"Casual" content thoughts

[InkstainedGwyn]

I just want to point something out that I see missing from most "how can we make stuff less boring" posts (a charitable version of the "healers and tanks need to dps or gtfo"): there are a lot of people for whom my "boring" is their "hectic". I get that a lot of people find the mechanics, once learned, to be monotonous, and I can't blame you. And I don't see a reason not to shake things up for the higher-end content. But "shaking it up" (making it more intense/harder to predict/etc) in casual content (i.e. DF dungeons) would be a deathknell for the game for quite a few people. I have friends for whom duty finder is the highest they can handle. And before people spout "lazy" and "get gud", understand that a lot of these people can't. You look at "that healer is only healing omg" and think "they're laughing with their FC or chatting in an LS or playing a mobile game" but the reality, for some people, is quite different. Some folks have anxiety so badly that just getting through the MSQ dungeons is a test for them, but it's nice that they still have "something hard" to work on that will eventually allow them to get some of the end-game rewards. I know one individual who suffers from hand shakes (I think it's tied to a syndrome or seizures but I don't ask) to the point that they have to use a special mouse. They can't do Omega normal. They can't do Rabanastre. But they can run a 70 dungeon once a day and get a feeling of accomplishment.

I don't think that pointing out ways that the game can be improved is a bad thing. I'm sure that what we have can be refined so that it's better for everybody. There are probably design choices that, when changed or removed, would make the game better on all fronts.

But please understand that casual content is casual for a reason, and not everybody who isn't performing to your standards is "lazy". For some people, this is all they can do, and they enjoy it. Should they be trying to change high-end/hardcore stuff to make it accessible to them? No. But neither does that mean that their casual content needs to be ramped up to the levels that a high-end/hardcore player wants.

And if your response is just "get off my game, then" or "find another game," please remember that this game was designed so that they have content that they can handle. They did find a game that would enable them to play at their own pace.

[F_Maximillian]

I don't think anyone thinks that casual content shouldn't exist in this game. I have friends who can barely handle things like omega normal as well and I'm glad they have things they can do on a daily basis. However I feel like the tougher content should be tougher to satisfy those who are looking for more of a challenge, especially when the majority of the content is geared toward the casual audience.

I also don't think the people who push for tanks and healers to contribute more expects someone with disabilities to be pumping out crazy dps or whatnot. I've run into multiple people who told us they had some kind of disability when they zoned in and we adapted with no questions asked and no complaints. However, you can't just expect people to assume everyone who isn't putting in visible effort has some kind of disability. There's probably far more people who just aren't willing to put in a bit more effort because they're too busy watching something on a second monitor than those with genuine disabilities preventing them from doing so. All we want to see is for people to give it a decent amount of effort, for those that you described in your post if the bare minimum is the best they can do and they're genuinely trying that's more than good enough for me.

[NocturniaUzuki]

Frankly, I agree with you. I think a real challenge for game developers is creating a game that is friendly to both casual and hardcore players, and everything in between. The problem largely lies with the players themselves, though. Hardcore players have this strange habit of wanting challenge, yet refusing to actually interact with the challenging content. They simultaneously want a faceroll, while complaining that everything is too easy. Games also have a consumer culture. When players' toys get old and out of fashion, they throw them away. Most MMOs in existence are effectively made up of 5-20 pieces of content. Everything else, as fun as it was (and still is, if people cared to do it), is considered worthless.

[HyoMinPark]

While no one here expects a player who has disabilities to perform in ways in which they physically or mentally cannot (this is mentioned in just about every DPS-debate thread when someone brings up a disability), I don't think that counts for the majority of idle players you see in dungeons. That being said, unless a person says "I have such-and-such disability; and I physically cannot do this and/or that", the group has no way of knowing. So unless people are wanting us to assume that everyone who doesn't DPS as a healer or doesn't AOE as a DPS has a disability, what are we supposed to assume?

"Casual" content doesn't mean people can be inherently lazy, disabilities aside. If a person has the ability to carry their weight, they should do that, rather than expect everyone else to pick up the slack for them. Anecdotal, but I've noticed when wipes occur, a lot of the people who say something negative about it are the same people who aren't pulling their weight, be it a tank not properly holding aggro, a healer staring off into space as the tank goes down (actually saw that just yesterday in Kugane Castle--3 wipes on the pull before Yojimbo and the healer didn't try to salvage any of them, rather instead blaming the tank who, I guess, is expected to heal themselves now, and then they started blaming the DPS for not killing the bomb add, which died almost immediately and wasn't what caused the wipe; the healer just wasn't healing the tank, and they weren't DPSing), or DPS single-targeting a pack of 10 mobs.

The main argument is, and has always been, that everyone should equally contribute to any and all content. Not one person doing the minimum and expecting the rest to compensate for them.

Hardcore players have this strange habit of wanting challenge, yet refusing to actually interact with the challenging content. They simultaneously want a faceroll, while complaining that everything is too easy.

That is a very big generalization you're making there. And, honestly, I find it incredibly incorrect. Threads here alone suggest the opposite: content is too faceroll, and people still cry for nerfs (honestly, look at the threads demanding the second boss in Rabanastre be nerfed when he's incredibly easy if one just pays attention), or devs release something mildly challenging > "omg too hard pls nerf" (ShinEx). And that comes largely from the more softcore/midcore side.

Look at all the people that asked for Ultimate; none of the hardcore players have complained about Ultimate's difficulty. All the Ultimate complaints have ultimately come from the more casual side, saying it's "a waste of resources".

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Do not think me unsympathetic, however no development team can cater towards people with crippling anxiety or disabilities since none of that applies to the overwhelming majority of their audience. With that said, people aren't complaining about having easy content, but that they game offers little else for the most part. Expert dungeon are supposed to be the stepping stone towards endgame—something we do to cap each week. Why are those so easy I can literally not heal if the tank pulls less than five mobs? For people who can't handle harder, they would still have all the other dungeons. Perhaps if the devs made 50/60 dungeons less of a chore, it might be more engaging.

[RiyahArp]

"Casual" content doesn't mean people can be inherently lazy, disabilities aside. If a person has the ability to carry their weight, they should do that, rather than expect everyone else to pick up the slack for them.

This isn't really the issue in threads like this. The worry is that the hardcore players want all content to be savageified, in order to make players better. What I mean by this is that they want casual content to become harder or more like savage content, in order to push all players to get better and possibly make raiding or ex trials easier. Like the average bad player isn't lazy! They are doing what they can, but they aren't as good as placement, positioning, optimization, and what have you as another player.

Like you can suffer serious dps loss just by being late at refreshing a debuff or using a cooldown. It's not a matter of afking, a lot of problems with play more or less involve not being optimal with many little things.

[HyoMinPark]

This isn't really the issue in threads like this. The worry is that the hardcore players want all content to be savageified, in order to make players better.

I’ve never seen a hardcore player say that casual content needs to be harder/on Savage-level to prompt people to not be lazy/make people better players. The closest I usually see are people saying that, if casual content were harder in terms of, for example, healing requirements or tanking requirements, then there would be a reason for the “heal only” healers to focus solely on healing without DPSing (since there would be more required healing uptime), or that there would be a reason for tanks to actively use tank stances on bosses without dropping it immediately after establishing hate (since there would be actual use in the mitigation tank stance gives—as it stands now, even tankbusters in current Savage content can be completely ignored and/or cheesed via Holmgang/Hallowed Ground/Living Dead, or just require a single cooldown to survive outside of tank stance). The content isn’t hard enough to demand 80% healing uptime or 80% tank stance uptime, so then why are the players that are so insistent on healing only or always remaining in stance doing so when the content does not actively require it? Their arguments fall apart immediately.

Another thing I’ve seen is people asking for better difficulty scaling in this game. But, again, that is not asking for dungeons to suddenly be tuned to Savage-tier levels of difficulty. When some of the Leveling dungeons are more challenging than “Expert” dungeons, don’t you think there’s some kind of design flaw there? Players go from trying leveling dungeons like The Vault, Bardam’s Mettle, and Doma Castle where things can actually hurt if you aren’t proactive about them; to “expert” dungeons like Great Gubal HM, Sohm Al HM, Kugane Castle, and Skalla, where you barely have to do anything healing-wise outside of putting a regen on the tank, and maybe a Cure II/Benefic II/Lustrate occasionally when they dip low (providing that the tank is actively mitigating incoming damage); or when you pull a pack of 3 mobs, you don’t even need to be in tank stance for mitigation or aggro.

You have Rabanastre, which is a step up from Heavensward’s Void Ark, but a step below Weeping City and Dun Scaith, where people complain about having to pay attention to the mechanics during Mateus and Hashmal (sp?) that are not even that difficult to handle. There’s still players posting in the “nerf Hashmal” thread when his fight is not that hard. But people are so used to things being so easy, the minute something requires just a tiny bit more effort, it’s construed as suddenly being “too hard” and “needs to be nerfed”. I’m sorry, I find and take issues with that.

You have the Ex primals, where Lakshmi Ex and Susano Ex were made harder only by the other players in your party not properly executing simple mechanics, healing, mitigating, or even outputting enough rDPS, and that’s not how a fight should be. A fight should be harder because of the fight design, not because the players you got in your party have no earthly idea how to properly play.

Then you go into V1S/V2S, which are really easy and almost roll over, to V3S/V4S that are mechanic heavy and healing heavy during some phases of V4S (Almagest and Neverwhere punchy-punchy), and nothing has prepared the more casually-oriented players for such content. Because the difficulty scaling in this game is so flawed.

What I mean by this is that they want casual content to become harder or more like savage content, in order to push all players to get better and possibly make raiding or ex trials easier.

Again, I have never seen raiders say that dungeons should be on Savage-difficulty levels. I have seen them say that Ex primals and Savage content should be closer to the levels they used to be (Coil, Gordias/Midas, Thordan Ex/Sephirot Ex), but they have never referred to dungeons needing to be Savage-tier. At most, they have asked for them to have better difficulty scaling, or not be mindnumbingly boring. But asking for something like “please give me dungeons that would actually require me having to heal more” or “give me dungeons where tank stance is actually useful outside of a mega-pull” is not the same as saying “please make all dungeons as difficult as Savage”.

Like the average bad player isn't lazy! They are doing what they can, but they aren't as good as placement, positioning, optimization, and what have you as another player.

So then they should strive to get better. Rather than saying, “Well, I’m just the Average Joe; there’s no need for me to try and improve my performance”. I feel like that’s an extremely bad mindset to have. I don’t agree with making excuses for bad play/performance.

Outside of physical or mental disabilities that actually prevent a player from performing the same as a person who does not have said disabilities, there is zero reason for a player to not strive to improve if they “aren’t as good”. And even people with disabilities prefer to try harder to be more like “normal people”; a lot of people with disabilities find it extremely condescending for people to assume that, just because they’re disabled, that means that they cannot perform on the same level as a person who is not disabled. A lot do not use their disability as an excuse to not be better, but rather as a challenge to overcome. And the challenge is all the more worthwhile when they do overcome it.

Like you can suffer serious dps loss just by being late at refreshing a debuff or using a cooldown. It's not a matter of afking, a lot of problems with play more or less involve not being optimal with many little things.

You can certainly have DPS losses by not playing optimally—be it missing a buff window, letting DoTs fall off, failing to snapshot them before multiple raid buffs fall off, etc. But not as much so as you would when you aren’t contributing at all. There isn’t really a fair comparison there—it seems very “apples to oranges” to compare “Player A that missed a buff window/missed a debuff/let their DoT(s) drop a couple times” to “Player B who stood around doing nothing 80% of the fight”.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

This isn't really the issue in threads like this. The worry is that the hardcore players want all content to be savageified, in order to make players better. What I mean by this is that they want casual content to become harder or more like savage content, in order to push all players to get better and possibly make raiding or ex trials easier. Like the average bad player isn't lazy! They are doing what they can, but they aren't as good as placement, positioning, optimization, and what have you as another player.

Like you can suffer serious dps loss just by being late at refreshing a debuff or using a cooldown. It's not a matter of afking, a lot of problems with play more or less involve not being optimal with many little things.

I won't even mince words. This is straight up nonsense. Hardcore players aren't demanding everything become Savage. In fact, many enjoy a relaxed pace. Our complaint is most content below Savage isn't easy, it's braindead. I just queued into Solm Al Hard last night and literally did not press a single heal; not even regen. The mobs simply don't scratch a tank pulling one pack at a time. One could argue this is just old content but the same applies to current Expert dungeons. I have pulled trash on Samurai and been absolutely fine. It speaks volumes when a RDM casting the occasional Vercure is more valuable than a WHM that only heals. Shinryu normal is an excellent example of a decent fight relative to its ilvl, though I'd like to see a little harder.

And why aren't they as good? What stops someone from looking up a guide or asking how to better prefer on their chosen job? It's posts like this that spread accusations of laziness. Do you think I started off with 80-90% in Savage? No. I learned how to better play as time went on. I wouldn't even necessarily expect that level of commitment in DF, but I don't think it's asking much we have less faceroll easy dungeons or normal mode raids. They should be made easy by higher gear and better performance, not something I queue into on the day of release without knowing a thing and pull the run anyway.

[D_C]

People got problems seein' a complex problem outside binary concepts, how 'bout that.

[RiyahArp]

I’ve never seen a hardcore player say that casual content needs to be harder/on Savage-level to prompt people to not be lazy/make people better players.

Did you not browse the forums either here or on reddit about royal menagerie? Do you ever read the FFXIV reddit? They say stuff like this all the time.

And why aren't they as good? What stops someone from looking up a guide or asking how to better prefer on their chosen job?

Go sit down some time, and look up a HW-era opener for a job. A lot of it was using the precise proper sequence of moves, with additional moves weave into every single space in between them. They literally would break down everything you needed to do 10 sec before the pull, 5 sec, and then the precise sequence of moves you need. They had to gut the jobs from HW to deal with how complex those jobs were to achieve decent performance. Not only that, a lot of the additions we got in SB were to fix those jobs even more; Bard has their DOT duration extended to 30 sec, Monk can refresh GL on a hit or can passively generate chakra, and SCH getting a simpler, buffed micro in fey union.

The game actually relies on a lot on performing a particular sequence of moves perfectly, and optimal play is harder than people think to achieve. You literally need to plan everything according to an encounter; if you don't, DPS can fall off very much. Not everyone is good at that style for every job, and raiders tend to never really get how difficult this style of play can be for certain players, who do fine with positioning and the basics.