How do we develop Better Casual Content?

[Valence]

Is it? The game has a myriad of things for you to experience and enjoy, golden saucer minigames, mahjong, jumping puzzles, combat roulettes, triple triad collectibles, sightseeing challenges, crafting, criterion dungeons (non savage), bozja, eureka, blue mage challenges (and an upcoming beastmaster job), deep dungeons, they dumbed down every single job so you could learn it faster, beast (or company) tribes challenges, all of this you can do without the pressure of other people asking you to git gud, so in my mind this game has almost 80% casual content, all of what I've mentioned is enough content for more than a year.

This is added on top of 4 current savages, 2 extreme trials and an upcoming dungeon should you desire to go deeper into the game. All of which have rewards you must beat the fight multiple times to get.

If you don't like that, that's up to you. If you're truly a casual, how can you say that there is nothing for you to do for the next 5 months?

Did you seriously shove criterion (non savage) and savage BLU into casual content? Bwahahaha.

I do however agree with you that to SE's eyes it probably seems that all of this (minor criterion/BLU savage) makes a big bulk of the game and falls indeed into the casual umbrella, but what they do not seem to see is that in terms of actual pve, well, casual has been run... relatively thin. Housing, gold saucer, TT, sightseeing, doh/dol, etc, are not actual pve.

[Volgia]

Did you seriously shove criterion (non savage) and savage BLU into casual content? Bwahahaha.

I do however agree with you that to SE's eyes it probably seems that all of this (minor criterion/BLU savage) makes a big bulk of the game and falls indeed into the casual umbrella, but what they do not seem to see is that in terms of actual pve, well, casual has been run... relatively thin. Housing, gold saucer, TT, sightseeing, doh/dol, etc, are not actual pve.

Oh, I meant Variant Dungeons and Blu collection spellbook, but the Criterion and Blu Savage fall more into "hardcore". It's hard to parse exactly what players want out of casual content here, my guess would have been more challenging dungeons they could play, you know, make the roulettes more challenging, but they went the other way by stripping almost everything that made dungeons interesting in service for their TRUST system.

But as I said, in terms of actual PVE, it's all casual. All of it. FATES, Dungeons, Normal raids, Alliance raids, it's all pretty casual. It offers no actual meaningful challenge or difficulty curb that requires skill or optimization. Nier and Ivallice were somewhat challenging but players complained it was too hard and they didn't sign up for the dark souls experience so, we got the snoozefest that was the Myths of the Realm AR.


Look at it, as opposed to "Hardcore" content. Hardcore is 4 savages and an ultimate every 9 months. Extremes are too easy for hardcore players, they eat that content in an hour, but even then it's one per patch. Compare it to the overwhelming amount of stuff you can do "casually" and without any time investment. It's 80% / 20% at best.

[Valence]

Oh, I meant Variant Dungeons and Blu collection spellbook, but the Criterion and Blu Savage fall more into "hardcore". It's hard to parse exactly what players want out of casual content here, my guess would have been more challenging dungeons they could play, you know, make the roulettes more challenging, but they went the other way by stripping almost everything that made dungeons interesting in service for their TRUST system.

But as I said, in terms of actual PVE, it's all casual. All of it. FATES, Dungeons, Normal raids, Alliance raids, it's all pretty casual. It offers no actual meaningful challenge or difficulty curb that requires skill or optimization. Nier and Ivallice were somewhat challenging but players complained it was too hard and they didn't sign up for the dark souls experience so, we got the snoozefest that was the Myths of the Realm AR.


Look at it, as opposed to "Hardcore" content. Hardcore is 4 savages and an ultimate every 9 months. Extremes are too easy for hardcore players, they eat that content in an hour, but even then it's one per patch. Compare it to the overwhelming amount of stuff you can do "casually" and without any time investment. It's 80% / 20% at best.

I honestly think people just want fresh and engaging things. Not the same stale formula. There was a lukewarm cheer when casual dungeons saw their difficulty ramp up a little as promised by Yoshida just before DT, and really, the difficulty "increase" is only on bosses, and it's not mechanical, it's just on execution because the thing they changed is the pace at which bosses throw mechanics at you, which is the laziest thing they could have done, but i'm going on a tangent here.

They just want for the low hanging fruit, which was difficulty and a willingness to make casual dungeons less of a snoozefest (it was said alongside those words by Yoshida, just more politely), when in reality they could have introduced variety and creativity, instead of vapid and lazy conformism. Yes, it requires more work, and yes, Yoshida expressly stated that the dungeon formula isn't going to change any time soon because of productivity considerations and because they're happy with it anyway. While it made me incredibly depressed to read this, in a way I still commend the man for finally stating clear directions to us instead of keeping us in the dark until done deeds.