How do we develop Better Casual Content?

[Asako]

Pull staff from dungeons and get them working on fun battle content. Dungeons are terrible. Have the odd one here and there for story, but stop making them the bread and butter of patches. I'd rather more trials and raids.

[ZoReee]

Because your definition of "midcore" content is indistinguishable from what is regarded as "casual" content. Hunts, Fates, dungeons, normal raids, they are all the "casual" content. They can be cleared doing lots of mistakes, they don't have any enrage to beat (i.e. no requirement for doing the job rotation even remotely correct), heck most people get carried through most of these activities anyway. Failstates require a significant part of the group to repeatedly fail over and over. Any content that wants to be labeled "midcore", needs to up the ante in some way. And yes, Bozja is no "midcore" content, it's utterly casual, except for Red Choctober. And you can regularly see Red Choctober utterly annihilating all the "midcore" players. because despite it only having 3 mechanics, the "midcore" players approach it with the "casual" mindset of "not bothering to learn anything".

So yes, Extremes, at the very least the first 2 of an expansion, and this tier's first savage fight, are midcore content. You actually have to do something there, and failstates that cannot be avoided when most of the group mess up. But they are still easier than some later savage fights which do much higher skill level.

Its literally not, I said what was casual and I said what was midcore in this thread. But I can rehash what midcore is for you if you'd like

midcore is Expert Dungeons, Normal Raids, variant dungeons, Alliance raids on occasion(mostly the shadowbringer onwards ones), Deep dungeons, and Field farms like bozja. Things at those levels of difficulty you need to know your class proficiently enough to play the game without dogging your team.

Hardcore is extremes, savages, criterion, ultimates, unreals, chaos aliance because not only do they need you to know your class, you're fighting an Enrage Timer and need higher levels of communication to clear. Take enrage off extremes and i'd fully agree they would immediately become midcore content. (like holy shit dude they literally have a different duty tab too, like do you call ultimates hardcore+++ because they are harder than savages? you don't, even if extremes are the easiest hardcore content they are still literally under the umbrella)

I just said what casual was just above so i wont repeat that.

Does that clarify? in this case HC is getting an ultimate, unreal, extreme, and a chaos alliance this patch, Midcore is getting an expert dungeon and alliance raid, casuals are getting QOL, MSQ and some beast tribe quests. Tell me where the issue isn't?

*not to mention HC people get to do everything else in the patch too, as there is no you do this and you do that, they literally just get more to do

[AllenThyl]

midcore is Expert Dungeons, Normal Raids, variant dungeons, Alliance raids on occasion(mostly the shadowbringer onwards ones), Deep dungeons, and Field farms like bozja. Things at those levels of difficulty you need to know your class proficiently enough to play the game without dogging your team.

Aside from Deep Dungeons: No you don't, that's the whole point I was making. The majority of people get carried through the content you listed. The DPS discrepancy in an Alliance Raid duty finder party between top and bottom performers isn't 30%, it's 50-200%. Just to give you some ballpark numbers from last Expansion ARs, the top DPS were somewhere around 11k dps, while the majority clocked around 8k, with the lowest people dpsing about 5k. And there were still boss mechanics skipped. Speed kills of these bosses at content were often less than 2 minutes!

It's also funny how you think that the "Shadowbringer onwards ones" were the more difficult Alliance Raids, when the EW ones are widely and justifiably regarded as complete and utter joke with regards to difficulty.

The thing is, you have preconceived ideas about the difficulty of encounters you have never experienced like a window shopper. You see "Extreme" or "Minstrel's Ballad" and think "must be only for hardcore people". I mean, the very fact that you are already making an assessment of the Chaos Alliance raid difficulty when it's not even out and you most likely never step foot in it is pretty bold.

ake enrage off extremes and i'd fully agree they would immediately become midcore content. (like holy shit dude they literally have a different duty tab too)

Again, they ARE the midcore content. The enrage timer is to prevent people taking unlimited rezzes / tanks into them and just cheese the whole fight. Otherwise, they would just be casual content again! The enrage also serves to enforce a mediocum of job skill that can be expected of, you know, a "midcore" player. You make lots of distinctions to separate what is "midcore" and what is not, but the end result is that the activities and the skill level you describe of this group is indistinguishable from the group that typically gets the "casual" label stamped on them. People that cannot get past a few mechanics of the easier Extreme trials, have no business to call themselves "midcore". Doing something with no difficulty for longer period of times than another thing without difficulty, isn't an increase in skill. Both activities are still 0 difficulty.

[ZoReee]

Aside from Deep Dungeons: No you don't, that's the whole point I was making. The majority of people get carried through the content you listed. The DPS discrepancy in an Alliance Raid duty finder party between top and bottom performers isn't 30%, it's 50-200%. Just to give you some ballpark numbers from last Expansion ARs, the top DPS were somewhere around 11k dps, while the majority clocked around 8k, with the lowest people dpsing about 5k. And there were still boss mechanics skipped. Speed kills of these bosses at content were often less than 2 minutes!

It's also funny how you think that the "Shadowbringer onwards ones" were the more difficult Alliance Raids, when the EW ones are widely and justifiably regarded as complete and utter joke with regards to difficulty.

The thing is, you have preconceived ideas about the difficulty of encounters you have never experienced like a window shopper. You see "Extreme" or "Minstrel's Ballad" and think "must be only for hardcore people". I mean, the very fact that you are already making an assessment of the Chaos Alliance raid difficulty when it's not even out and you most likely never step foot in it is pretty bold.



Again, they ARE the midcore content. The enrage timer is to prevent people taking unlimited rezzes / tanks into them and just cheese the whole fight. Otherwise, they would just be casual content again! The enrage also serves to enforce a mediocum of job skill that can be expected of, you know, a "midcore" player. You make lots of distinctions to separate what is "midcore" and what is not, but the end result is that the activities and the skill level you describe of this group is indistinguishable from the group that typically gets the "casual" label stamped on them. People that cannot get past a few mechanics of the easier Extreme trials, have no business to call themselves "midcore". Doing something with no difficulty for longer period of times than another thing without difficulty, isn't an increase in skill. Both activities required are still 0 difficulty.

Valigarmastered Defeat Valigarmanda in Worqor Lar Dor (Extreme). 14%
Everkept Defeat Zoraal Ja in Everkeep (Extreme). 12%


Pick On Someone Your Own Size I Complete the quest “The Neoteric Witch” and AAC Light-heavyweight Tier. 21%

Oh wow its almost like the difference between normal raids and extremes is quite large


When theres an obvious line, I think it speaks for itself where hardcore starts??? You don't need to play the game of savage match 1 is actually midcore while everything else is hardcore, it literally says for us right in tracked achievements of the populace that hardcore starts at extreme. unless you want to define midcore as only extreme cause at that point there's even less content and you're further proving the point how stuffed this one part of the populace is. (though at that point you might as well deny the existence of midcore)

[Eraden]

Mao thinkings is another problem to consider. SE pushings DDR-style boss fights does not just affect high end contents. It also influences how SE designs jobs. Even if more casual contents gonna be made, jobs are gonna look more and more not funs. Is why Mao went backs to WoW after being away for 8 years (is LOTS of funs....Mao can even be Dragon). Mao hopings that SE wakes up and stops painting themselves into corner buts at this point, Mao losing that hope fast.

[AllenThyl]

According to lalachievements:

53.1% - Pick on Someone Your Own Size I (m4n)
35.0% - Valigarmastered (EX1)
30.9% - Everkept (EX2)
20.1% - Savage Someone Your Own Size I (m4s)

So yes, they are the midcore content. You can safely assume that all the people who cleared m4s also cleared both Extremes for the weapon and accessories, leaving 10-15% of the player base as midcore. Which is quite a good estimate.

[ZoReee]

According to lalachievements:

53.1% - Pick on Someone Your Own Size I (m4n)
35.0% - Valigarmastered (EX1)
30.9% - Everkept (EX2)
20.1% - Savage Someone Your Own Size I (m4s)

So yes, they are the midcore content. You can safely assume that all the people who cleared m4s also cleared both Extremes for the weapon and accessories, leaving 10-15% of the player base as midcore. Which is quite a good estimate.

Seems like there's a discrepancy between ffxivcollect and lalaachievements, but you chose to be disingenuous instead of saying that(its probably because it only records the achievements of people who signed their account into it as it only tracks 220k people). Not to mention its well known not even 10% of the population participates in savages or higher so idk where they're getting 20%??? the average savage clear % of players is between 5-10% on new tiers

Also even if the numbers you chose are the ideal perfect numbers its a massive difference between 53% and 33% average Ex. Anyone looking at that would say its very clear how much harder one is over the other when you're essentially saying 53% = about 25% (if we count m1s which is probably completed at that rate per your numbers)


also under your numbers(lalaachievements) expert dungeons are cleared at the same exact rate of normal raids

Mapping the Realm: Alexandria
Discover every location within Alexandria.
10 60.0%

Mapping the Realm: Tender Valley
Discover every location within Tender Valley.
10 55.7%

Mapping the Realm: The Strayborough Deadwalk
Discover every location within the Strayborough Deadwalk. 10
55.4%

also here's the last alliance raid of endwalker

Mapping the Realm: Thaleia
Discover every location within Thaleia. 10 60.2%

[RinaB]

As someone who primarily runs casual content, I would honestly like more dungeons and other ways to get gear. I'm happy getting 720 tome gear and augmenting it with the 24 man but I really like doing dungeons and my roulettes. So why can't we have more dungeons that you have to unlock through quest chains etc and then make em tough and they drop tokens you can use to buy dungeon sets you can augment or something. The more battle content the better.

I've read some people talking about bigger dungeons and for those of you who have played wow, black rock depths was a massive dungeon and it was crazy to do a full clear but it was really cool. I'm not saying we need some dungeons that huge but the sense of exploration and completion would be a really nice change especially if they implement dungeon sets as mentioned above.

[ZoReee]

As someone who primarily runs casual content, I would honestly like more dungeons and other ways to get gear. I'm happy getting 720 tome gear and augmenting it with the 24 man but I really like doing dungeons and my roulettes. So why can't we have more dungeons that you have to unlock through quest chains etc and then make em tough and they drop tokens you can use to buy dungeon sets you can augment or something. The more battle content the better.

I've read some people talking about bigger dungeons and for those of you who have played wow, black rock depths was a massive dungeon and it was crazy to do a full clear but it was really cool. I'm not saying we need some dungeons that huge but the sense of exploration and completion would be a really nice change especially if they implement dungeon sets as mentioned above.

I think the consensus is that open field content is pretty bad currently because outside of MSQ, treasure spots, gathering, Fate farming and hunts (and some side questing) they're just not used. Its just giant massive areas you fly from node to node essentially.

[ZoReee]

According to lalachievements:

53.1% - Pick on Someone Your Own Size I (m4n)
35.0% - Valigarmastered (EX1)
30.9% - Everkept (EX2)
20.1% - Savage Someone Your Own Size I (m4s)

So yes, they are the midcore content. You can safely assume that all the people who cleared m4s also cleared both Extremes for the weapon and accessories, leaving 10-15% of the player base as midcore. Which is quite a good estimate.

I searched for an even better definition of hardcore content

"Hardcore is when clearing with new players is almost never going to happen before lockout, unless they're all of a decent skill level." - I think that's insanely fair and doesn't play lets dig into the achievement clearing numbers of random websites.

but in reality, the true midcore content is the content that doesn't exist between Normal Raids and Extremes. Nothing bridges a single wipe normal raid that you clear even your first time doing it vs getting locked out in EX. The jump up is too clear to say EX is midcore unless people want to define midcore as only ex,unreal, and M1s,M2s, while everything underneath that is casual and everything above that is hardcore, which i just don't agree with.