What does a casual wow look like?

[Advent]

Nobady cared or though about if game is casual or hardcore.

That wasn't my experience at all. If I spoke to an everquest player and told them I played wow, it was the carebear MMO, the game for babies who "couldn't handle" EQ. It was consistently the narrative spun by MMO players back then. EQ was the hardcore MMO, and wow was the one for kids and "grandmas". I remember this vividly. WoW did away with the difficulties of its contemporaries of the time, and snatched up the casual players who weren't into that kind of stuff.

[Sauredfangs]

I have some ideas in my signature that might work well.

[ifrah]

More stuff being account-wide. Such as reputations, covenant / whatever such grind is the thing on a given expect, perks you get from doing X, Y, Z or etc.

[Gaidax]

Casual WoW looks exactly how it looks now.

People are under some weird impression that pushing M+ or M.Raid is something everyone is doing or expected to do.

Overwhelming amount of players just login once in a week to do smash some mobs, do some simple activities or run some base level dungeon or two.

As a whole WoW has excellent support for casual players with all content available at wide range of difficulties and little to no strings attached.

[PenguinChan]

Actual casual WoW is what 3.35/ 4.3 / 5.3 / 7.3 / 8.3 / 9.2(.5) is.

And what I mean by that is totally casual - systems unlocked and unbarred, progression made quick and easy and nothing is really stopping you from playing the game the way you want (For very long). I doubt Dragonflight will take any head to this, as it makes burnout somewhat real and you chew through content fairly quickly (Since there is no time gating).

[Nymrohd]

It looks like MoP in 5.1 and after or like Legion. Loads of content to do but not much you HAVE to do unless you want to compete at the highest level. A clear progression path for every track, including solo and world players that will last them many weeks into each patch. Every activity being rewarded. Almost every type of content accessible to everyone.

[Iain]

Casual WoW looks exactly how it looks now.

People are under some weird impression that pushing M+ or M.Raid is something everyone is doing or expected to do.

Yeah I agree. In Legion I was playing M+ with my friends all the time. But in BfA and Shadowlands we didn't really bother, we liked pvp better. If our schedules matched better we would've played M+ but not getting to play it doesn't really rob us of anything important. There's nothing there that needs to be adjusted to our playstyle because it was never designed for that to begin with.

[Soikona]

Congrats. You just described Final Fantasy XIV.

If it wasn’t so weeb, I would be playing it!

On topic, a casual WoW for me is one I can raid log without feeling behind. WoD was the perfect expansion for me. I really enjoy finishing things so something with infinite climb, like M+ key level, is just exhausting for a player like me.

Even doing my weekly 15 is a burden cause of how boring the dungeons are.

[potis]

Casual WoW looks exactly how it looks now.

People are under some weird impression that pushing M+ or M.Raid is something everyone is doing or expected to do.

Overwhelming amount of players just login once in a week to do smash some mobs, do some simple activities or run some base level dungeon or two.

As a whole WoW has excellent support for casual players with all content available at wide range of difficulties and little to no strings attached.

Nah, 9.2 is a decent state, and the game is generally very casual friendly if you are already half-knowledgeable at it, but it needs more changes.

Some systems need to be scrapped and turn account wide, and should have been done years ago.

Reputations should be account wide, slow down the gain by 20-30% or something, doesnt matter, just make it account wide, whats the point to unlock something my main will never need, but my alt would be awesome to get a freebie item the moment he dings, even if its 3 months after?

All pointless farming systems whether its for the expansion or permanent should also be the same, the whole concept they have that "IF THEY REFARM ON THE ALT THEY WILL PLAY MORE, THEREFOR PAY MORE", is not true and pretty sure more quit, rather than play more (Artifact/azerite power) as example.

Generally systems that punish you for playing a different character are horrible and i hope they learnt not to listen to the RPG crowd after the fiasco of SL.

[Gaidax]

Nah, 9.2 is a decent state, and the game is generally very casual friendly if you are already half-knowledgeable at it, but it needs more changes.

Some systems need to be scrapped and turn account wide, and should have been done years ago.

Reputations should be account wide, slow down the gain by 20-30% or something, doesnt matter, just make it account wide, whats the point to unlock something my main will never need, but my alt would be awesome to get a freebie item the moment he dings, even if its 3 months after?

All pointless farming systems whether its for the expansion or permanent should also be the same, the whole concept they have that "IF THEY REFARM ON THE ALT THEY WILL PLAY MORE, THEREFOR PAY MORE", is not true and pretty sure more quit, rather than play more (Artifact/azerite power) as example.

Generally systems that punish you for playing a different character are horrible and i hope they learnt not to listen to the RPG crowd after the fiasco of SL.

They are doing most if not all your bullet points in next expansion.

They specifically said they want pretty much everything to be account-wide and there is no covenant or such either.

Took time, but that's how it is - Legion was a great expansion and they spent 2 more expansion trying to match it, but offering downgraded experience overall. So they just scrap the thing and do clean(ish) slate.

[Nymrohd]

And let's stop timegating the story please? Zereth Mortis for example has a proper amount of quests between the campaign and side quests. Yet instead of being able to set up a few hours in a weekend to experience the questlines you get drip fed quests every week and end up doing it in 30min chunks. It's not nearly as satisfying. Yes you could just wait and do it but not really an option when there are power rewards locked behind it and not exactly a glut of world content to do other than that (and any efficiency in that world content is locked behind it). It can work in a place like Suramar because the chunks you could unlock were far more substantial, they were not timegated as strictly and you could actually grind for rep to get to the good parts earlier. So yes, I'd like post launch zones that are added to function like leveling zones; include a proper and full storyline that is accessible either all at once or in an organic way instead of timegated to the next reset.

[Gaidax]

And let's stop timegating the story please? Zereth Mortis for example has a proper amount of quests between the campaign and side quests. Yet instead of being able to set up a few hours in a weekend to experience the questlines you get drip fed quests every week and end up doing it in 30min chunks. It's not nearly as satisfying. Yes you could just wait and do it but not really an option when there are power rewards locked behind it and not exactly a glut of world content to do other than that (and any efficiency in that world content is locked behind it). It can work in a place like Suramar because the chunks you could unlock were far more substantial, they were not timegated as strictly and you could actually grind for rep to get to the good parts earlier. So yes, I'd like post launch zones that are added to function like leveling zones; include a proper and full storyline that is accessible either all at once or in an organic way instead of timegated to the next reset.

How about no?

Last thing I want is to be pressured to blast through whole questline for unlocks before Mythic Raid week. I'm completely fine with weekly selection of story progress that I can spend half an hour to do with no pressure.

[Nymrohd]

How about no?

Last thing I want is to be pressured to blast through whole questline for unlocks before Mythic Raid week. I'm completely fine with weekly selection of story progress that I can spend half an hour to do with no pressure.

Or you know, maybe not tie it to your Mythic Raid so the people who actually do things other than try to raid log have content and not the illusion of content.

[potis]

They are doing most if not all your bullet points in next expansion.

They specifically said they want pretty much everything to be account-wide and there is no covenant or such either.

Took time, but that's how it is - Legion was a great expansion and they spent 2 more expansion trying to match it, but offering downgraded experience overall. So they just scrap the thing and do clean(ish) slate.

Thats my point, this was pointed out way in the past when the game was converted to seasonal gear reset from expansion wide reset, it wasnt a new complain, personally my complain has been there since Cataclysm and it became very obvious at Legion.

Legion as example, i hated it, i dont remember the good things cause all i remember was the feeling of missing out on my main for playing the alt for the first year, not a single other thing i remember about it.

BFA was pretty much the same.

[Toby451]

WoW has always been casual and still is.


The problem is casual players act like they are hardcore. Instead of playing what they like, they copy the streamers/world first players to see whats "best". They complain about the M+ timer like failing it invalidates your entire run, when in reality you can just ignore it and enjoy the game at you pace.



You can see this perfectly in Classic. People are min/maxing things that simply don't need to be. The game wasn't played that way 15 years ago. People care more about min/maxing the smallest things than having fun. There is no going back.

[Lochton]

Casual WoW looks exactly how it looks now.

People are under some weird impression that pushing M+ or M.Raid is something everyone is doing or expected to do.

Overwhelming amount of players just login once in a week to do smash some mobs, do some simple activities or run some base level dungeon or two.

As a whole WoW has excellent support for casual players with all content available at wide range of difficulties and little to no strings attached.

Naw, that is called abandoned WoW. Most work is still being put into PvP/M+/Raiding than the rest of the world.