing ?

and base from where if I may ask ? as I meet wow player quitting the game at other mmo forum, so w/o solid of info of wow is growing, I wont belive it.

[Sorel]

I see (and partially agree with) the original poster's point that combat is too easy, but I must strongly disagree with the principle that "the game is too casual".

The two are not the same thing, and the relative ease of combat should not be interpreted as being casual-friendly. Just like difficult combat should not be equated to hardcore gameplay.

Square-Enix can increase the difficulty of combat AND keep the game casual-friendly. More potent enemy abilities, more intelligent enemy AI are just a couple of ways.

[Physic]

I think the problem is Shiyo wants to do camp for an hour for substandard gear, so they have something to do. I do see how the mobs being rarer adds to the excitement factor when you do see it, but in a game with a population, like ffxi was, it basically leads to 90% of the people never doing the content, and rarely at a level appropriate time. How many people fought leaping lizzy at level 11? Most people never got to fight Mee Degi the punisher.
This was a move to create content that people who were actually that level would seek, and make it so they could actually try to obtain it. trying to beat those nms, with level appropriate groups, is about on par with how good the drops are. They took down the thrill of the rare sighting, but increased the joy of trying to obtain an item you want, with a challenging fight that doesnt require you to do some inane, irrelevant other task to do it, like killing 1 bird every 5 minutes for 1-3 hours, for a 30 second fight.

[Drex]

SE, you are losing your main playerbase and main followers(old FFXI players/hardcore players) by trying to make this game more casual and accessible for all players. The new NM's you released in yesterdays patch demonstrate this. 3-5 min repops, not even rare drops? Really? Everyone is going to have this gear in 1 day to a week. Spending 3-6 months to design and release content that'll only last a day to a week is BAD DESIGN. In FFXI all your content lasted YEARS, which was great! It kept people playing and paying for their subs! More $$. What are the players supposed to do after they beat this content in 1-7 days that took 3-6 months to release? Nothing, they'll cancel their subs and quit, or become very bored and eventually quit. FFXI lasted 8 years because it's niche in the MMO market was hardcore/hard, pretty much no other MMO in the market at the time fit in that niche, allowing the game to grow and stay alive for years. To this day, the same can be said, except FFXI no longer fills that niche, no game does. FFXIV should follow and become the hardcore/hard game that FFXI once was.

Why you ask? The reason is simple, casual gamers may make up the majority, but they won't stick around forever, they'll get bored after a few months, and move onto better casual games such as Rift or WOW. These games are much better for casual gamers, and more people play them allowing them to play with irl friends/family/etc more easily. Hardcore players on the other hand, they'll stick around forever. Most of the hardcore players(pretty much all) stayed around in FFXI for YEARS, 5-8 years, an insane amount of time, because the game was perfect for them, and they still had things they wanted, things they needed to get done, level, drops, etc. The game took time and dedication, so even the most hardcore had to play it for 5+ years to get everything they wanted.



Please, I beg of you, do not turn this game into a casual western-MMO like every other MMO on the market, we have far too many of them already, why not try to fit the niche of hardcore/hard and take those players, instead of trying to steal players from other games(and fail doing so)? There is currently ZERO mmos that are hardcore/hard on the market ATM, this would be a very wise decision, and if you read the forums you'll see many FFXI veterans complaining about the direction this game is going.

^^ hit the point

[darkstarpoet1]

i see all the casual crowd happy with the content added to them. i am happy for you guys, but as i asked earlier everyone overlooked was what happens when the casual crowd gets to higher levels and there is nothing to do then? the only thing i said is that if they added 20 new nm's then a few of them should have been aimed at the higher level/hardcore members. i have no problem with them catering to a certain group, but it is not right to completely neglect the other group.

[Babylon]

OP makes it so crystal clear it's impossible not to see it.
Thank you for putting into words all of my thoughts about this game.

I can understand SE efforts to widening their appeal to more people, but this will hardly working and it's undermining both the fidelity of the hardcore playerbase and the appeal of SE in general.
Everything in its right place. It's that simple.

I would never dream of going to WoW\Rift forum asking for hardcore content.

[Shiyo]

i see all the casual crowd happy with the content added to them. i am happy for you guys, but as i asked earlier everyone overlooked was what happens when the casual crowd gets to higher levels and there is nothing to do then? the only thing i said is that if they added 20 new nm's then a few of them should have been aimed at the higher level/hardcore members. i have no problem with them catering to a certain group, but it is not right to completely neglect the other group.

FFXI was just a game, it had no set market to sell to, it wasn't catering to casual or hardcore. It was simply a good MMORPG, they made content, ignoring if it was "casual" or "hardcore" and the game did very well. Did they make money off of FFXI? Yep! Tons! I don't see why they need to change their style of doing business and creating video games.

With the direction video games in general are going(trying to please the casual crowd) I can see video games becoming really blah, and slowly dying for anyone who remembers what a real game was, making the games become very boring and bleh. Oh well, we still have 30ish years until this eventually happens.