Day 8 after last Patch ...

[GaiusDrakon]

I think some of the people complaining about the game forgot that this game was never marketed as a 'hardcore' game and Yoshida never treated it as such. The amount of content in this game will always be subjective when you look at it through that lens since not everyone plays the same way. Even the times by which people are listing how fast they clear content is subjective in value since some people are happy only being able to play a few hours a week. There's plenty of titles that will keep you 'busy' everyday if you want them to (Lost Ark and Black Desert Online come to mind), but again, this one was never marketed to be a game like that. Wanting it to be more than what it is or what is 'should be' is a problem with the person, not the game.

if anything it's the CASUAL players that have nothing to do. Hardcore players are doing Savage which will at least be 1-3 weeks

I literally don't understand why CASUAL players are the ones who constantly defend the game's lack of content when there's barely anything to do in this game if you don't raid. Putting more content in literally benefits casuals more than hardcore raiders.

But oh wait, maybe the definition of "casual" has changed. I guess now people think casuals = ERP in Quicksand 3 hours a day and doing literally nothing else these days.

[Kaurhz]

if anything it's the CASUAL players that have nothing to do. Hardcore players are doing Savage which will at least be 1-3 weeks

I literally don't understand why CASUAL players are the ones who constantly defend the game's lack of content when there's barely anything to do in this game if you don't raid. Putting more content in literally benefits casuals more than hardcore raiders.

But oh wait, maybe the definition of "casual" has changed. I guess now people think casuals = ERP in Quicksand 3 hours a day and doing literally nothing else these days.

I'll bite, even though I should know better. - But I do detect a sincere discussion here, so...

Being casual doesn't really matter, especially if they're diversifying their streams of content. I would argue that a person who plays casual yet plays a diverse amount of content will have more to do than someone who is, for example, playing exclusively for raids or for some other exclusive reason - It isn't exclusive to casuals, but anyone really. e.g., for me personally, I do a lot with collecting things, especially achievements (Now I understand that this doesn't inherently align with everyone's cup of tea - But I think we can pretty easily take away that different people will define content differently) - and those who play a certain way will inherently have more content regardless whether they play hardcore or not - To put it into example, I'm currently finishing of Pteranodon, after that I'll be going for collecting the Big Fish for a little project I am doing, and then I'll probably be doing the older deep dungeons solo. - So in this respect I have plenty of content to do, and all this is because I was, for example doing all of the relics in Shadowbringers.

This is of course not to say that you should do xyz before you complain about anything, or before you have the right to do so, as I do think that is false (Unless I feel like being a little more sinister with some people) - But simply that people, depending on how they play, even just casually can still have just as much to do or enjoy as anyone else, even hardcore players. -- But then I guess this entirely depends if you description of hardcore is ascribed only to raiding, and not in the wider sense of the game

That being said, I will agree with you that, ideally, there is no reason to shut down content -- Or rather, they shouldn't be in an ideal world where we don't always need to substitute x content to get y content -- But sadly we don't have luxuries because places will always milk what they can out of a product for the most minimalistic expense possible. - In some sense you'll always have pushback because people enjoy doing y more than they did doing x

I would posit the question back to you -- What is your definition of casual, and hardcore?

[Edit: I would grant that older expansions had more longevity with the content when compared to this one, but I would also stand to argue that a lot of streams of content in these older expansions people didn't even do - Be it for time reasons, etc., and if you're going to, for example, not touch that content because it was last expansion then you're shooting yourself in the foot for a lot of playability and content]

[Raikai]

So, another post where someone runs runs runs to do it all fast fast fast...then complains that they're done. Well, other people actually have lives and jobs, so they can't play all day. You'll just have to wait.

Runs all that fast? It's possible to complete almost everything the OP listed (well, idk about Sanctuary stuff because I don't mind it) in a week of casual play. Even if you read story text at a sluggish pace.

The only real thing that can keep somene engaged for a long time is Savage raiding prog.

As much as I like XIV, it's true that this expansion does not have 'midcore content' that is good enough to keep people invested at, and I like to keep thinking that this is due to bigger things being worked on for 7.0 while also FF16. You can't really expect YP to come out and say "Hey people, the EW patches are going to be very basic because we're using the manpower for the next expansion, look forward to it.".

[GaiusDrakon]

I'll bite, even though I should know better. - But I do detect a sincere discussion here, so...

Being casual doesn't really matter, especially if they're diversifying their streams of content. I would argue that a person who plays casual yet plays a diverse amount of content will have more to do than someone who is, for example, playing exclusively for raids or for some other exclusive reason - It isn't exclusive to casuals, but anyone really. e.g., for me personally, I do a lot with collecting things, especially achievements (Now I understand that this doesn't inherently align with everyone's cup of tea - But I think we can pretty easily take away that different people will define content differently) - and those who play a certain way will inherently have more content regardless whether they play hardcore or not - To put it into example, I'm currently finishing of Pteranodon, after that I'll be going for collecting the Big Fish for a little project I am doing, and then I'll probably be doing the older deep dungeons solo. - So in this respect I have plenty of content to do, and all this is because I was, for example doing all of the relics in Shadowbringers.

This is of course not to say that you should do xyz before you complain about anything, or before you have the right to do so, as I do think that is false (Unless I feel like being a little more sinister with some people) - But simply that people, depending on how they play, even just casually can still have just as much to do or enjoy as anyone else, even hardcore players. -- But then I guess this entirely depends if you description of hardcore is ascribed only to raiding, and not in the wider sense of the game

That being said, I will agree with you that, ideally, there is no reason to shut down content -- Or rather, they shouldn't be in an ideal world where we don't always need to substitute x content to get y content -- But sadly we don't have luxuries because places will always milk what they can out of a product for the most minimalistic expense possible. - In some sense you'll always have pushback because people enjoy doing y more than they did doing x

I would posit the question back to you -- What is your definition of casual, and hardcore?

Pteranodon and Big Fish are not palatable content to most players. They are long, insane grinds. PotD/HoH solo is not even remotely close to casual content. It's probably unironically harder than Savage, at least back in SB/ShB. Orthos solo is still about as hard as first or second floor Savage.

And achievements are not just not everyone's cup of tea, they're not MOST people's cup of tea. Making people grind 500k skybuilder points or whatever is not content. It's making people repeat existing content and milking as much out of those assets as possible.

If you're achievement hunting and unironically doing months-long grinds, you are not casual.

Casual content has been grinded down into dust gradually over the years. Now it's one dungeon per patch, there's no normal trial quests anymore, no exploratory zones (which was a 1-2 week grind) etc.

[KitingGenbu]

What is your definition of casual, and hardcore?

This is the exact question I do not see answered by people saying 'there's nothing to do' or 'there's not enough content.' The guy says "there's nothing for casuals to do" and completely ignores my point that not everyone plays the game in the same way. There's one objective truth about this game and that most things are tied to something cosmetic. Current content eventually becomes cosmetic. Even Ultimate, the hardest content in the game, is cosmetic. With that in mind, isn't there plenty for 'casuals' to do? I mean if you have every mount/minion/emote/craft cosmetic/etc in the game, well done, but most don't. And if those people that dont are still complaining, it goes back to my last point in my post, its a personal problem, not really anything to do with the game.

[DrWho2010]

snip

just buy the minimum amount of game time then each patch (or every other patch). No one is forcing you to keep a year round sub.

[Alaray]

go do savage/orthos/extreme/pvp/ultimate/criterion or log off til there's another story patch if that's the only content you engage with

or do collectathon stuff

[Raisoren]

Even WoW has more content right now.

Well no shit, its 10 years older, of course its going to have more content

[Raikai]

This is the exact question I do not see answered by people saying 'there's nothing to do' or 'there's not enough content.' The guy says "there's nothing for casuals to do" and completely ignores my point that not everyone plays the game in the same way. There's one objective truth about this game and that most things are tied to something cosmetic. Current content eventually becomes cosmetic. Even Ultimate, the hardest content in the game, is cosmetic. With that in mind, isn't there plenty for 'casuals' to do? I mean if you have every mount/minion/emote/craft cosmetic/etc in the game, well done, but most don't. And if those people that dont are still complaining, it goes back to my last point in my post, its a personal problem, not really anything to do with the game.

To me, the expression 'casual' means more about a time frame rather than difficulty.

The only 'hardcore' content that exists in XIV is Ultimate, because even Savages can be approached in a casual way through the Party Finder. You'll progress 4x slower than a static, but you can get there, eventually, without commiting to a strict schedule. But other than that, I don't think EW has truly replayable time sinks for casual players like me who only play FFXIV and is not interested in using the gaming time to something else.

Assuming that a given casual (in the time/investment sense of the word) is engaged with the game for a long time, they probably don't have much to do regarding previous expansion's features as it was done when relevant. So, If we focus just on Endwalker's patches, there's not a lot of content with replayability and/or time investment other than the Savage prog, which can take the whole 4 months to complete in a casual approach.

I don't even compare to other games - XIV is very formulaic, which allows to compare practical content with previous expansions. It's a fact that SB had much more going on, given the presence of Eureka, and it just tells how badly an Exploratory Zone that is both hard and somewhat grindy makes a difference.

[Aneshda]

Such a cringe post. Go outside and get some sun. Cry at home not here. No one cares.

So damn salty. Who do you try to fool? If you don't care, why are you replying here in my thread?