The State of Homogenization: A New (Healer) Player's Perspective

[Packetdancer]

I would argue WoW has catered more towards the hardcore crowd with Mythic+ and it has NOT been good for the game overall

Though as a healer main I'm always a little sad that our DPS rotation could mostly be executed by one of those old-fashioned teeter-tottering bird toy things, I will point out that my beloved WildStar also explicitly and very determinedly tried to cater to hardcore players overall.

That... did not end super well.

(It wasn't the only factor, but it was a big one.)

[Soge01]

I would argue WoW has catered more towards the hardcore crowd with Mythic+ and it has NOT been good for the game overall

I listened to a video with Asmongold talking about this today. He pointed out pretty much how WoW needs to also cater to the causal players in order to retain subs and not just the hardcore types.

Imo, there needs to be a balance between newcomers and veterans, along with casuals and hardcore players.

This game needs midcore content. Desperately! And the jobs need to reflect that with some being easy to pick up others being moderately difficult and then the rest being hard/challenging to master.

Can't have the game teetering too much on the easy or hard side There needs to be a balance! And unfortunately, Yoshi and the dev team may need to learn the hard way on why not to cater too much to a singular demographic of players.

[Broken_Wind]

Though as a healer main I'm always a little sad that our DPS rotation could mostly be executed by one of those old-fashioned teeter-tottering bird toy things, I will point out that my beloved WildStar also explicitly and very determinedly tried to cater to hardcore players overall.

That... did not end super well.

(It wasn't the only factor, but it was a big one.)

My thought on Wildstar is they wanted to capture the segment of players that liked big time sinks or coordination efforts like guild attunement. they wanted the people who sunk 8-10 hour days into EQ and WoW, and liked the challenging of herding cats into a 54 man, or bigger, raid where the challenges were much more organizational/tactical then "skill". This is a niche market for sure, but certainly existed during Wildstar's launch time

It also used a much more intense combat system, closer to a "skill" based combat vs a tab target one. The market for this continues to be overestimated, much like the market for hardcore PvP MMORPGs. But this market certainly existed then and still does.

The problem is, combat like Wildstar's doesnt lend itself to the long play times that Wildstar was also targeting. So the intersection of these two markets was small.

Definitely a game that would have done well going after a different market

Cool housing too

[BrokentoothMarch]

I think you fail to understand humans.

many years ago, things did tend to be a bit more complicated. not excessively complex mind you, but you had to think about what choices you made to get the best performance in any given metric. it was possible however, to still do the bare minimum and "get by" but fewer people did that because most people were fairly dedicated to whatever game it was.

when gaming became more mainstream, and more people came into it to pass the time. gaming itself changed. you complain about lack of complexity and naturally, the game devs and management are obviously to blame. the real blame is the influx of people, and their demands for systems they dont have to put time into and the dollar signs of in front of company stakeholders.

remembering or wanting "the good old days" will never change things in the current environment because the majority DONT WANT THAT. they are going towards a more solo experience because its a good thing to do, they are because most people dont want to play with others.. period. blame the companies, sure, for not telling people no, but also, blame the players... we.. ALL OF US... made the games what they are today.. if anyone should be called out.. its the players.

so get off your high "I am the target audience" horse. companies aim for the largest demographic.. so, if you dont like where they landed... your fellow "target audience" people brought us here.... think on that for a bit.

Dang, that's a lot of words for a Glarebot. I'm impressed.

[Banriikku]

Welcome op, welcome. Take a seat and grab something from the buffet, do you want something to drink while you get told "go play ultimate" and "healers should heal" ? (this is a joke)

To be honest, yes this it. Yoshida made healing for people that dont want to heal or even play the game.

[Jin-]

I mean, its an MMORPG, the fact that it is used as a socializing tool is perhaps its primary reason for existence so that is a pretty weird point to make

Yet Square seems to go in the opposite direction xD

[Elesh]

Sounds like you should go play a different game. Not every game is meant for every person... if you don't enjoy the way this game injects variety into the gameplay experience, then this game probably isn't the right one for you. *shrugs* Not a big deal really.

And I just wanna point out... if you go far enough down the 'oversimplifying your descriptions' rabbit hole, every video game ever sounds exactly the same.

"I push a few buttons and my character does stuff on screen".

[AngeliouxRein]

Sounds like you should go play a different game.

Wow.. that didn't take long to be said... is this the new lazy buzz phrase of argument on these forums lately?

[Kuritzkale]

Wow.. that didn't take long to be said... is this the new lazy buzz phrase of argument on these forums lately?

New? Most FFXIV players can't even imagine what the game would be like if it were different from how it is now because they're new and 99% of coverage of ff14 is positive to an outrageous degree that is IMO completely unjustified, or if they're not new they're so bought into EVERYTHING the dev team does because in their eyes they can do no wrong, even though they've shown quite a bit recently (and in the past) that they change stuff for the worse regularly, or in general just seem disconnected from what players actually want, and just push for more homogenization (see: hissatsu kaiten removal, trick attack/mug change, everything they've done with healers/most jobs in general since shadowbringers)

[AngeliouxRein]

New? Most FFXIV players can't even imagine what the game would be like if it were different from how it is now because they're new and 99% of coverage of ff14 is positive to an outrageous degree that is IMO completely unjustified, or if they're not new they're so bought into EVERYTHING the dev team does because in their eyes they can do no wrong, even though they've shown quite a bit recently (and in the past) that they change stuff for the worse regularly, or in general just seem disconnected from what players actually want, and just push for more homogenization (see: hissatsu kaiten removal, trick attack/mug change, everything they've done with healers/most jobs in general since shadowbringers)

It truly is like a colt religion of the almighty SE with Yoshi as their savior leader. I get the game is blowing up enough to where it's often the most tweeted game and all but wow... it just impresses me everytime I see that strong level of dismissal as if they never had something to be passionate about in life and be able to criticize it so it can continue to improve...

It's got to be a discord group that is telling each other to say this on the forums to rile people up, right? RIGHT?