Casual Content - Why is it so walled off?

[Eriatarka12]

It sounds to me like you're just looking for reasons to be upset at the game. At this point if it's making you that upset it probably isn't good for you.

[Alise]

I don't understand why do your think that your logic is the same as SE by thinking that "if it has nothing to do with high level gear, then it should be casual content".

Actually, those content that doesn't involve in high level gear could be at the either end =. Either it is a content for highest end with those players who win everything and have nothing else to enjoy. or content for those casual who careless about main content.

In this case, I could see that those content that SE made are not really for casual players. They are more at the end of high-end players for burning their free time. You win everything, so now you want to spend relax time on garden, housing, dressing and such. While SE logic for the casual players could be that "they barely have enough time to play main content, so they don't really need those other activity to stray away more of their time".

[Estellios]

One would imagine that a luxury item like a fancy silk dress would be difficult to make.

[Fayto]

So crafters can make money. Cry more.

[Mitternacht]

Spring Dress

Weaver - level 50
Recipe Level - 90
Craftsmanship required - 374

1 Wind CLUSTER
2 Lightning CLUSTER
1 Vanya Silk (requires 9 Potash to make)
1 Twinthread
2 Dress Material (unknown acquisition)

Clusters are trivial to gather, Potash cost seals now (1500 ea, that's like 3-5 GC leves at 45+). Dress Material will probably be a new chest drop, which will be kind of frustrating considering I still haven't seen any buttons from Goatskin maps for my Stuffed Chocobo. As for the crafting requirements, they shouldn't be that hard to meet with the new tools/head slot item and those are quested (the requirements are turning in various amounts of 2-star crafted materials - ie. Treated Spruce/etc).


The rationale is to give crafters something 'valuable' (via scarcity rather than demand). These requirements are pretty much designed for people who have multiple crafting classes capped/etc. - which I'd argue can be done pretty casually. I mean, I don't really raid, still haven't cleared Titan EX, and only have one other real person in my FC and we were able to buy a house a couple weeks ago (I'm not really sure why, but it wasn't like we had a use for the money otherwise).

That said, I can understand your frustration since this is a purely cosmetic thing. It's a matter of archetypal themepark design making only the peaks of character progression relevant - even for things with no mechanical gameplay value.

[Sagittarian]

Housing, even FC housing, since there were no real benefits at first, is a casual content. You don't get high level gear from Housing.

Nice, they're adding some casual crafting content.

Spring Dress

Weaver - level 50
Recipe Level - 90
Craftsmanship required - 374

1 Wind CLUSTER
2 Lightning CLUSTER
1 Vanya Silk (requires 9 Potash to make)
1 Twinthread
2 Dress Material (unknown acquisition)

This is casual content, town gear that has no purpose other than looking pretty. And you're making it a level 90 craft WHY?

I don't understand how "casual content" is being defined.

To me "casual content" is something that is available without having to spend much time in the game or can be purchased for a small amount of in-game currency (small being defined by the amount a player can accumulate without investing much time or effort).
By that definition neither FC housing nor any of the special outfits are "casual content" because by definition "casual content" doesn't require effort to get.

I don't consider myself a "casual" player because I normally log at least 3 hours a day. But I don't run very many dungeons and I didn't rush levels/content - it took me 5 months to get an adventuring class up to 50, I've spent multiple days just fishing for fun, and any crafting materials I needed I would gather myself.

But if "casual" means anything other than high-level, end-game dungeons then I am a casual player.

I appreciate that there are high level crafting recipes that are not used for dungeons and do not require dungeon drops. I love the 1* crafted minions, for example. It makes it feel that crafting has a reason beyond churning out items for the market board or outfitting dungeon runners.
There are high-end fashion items in real life. Why not in the game?
It looks like the spring dress requires work but it doesn't require any dungeons (post-patch). The potash can now be purchased from a grand company using points from provisioning missions and the rest can be gathered/crafted.

So I don't understand the complaint.
Is the issue that there is non-dungeon content that takes time and effort to get? Because if so I disagree that this is an issue.
Working towards crafting and gathering goals is half of what I do in the game. By making non-dungeon content that takes time and effort to complete SE keeps the player base that do more than just run dungeons, which includes me.