Is it possible to keep the Hardcore appeased?

[zakalw3]

I've not had time for an mmo for a few years, but back in 2005 I got heavily into the first Guild Wars. I spent upwards of 10 hours a day playing for around 3 years, and was massively involved in all aspects of the community (even so far as becoming a forum moderator on the game's largest online community - GWG).

Every time the game released new pve content, we would clear it in next to no time. We'd amass a fortune in new gear, have more platinum than we knew what to do with, and grow tired of the endless repetition.

We had a mixed guild, one of the largest in the game, and many of our players were what you'd deem casual - they put in a few hours a night at most, some played more for the social aspects than aiming for prestige, and many found the type of content we breezed through as too much of a challenge or bother.

The fact is, these people and the "midcore" types who engaged in end-game but at much less of a rate than the hardcore of us, they constantly had a plethora of content they'd yet to exhaust. The game still felt massive to them, like they always had something they could do.

The hardcore players had every peice of content exhausted before these guys had even thought about engaging with it. The gameworld felt tiny, and boxed in.

It was impossible for the developers to keep up with us. And through our own insistence to complete the content as soon as it was available, which was a symptom of our hardcore playstyle, we grew bored and complained and called to the devs to engage us more.

We waited impatiently between content updates and amused ourselves by creating farming builds and finding faster and faster ways to clear end game content, but we were always restless and bugging the devs to hurry up with updates to keep us amused.

Now, I'm approaching this game from a "midcore" mindset and the game world feels large. I have a lot to look forward to, and I aim to level multiple classes and professions. I know I have a lot of gametime ahead of me, and I have faith the devs will balance out certain content (ie: dungeons) to make FATE grinding less essential, so I see my future with this game as an enjoyable one that never hits that hardcore wall.


To the hardcore players here: do you feel boxed in currently by a lack of content? Do you feel the current endgame challenge is a good way to keep you interested, or just a mindless treadmill? Do you think it's even possible to keep hardcore mmo PVE players truly appeased, or do you think they'll always hit these kind of walls?

Does ARR do it better than most? Is it heading in the right direction?

I'm curious what the hardcore players think about this as I doubt very much I'll ever engage with this game in that way due to real world commitments.
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I've very much like to keep debates of Hardcore versus Casual and all that negative stuff out of this thread. If that's what you want to do, feel free to create another thread to use.

Cheers!

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Short answer:
Also, you can just edit your first post to work around the 1000 character limit.

You're a lifesaver, thanks!

[KiriA500]

Short answer:

No.

Long answer:

LOL! No. You'll never appease hardcore gamers.

Also, you can just edit your first post to work around the 1000 character limit.

[Dedayius]

Yeah no, there is no way to appease people who burn through content ASAP and to be honest, they're not the bulk of players. You want to appeal to a wide base so as to maintain a high number of subscriptions. It's the same reason SE doesn't focus all of their efforts on roleplayers.

[Kyriea]

Playing a game in a hardcore manner is incredibly unhealthy and I really don't understand why somebody would want to. The only reason would be to prove you are better than someone else which is a sign of insecurity. I do understand that some people see that as fun or an accomplishment but it is just a game and the satisfaction that you do get would never be equal to any satisfaction you get from life outside of a game. Given the time it takes to create any game content, hardcore players will never be satisfied.

[zakalw3]

Playing a game in a hardcore manner is incredibly unhealthy and I really don't understand why somebody would want to. The only reason would be to prove you are better than someone else which is a sign of insecurity. I do understand that some people see that as fun or an accomplishment but it is just a game and the satisfaction that you do get would never be equal to any satisfaction you get from life outside of a game. Given the time it takes to create any game content, hardcore players will never be satisfied.

I asked kindly to keep this kind of post away. There is nothing wrong with the hardcore playstyle, it's a choice people make and who are you to call it unhealthy or talk down to them for it?

If you'd like to debate this, feel free to PM me, but please can we keep this aspect of it out of the discussion?

Thanks.

[Kule]

Somewhere along the way mmo's forgot what they were meant to be and instead adopted single player mechanics(repeat the same content over and over). I'd love for the main emphasis to go back to just existing in an online fantasy setting and having fun with friends.

[Flionheart]

Playing a game in a hardcore manner is incredibly unhealthy and I really don't understand why somebody would want to. The only reason would be to prove you are better than someone else which is a sign of insecurity. I do understand that some people see that as fun or an accomplishment but it is just a game and the satisfaction that you do get would never be equal to any satisfaction you get from life outside of a game. Given the time it takes to create any game content, hardcore players will never be satisfied.

Some people find being the first to do something fun.

I know that it may be a foreign concept that certain people don't share your exact vision on what is fun and what is not, but there it is.

Most logical hardcore players I know are perfectly accepting that most MMOs don't have the longevity that the playstyle requires, don't tar all hardcore players with the same brush because there's a vocal group on these forums. The mass majority of real hardcore players are attempting to clear turn 5.

[Jarlax]

I am a former "hard core" player in games like Everquest 1 (10 years), Rift, ToR, GWII (Titan Alliance). I have read countless threads in reguards to content and hardcore players. This time when FFXIV ARR launched I told myself I wasn't going to ruin the game this time, and not worry about what everyone else was doing, and play the game to have fun. I suppose you could consider me Mid-core sliding more to casual, but I have a group of friends that are all like minded and we still accomplish things.

I can say that it gets tiring, and the stress of worrying about OMG we need to grind MOAR to beat X guild in doing Y bleeds over into "this and that sucks and is not viable threads" always comparing everything to the most efficient easy example to compare it with. I can say that not feeling this way and saying F-that I want to play a game this time not have a tournament with the rest of the world has made the experience a hell of a lot more enjoyable in my opinion. A side effect of my new attitude for the launch of this game is that I feel like there are tons of content if I am willing to do it.

I still do all the primals every day they are so much fun, help folks asking for relic weapon boss fights like chimera or hydra these are fun as well, AK "could be a little harder", slacked off CM " a little redundant", I also queue for the lower dungeons as well for fun, as I didn't FATE grind to 50 I quested and chain queued dungeons I think they are pretty cool. Waiting on the rest of my free company mates to finish up their DL and relics and we will start coil and the new Crystal Tower. I am having a lot of fun and play hours everyday.

[Vaer]

Content takes longer to make than to consume, you will always run into this same problem until someone figures out how to deal with it.

The thing you mentioned about efficiency is exactly what is happening now. Finding faster and faster ways to do things. FATE leveling, SRs, running past mobs, overgearing, etc.

[Kyriea]

Wasn't slamming hardcore players at all I just don't understand it and for a game it is unhealthy simply because from a developer point of view they cannot possibly create enough content. It is not possible to keep hardcore players happy because it takes a very long time to create content. Coming from an animation background working alongside game programmers etc they will most likely be working flat-out for 3 months to create the content you'll get every 3 months.

It's the reason a lot of companies set targets that might not seem that big to players and by the time the 3 months is up and the content is due out they haven't perfected as much as they'd have liked and post-pone release. What might seem like a small amount of content takes a lot longer than people imagine.

And it is true, there are people who play this game to replace life but that will never be the case. You cannot make a game as good as life so they will be disappointed.