Why do casuals need gear?

[Osmeric]

And since Wrath, which is when gear became trivial, subs have been on a steady decline.

The decline started when Blizzard tried to move back from casualization.

The idea that players want frustration and exclusion has never made any sense when examined critically.

[DeadmanWalking]

If a casual decides to raid they can cross the line into Raiding without someone telling them they can't raid because they don't have the gear and they can help you down a boss without having to be dragged across the finish line to the loot. Nobody wants to drag an undergeared player across the finish line just so they can get enough people to raid with. They can move into raiding if they wish without being a hassel to your group and they can help you down a boss rather than being a burden and needing to be pulled across the finish line. If you have a raid slot you need to fill and a casual is geared up enough that you can invite them and down the boss without a problem then the problem isn't how the game is designed the problem is with you and your severe character flaws.

If you are worried about other people having things like you and that makes you feel less special then it is time to get your head out of your ass and understand you are not quite as unique as you like to imagine you are. There are 10 million other people playing this game and chances are lots of people do what you do. It is the height of shallow to be driving a yellow lamborghini and getting pissed off when you realize that they sell hundreds of thousands of yellow lamborghini's every year.

I don't care what other people have. I don't care what other people do in a video game. I derive my value from my life, my family and my friends. I don't try to find value in a bunch of pixels and staring at a monitor for hours on end.

It is time to put on the big boy pants and get on with enjoying the game without worrying what someone else has or is doing in comparison to yourself.

[Triks]

A game about loot, interesting...you mean the same thing you get in any facebook game right?
If you see this game as nothing more than a loot pinata (its probably the case) then I understand better why so many gamers have low standards for modern games. Why bother making things interesting when you just have to pamper people's ego with shiny rewards that shout "you are the greatest" every 5 minutes at the expense of actually focusing on game design and gameplay.

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I thought that maybe...just maybe people could actually ask for decent character progression, meaning actual story telling, gameplay, adding RPG into the game you see? Maybe its more important than "progressing" by just increasing meaningless numbers on your character sheet. But hey I guess nowadays people think RPGs are only about gear treadmills, never mind the "role playing" and character agency in there. Just go get that very crucial +50 stamina and feel like you are progressing anywhere with it

Okay.

From tomorrow Arena, raids, dungeons, professions, etc. won't reward any gear, mounts, titles, achievement points, feats of strength, the works. The best gear in the game is gained from killing critters in capital cities. All critters share the same loot table and nothing is faction-specific or race specific - the critter in Stormwind drops the same sword as the critter in Orgrimmar. Doesn't matter which kind of critter, as long as it is a critter.

Raiding is done solely "for the challenge" and PvP is done for "the experience". Oh by the way, there is no arena rank and no arena table - you just play for the hell of it.

Do you think the players will bust their skulls against Mythic bosses in that scenario where killing a cockroach in a capital city can give them that title and that mount? We both know where the plalyerbase will be after that change is implemented.

WoW is a game about character progression in which it is measured either with levels, ranks or gear. If you remove ANY of this you remove the game from itself. Arguing against this is disingenuous.

[rackoon]

As an ex-casual I always wanted some way of getting gear without the need of getting into raids. Just sayin.

[Triks]

As an ex-casual I always wanted some way of getting gear without the need of getting into raids. Just sayin.

Honestly, this is what should have been pushed forward, instead of LFD and LFR. Tier 0.5 should have been expanded upon as a concept and integrated with questing that could have featured professions, social interaction, low-level arena, pugging the first boss of the new raid, pet battles and basically everything that a casual does.

[Snuffleupagus]

It was a steady decline because of the inconsequence of Blizzard distributing gear..... you still don't get titanforged Mythic gear from time to time for doing LFR or farming mobs in the open. ;-)

Oh you mean if you have only gear for the best of the best it will climb up to 12 mio. subs and more? :-D :-D :-D Yes, we live in 2004 where Blizzard haS all the advantage they had back then where WoW has been the most casual MMORPG on the market.

To answer the Question:
Why do Casuals need gear? - personal character progression, and..... "non of your damn business".

Except casuals have gear options. The complaint that is referenced is where people QQ that they can't break past 850ilvl (which is untrue).

Why would they need to? All skins are available (recolors notwithstanding), so the only thing left is ilvl. Which you don't need.

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How about disabling Mythic gear out in the world? Mythic raiders don't need to have their world experience trivialised, they have their skills to rely on ...

Silly isn't it.

Except this tired argument ignores that Mythic raiders put the effort into obtaining gear.

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Pathetically amusing this thread is still going when so many don't even understand what a casual player is...

People treat casual as casual = bad.

But casuals have a pathway to gear. It's called Mythic+. Bads don't like this because they are generally:

a. Antisocial neckbeards who are happy to call social people neckbeards
b. Terrible players who need ilvl880 to do M+2

Casuals who aren't terrible have never needed gear, since the game rewards gear appropriate to content completed. Bads cry out for welfare gear and can't stand it when others get something they could have but are too lazy to try and get.

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The decline started when Blizzard tried to move back from casualization.

The idea that players want frustration and exclusion has never made any sense when examined critically.

Cata was not hardcore at launch in the slightest. People who complained about difficulty were too stupid to remember that they'd spent months outgearing Heroics. Wrath Heroics done at fresh 80 were actually a bit more challenging that people like to remember.

Cata was no different, except the QQ storm from people who had spent 18 months forgetting to move out of fire was much more pronounced. You have it now too, where complaints about Mythic difficultly are from people who simply shouldn't be attempting that level of difficulty.

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Honestly, this is what should have been pushed forward, instead of LFD and LFR. Tier 0.5 should have been expanded upon as a concept and integrated with questing that could have featured professions, social interaction, low-level arena, pugging the first boss of the new raid, pet battles and basically everything that a casual does.

Mythic+. Queued BG. Arena Skirmish.

If it seems like they don't offer large quantities of rewards, that's because they are designed for casual players, not bad ones.

[Wolfie of Medivh]

Because gear is progression, without gear, there's no reason to play. Sorry, high-and-mighties but ya gotta share the wealth, just a bit.

[Snuffleupagus]

Because gear is progression, without gear, there's no reason to play. Sorry, high-and-mighties but ya gotta share the wealth, just a bit.

Except it has been shared. If you're clearing LFR and then finding you have nothing to do, just how much time do you have on your hands?

That's not very casual.

Instead of looking at your own progression, you're comparing yourself to others. Bit ironic since a lot of people keep saying "why do you care what others have?" in this thread.

[Yunaqt]

Personally not fussed since I don't really care what others are doing.
In saying that i'm pretty casual myself, whilst I do raid in a 7/7M guild that is all I do in this game these days. I only play a few hours on our 3 raid nights and maybe a few hours spread out through the week for caches.
Guild clears the content relatively fast to reduce raiding to once a week so I only have to log on do my cache each day and that's it.

[Osmeric]

Cata was not hardcore at launch in the slightest.

It's amazing you can spout such bullshit when Blizzard's statements -- in the New York Times! -- directly contradict you.

[belleflop]

Casual player is not mutually exclusive to players who don't raid or do group content. You can be a casual player who plays the game 3 hours a week and in that 3 hours clear the hardest content and get the best gear. I think what the OP is trying to ask is," why do people who don't play the game how I do deserve anything because they don't play the game the way I do." This has, and will always be, a subjective argument. So to answer your question, yes.

[Triks]

It's amazing you can spout such bullshit when Blizzard's statements -- in the New York Times! -- directly contradict you.

Cata continued to bleed subs even after the nerfs. TBC, the expansion most of you hate, never bled subs.

[Osmeric]

Cata continued to bleed subs even after the nerfs. TBC, the expansion most of you hate, never bled subs.

Cata subs stabilized for half a year in the quarter LFR released and the one after. Nerfs before that time were inadequate to stem the loss; only in 4.3 did the devs really throw in the towel on their foolish attempt to increase difficulty.

TBC bled subs constantly. What it didn't do is bleed NET subs, because there were still enough new people flowing in to compensate for the losses.

[Triks]

Cata subs stabilized for half a year in the quarter LFR released and the one after. Nerfs before that time were inadequate to stem the loss; only in 4.3 did the devs really throw in the towel on their foolish attempt to increase difficulty.

TBC bled subs constantly. What it didn't do is bleed NET subs, because there were still enough new people flowing in to compensate for the losses.

Here's the bottom line - Cata lost 2 million even after a significant reduction in overall difficulty (not just LFR) and TBC gained 4 million. Spin it the way you want.

If you are trying to say that "difficulty=/=fun" I agree. However, what the game has had from Cata onwards was never good.

[Osmeric]

Here's the bottom line - Cata lost 2 million even after a significant reduction in overall difficulty (not just LFR) and TBC gained 4 million. Spin it the way you want.

The evidence is strong that TBC's gain wasn't because it was hard. If that had been the case, the pivot back to difficulty for Cataclysm would have worked better.

The majority of the net sub loss in Cataclysm was before 4.3; only ~1.2M net was lost afterwards. The end-expansion sub loss is more likely due to the last tier being out too long (and panda-phobia), not due to nerfing.

[Triks]

The evidence is strong that TBC's gain wasn't because it was hard. If that had been the case, the pivot back to difficulty for Cataclysm would have worked better.

The majority of the net sub loss in Cataclysm was before 4.3; only ~1.2M net was lost afterwards. The end-expansion sub loss is more likely due to the last tier being out too long (and panda-phobia), not due to nerfing.

No, it was exactly because it was hard and that's why you also had the first drop off in Cata, mind you. TBC's difficulty was handled better by the players because the players themselves were actually, well, better. After 2 years of Wrath and a year of ICC pugging, the players had actually become worse. Couple this with LFD and you start to realise why the initial Cata heroics were viewed to be so difficult.

In a game, difficulty is needed, however, how it is handled is often the problem. If you have random match-making, you can't have difficult content because people won't be able to complete it. However, if you do have such content, then this leads to burnout very fast as players are able to run that content almost indeffinetely. LFR and LFD also have the problem of doing too much, in the sense that they fill a gap which in the past was filled by a combination of quests, professions, reps and low-level PvP. Getting your starter gear in TBC was not more difficult then it is now (and it was actually faster, mind you) but it was more enjoyable because you were doing BGs, arenas, PuGs, heroics and playing the AH. That's a lot of stuff and at least it guarantees you won't get bored from running the same thing over and over again.

As a final note, if you are going to quote Ghostcrawler, why not quote what he said recently (or about a year ago, I forgot) about LFR?

[Brokeback]

Why does anyone "need" gear? You could easily argue that the necessity of gear for progression could be just as easily replaced by a system of gradual nerfing that simulated increases in item level.

The reason gear exists in the game is not because it is strictly needed for progression or high-level play. It exists for exactly the same reason it's there for "casual" players as it is for other types of players, and everyone here, deep down, knows what that reason is.

Take away gear, put in functionally equivalent replacement systems for hardcore/progression-oriented players, and see what happens .

[Deleted]

Of course casuals need gear...what a strange idea thinking casuals dont need any. Ever tried to go in a dungeon, whether normal, heroic or mythic butt naked???

[meleth]

This thread is a bit enormous to read all of it but nobody "needs" gear. It's a fun reward for doing content-- the carrot on the stick. Everyone likes a reward for their efforts, regardless of how many hours they have to dedicate.

[Dire]

That's why GW2 is the leader in MMO gaming.

Oh.

LOLOLLOL. Nicely done.


GW is GARBAGE!