What is there for casuals?

[Flaks]

Which is whats happening and the complains and the argument between casual and hardcore and how the meme that "Anyone playing less than me is a scrub, anyone more is an elitist".

People refuse to accept that you can achieve some things while barely playing, and it infuriates them when you mention it, because it doesnt fit the narrative of their argument.

Well that's one thought I guess.

I'd argue that the distinction is important because the vast majority of players don't have the time or regimented schedule to create a cohesive group of friends to offload that time requirement. It's great for those with lots of time to make those connections because it pays off with less time spent LATER but the initial time and effort put in is significantly more than most casual players have or are able to put in to a game.

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would you be so kind as to enlighten me on those other activities in Legion that rewarded gear that are not available in shadowlands in the exact same way? Because I feel like we played a different Legion.

I can't speak for legion since I quit the expansion half a patch into it with it's ridiculous grinding and time gating (easily the worst we've ever had in this game) until it was fixed in 7.3.

But BfA did gearing right for the modern wow era. As a casual player I had the opportunity to do the content I enjoyed the most (war mode/world pvp) and they incentivized it well with conquest and gear. Plus you had your "callings" giving you normal mode raid level gear an eventually the world pvp gear became heroic raid level after weeks of working at it.

Eventually if I didn't want to do that I could still gear up much more easily with heroic raids, mythic+ dungeons or ranked pvp BUT the base system allowed me to gear up at my own case and eventually pug my way into these "end game" content drops that blizzard has essentially made as the exclusive place to gear in shadowlands.

8.3 was even better since you had a completely solo way of getting heroic raid level gear with visions.

[VMSmith]

It's amazing how this worked. I noticed it immediately after the expansion released. Fun just seemed to be absent. It was striking and not a little infuriating. I lasted about three weeks before I threw in the towel on the expansion, the game, and the company.

This is exactly the problem with Shadowlands ... it lacks anything resembling fun unless your idea of fun is instance grinding for marginal gear upgrades. Perhaps this is not so in PvP, but I'm terrible at PvP so have no clue about that.

I recently began missing WoW and decided to re-roll on a full server to see if it was a better experience than my usual medium server (Blizzard calls the merged servers medium, I strongly doubt this designation). And I discovered very quickly that running fresh characters through MoP, Legion, and even WoD, the content was incredibly fun. I wanted to develop my farm in Pandaria, I wanted to develop my garrison in Draenor. There were great stories being told that were grounded and made you feel like you were part of things. I've been having a blast for the last week leveling a number of new characters and forging a new life in WoW.

Then, today, I got to Shadowlands on the first toon. And it was so fucking depressing. I felt all the joy leave as I contemplated the shitty story and leveling, as I remembered the garbage systems waiting for me when I hit 60. I thought of the dungeons and raids that I found to be so un-fun that I'd stopped even doing LFR or anything beyond making some gold with callings. It's only the promise of Dragonflight, which looks good so far, that will keep me going. But if it weren't coming soon I doubt I'd bother playing any longer once I get a character or two to max level because I just do not want to play anything in Shadowlands.

Because there's no fun for me in Shadowlands. I'm not an instance grinder.

[Celement]

This is exactly the problem with Shadowlands ... it lacks anything resembling fun unless your idea of fun is instance grinding for marginal gear upgrades. Perhaps this is not so in PvP, but I'm terrible at PvP so have no clue about that.

I recently began missing WoW and decided to re-roll on a full server to see if it was a better experience than my usual medium server (Blizzard calls the merged servers medium, I strongly doubt this designation). And I discovered very quickly that running fresh characters through MoP, Legion, and even WoD, the content was incredibly fun. I wanted to develop my farm in Pandaria, I wanted to develop my garrison in Draenor. There were great stories being told that were grounded and made you feel like you were part of things. I've been having a blast for the last week leveling a number of new characters and forging a new life in WoW.

Then, today, I got to Shadowlands on the first toon. And it was so fucking depressing. I felt all the joy leave as I contemplated the shitty story and leveling, as I remembered the garbage systems waiting for me when I hit 60. I thought of the dungeons and raids that I found to be so un-fun that I'd stopped even doing LFR or anything beyond making some gold with callings. It's only the promise of Dragonflight, which looks good so far, that will keep me going. But if it weren't coming soon I doubt I'd bother playing any longer once I get a character or two to max level because I just do not want to play anything in Shadowlands.

Because there's no fun for me in Shadowlands. I'm not an instance grinder.

Even if you enjoy instances the whole 4 new ones you get in dragon flight feels meh...

Dragon flight feels more like a patch then an expansion.

[Revamp Man]

I mean if 3 hours a week is not casual to you, 8d suspect 95+% of players aren't casual. I have a baby and a wife and when the stars align that I'm not tired, I play a little at night before going to sleep and getting up at 5 am. Happens 1 maybe 2 times a week. Not set days.

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Basically my point. Its not "gatekeeping" like the other poster was claiming. Its that starting a group takes a small amount of work and its easier to demand an invite and cry on the forums lol

Essentially they equate casual with skill
Casual players aren't supposed to do raids or anything that isn't auto grouped


Honestly the biggest thing for casual players in DF will probably be professions

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It's amazing how this worked. I noticed it immediately after the expansion released. Fun just seemed to be absent. It was striking and not a little infuriating. I lasted about three weeks before I threw in the towel on the expansion, the game, and the company.

I'm not interested in justifying this feeling, nor should you feel you have to either. At this point, explaining a problem might help Blizzard fix it, but I'm angered enough that I don't want Blizzard to fix their faults. I want them to fail.

Shadowlands is the first expansion that I didn't level in a day
Like I happily took a break and just didn't care to cap for a couple days and my alt wasn't touched for months

Compare that to other expansions where I blazed through with no sleep because the story was fun...it just sucked

[Dacu]

The term casual is getting all muddled up with people who just don't want to play MMO aspects of the game. Dungeons are casual, mythic+ is casual, normal raids are pretty casual, LFR still exists, what about pet battles?! casual dream. Please no more phone games in WoW, they'll be coming soon enough.

[ceall]

Even if you enjoy instances the whole 4 new ones you get in dragon flight feels meh...

Dragon flight feels more like a patch then an expansion.

There will be EIGHT launch dungeons. Stop spreading false information.
4 of them will be open for M+ in season 1, the other 4 in season 2.

[Caerrona]

The term casual is getting all muddled up with people who just don't want to play MMO aspects of the game. Dungeons are casual, mythic+ is casual, normal raids are pretty casual, LFR still exists, what about pet battles?! casual dream. Please no more phone games in WoW, they'll be coming soon enough.

99/100 it is dumpster tier players using the guise of "casual" to protect their feelings from the fact they are pure dogshit at the game.

Casuals raid, casuals pvp, casuals do m+.

Garbage players do none of those and sit and whine on the forums.

Put some effort in, learn your class, stop clicking, stop being trash because you play 40 hours a week and call yourself "casual" when people get CE on 6 hours a week. (None of those "you" were directed at you )

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There will be EIGHT launch dungeons. Stop spreading false information.
4 of them will be open for M+ in season 1, the other 4 in season 2.

That poster is up for the "how many threads can I say THE EXACT SAME THING IN all while crying about it" award.

[Nzx]

I'm angered enough that I don't want Blizzard to fix their faults. I want them to fail.

That's a shame. They won't.

As several people have asked before (and you ignored it) I ask what is stopping you from doing the content everybody else is doing?

Let me guess: When you say "casual" what you actually mean is content that does not require you to

a) join groups, because eeewww, why does this MMO have to have other people around?

b) learn more then the absolute basics of your class, because that would be effort and effort is something only them filthy "hardcore" players can afford to invest in this hobby.

But of course this "casual" content rewards at least the same level of gear as Heroic raiding, because how is it fair that them dirty "hardcore" players get things I do not get!!

This is just another thread of a person misapropriating the term "casual" to hide the fact that they are too lazy and to anti-social to do the content that this game is all about.

Luckily for you we have many options, SWTOR (which is basically a single-player game for a few years) and FF (which after all is the greatest game in the universe of all times and into the future, no matter if you are "casual" or "hardcore") will be happy to take you in.

So we can skip changing this one MMO into something it never has been and never wanted to be: A single-player game.

Of course you may believe that WoW will die without you, but don't worry, the filthy "hardcore" players will keep it alive.

Possibly the best post I've ever seen on the "casual vs hardcore" subject. Brilliant. This argument has always amounted to "I don't want people who put in more effort to get better things than me".

Someone posted a matrix on here a while back where they used casual and hardcore as indicators of time investment on the x axis, and low/high skill level as indicators on the y axis. You can absolutely be "hardcore" and shit at the game. These are the people who level 16 different alts to get transmogs or solo the same old raid over and over and over again on those characters to get mounts. You can also be "casual" and good at the game, like people who raid log to CE or sell a Mythic/Heroic carry once a week. I used to spend 8 hours a day playing the game when I was a teenager and only ever cleared LFR - when I last got CE I was playing six hours a week. The only thing standing between these whiners and getting the results they want is a little bit of effort, but they refuse, and do twice as much work posting on forums bitching about it instead.

[Caerrona]

That's a shame. They won't.



Possibly the best post I've ever seen on the "casual vs hardcore" subject. Brilliant. This argument has always amounted to "I don't want people who put in more effort to get better things than me".

Someone posted a matrix on here a while back where they used casual and hardcore as indicators of time investment on the x axis, and low/high skill level as indicators on the y axis. You can absolutely be "hardcore" and shit at the game. These are the people who level 16 different alts to get transmogs or solo the same old raid over and over and over again on those characters to get mounts. You can also be "casual" and good at the game, like people who raid log to CE or sell a Mythic/Heroic carry once a week. I used to spend 8 hours a day playing the game when I was a teenager and only ever cleared LFR - when I last got CE I was playing six hours a week. The only thing standing between these whiners and getting the results they want is a little bit of effort, but they refuse, and do twice as much work posting on forums bitching about it instead.

"You are just a mega super elitist/gatekeeper/*insert whatever asmongold's new buzzword here*" - the average "casual" poster with zero critical thinking and single digit iq

[Nzx]

"You are just a mega super elitist/gatekeeper/*insert whatever asmongold's new buzzword here*" - the average "casual" poster with zero critical thinking and single digit iq

"the vast majority wants to play shit builds for fun it's just you elitist nerd hardcores who force people to play everything by the meta" but also "it's literally impossible for us, the vast majority, to group with each other and play off-meta specs". Somehow there are simultaneously so many people who want to play 220 ilvl feral/ret/BM/MW/prot warr in keys that Blizzard should design around them but also so few that they can't make their own guilds or even groups. You should be forced to play with shitters who do 3.5k DPS and therefore waste 20 minutes of you and three other people's time but they shouldn't even be encouraged to get better at the game.

It's been the same shit since at least 2004.

[potis]

"the vast majority wants to play shit builds for fun it's just you elitist nerd hardcores who force people to play everything by the meta" but also "it's literally impossible for us, the vast majority, to group with each other and play off-meta specs". Somehow there are simultaneously so many people who want to play 220 ilvl feral/ret/BM/MW/prot warr in keys that Blizzard should design around them but also so few that they can't make their own guilds or even groups. You should be forced to play with shitters who do 3.5k DPS and therefore waste 20 minutes of you and three other people's time but they shouldn't even be encouraged to get better at the game.

It's been the same shit since at least 2004.

The reality is, they dont know better ,now if this is because hard life but played WoW casually, generally low skilled environment or whatever, you cant know.

But i have seen it live so many times (net cafe culture) that i understand where they come from, but you cant accept it cause its not the games fault, but human error.

The game was compacted to make everyone experience the active content one way or another, compared to the 99% running Tier 1, when the game is at Tier 4.

Somehow down the years, this translated to "Give me free gear because i pay for a sub" instead of "Thank god the same is like this and i am not running Castle Nathria for the 50th week like i used to run Karazhan".

Now why do i type all this, its because people dont understand or accept, that there is player segregation the same way as before and just because Blizzard made sure you experience the content one way or another, it doesnt mean you deserve to be there.

And thats where the problem lies, basically following Classic/TBC/most of WOTLK (original) gameplay way, we should be having 95% of the players at 180-200 item level running Castle Nathria Normal for 2 years, a 3% stuck at 226-250 and the 2% at 278 item level.

But because the segregation is 250-260 for the "i never do group content", 260-270 for the in betweeners/the "I just started playing properly, i will be 278 in 4 weeks" raiders and 278 for those that finished months ago, somehow the 255 demands, to have 278.

[Osmeric]

The game was compacted to make everyone experience the active content one way or another, compared to the 99% running Tier 1, when the game is at Tier 4.

There's an obvious solution: the game just has Tier 1. Why include a Tier 4 if (as you state) 99% are at Tier 1, especially if the mere presence of that higher difficulty is pissing off the great thundering herd?

If that great thundering herd is pissed off and leave, it's on the game designer's plate, even if the players utterly suck. Game designers are responsible for retaining players and making money for their employer. They don't get to say "these players are too incompetent for us to want to make huge baskets of money from them".

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Perhaps this is not so in PvP, but I'm terrible at PvP so have no clue about that.

SL annihilated casual PvP, which is another big sign of idiocy from the Blizzard dev team. At least they appear to have learned from that mistake.

[Caprias]

There's an obvious solution: the game just has Tier 1. Why include a Tier 4 if (as you state) 99% are at Tier 1, especially if the mere presence of that higher difficulty is pissing off the great thundering herd?

If that great thundering herd is pissed off and leave, it's on the game designer's plate, even if the players utterly suck. Game designers are responsible for retaining players and making money for their employer. They don't get to say "these players are too incompetent for us to want to make huge baskets of money from them".

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SL annihilated casual PvP, which is another big sign of idiocy from the Blizzard dev team. At least they appear to have learned from that mistake.

If you think your average casual is "pissed off" by heroic and mythic raids existing you are gravely mistaken, they don't even think about it.

You're just weird.

[potis]

There's an obvious solution: the game just has Tier 1. Why include a Tier 4 if (as you state) 99% are at Tier 1, especially if the mere presence of that higher difficulty is pissing off the great thundering herd?

If that great thundering herd is pissed off and leave, it's on the game designer's plate, even if the players utterly suck. Game designers are responsible for retaining players and making money for their employer. They don't get to say "these players are too incompetent for us to want to make huge baskets of money from them".

SL annihilated casual PvP, which is another big sign of idiocy from the Blizzard dev team. At least they appear to have learned from that mistake.

Yes, lets raid only Molten Core for 2 years, great game, lets pretend this mountain path is only 100 meters long, because the fat person doesnt wanna get tired and climb the mountain, so he throws a tantrum and demands there is a cinema built in this first 100 meters because he paid for the gas to get to the mountain with his friends.

The game is a progressing gear chaser, your idea goes against its core design, if you dont play the game to gear chase, thats on you, you are playing the wrong game, especially when the gear chase design was mutated down from once every 24 months, to 3-4 times to every 6-8 months while giving you free jumps because the community is terrible.

Now if you failed to gear chase and still play the game, thats on you also, its not for Blizzard to fix something thats not broken.

[Osmeric]

Yes, lets raid only Molten Core for 2 years, great game, lets pretend this mountain path is only 100 meters long, because the fat person doesnt wanna get tired and climb the mountain, so he throws a tantrum and demands there is a cinema built in this first 100 meters because he paid for the gas to get to the mountain with his friends.

The game is a progressing gear chaser, your idea goes against its core design, if you dont play the game to gear chase, thats on you, you are playing the wrong game, especially when the gear chase design was mutated down from once every 24 months, to 3-4 times to every 6-8 months while giving you free jumps because the community is terrible.

Now if you failed to gear chase and still play the game, thats on you also, its not for Blizzard to fix something thats not broken.

Yes, it would be annoying to (in your scenario) members of the tiny minority, like yourself. I'm sure throwing a tantrum about it would be convincing and productive! I mean, what's your alternative? Those 99% of players leaving and the game surviving on unicorn farts instead of revenue? Or maybe using Elite Mindcontrol Rays to get those players to stay subbed even if they are unhappy? I'm sure that great thundering herd of bads will be just totally motivated to improve once they learn you want them to.

[potis]

Yes, it would be annoying to (in your scenario) members of the tiny minority, like yourself. I'm sure throwing a tantrum about it would be convincing and productive! I mean, what's your alternative? Those 99% of players leaving and the game surviving on unicorn farts instead of revenue? Or maybe using Elite Mindcontrol Rays to get those players to stay subbed even if they are unhappy? I'm sure that great thundering herd of bads will be just totally motivated to improve once they learn you want them to.

Meh i made a big post and deleted it, end result is

You think you speak for the 99%, you dont, you speak for a tiny % of an even smaller %, of an even smaller %, segregation of players is massive, there arent 2 categories, there are 2000 categories of players.

I would love to explain what i mean but its a waste of time to delve deeper into it, i will explain it by saying, when i mean 99%, i mean every player that came and went the last 20 years, and trust me, majority of that doesnt even know DF is coming out, or what lore failure SL is or whatever you believe.

The game changed around to 6 times, trying to get people to engage in content, they found the golden recipe with LFR for what they consider a success, if that doesnt work for you, dont play, its as simple as that.

And again, stop confusing difficulty with tiers, as i told you above, the game changed to "patch reset" for the simple reason to have a bigger pool of players, not for the 1%, but for the rest of the players.

Just because the rest of the players are 2000 categories of complainers, doesnt mean they get much of a say in it.

[Elias1337]

No, actually WoW never was a "hardrock band", they have always been the mainstream MMORPG from start. You should ask yourself if you just want WoW to be "hardrock" yourself and try to make it something it never was intended to be.

Beside that you ignore all of my other statements from the last post for your convenience, obviously.

Blizzard surely does not want WoW to be a minority game. They always talked about that they want to appeal as large audiences as possible.

Yet more they appealed more they lost. Its funny becouse as more and more acessability and covinience was added more and more players start quiting game.

[VMSmith]

Yet more they appealed more they lost. Its funny becouse as more and more acessability and covinience was added more and more players start quiting game.

Correlation does not equal causation.

You could also say that the more they focused on organized content, like more intricate raids and the addition of Mythic+, they lost players, so it's the focus on organized content that has been detrimental.

Or maybe it's the addition of battle pets and more battle pet content that has led people to quit? That's just as possible as your suggestion.

Occam's Razor says the player population has fallen because that's just what happens with video games over time. People move on and always have moved on, and there's fewer new players coming in to replace them because most everyone who would be interested has already given it a go.

[Mardux]

How? If the key I have is not for the dungeon I want to run it's literally impossible, I have to join someone elses group.

That's an issue of won't, not can't.

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The term casual is getting all muddled up with people who just don't want to play MMO aspects of the game. Dungeons are casual, mythic+ is casual, normal raids are pretty casual, LFR still exists, what about pet battles?! casual dream. Please no more phone games in WoW, they'll be coming soon enough.

You forgot heroic raids in your list of things that are casual. Hell, by the end of most tiers, even mythic raid is at least semi-casual.

[Zodiark]

This comment is GOLD, those lazy and anti-social people who keep suggesting that the game should cater to them are so annoying and delusional.

Yeah right, that's why your banned bro, comments like that!

Seriously. I have been playing MMORPG's since 1999 when EverQuest was a thing. I was playing in groups and raiding and logging in 15 hours a day at one point. I even used to do 24 hour and 36 hour long binges! i don't even know how I did that back then. The game was so fun and so adrenaline fueled that it just wasn't even a chore. But then I grew older. I had a family and though I still enjoy and love fantasy games and MMORPG's, I don't have that kind of time to devote to creating and maintaining lasting friendships and such online, just to run top tier content like Mythic dungeons and high level M+ content.

The person in the original comment is not looking at things from a working / functional, adult perspective. Myself and others like me have the knowledge and skill to play at the highest levels, but don't have the time and desire to do so. That doesn't mean we don't enjoy the game and don't want some challenging content. When I say myself that I want more casual friendly content, what i am referring to is more challenging open world content that can be joined in by anyone where players have to work together and can't go in with a premade, but have to know their class.