Casual vs Hardcore

[Chardrizard]

I gotta be honest to the people that think there's no "Hardcore" market. I would say that FFXI fell under that description, and surely Eve Online does. Guess what? FFXI had a steady 500K players for YEARS, and that's a low estimate. Guess what? When Abyssea was released, that number quickly fell to 300K, was it because people felt there was casualization? Maybe, or it could've been old. I stopped playing FFXI because Abyssea ruined it for me, personally.

Eve online, one of the most hardcore MMOs on the market, enjoys quite a number of subscribers itself, last best estimate was 600,000 subscribers. Is it WoW? No, but it's more than enough to keep the content coming and the players happy, all while keeping the company in the black.

That said, I honestly feel casual players are fickle, they go to the next shiny thing after they get bored quite quickly, it's actually the hardCORE players that keep a MMO going.

My babies, you can have it.

[DarthTaru]

Again, I hate the term. In XI we never said "hardcore" or "casual."
Either you sucked or you were good, it didn't matter if you were a full time student, full time worker, or both.
The good, the bad, and the average. Those were the players. There was no "hardcore" or "casual" and "who is SE going to make content for?"

Right now, you can classify me as a "hardcore" player *cringe*.
What do casuals think I want? To spend 6 hours a night running the same boring and easy dungeons over and over again, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, just because you and your LS can't or doesn't?
Or to kite an NM in Hamlet in a circle for ten minutes for a seal... over and over and over?

I feel like these terms "hardcore" and "casual" got dragged into the FF community from elsewhere and now all we discuss is how tedious we want everything to be so you filthy casuals can't get your slimy hands on the drops.

Au contraire.

Good players simply want content that justifies them being a good player, or being in a good linkshell. FFXI accomplished this. BLM's and RDM's solo'ed NMs in sky and sea where entire linkshells would sometimes wipe. Linkshells defined themselves by killing (or even monopolizing) mobs others could not even get to 98% before the wipe. There were reasons to be a good player, not just a hardcore player, and many of the very best players were full time students or worked 50 hours a week. The most accomplished BLM on my server had to leave for weeks at a time because he was in the Coast Guard.

This whole notion of "hardcore" versus "casual" is annoying. It's a dumb WoW term (or wherever it came from!) and has no place, IMO, in a Final Fantasy community. Good or bad. Which are you? We want SE to give us the content to find out.

[Andrien]

The install base of potential casual users is high on the console gamer front. Also depending on the franchise they can sell millions.

In the end, both casual and hardcore gamers can peacefully coexist. In the long run casual can only be good for the gaming industry as it will bring in more fans, more money, and more verity of contents. When that content is good they'll stay and then at some point the casual gamers might start looking for deeper, more challenging contents, and hence becoming a little more "hardcore"

[Hycinthus]

I'm a casual, and I agree completely that if you are "hardcore", you should be wearing better gear and weapon, and get better loot. This is fine and logical.

But what I don't want to happen is for certain contents to only be doable, or completable if you're a hardcore. You may say that, well, since you're casual, then it's logical for you not to be able to complete this dungeon. But casuals pay for the same game, and the same subscription, and we also want to see this beautiful dungeon SE created.

As a casual, I want to experience the dungeon, and also the beautiful environment, the monsters, and most importantly the storyline that go along with these. The drop rate should be adjusted of course. If you run the dungeon in Heroic mode, then you get better loot. The casual players can run in normal mode, and get worse loot, but at least we can see this content.

A way I think of it is like attending a concert. I don't mind sitting in the back row, because I cannot afford to buy the front row, or maybe because I was late in buying the tickets and not camping ticketmaster website, but I can still experience the concert. At least we are trying; if not then we don't even deserve to get a ticket.

[urhryu]

I still dun understand, are you telling me that casual players can't play the content?
Believe me, you can still enjoy the content (and being casual, you prefer to play the content more than the drops) since you only login to enjoy the fun, logout and might or might not come back few days later.

But if you consider yourself casual and wanted the relic FAST. I don't know how you can term yourself casual.
You can complain about the lack of content and makes you repeat and repeat...well, you are casual, just enjoy the game.
Until 2.0 is out with more content, just login when you are free or nothing else much to do irl.

To me, those that ranted alot about drops and stuff and repeat arent really casual players, just that they aren't hardcore enough. Because I do know real casual players, they login 2-3hrs daily, chat, do some raid, hamlet etc, they still enjoy it because that's what they are after, priority was not relic. They never had issues with repeat content because they aren't spamming repeats. They still have their chance on seal drop ofc (though much lower compared to others), but they aren't the least jealous towards people that keep repeating it for many hours daily to get the seal.

So, the question now is : Are you really casual? Or you are in between who wanted get the seals as fast as the hardcore?

[Hyrist]

Ohhh ho ho ho.

This is a bitter can of worms you have opened that I do not have time today to sit and write about.

Hardcore think they know what's good for a game, but many of it the things they'd implement in this game in particular would not only be counter-intuitive, but are reinforced by many of the system they heavily complain about.

For now, I'm backing out until about Friday to take on this issue again. I'll also start outlining about what Yoshi is doing right and doing wrong in this case.

[Zaaku]

The install base of potential casual users is high on the console gamer front. Also depending on the franchise they can sell millions.

In the end, both casual and hardcore gamers can peacefully coexist. In the long run casual can only be good for the gaming industry as it will bring in more fans, more money, and more verity of contents. When that content is good they'll stay and then at some point the casual gamers might start looking for deeper, more challenging contents, and hence becoming a little more "hardcore"

But that is wrong. What a majority of casual players in your subscription base brings is vacant servers in 2 months time unless you can patch in another carrot-on-stick event to keep them complacent and busy. (See: Primals) Casual players are defined as 'casual" for a reason. They often don't have nearly as much invested into their characters or game as someone who plays 4-6 hours a day. These are the MMO players who tend to "Come back when they add something fun to do". They return for a month or so at a time until the newest addition has exhausted their limited interest and then wander off to the next new thing.

You cannot support an MMO based primarily on the backs of casual fans UNLESS you dedicate a significant amount of your resources into creating new content very often that is only semi-challenging. Too difficult and the bulk of your subscribers who can't cut it up and quit because the game is too hard for their liking. They want everything to be a breeze. Too easy and they burn though it in days instead of weeks and leave once more to more fertile MMO grazing grounds. That is the dagger that you don't see that screws over the "Hardcore" players. When the game developers make content for people with less commitment in mind we're always going to be getting the short end of the stick in terms of longevity and satisfaction. Even if it has a hint of challenge it will never prove to be a real conquest since the bar will be firmly set at our knees to ensure those with 1/10th the amount of player time per week can still beat it.

This leads to making the content spammable to create the illusion of challenge. That it is marginally hard but only those "HURDCURR" enough to run it 200 times will get the REAL prize! That isn't fun. It isn't noteworthy. It is what makes a game forgettable and ultimately kills off your high end player base when they find a game that does reward their dedication in more tangible and satisfying ways.

You cannot please everyone. The best you can hope for is disappointing both sides of the coin. So which do you make your game for? Those who play 2 hours a day for a month then quit until you dump the hours into making a new puppet show every 3 weeks. Or those who sacrifice sunlight, occasional sex, and Friday nights to master the wickedly hazardous content you get to pour heart and mind into making as difficult as you wish. When you make things more painful your fans resound with gleeful encouraging whimpers through the ballgag begging for more. One of these two is a much more stable platform for long term revenue. Even if you'd rather not enter their dwellings without first notifying authorities of your location.

You should also add tails for the Roegadyns. Your Galka players are hurting something awful (._.*)

[Dzian]

Where is the line between casual and hardcore?
2 hours a day? 4? 8? 12?
At which point does someone become hardcore?
Is it even time related?

To be honest I read the op and all I can think of is a little boy whining "SE I have no life, no job, no love. Give me something in this game to make me feel special"
Does that make me sound like an ass? Probably. But I don't really care.

Au contraire.

Good players simply want content that justifies them being a good player, or being in a good linkshell. FFXI accomplished this. BLM's and RDM's solo'ed NMs in sky and sea where entire linkshells would sometimes wipe. Linkshells defined themselves by killing (or even monopolizing) mobs others could not even get to 98% before the wipe. There were reasons to be a good player, not just a hardcore player, and many of the very best players were full time students or worked 50 hours a week. The most accomplished BLM on my server had to leave for weeks at a time because he was in the Coast Guard.

This whole notion of "hardcore" versus "casual" is annoying. It's a dumb WoW term (or wherever it came from!) and has no place, IMO, in a Final Fantasy community. Good or bad. Which are you? We want SE to give us the content to find out.

This! The Good, The Bad & The Average. I've seen "Hardcore" players die stupidly on PLD cos they get caught by a group of frogs and can't get away from them. the thought of popping Tempered Will would easily save their ass but no. and countless other derps.

For the FFXI community, we all know how hard was to get Ultimas or Omegas gear

The OP mentions Ultima / Omega. Homan / Nashira gear as being hardcore.
From what I remember Limbus was an hour at most with a 3 day lock out. I was 5/5 nashira and played about as casully as I do 14. Yet the op classes limbus as hard core content. Many considered Einherjar elite content and that was 30 minutes dead. There were no time extentions. 30 mins only again with a 3 day lock out. Again I cleared it several times. Elite Einherjar title and all. still I was a "casual" player.

This whole mindset of must play 24/7 to get anything is crap. Rewards should be reliant on skill not time spent trying and limbus / einherjar are 2 great examples of how skill does not mean doing the same stuff 12 hours a day.

I find it amusing though that the OP uses what many casual players would describe as the perfect content system and want to see more of (limbus) is the very same thing he considers hardcore.

ITT: People who think that they're better than others because they play a video game more.

I couldn't agree more.

So yeah where is the line between casual and hardcore?
How many hours a day must I play to gain the "Auto Elite Skills" trait?
Does playing 4 hours a day majically make me a better tank than playing 3?
Is there a secret buff that enhances my defence or dps by a multiplier of time played?
If that's the case no wonder ul'dah is always full of afkers

The thing to do for endgame is to do a lot of what XI did for endgame. XI didn't do everything through horrendous drop rates; it did it through multiple levels of challenge. Let's see a linkshell of casuals go after PW.

Even ZNM I'd consider fairly casual. You could run out farm your zeni in your spare time and if one night you've got a few friends online you could go kill the mob and start working on the next one. When you hit the higher tier mobs maybe schedule em for a weekend or something. It was very much something you could do at any pace you wanted.

[Eekiki]

Oh geez, another one of these? This arguement has been going on for years!

Listen, kids. Not all of us are college undergrads working on fluff majors. If SE doesn't want to rely on mommies and daddies to pay for their snowflakes' subscriptions, they need to make the game accessible to people with steady jobs, independant disposable incomes, and, as a result, a limited amount of free time to play.

And don't try and tell me that you're taking 20 credit hours, study 40 hours and work 12 hours a week, and still find time to play XIV 10 hours a day. That's a flippin' lie and you know it.

[Kafeen]

Casual players are defined as 'casual" for a reason. They often don't have nearly as much invested into their characters or game as someone who plays 4-6 hours a day.

Well, now we're getting into different definitions of "casual".

Is someone casual because they only play a few times a week? Is someone casual because they cancel and come back?

For example. I play for a few hours a few times per week but I've had my account since open beta, subscribed at launch and never cancelled, even during times that I didn't play for weeks.

Many other people on the other hand play the game to death for long periods everyday, exhaust all the content then quit for a few months because there's nothing left to do.

So there are times when someone who plays on a more casual basis, who plays in moderation can be less likely leave and more likely to support the game for a longer period.

You can't just classify people into two camps.