Dear Square Enix! Make the game harder, not easier!

[MrSmiley]

Luckily for everyone, companies only make games for the sense of accomplishment and to cater to only one sub-set of fans.......

If difficulty of content becomes a issue that costs SE subs, you better believe that the nerf hammer will come out. People wanting to strut their cool guy HM endgame elite club stuff means nothing to them, you are the minority and in a sub based game the math favors the casuals.

The only successful sub "casual" mmo I can think of is WoW, and when it officially started its big turn into "casual" in wotlk was when it began its decline and has been in such ever since.

You want people to want to keep their sub and be playing every month, not sub a month every few months to try out the new stuff. A look at recent mmo's success or failure as well as WoW's sub history only proves this. If players don't feel the need for a long term investment in the game, they won't stay constantly subbed. Name me all the successful pay to play mmos you can think of that are casual, excluding wow (which I also addressed above, was at its peaks before it was over-casualized has declined ever since).

I will agree accessibility is important and bars should never be set too high or it will be forever niche, but over-doing the opposite side will result in a similar fall albeit in a slightly different way.

[LiadansWhisper]

The only successful sub "casual" mmo I can think of is WoW, and when it officially started its big turn into "casual" in wotlk was when it began its decline and has been in such ever since.

You want people to want to keep their sub and be playing every month, not sub a month every few months to try out the new stuff. A look at recent mmo's success or failure as well as WoW's sub history only proves this. If players don't feel the need for a long term investment in the game, they won't stay constantly subbed. Name me all the successful pay to play mmos you can think of that are casual, excluding wow (which I also addressed above, was at its peaks before it was over-casualized has declined ever since).

I will agree accessibility is important and bars should never be set too high or it will be forever niche, but over-doing the opposite side will result in a similar fall albeit in a slightly different way.

It actually had its sub peak in WotLK (which happens to be the most casual-friendly and accessible expansion they released). :-\ The subs didn't start to decline until the end (when ICC was out for a freaking year), and dropped even further when they tried to "go back to the good old days" with more punishing 5 man content. But revisionist history...

[MrSmiley]

It actually had its sub peak in WotLK (which happens to be the most casual-friendly and accessible expansion they released). :-\ The subs didn't start to decline until the end (when ICC was out for a freaking year), and dropped even further when they tried to "go back to the good old days" with more punishing 5 man content. But revisionist history...

Just did some more research on the subs, seems a bit more complicated then I thought but also not that simple. It did peak in wotlk but it was also the first time it started dropping (before icc actually) which does support my claim that, if players don't feel the need to sub long haul, they just sub in for new content then sub out when its done. notably in favor of this the subbing which as of before was a steady climb, bursted up but then began an up down pattern it had never seen before. As for cataclysm, at that point they were changing the ways of the game too often and ended up just burning both sides in one way or another. I do believe the real peak was at the time of ulduar (I do recall enjoying that place a lot)

Also, I would like to say that if I am not coming out quite right, I am not saying all content should be super hardcore elites only, but it shouldn't be too easy either. I feel that rather than simply nerfing old content and making it easier, increase its rewards and allow players to progress through it faster. Imagine if in the future, a bigger raid comes out. Instead of making coil/CT easier, we get a higher myth cap and rewards and more items drop in those places. While it does translate to them becoming somewhat "easier" by gear, it doesn't change their core. new players joining an old company can also be geared out by their guildies much faster (who are also probably getting gear for alternate jobs) allowing them to experience old content but get into the newer stuff. This also allows people to gear up alternate jobs faster for new content to change jobs or increase versatility.