The return of the casual?

[Tyris Flare]

You have to spend over 100-200 hours in FF to actually get to the endgame, and it gets even longer with every expansion. Sure, all of the content is scaled to you as you go through, but you need to dedicate months to the game (which also runs off of a sub model) to even get anywhere close to playing current content.

GW2: no idea on that one.

Spending more time leveling is probably not a great definition of "hardcore."

Leveling is the most casual of content unless your game mandates groups, which modern games don't do anymore.

[arkanon]

You have to spend over 100-200 hours in FF to actually get to the endgame, and it gets even longer with every expansion. Sure, all of the content is scaled to you as you go through, but you need to dedicate months to the game (which also runs off of a sub model) to even get anywhere close to playing current content.

GW2: no idea on that one.

First of all, its nowhere near "over 200 hours". Secondly, boosts exist. Thirdly, the content, leveling, is ULTRA CASUAL. FF has EASILY the most casual, simplistic fetch quest story mode leveling of any MMO i have played in years. Its quite good, and the story is enjoyable, but in absolutely no way is it "hardcore".

Also, wouldnt a game having MORE casual content make it...........more casual?

[Unholyground]

In what way is FF or GW2 "MUCH" more hardcore than wow?

Because you actually have to work for what you want in those games especially Guild Wars 2. It feels really good when you've unlocked something that you worked months towards in Guild Wars 2 but then it's account wide mostly so you can enjoy it on more than just one character.

In Guild Wars 2 you also don't replace all your stuff every 5 seconds, anything that you earned 6 years ago is just as good now for the most part.

WoW has the continual bad habbit of "shiny new" then it is left behind.

Also the high end content is much more of a challenge.

[Johnjohn]

A lot of the casual players never left, not completely. These players keep their sub open even if they only play a little each week. Sometimes they take longer breaks but still keep the sub up. They're not chasing anything but a little distraction or completion of a reasonable goal within the time they have to log in.

Someone said casual is a time definition and not a skill definition and that rings true. Casuals can skew more toward lower skill compared to bleeding-edge, but you can still have a very competent player who is time-limited and realistic about their goals. A good work-life-WoW balance.

Maybe this is where the disconnect is happening. Skill = time. I watched a walk through for a high end mythic dungeon once, no way was I going to memorize all that rubbish without lots and of practice. Wow classic dungeons you could go in with the most half assed gear, learn on the fly and be fine on the only difficulty available. You have to friggen study for today's end dungeon game.

I am still baffled people think classic wow was more hadcore than today's game. Like how? Because it took longer to level and the gear rewards came less frequently? Today's WoW is way harder. Vanilla WoW proved it.

[arkanon]

Because you actually have to work for what you want in those games especially Guild Wars 2. It feels really good when you've unlocked something that you worked months towards in Guild Wars 2 but then it's account wide mostly so you can enjoy it on more than just one character.

In Guild Wars 2 you also don't replace all your stuff every 5 seconds, anything that you earned 6 years ago is just as good now for the most part.

WoW has the continual bad habbit of "shiny new" then it is left behind.

Also the high end content is much more of a challenge.

Hang on just a second, you are claiming the GW2 endgame is MORE challenging than wows endgame? Just making sure thats actually what you are saying.

Secondly, the gear is "just as good" because of how gearing works in that game, that makes it MORE casual friendly. But im really confused by your "you have to work for what you want in GW2" - give specific examples. Also, making everything account wide is ALSO more causal friendly, and goes totally against your "you have to work for what you want" statement, since in wow you have to work for everything on EACH character, making it MORE hardcore.

I know you think you have put forward a solid argument for why wow is more casual, but you have done the EXACT opposite.

[VMSmith]

I really enjoy GW2 but no way is it more "hardcore" than WoW. It's more satisfying because you work towards goals over a long period of time rather than luck into your BiS drop from RNG, but that's a matter of preference for each player. Some people just love the constant *ding* of drops until they get what they want, others enjoy long-term progression on a goal. Neither one is more "hardcore" than the other. It's the content, itself, and the way it's interacted with that determines difficulty/challenge ... and WoW is just simply more complex on that front.

[Zoibert the Bear]

You have to spend over 100-200 hours in FF to actually get to the endgame, and it gets even longer with every expansion. Sure, all of the content is scaled to you as you go through, but you need to dedicate months to the game (which also runs off of a sub model) to even get anywhere close to playing current content.

GW2: no idea on that one.

A game campaign being long has absolutely nothing to do with it being hardcore.

[arkanon]

A game campaign being long has absolutely nothing to do with it being hardcore.

As i explained, having MORE casual content makes it......more casual friendly? If the leveling was like dark souls or something, sure, but anyone who has played FF knows its nearly all just fetch quests and lore, there isnt even much combat.

[Tyris Flare]

Because you actually have to work for what you want in those games especially Guild Wars 2. It feels really good when you've unlocked something that you worked months towards in Guild Wars 2 but then it's account wide mostly so you can enjoy it on more than just one character.

In Guild Wars 2 you also don't replace all your stuff every 5 seconds, anything that you earned 6 years ago is just as good now for the most part.

WoW has the continual bad habbit of "shiny new" then it is left behind.

Also the high end content is much more of a challenge.

Just because you mindlessly farm doesn't make something hardcore.

And the high end comment is so laughable I just assume it's a troll.

Not knocking GW2, but the idea that it it is more hardcore is lmao

(same applies to ESO, fwiw)

[Kokolums]

Casual is a pretty broad term.

[Miffinat0r]

I'm leveling a hunter now casually.

WoW's endgame is not casual friendly. I'm going to check out the reputation farming and crafting when I get there, but outside of that I doubt I'll be doing any M+ or Raiding (besides LFR). That's the extent of casualness in the endgame.

WoW to me is the literal definition of this statement from the Dark Knight

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

WoW lived long enough to become the villain. It's kinda hard to believe that WoW was the "Casual MMORPG" when compared against EQ and UO. Now it's the opposite. Everyone knows it, everyone sees it. WoW has done a terrible job servicing people who don't do "Competitive Organized Play" at the endgame. Ion even admitted as such for the past 3 interviews he gave. But there's no one over in Blizzard who actually understands or thinks about casual players.

[Healerme]

So far I have to say the amount of content that can be considered casual seems much much higher in DF than the past 2 expansions.

Baring in mind we have no M+ or raiding right now, so everyone claiming that's the only end game content is either not playing or deliberately being blind to the hours upon hours of content available right now. There are treasures, side quests, primary renown with smaller rep factions you can grind, massively overhauled professions. All of which you can take part in without doing any "hardcore" content.

If you don't enjoy that stuff then fine, maybe wow isn't for you, but claiming there isn't content is simply false. I'm a hardcore player but even I want to farm drake appearances and do the dragon races, they're a lot of fun and new in terms of WoW so I love that they've included it.

[JustaRandomReindeer]

So far I have to say the amount of content that can be considered casual seems much much higher in DF than the past 2 expansions.

Baring in mind we have no M+ or raiding right now, so everyone claiming that's the only end game content is either not playing or deliberately being blind to the hours upon hours of content available right now. There are treasures, side quests, primary renown with smaller rep factions you can grind, massively overhauled professions. All of which you can take part in without doing any "hardcore" content.

All of these things were present in previous expansions too and doing side quests and farming herbs can hardly be considered endgame content. The difference is that in previous expansions you had reasons to do world quests because you had emissaries and AP rewards. You also had things like Suramar, class order halls, broken shore, island expeditions, warfronts, torghast, the maw, etc. It's what people mean by endgame content.

[potis]

Hang on just a second, you are claiming the GW2 endgame is MORE challenging than wows endgame? Just making sure thats actually what you are saying.

Secondly, the gear is "just as good" because of how gearing works in that game, that makes it MORE casual friendly. But im really confused by your "you have to work for what you want in GW2" - give specific examples. Also, making everything account wide is ALSO more causal friendly, and goes totally against your "you have to work for what you want" statement, since in wow you have to work for everything on EACH character, making it MORE hardcore.

I know you think you have put forward a solid argument for why wow is more casual, but you have done the EXACT opposite.

Its not hard to figure it out.

WoW came out when there were only 2 genres of MMO, the ones you could reach max level in a logical time period and gear chasing started, and the ones were leveling was the content.

They were called Western and Asian MMOs respectively, and definitely the RPG aspect.

GW2 and FF are nothing but copies of WoW but they are different subgenres, WoW is all about gear chasing repeatedly through raiding.

Guild Wars 2 is literally a game for collectors, there is nothing to farm gear wise for the last 7? years but transmogs and pets and mount skins, they do release content, new areas, new dungeons and shit like that, but it all reflects to skins in the end, they literally add 32234234 currencies every year, but there is no actual gear chasing, they basically add 10-20 "Legendary" items now and then, which is just flashy items with the same exact stats as the ones you had 7 years ago, and you farm it to unlock the skin, takes awhile usually, thats where he is basing his whole "You feel happy in the end".

FF is literally a copy of WoW with the Final Fantasy system of abilities instead of medieval (copy as in the Western genre, logical timeframe to max level and then gear chasing) but since it learnt from the mistakes of WoW, they focused on a linear "forced" story mode, which for the mmo-champion posters is apparently gods gift on earth.

So Final Fantasy is basically another WoW with different graphics but you are forced to do the storyline cause thats really what it has going for it, and GW2 is a transmog game (with a very heavy transmog oriented in game shop for $) but since its literally B2P and they give you freebie content every 3 months (i log on, collect it, then log on once every year and play the extra campaign, if you dont, you have to buy it to play it) its a great "Single player" experience/story line.

[arkanon]

Its not hard to figure it out.

WoW came out when there were only 2 genres of MMO, the ones you could reach max level in a logical time period and gear chasing started, and the ones were leveling was the content.

They were called Western and Asian MMOs respectively, and definitely the RPG aspect.

GW2 and FF are nothing but copies of WoW but they are different subgenres, WoW is all about gear chasing repeatedly through raiding.

Guild Wars 2 is literally a game for collectors, there is nothing to farm gear wise for the last 7? years but transmogs and pets and mount skins, they do release content, new areas, new dungeons and shit like that, but it all reflects to skins in the end, they literally add 32234234 currencies every year, but there is no actual gear chasing, they basically add 10-20 "Legendary" items now and then, which is just flashy items with the same exact stats as the ones you had 7 years ago, and you farm it to unlock the skin, takes awhile usually, thats where he is basing his whole "You feel happy in the end".

FF is literally a copy of WoW with the Final Fantasy system of abilities instead of medieval (copy as in the Western genre, logical timeframe to max level and then gear chasing) but since it learnt from the mistakes of WoW, they focused on a linear "forced" story mode, which for the mmo-champion posters is apparently gods gift on earth.

So Final Fantasy is basically another WoW with different graphics but you are forced to do the storyline cause thats really what it has going for it, and GW2 is a transmog game (with a very heavy transmog oriented in game shop for $) but since its literally B2P and they give you freebie content every 3 months (i log on, collect it, then log on once every year and play the extra campaign, if you dont, you have to buy it to play it) its a great "Single player" experience/story line.

So just to be clear - FF14 copied wow, even though its predecessor, FF11 came out two years BEFORE wow, and was an mmo?

Beside that, you say "its not hard to figure out" but then really struggle to explain what you are actually saying? What ARE you trying to say?

[LedZeppelin]

this is the most casual friendly expac i have ever seen. i have two geared toons and could have even more if i devoted more time. there is no underlying pressure to log in. when i log in i can do what i want.

[Korggan]

2 to 3 mythics a week is not casual.

As an RPPvP player I tend to take my time with content and get to only play a few hours a week due to family commitments.

Casuals are spending way less time ingame than you imagine.

[Miffinat0r]

this is the most casual friendly expac i have ever seen. i have two geared toons and could have even more if i devoted more time. there is no underlying pressure to log in. when i log in i can do what i want.

I think a lot of people take this as disengenious because the casual players have been gaslit by so many people.

BFA: Most Casual Experience Ever! || It was not.
Shadowlands: It's the most casual friendly expansion ever! || It was not.
DF: It's the most casual expansion in WoW! || Jury is still out.

People have been saying this line of logic since WoD. We know it's not true. But it won't stop people from insisting that it is, despite many people both on here, twitter, youtube, reddit, and WoW's forums all echoing similar complaints.

[Koollan]

A game campaign being long has absolutely nothing to do with it being hardcore.

I consider it hardcore if I have to,

1. Buy an expansion.
2. Pay a sub.
3. Spend months and months to get anywhere close to endgame participation and dedicate all of my free time to it in order to get my money's worth.

Let's say you purchase Endwalker because all of your buddies have it, and they swear by the campaign. You start leveling once you get home from work every single day, and make very marginal progress over months. Endwalker costs 40 bucks. To be generous, 2, 3 months of sub to level. That's 85 dollars to get anywhere close to endgame. That is, if you don't buy a boost. If a game requires me to spend that much money and time in order to get anywhere close to endgame, it's hardcore to me. I do not have the time to dedicate myself to that journey. It's simply inaccessible - which is what 'hardcore' means to most people. Inaccessible.

[LedZeppelin]

I think a lot of people take this as disengenious because the casual players have been gaslit by so many people.

BFA: Most Casual Experience Ever! || It was not.
Shadowlands: It's the most casual friendly expansion ever! || It was not.
DF: It's the most casual expansion in WoW! || Jury is still out.

People have been saying this line of logic since WoD. We know it's not true. But it won't stop people from insisting that it is, despite many people both on here, twitter, youtube, reddit, and WoW's forums all echoing similar complaints.

I dont think anyone thought shadowlands was casual friendly at all. Seems they addressed most of what the community wanted when it came to BoA type things in DF