How do we develop Better Casual Content?

[Gurgeh]

First of all we need to define casual


To me casual is content that:

1. Battle content has to be the feature. (All else is sidegame and mechanics)
2. the content will have considred how it can be accessible to an exising group of friends who may have different priorities, rather than requiring a dedicated social group selected acording to an 'aligned' priority.
3. you can enter with little preparation. i.e. You can be confident that people are not going to be annoyed if they have to explain a mechanic to you, if if your going in blind.
4. it entirely is self sufficient within the gameloop (not requiring external discords and the such.)
5. That you can get geared up for in about with about 10 hours playtime of existing casual, assuming previous casual patches/loops are completed in similar manner. (Expensive omnicrafted gear would not suffice
6. you can always participate in if you don't want to organise your own PF.
7. you can always participate in if you don't feel you can't yet make 'promises' to other people about your performance.
8. if it is to be joined via PF, you can be confident that people aren't going to kick you, or keep you out, because you've hidden yourself or opted out of fflogs.
9. doesn't incentivise people to abandon instances because a clear isn't guaranteed (or discourages such behaviour).
10. it will incentivise people to get more comfortable with the content through farming and repetition, appealing to both those who are motviated by rewards and those who are motivated by 'play'
11. it should be a recogniseable 'adition' to exsiting casual content, very often this should be a 'reasonable/incrimental' increase in challenge over other casual content.
12. the enouncounter is not likely to be subverted by optmisation as a means to some outside higher end, it should not become get in get out (hunt trains are a good example of this, where encoutners are something to be skipped, the aim is just collect materiaor marks with as little 'enagaement' as possible.)
13. queuable in the above manner for the majority of an expansion.

How might this casual conent look?:

Well I'm going to be frank. The first thing is attention to no 2. And I'm afriad that casual content is likely to be about friends and healthy player demogrpahics.

• You just HAVE to fix Cross DC PF.

You won't be able to queue any content if the player base thats unlocked it has left for another DC.
You also won't have any friends if you've just left a DC you spent 2 or more years building your network on.
All other endevours are futile until this is addressed. Fix This.

I think providing casual content should not ever assume that you avoid challengng the player. To the contrary if casual content is to feel fresh it has to offer a new challegnge.

• FFXIV is not the immature game it used to be. It is mature. All your end game casual players are mature. I think it needs to be recongnised that while it used to work in the past the 3x3 dungeon format will always feel stale even when a brandnew re-skin comes out.

Make High-End content more accessible to the 'casual' player.
If you can get a 'current' casual player into higher-end content that 'does' count.
Think about marketing. Are you sure that 'Extreme' was a good description? Are you sure that 'Expert' is a good description?
To this end:

• The Speed with which you release Savage after a brand new expansion is plain 'ignorant' if you want to get casual players into Savage.

I really can't believe how long you are willing to leave casual players without content, yet you need to pander to he high end player almost from the moment expansion is released. It's so idiotic it's not even worth contempt, its farcically incompetent if your aim is to get people playing.

I wanted to get into savage. Thought I would be able to. I assumed that being fully caught up at the previous expansion the game would walk me into it...

Like F, me and 'every', 'EVERY'casual player I knew was still doing the MSQ when savage came out. And I was playing daily (but only in afternoons). In fact I was the first to finish from my friends.
The people who finished? you guessed it? All ultimate players form last expansion.

• Next expansion... delay savage by a further 2 months. Allow everyone to get tome geared up in at least two jobs. By all means have crafted for pentamelded that is better than entry tome.
• Give the casual player a way to overgear a little, but one which is less optimal than that aimed at your week 0 hardcore player. For confidence. (And one that doesn't compell them to prostitute themselves on Balmung for gil or use MB bots)

I missed Savage M1, and so now I've got to wait another two years? Well I know there is no point becuase I'm not giong to be ready on time for that savage either.
I Need to feel part of the current event, like I'm used to to for dungeons, trials, normals, alliances, and everything before now.
Its what gives me my confidence that I 'belong'.

What do I want? I want the Extremes fights, but more accessible and welcoming.
How would I do it?

• At present there is only a flag for 'completion', add flag for 'phase 1 complete' and 'phase 2 complete'. The aim is to allow people to DF queue for Phase 1, Phase 2, Complete.
• Noone would be able to make you feel like you don't belong if you've got the flag for 'P1 complete'
• create a mentour system, that rewards players who have completed the fight five times, just for sticking with a party of DF queued 'phase 1', 'phase 2', 'complete' for 40 minutes. Just give them 1/2/3 totems for whatever you think will be sufficient.
• And incentivise NEW/CASUAL/DAUNTED players with rewards! The current reward just puts people of. We can't even 'hope' for 100 clears. Offer 1 mount at the end of the expansion just for clearing each fight 'once'.
• OR you know , you could even add a shiny weapon. For brand new players they'd feel so freakin proud if they had weapon to show off for doing their first 'really' challenging fights.
• Offer a shiny weapon per extreme. Bought from vendor with tokens. Tokens you can only get from doing any Extreme WHILE it is still high-end. guaranteed drop.

Even those who have done the fights don't notice the weapons as something special
Really, that absolute nothing you do to make that scary Extreme enticing to players who've spent three years churning OP dungeons and raids is just... I don't have the words honetly.
You spend all that money developing fights.. and then you waste it for the lack of some 3D modelling on some shiny weapons.
If you can't still differentiate from 'ultimate' weapons then you just need better artsits.