Catering To Casual Playerbase

[Deleted]

Why is Blizzard always catering to the casual player base? I get that people don't have the time to invest into a game comparing to the hardcore player base, but it makes the hardcore player base irrelevant when nerfs come into play. You have to balance between them two, not only focus on one player base type.

I've seen it already nerfs regarding the kruul artifact challenge. It was done twice, perhaps triple times (Might missed one) and the question is: Why?
Its a Challenge end of story. People state that you need the specific item level to do it. No? I've seen dozen of times where even 920 ilvl players had to do the challenge 80 times give or take less/more. Please stop the BS complaining and think of this challenge as GOAL, a journey, on what do you need to conquer it.

[ls-]

Because that's what they've been doing since day one. Ofc they do create content for not-so-casual and hardcore crowds too!

Originally WoW was created as a casual MMO, more casual than anything that's on the market back in the day.

[Eleccybubb]

You mean why have they been doing what they have been since day 1 of WoW? Accessibility I guess. Since the other alternatives at the time were hardcore games or a massive grind.

[WowIsDead64]

Because <Number of players> = F(<Skill>) distribution - is always normal one.

[Deleted]

Because:
Casual = 90% of paying customers
Hardcore = max. 10% of paying customers

Imagine that Blizzard was your private company. Who would you cater the content to?

[Deleted]

Yeah, no. The tanking challenge shuold be a Skill (or better Tank skill) and Dps challange (i agree that Tank must optimize dps).

But now is a Dps--->Dps----->Dps------->Dps-------->Dps---------->Dps--------->Skill challenge.

With this nerf they are just starting to bring things to normal.

Oh and before you jump at me yelling "But it's obvious now is really hard! Blizzard stated you need ToS gear!". Ok. Let me tell you that with that statemant Blizzard probably want to include the Raid Finder ToS gear. And it's 885 ilvl, if i remember well. And we all know you CAN'T do the tank challenge with 885 ilvl.

So this nerf are prefectly fine. Becasue it will still be a challenge, the "casual" won't be able to do this until 7.3. most probably.

[Tekkommo]

The game has always been casual.

Your example makes no sense, casual does not mean bad.

[Krieleros]

Because that's what they've been doing since day one. Ofc they do create content for not-so-casual and hardcore crowds too!

Originally WoW was created as a casual MMO, more casual than anything that's on the market back in the day.

This. Compared to EQ, Lineage and, to a certain extent, FFXI, vanilla WoW was a very casual friendly game. It's where the money is. Hardcore players burn out or lose interest at a higher rate than casuals. Less hardcore players are the ones with the extra scratch to buy your mounts and services. They are the ones you want to string along as long as possible. While I raid mythic, I'd consider myself relatively casual compared to how I used to play MMOs. If I had to subject myself to the bullshit I did in classic and TBC, I'd have quit long ago.

The encounter OP references is also broken for some classes. Two prot paladins have killed it, I believe. One was borderline exploit and the other was by one of the best paladins in the world and he had favorable RNG.

[GetREAL]

The challenges should be equal across the board... You can't convince me that a 920 player doing the tank challenge in 80 attempts vs me at 905 doing the DPS one in 11 attempts is fair.

[Swalload]

Why is Blizzard always catering to the casual player base? I get that people don't have the time to invest into a game comparing to the hardcore player base, but it makes the hardcore player base irrelevant when nerfs come into play. You have to balance between them two, not only focus on one player base type.

I've seen it already nerfs regarding the kruul artifact challenge. It was done twice, perhaps triple times (Might missed one) and the question is: Why?
Its a Challenge end of story. People state that you need the specific item level to do it. No? I've seen dozen of times where even 920 ilvl players had to do the challenge 80 times give or take less/more. Please stop the BS complaining and think of this challenge as GOAL, a journey, on what do you need to conquer it.

That's their target audience. Gamers looking for a challenge have left WoW behind a long time ago. WoW is my go to game when I feel like binge watching series and get shit done without even looking at the game.

If I want a challenge I'll go play old ninja gaiden and battletoad, not an MMO lol.
O_o

[Deleted]

There is nothing wrong with catering to a casual audience. It is in fact necessary to keep any game like this alive. Blizzard making countless bad decisions is what is hurting and possibly killing the game. The mage tower tank challenge is an imbalanced, bug-ridden joke of a scenario. Describing that as a challenge would be an insult to any game that actually provides challenge. They even put NPCs with their completely inept AI into this scenario, it's indefensible.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Catering to Hardcores and raiders overall; We get WOD.
Catering to Casuals and non-raiders; We get expansions like WOTLK, MoP, Legion.

99% of the playerbase pays for the game. The 1% calling themselves "hardcore" and clearing raids, can fuck off to LoL if they want a game where they can just log on and jump straight into a narrow field of content.

However, just to inform the ignorant; casual player =/= bad player. Fact.

[Lady Dragonheart]

For all those that complained about WoD, WoD was a prime example of how catering to the hardcore crowd hurt subs and content releases.

[RoKPaNda]

Why is Blizzard always catering to the casual player base? I get that people don't have the time to invest into a game comparing to the hardcore player base, but it makes the hardcore player base irrelevant when nerfs come into play. You have to balance between them two, not only focus on one player base type.

I've seen it already nerfs regarding the kruul artifact challenge. It was done twice, perhaps triple times (Might missed one) and the question is: Why?
Its a Challenge end of story. People state that you need the specific item level to do it. No? I've seen dozen of times where even 920 ilvl players had to do the challenge 80 times give or take less/more. Please stop the BS complaining and think of this challenge as GOAL, a journey, on what do you need to conquer it.

Because there is no reason at all to cater to the hardcore playerbase. Everything up until Mythic raiding is casual, heroic is pug faceroll territory, and do you know how many people actually raid Mythic? The hilariously undertuned EN skews it a little, but it's always around 2%~ of the population. Why cater to them instead of catering to the much larger casual playerbase? You can tax the hardcore a little by catering to the casuals and the hardcore doesn't go anywhere, there is no game out there that has PvE quite like WoW's PvE. If you tax the casuals by catering to the hardcore they're more volatile and will take their money and fuck off elsewhere. Catering to the casuals is the smart business decision.

If the super hardcore were to leave, the game would be fine. Nobody is going to quit WoW because the super hardcores are all gone, nobody is going to avoid picking up an expansion because their favorite raid guild has died off, etc.

MMOs used to be more hardcore yes, and then WoW came along and even at it's most hardcore grindy inconvenient resist gear weapon skill bullshit time it was by far the most casual MMO, and as the genre became popular thanks mostly to WoW, MMO's became less of a basement dweller pastime and moved into the mainstream, which lead to them becoming even more casual.

[Onikaroshi]

The point in the OP wasn't even casual vs hardcore, it was imbalance of the Tank challenge vs. every other challenge.

It required more dps then most classes could put out while tanking. You can do the DPS challenges at a relatively low ilvl (hell i got agatha to 19% as an 883 UH DK) if you were good enough. That doesn't hold true for the tank challenge, the "best" tanks in the world struggled and struggled.

They're fixing an imbalance, not "catering to casuals"

[chewie49]

there are more casuals than HC, so they make more money on casuals. its business junior.

[Banthare]

Why does it matter? I'd rather play WoW as a casual than some gungho gaymer master that only knows how to breathe nothing else but WoW into their lives.

[Deleted]

This. Compared to EQ, Lineage and, to a certain extent, FFXI, vanilla WoW was a very casual friendly game. It's where the money is. Hardcore players burn out or lose interest at a higher rate than casuals. Less hardcore players are the ones with the extra scratch to buy your mounts and services. They are the ones you want to string along as long as possible. While I raid mythic, I'd consider myself relatively casual compared to how I used to play MMOs. If I had to subject myself to the bullshit I did in classic and TBC, I'd have quit long ago.

The encounter OP references is also broken for some classes. Two prot paladins have killed it, I believe. One was borderline exploit and the other was by one of the best paladins in the world and he had favorable RNG.

If Vannila was alredy casual there wasnt any reason to make game even more casual every expansion. They should just let it on vannila level.

- - - Updated - - -

there are more casuals than HC, so they make more money on casuals. its business junior.

Even casuals like me are bored of this easy mod driven content.

[SupBrah]

As I've gotten older, I prefer the more casual route of WoW.

Hardcore PvE people still have mythics

Hardcore PvP people still have rated bgs/arena.

Nowadays, everyone can easily do LFR AND pug normals (even heroics if you're not a tard). Casual PvPers ofc have brawls now, but they can also easily find groups on the LFG tab that are just wanting to farm prestige/honor and not worried about rating

I simply don't have the time to invest into end-game, progression raiding. Heroics? Sure, let's whipe some until we get it. Mythics? Fuck that. I don;t have time to grind out certain things to try and min/max all my stats and slots.

Honestly, I wish LFR had never happened and instead we got Cross-Realm Flex raiding (using LFR or previously OQueue) to begin with. I've had more fun pugging norms/heroics, meeting new people in different discords, etc this expac (and even some of WoD) than I ever did MoP.

Hell, it's to the point where I can go in and clear Heroic NH with a group I started running with faster than it takes to sit in LFR queue 4 times and spend extra time killing unnecessary trash because some braindead hunter wants to pull half of NH.

[Deleted]

For all those that complained about WoD, WoD was a prime example of how catering to the hardcore crowd hurt subs and content releases.

how was wod catering to the hardcore players? Im not saying youre wrong, i am just curious. Feels like wod was the most casual friendly expansion imo, with all the pruning (legion has pruning too, but alot of the content is still hard and grindy).