Why is end game tailored so much against the casual player?

[Nite92]

Hi.
I've been playing casually since some events in my life forced me to not take the game so serious,
so I've been in some less organized groups who still raid some mythic and with my experience from some competitive gaming I came into some strange conclusions.

Switching a spec takes only 10 seconds, and there are so many hybrid classes, yet there is no practical way to utilize them,
if one doesn't spend considerable amount of time and Shadowlands is even less forgiving in that regard since covenants came into the mix,
and one spec can be vastly superior when using a certain one, while being less than optimal in other,
so for example a healer spec of some class, can use a different covenant than a dps spec from the same character.

Switching a covenant can be done once a week, and one has to also do some chores on top of it,
farming a 235ilvl legend takes approximately 5 weeks. 5250/1140 Soul Ash per week
there is also farming Stygia, which I wouldn't personally say is that bad in itself, but can be really tiring, if you want to do it on multiple toons.

Now, I brought the casual player argument because, it seems to me like the ones who really suffer from this IMO stupid design choice,
are the guilds on the lower end. Someone can't attend a raid and a healer/tank is missing. The guild has many hybrid classes in the group,
but none are using it, because it is so gimped.
I've noticed that a lot of players wouldn't mind to switch it here and there, even though they wouldn't want to stay that role full time,
but there is really little to no incentive to even try it.
Lower end guilds would benefit from it, even if it was: 'John could you heal today, so we could raid?'
and I don't think higher end ones would suffer.

Then there is another design choice that the developers set on, and it seems it will stay this way forever: 2 tanks, mostly 4-5 healers, rest dps.
Most of these fights for tanks are: switch[taunt] after X amount of stacks, that's it - done; or switch after Y ability.

I got 2 characters, one is a Monk who can play every role, and 2nd is a Mage who is a beast when it comes to dps. I personally would find it really cool if a certain encounter demanded for example 5 tanks, other one 8-10 healers, another 15 dps with 1 tank, and I would be able to fluidly change my spec on my hybrid class, but I cannot do it, as it's a huge time sink. I already am playing Brew with my friends in M+ and WW on raids, and I'd love to chill on MW sometimes, but it's impossible to imagine.
Players who cannot fathom not being somewhere around the top of 'Damage Done' dps meter can stay pure dps.

I doubt it will change the way things are, but I just wanted to see how other players feel about it.

Uhhh, nope.


What do you mean, there is no "practical way" to utilize off-specs? You literally need 2 trinkets, 1 weapon, and 1 legendary to swap specs. And even that is not required in many cases, like mage.

The legendary part is also BS. You do not need more than the 190 piece to play a spec as a casual player. For my char, the differnce between 190 and 235 piece is 100 dps.

Farming stygia ..... just lol. For my char, the differnce between 0 and 5 sockets in 110 dps.

In both cases, this is less than 2%. So you are complaining about that a person that does his 1hrs weekly torghast and 30 min maw dailies is less than 4% more powerful than you.

These things are minor gains for huge time investments for the people that care about that stuff.

What is your proposal? Remove endgame progression, and have all characters reach their max power after 2 weeks of world quests?

And then you present the most casual unfriendly thing, that basically every raid member needs to be proficient in their offspecs. Which is for some reason, more reasonable than doing torghast for 1hr each week....

What the fuck is this argument, holy shit.

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Because elitists cry really hard anytime they aren't special snowflakes.

That is your answer to a casual crying about 1hrs of torghast for 5 weeks. The irony...

[Ilookfly]

While I agree that covenants should be swappable I have to say that I tanked everything up to mythic Sire pre-nerf with a dps lego, wrong covenant and no tank trinkets. It was fine with a bit of struggle on Slg an Sire. So the argument that you need optimal characters for casual play, especially now post-nerf is really wanting your cake and eating it too.

[Xykotic]

The problem as I see it mandatory grinds invented by people who didn't have artistic value in mind as an answer to dropping subs from people stating they had nothing to do. The game was then made to keep you in a repeating sunken cost fallacy with neverending grinds, that will hopefully keep you motivated/paying. This is an illusion of content without any real staying power. A neverending well of salt-water to keep you thirsty.

This is not about elitists vs casuals, this is about Bliz.. Activision not having respect for customers they paid for. Never forget, Blizzard is dead. Its corpse being puppeteered by uncaring fatcats.

[Nite92]

Well. Casuals are a majority of the playerbase. The minority are raiding mythic and doing high keys. The casuals don't want to or have the ability to commit to the time it takes to do such things. The raiding/m+ minority offers boosts. The majority of the casuals can, if they want, buy a token or two to get some boosts to progress their characters, if they wish.

Money in the bank.

Also there's the whole deal with a lot of casuals having little to no interests in dungeons or raids for that matter.

Exactly, it is totally fine to be a casual mythic raider, you just wont be a world first raider. There are plenty of people that get top 500 CE results with 20 hrs or less per week on average. Which is not that much for competing at that level. You can get ATOC with much less. Like literally showing up to raids and play 2 hrs on top each week.

[Evilmoo]

because end game of a casual player and true end game must be vastly different.

[erifwodahs]

If valor was there from the start and wasn't capped, we'd spend the entire first week or 2 of the tier inside M+ farming a full set of SLG/Denathrius heroic ilevel gear. That's bad gameplay and destroys gear progression, because WoW's gear progression has always been tied to weekly lockouts (less so in Legion/BfA because they had WF/TF to destroy gear progression)
People keep comparing valor to honor, but that's not the actual comparison. It's end of dungeon chest + valor vs honor + conquest. One weekly capped component and one uncapped component.

Gearing is already extremely quick, especially this tier with 4 BoEs and PvP gear to fill gaps.

That is why I said that cap protects high end players from gaming to death, but it's very limiting from casual perspective, as with a cap you can't even upgrade your weapon from bottom to the top.
Gearing this expansion is faster for high end players only. Casuals don't go around doing high end rated pvp, raid and m+ while purchasing boes.

I am biased against gear progression anyway as I progress content rather than gear, but i'm a minority so w/e.

[cparle87]

That's a garbage "argument". Telling people to "just quit" doesn't fix anything. People should discuss their problems with the way the game currently functions, otherwise Blizzard lacks a vital piece of feedback. Data can only do so much, and it seems like they're massively overusing data and underusing actual feedback

The elephant in the room is whether these "problems" actually exist or are simply the result of people being mad the game isn't being tailored to them? Look at classic and all the "this isn't real <insert content (MC, AV, Naxx, etc here) because they used 1.12 instead of <insert patch number here>". Or the flying threads that run the gamut from remove it forever to let it be available as soon as we hit cap and everything in between.

Because with a player base this diverse whenever a person gets on a soapbox and goes "All they need to do to fix the game is do X, it's easy, I could do it in my sleep" kind of armchair dev'ing there's going to be someone with the exact opposite opinion.

[LordVargK]

No. That is what a few bunch of you assume.

I am casual, because I can casually play, but when I play I do the best I can.

Casual is usually associated with unskilled, and that is quite far from reality. A casual player might be better than someone raiding 3 times a week.

I agree with you that casual is not a statement of skill. I just extended your definition of casual and included not only a time component like you did, but also an attitude component. You can be a hardcore player and only raid 3 nights a week and you also can be a casual that plays each day.

[Yarathir]

High end mythic players probably don't give a shit about what Blizzard does for the casuals unless it requires them to run the same content (competitive trinkets in LFR that forces them to run that)

It's usually midcores throwing a huge bitchfit because they need something to feed their ego but they aren't too good for people to actually consider them.. well, good.

[jazen]

The "majority" possibly, but they don't bring in the most revenue.

The casual crowd is the largest source of actual revenue paid to Blizzard. The referenced 'hardcore' players aren't the ones buying tokens for gold to buy boosts/store stuff. It's the monthly subscriptions and token buying of the 'casual' crowd that keeps the servers plugged in at Blizz, not the tiny fraction of the player base that does M20+ and Mythic raiders.

[Alanar]

I believe the majority always hated the elits people and more and more.

They are the minority anyway, just shit on them it will make you feel better. Atleast I do.

[loras]

High end mythic players probably don't give a shit about what Blizzard does for the casuals unless it requires them to run the same content (competitive trinkets in LFR that forces them to run that)

It's usually midcores throwing a huge bitchfit because they need something to feed their ego but they aren't too good for people to actually consider them.. well, good.

This, actually good people tend not to need affirmation that they're good, they can see it in the results of whatever they do.

[Alanar]

High end mythic players probably don't give a shit about what Blizzard does for the casuals unless it requires them to run the same content (competitive trinkets in LFR that forces them to run that)

It's usually midcores throwing a huge bitchfit because they need something to feed their ego but they aren't too good for people to actually consider them.. well, good.

And casuals dont give a shit about them either, whats new?

[Azerate]

I've noticed that a lot of players wouldn't mind to switch it here and there, even though they wouldn't want to stay that role full time,
but there is really little to no incentive to even try it.
Lower end guilds would benefit from it, even if it was: 'John could you heal today, so we could raid?'
and I don't think higher end ones would suffer.

Here's a newsflash: you don't need to have everything super optimized and farmed out to the maximum possible ceiling in order to jump into an offspec and do well enough in a casual raid. This happens all the time in my casual guild so I should know. If you refuse to play an offspec because your conduits are a bit lower ilvl than on your main, or you have less sockets - that's on you, not the game.

[Temp name]

Because they don't want/cannot produce quality content for casual players (e.g. Mage Tower or Withered training), so they are told to raid or die. M+ is barely worth your time in SL if you are a casual player.

What? M+ is only worth the time if you don't do mythic raids..
If you do mythic raids you're already full 226/233, so m+ is pointless
If you do heroic raids you're full 213/220 at most, so M+ still gives you a weekly upgrade in the form of a 226, or more in the form of 220 from valor
If you do normal raids you're in 200/207, which means both the 210 that drop from the chest, and the weekly 226 are useful.

That is, if you can do 15s.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Is end game really that terrible for casuals? You might be able to claim you don't like end game but it being tailored only for hardcore players? Two very different stories.

Raiding has 4 difficulty levels that range from piss easy group assembled for you and the bosses just fall over LFR then to normal, then heroic, then mythic. So raiding is totally accessible to EVERYONE. So tailored for no one.

Then you got PVP. Again a good number of just que up and the group is just made for you BGs. Rated PVP that might require some social interaction but if you look for simular skill level people via rating it's not hard to find people with a group finder tool. So everyone and anyone can do it.

Then you have mythic plus that litterially has the whole gambant of skill levels. Entry 1 to 5s that just about anyone can do. 5 to 10s that build up the challenge level a bit. 11s to 15s the press you a bit. Then the sky is the limit beyond that. Hell a 1 and a 2455 key even reward the same valor.

Now we can also say the open world is total shit and I will go along with that. But it's total shit for everyone pretty evenly. I don't know anyone ranging from super hardcore to total casual that is really enjoying it. So its hard to say it's tailored for hardcore players. More it's just trash.

Over all everything is tailored for everyone to be able to participate. Casual to hardcore. I hear a lot of rumbles about mage tower type things but I remember that being casual rage when it was new because only people with good gear and mild skill could do it. Sure, patches went by and out gearing it became a lot easier but that can go for everything in the game.

I do think they made a few mistakes for casuals though. Transmog farming was clipped because for some reason they refused to scale the old raid buff correctly for Legion. I know my wife was PISSED about that as a major casual. At first mythic plus was WAY to punishing and drove a lot of people off combined with no valor system progression that also drove people away. I also don't think the gate for upgrades should be achievement bound. I think valor earning gates it to hard already. Its better now but the damage is done. The open world does suck ass. Just has no life to it and I hope the Maw rework finally gives a little something to do everyday under the sky.

So tailored purely to hardcores? Negitive. Maybe a shit expansion though. I don't think the two are exclusively tied together.

[ippollite]

Uhhh, nope.


What do you mean, there is no "practical way" to utilize off-specs? You literally need 2 trinkets, 1 weapon, and 1 legendary to swap specs. And even that is not required in many cases, like mage.

The legendary part is also BS. You do not need more than the 190 piece to play a spec as a casual player. For my char, the differnce between 190 and 235 piece is 100 dps.

Farming stygia ..... just lol. For my char, the differnce between 0 and 5 sockets in 110 dps.

In both cases, this is less than 2%. So you are complaining about that a person that does his 1hrs weekly torghast and 30 min maw dailies is less than 4% more powerful than you.

These things are minor gains for huge time investments for the people that care about that stuff.

What is your proposal? Remove endgame progression, and have all characters reach their max power after 2 weeks of world quests?

And then you present the most casual unfriendly thing, that basically every raid member needs to be proficient in their offspecs. Which is for some reason, more reasonable than doing torghast for 1hr each week....

What the fuck is this argument, holy shit.

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That is your answer to a casual crying about 1hrs of torghast for 5 weeks. The irony...

You need to post more. Direct. Informative. Zero bullshit.

[Dastreus]

That is your answer to a casual crying about 1hrs of torghast for 5 weeks. The irony...

I have never made a complaint about torghast.

[Magical Mudcrab]

The thing is, SL caters to this demographic to an almost hilarious point. And seeing as how 9.1 is cut out of exactly the same cloth, it seems that Ion is convinced that such is the way to go.

It really doesn't, though. Hardcore players don't have much more to do than they have in every other expansion (i.e.: mythic raiding, high mythic+, and high rating arenas), and it could probably be argued that the stuff that is aimed at hardcore players isn't even appreciated (i.e.: PvE players are heavily incentivized to do arenas for easy access to upgrades). It's not that the game is catered to hardcore players, it's that there's simply less content available than any expansion in the last 10 years that is not on rails. The "elitists" have not gained anything new, it is just that Blizzard has developed less.

[Dastreus]

Mostly casuals whining. The actual high end deal with it and move on.

In fact, you are crying for not having better gear right now. So, it's much the opposite.

It's simply because the game is designed to give bigger rewards depending on the difficulty.
The question is why do casuals need better gear for casual tasks?
Handing gear like it doesn't matter undermines the motivation to actually complete the more challenging content to aquire it. It's not difficult to understand.

Ok let me remind some people, here. Back after Cata, I remember threads of elitists complaining that they were no longer unique for having epics or whatever. They cried about it en-mass. Next expansion, LFR gets nerfed and split into released segments over weeks. Over time, release date of even the first wing of LFR is pushed clear back to a month after release of a raid, and the gear nerfed further. (Hell, M2 dungeons sometimes give better, back in Legion, and that's easier than LFR.)

This myth people seem to have that it's casuals is laughable. You'd find most people who even wanted things like LFR weren't exactly asking for Heroic Raid gear. Just something that is an upgrade. It was the elitists who were mad that the so-called casuals could get pretty purple letters on their gear.

And fine, I am still butthurt about the delaying people not in raiding guilds had to deal with. Life got busy. I wanted to keep up with story content, but was gated behind a literal 2 month wait to do the final tier of a raid people did weeks ago who had more time.

FFXIV? Just fuckin' que for the raid and do it on release day. And look at that, there is still the hardcore content for people who want it. Hell, I've done some savage/extreme content. Amazing. It's like devs don't have to punish less active players. Wow.