Quote Originally Posted by KamikazeMan View Post
Not to be rude, but I'm glad SE are ignoring casuals for once and (hopefully) breathing life into the open world. As things are now, there are no real dangers in the open world and any sense of exploration...well...it just doesn't exist. There is nothing to explore and I feel that part of exploration involves some form of risk.
Since when did challenging overworld content become the sole foray of the veteran players? Did I miss that memo?

Let's help clear that up a bit. A casual player is one who doesn't generally have a lot of time to dedicate to gameplay. They set smaller goals for themselves, but otherwise they enjoy the same content as everyone else just at a slower pace. Content which requires a huge time investment in one sitting is generally the only content skipped over, for obvious reasons. Some casual players can even do coil runs, because the raid itself takes less than an hour.

A challenging overworld is actually a really GOOD thing for casual players. The goals they set themselves becomes like like 'let's get to this aetheryte here' or 'I want to explore these caves', which can be wonderfully fulfilling. It gives them lots more of these smaller goals to achieve and a vibrant world for them to get their teeth into little by little. Each bit of exploration seeds their next goal, and leads them gently into the more obvious goals like getting that new piece of equipment or crushing that nasty Ascian.

So, lest you believe that casual players shy away from all challenges. Many players embrace them, just at a slower pace.