"You Will Die" Difficulty... Can I Have It?

[Zumi]

I'm not saying I'm against hard content, but is it worth developer's time to create super hard content.

This is a bell curve. If you ever learn statistics, this is used constantly


Making content that is for the farther right (like SD+1 or SD+2), more hardcore, group worth their effort? Content that 16 to 2% of player can will enjoy? Or is it, as a developer, better to make content for more left, less hardcore, group. Like at the SD-1 spot would be probably ideal, for profit. 84% of the population could handle that.

In short, hardcore content is not really cost effective from a development stand point. Resources to to appease 2 to 16% of the player base is hardly worth it.

EDIT: This is just a sample bell curve. Just used to make a point.

Oh there's a reason to make content for less then 1% of the player base. It gives casual players something they can try to work for but never achieve so they can feel like they are never done because they have not beat all the raid bosses on hard mode and do not have the best gear. Less then 0.1% of the WoW playerbase can beat Hard mode raids on current tier. Its often the hard core less then 1% that make a bunch of videos and stuff of your game which is basically a bunch of free advertising.

It's the carrot on a stick that you can never reach that keeps people playing.

[Klive]

Oh there's a reason to make content for less then 1% of the player base. It gives casual players something they can try to work for but never achieve so they can feel like they are never done because they have not beat all the raid bosses on hard mode and do not have the best gear. Less then 0.1% of the WoW playerbase can beat Hard mode raids on current tier. Its often the hard core less then 1% that make a bunch of videos and stuff of your game which is basically a bunch of free advertising.

It's the carrot on a stick that you can never reach that keeps people playing.

I know what you want, its tiered content. That does have some strengths, it gives and great sense of journey and accomplishment. Earning your way into Molten Core or Onyxia's lair was a feat to be proud of, let alone clearing them. But their is a huge problem with these as well. Tiered content has lots of bottle necks and creates huge hurdles for new players. Nothing makes a girl/bot friend love a game like "I'm sorry, you can't play with me until you finish 2 months of raiding after you hit max level." Bottle necks make it hard to progress to the next tier. You can't get a raid to help clear UBRS to key you to BWL because you are behind the curve? Too bad, try again later.

Also, you need "resets" tiered content due if you get too many tiers the hurdle becomes way too high for new players. Well that leads to another problem, such a small percentage will reach the highest tiers. As Zumi pointed out, less than 1% of vanilla WoW player reached Naxx. For someone trying and working hard to reach Naxx and then a "reset", ie expansion, comes out, that really sucks.

I will say, I did like vanilla WoW. I played it a lot and raided a lot. If FF14 had a similar path, I would be fine with that. I do accept they are walking a tight rope and not everyone is going to be happy with whatever decision they make.