Casual vs Hardcore

[Eekiki]

So why don't we just have content for both?

For the same reason a third party candidate can't win the US Presidential election. Too many people with simple, closed minds that simply can't accept that there are other people besides them with different tastes and lifestyles.

[Teuciont]

For the same reason a third party candidate can't win the US Presidential election. Too many people with simple, closed minds that simply can't accept that there are other people besides them with different tastes and lifestyles.

Okay, but this isn't the US Presidential election, it's a video game. And XI had both. So I'm not seeing the problem.

[Enfarious]

I think it needs to be a difference between hardcore and casual players, why does the casual player that only plays 1-2 hrs a day or less should be able to get the same gear/weapon as the guy that loves the game and has nothing else to do than play...
I dnt think Im expressing my self right but, FFXI was really good at telling the community, "Hey this guy plays the game all day and deserves to have a better gear then you have"
For the FFXI community, we all know how hard was to get Ultimas or Omegas gear or Defeat AV (almost impossible), and not even mentioning getting the relic weapons...
That makes the guy who owns the gear/weapon proud of the time expended... and the community at the same time to look at this character with respect and say "Shit look at him, /wave or /bow".
I remember in wow playing about 1-2 hrs a day I had top gear... PVP and PVE... in about 3 months or so...
I also really like the fact of having HNMS to be share with the whole world... "World HNMs" (example: Vtra, fafnir( dropping the valuable ridill)) with a 3day window, 24hr window... that makes the gear/weapon dropped by that HNM more valuable then a boss on a close Dungeon...

Just change the wording a little and you have something that is fine.

The "hardcore" should get it earlier due to putting in more game time every week. "Casual" should not be told that they can't get it, just that they aren't going to get it fast.

I could play FFXI 2~3 hrs on the avg 3 days a week and build a relic, it'd take me forever but it could be done. I could play 4hrs a week just on saturday and sunday and clear assault/nyzul.

Don't say "Can't" get it, say it'll take longer. No one will fight that idea, it's what all us "casual" players have already said a hundred times.





Just so we all know, hardcore vs. casual is BS, hardcore isn't just about time spent playing it's about time spent getting better. I know at least 4 ppl in my LS that put in 12 hours a day but can't live through hellfire. Casual isn't someone that isn't as good or not deserving of gear if they put in the time and have the skill, I've run as a casual player in EG shells in XI even though I was only on for 2~3 hrs on week nights and 5~6 hours on weekends I was expected to tank and do it well while 15+ others "Just DD'd so it didn't hurt the run so bad if they died." Cause yeah casualness doesn't mean shitty player, it means I don't spend 80 hrs a week playing. No I couldn't build an Empy weapon in a week, I didn't have 12hrs a day to farm pops/NMs, that doesn't mean I couldn't spend a couple weeks making one.

Sorry I hate the implication that someone that plays less hours doesn't deserve to be ABLE to attain everything, take longer sure, I can't spend 40 hrs a week farming [item], make it not possible to get things so I can't even try, fuck off.

[Kafeen]

For the same reason a third party candidate can't win the US Presidential election. Too many people with simple, closed minds that simply can't accept that there are other people besides them with different tastes and lifestyles.

Its more like saying if you go to the supermarket you can't buy apples because you bought oranges instead.

[Limonconcon]

I was literally praying to the heavens someone would post this.

Relax OP, if wanting to have your E-Peen "/bowed" at because you have nothing better to do than play the game for hours and hours each day is making you this passionate then perhaps you should try another MMO:

REAL LIFE: The Original MMO

Try and cure cancer, that's supposedly toughest achieve to get.

well you should try praying to the heavens about those people with cancer also and not for someone to post this... dnt you think?
Playing 40+ hrs a week its something that I choose and makes me happy, like some ppl spend 40+ doing drogs, watching tv, playing cards....
Questioning a way of life its kind of stupid. I choose mine and you choose yours...

[Enfarious]

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.

I agree with every word of this, but in XI and Eve and sooo many others that still have subscribers, EQ anyone, the hardcore aren't limited to just people that play 60+ hrs a week, if people stopped claiming the "hardcore" title cause they are couch potatoes and it went back to the people that really are the best and the ones that will put in the play time regardless of the number of real life hours spent this whole argument would go up in smoke.

Hardcore isn't just about # of hours logged in/[day|week|month|year] it's about time put in trying to be the best, hopefully w/o taking on the super elitist holier than thou BS attitude that so often comes with. Nothing more annoying than being told there's only one right way to do something by someone who "knows" they're right because they play more five minutes after doing it another way with them that also worked.

[Zezlar]

This is one of those issues that not many like to bring up without getting flamed to oblivion. There definitely needs to be content for both groups, and in 2.0 I believe we will start seeing those different content types. The hardcore players who put more time in (whether they play the game a lot or not) deserve to have that bad ass gear. They put in the time and effort to learn the content, overcome it, and put in the time required. I don't think the content should be dumbed down to easy-mode for others who don't have as much time. It's a little unfair. That's not to say a casual should not get the gear either. It should just take them significantly longer. Just because their casual doesn't mean they want easy-mode.

I've played MMOs for some time, and most of the time I have noticed that these two groups generally have different priorities due to the low amount of time they have. The hardcore might want the best gear possible so they spam Garuda 24/7 while say a casual wants to do Moogle or level their crafts/gatherers/get artifact gear (example).

[Eekiki]

There's another thing to consider. I spend damn near all of my free time playing video games. But XIV is not the only game I want to play. I also want to play Diablo 3. I'm still having fun playing Borderlands. I still haven't beaten Skyward Sword or Xenoblade Chronicles or Mass Effect 2, and I haven't even started on ME3, XIII-2, Dark Souls, Arkham City or Last Story. Sometimes I feel like going back and replaying Half-Life 2, or previous FF games. Halo 4 is coming soon (I'm gonna want to replay those games), and Bioshock Infinite will be out next year, 'round the time XIV 2.0 kicks into high gear.

I own so many games that I've never even touched. I own Lost Planet 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid Other M, and Final Fantasy XIII-2, and they're all still in their shrink wrap.

Life was simpler when all there was was Nintendo, Sega, Capcom, Konami, and Squaresoft.

But there was also Tecmo, Enix, Hudson Soft....GAAAAAAAAH!!! /jumpsthroughwindow

[Krausus]

I think it needs to be a difference between hardcore and casual players, why does the casual player that only plays 1-2 hrs a day or less should be able to get the same gear/weapon as the guy that loves the game and has nothing else to do than play...
I dnt think Im expressing my self right but, FFXI was really good at telling the community, "Hey this guy plays the game all day and deserves to have a better gear then you have"
For the FFXI community, we all know how hard was to get Ultimas or Omegas gear or Defeat AV (almost impossible), and not even mentioning getting the relic weapons...
That makes the guy who owns the gear/weapon proud of the time expended... and the community at the same time to look at this character with respect and say "Shit look at him, /wave or /bow".
I remember in wow playing about 1-2 hrs a day I had top gear... PVP and PVE... in about 3 months or so...
I also really like the fact of having HNMS to be share with the whole world... "World HNMs" (example: Vtra, fafnir( dropping the valuable ridill)) with a 3day window, 24hr window... that makes the gear/weapon dropped by that HNM more valuable then a boss on a close Dungeon...

I think the game caters to both quite well. You wont see most casuals doing very much endgame content at all.

[Enfarious]

...
What seperates casuals from hardcore shouldn't be time, it should be skill. We shouldn't even be using the terms "casual" and "hardcore;" we should be using the terms "good player" and "bad player" and "average player."...

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?"...

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?...
Edit in: What it should be:
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.
...

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

But it's all being argued for the wrong reasons. It shouldn't be time but instead skill.

I was going to say this, but I wasn't quite sure how to segue into it - but to the community I will say this. Don't confuse casual/hardcore with skilled/unskilled.

This is one of those issues that not many like to bring up without getting flamed to oblivion. There definitely needs to be content for both groups, and in 2.0 I believe we will start seeing those different content types. The hardcore players who put more time in (whether they play the game a lot or not) deserve to have that bad ass gear. They put in the time and effort to learn the content, overcome it, and put in the time required. I don't think the content should be dumbed down to easy-mode for others who don't have as much time. It's a little unfair. That's not to say a casual should not get the gear either. It should just take them significantly longer. Just because their casual doesn't mean they want easy-mode.

I've played MMOs for some time, and most of the time I have noticed that these two groups generally have different priorities due to the low amount of time they have. The hardcore might want the best gear possible so they spam Garuda 24/7 while say a casual wants to do Moogle or level their crafts/gatherers/get artifact gear (example).

All of the above, the line between casual and hardcore has been blurred so horribly by people that spend all their free time playing while others don't have as much time to play.

That's what made the balances decent in XI, content wasn't spammable, anyone that could put in 2~4 hours in one sitting could go do anything, if they won great, many failed miserably. It wasn't a matter of "Who can do it the most times in a week." it was "Who can succeed on a regular basis." Of course the flaw in this is the lack of content, and content that doesn't burn you out.

If you could only enter each dungeon once a day and fight each primal once a day, you'd still see the difference between people that play alot and the ones that don't. You can't do all 3 dungeons and all 3 primals in <2hrs w/o super planning and <20mins in each but instead we get to go as much as you want and hate that you don't get shit(that you actually want) 90% of the time, truly time sink content.

A 10% droprate once a day for "normal" runs with side sections/quests/content in the same dungeon that's significantly harder that would up the drop rate to 20/30/50/98%, keep the time limit so then being able to clear each "Side[boss|area|challenge]" would eat up some of that time, if you can't do it fast enough you don't get to tier drop rates.

Again content for the fast/skilled/strategic/well oiled groups while not locking out anyone because what, "They don't play enough." Come on this can't really be an honest desire. You don't play as much as me therefore you suck and don't deserve this gear...???