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

[Vakna]

Because casual players make up the vast majority of World of Warcraft players, and tailoring your game to what most of your players want is the correct way to do business if you want to stay in business. It's very simple, really.

[Dazmalak]

My opinion is that gear disparity is one of the major problems of modern WoW. Get rid of the 50+ ilvl swing between entry gear and "elite" gear and "casuals" won't feel helplessly behind everyone else in all forms of content. I prefer to do this by lowering the reward levels of high end content rather than boosting casual gear. Puts more of a focus on skill for completing high end content as opposed to just overgearing it.

If I had my way LFR would be cosmetic drops, covenant gear would cap out at 180, and mythic raid/dungeon gear would be about 200 ilvl vs entry gear (we'll say heroic dungeons) at 171 or whatever. I'd gut normal or heroic raiding entirely and go back to raids that are kind of an in-between (early bosses being normal difficulty, end bosses being heroic difficulty) that drops 180-190 gear and mythic difficulty being 190-200 ilvl (gear scaling with bosses). PvP gear would cap at 190, but worth more ilvl in PvP instances (+15 ilvl) and honor gear would reflect covenant gear (upgradeable to 180). Conquest gear would still be tied to rating, just with smaller variances in increases. You get the idea. The numbers are a little flexible, just saying this is what I think would make for a healthier game. I know it hurts the "elites", but I thought they were in it for the challenge, not to flex their purples on "lesser" players, so I don't see the problem.

All that being said...that's only 1 issue with the game. The story and lack of meaningful world content are the most egregious offenders. I also wish they'd stop abandoning systems like scenarios, island expeditions, warfronts, etc as well when there are things they can do to improve upon them rather than seemingly scrap them entirely.

Alright, I've been sitting on the toilet too long and my legs are going numb. There's my 2 cents.

[ifrah]

I'm playing super casually today and I find the game light years more pro-casual than anything up to cata at least (this is when I jumped from the wagon for quite a while so cannot comment much). Switching covenants to squeeze out the last bits of performance, worrying about 235 legendaries when the lower levels are once again more than just fine unless you push the cutting edge content, not switching to spec X for performance issues (not liking to tank/dps/heal is different story), all this is no worry for a casual gamer. Sure, I'm certainly bad with the inferior roles I play very rarely, but I like the aspect that different specs don't require 100% different gear sets.
Gearing outside of raids has never been easier, or has it? Pointless to list all the details here I'd say but will gladly elaborate if necessary.

[T-34]

Because casual players make up the vast majority of World of Warcraft players, and tailoring your game to what most of your players want is the correct way to do business if you want to stay in business. It's very simple, really.

The best current gear in WoW has always come from competitive co-operative content, either PVE as raids, and lately also M+, or PVP.
WoW has always been a game where your rewards to a great extent reflect your skill at playing the game, your skill at interacting with other people and to an extent time spent.

People, both casual and hardcore, both competitive and non-competitve, have always hit a wall gear-wise and/or prog-wise since the beginning of WoW. What people in this thread, and many others like this, want is to change WoW in to a completely different game.

If people want a MMO where skill and effort virtually doesn't matter and that to a big extent is a solo-experience then I can recommend FF14.

[Malkiah]

If you're just playing to increase you item level, why even bother playing?

conceptually, this type of game (RPG with combat and loot drops) exists only to increase the power of your character - while i'm sure there are a few exceptions, nobody ever logs into a game like WoW just for the experience of interacting with the game for its own sake.
power progression is the carrot that we're all chasing, and everything in game is either an end goal you're working to reach via better gear or an activity you're engaging in on account of the gear you already got.

ultimately this is where WoW's core design model fails: there is no power progression outside of ilevel.
ilevel goes up, character power goes up. anything else besides an increase in ilevel does not result in any increase in character power.
(an exception to this being the beginning of an expansion with a 'borrowed power' system where you're still in the process of acquiring said power)

i think that ultimately what many of these kind of gripe threads really come down to is the issue that the way WoW is designed means that once you hit about 200 ilevel there is no system to improve your character other than M+ or raiding, both of which require a fairly specific mindset and skillset to be able to enjoy.
furthermore, the issue is that the way ilevel progression has been implemented means that once you hit about 200 ilevel you're not optimized for end content play that doesn't involve gear chasing - IE world questing, the maw, torghast.
at 200 ilevel you're still going to struggle a LOT with (for example) soloing some maw quests, or world rares. but the thing is, at about 210-215 ilevel, ALL of that becomes a breeze - so there's this substantial gap in quality of life that kicks in from a fairly tiny ilevel difference, but the gameplay required to get from A to B is intolerable for some people.

I tend to do it the other way around: I increase my item level so I can play the game.

and if doing raiding and M+ is fun to you that naturally works out - but a lot of the bitching you see in these threads are from people who don't like raiding or M+ and are stuck being rather gimpy (in terms of character power relative to the 'open world' content), but have no viable means of improvement.

what WoW needs for its long term systemic health is character power progression that isn't tied to ilevel gains that are tied to M+ and raiding.
some kind of point system for the post-leveling game, like paragon points from D3 or alternate-advancement talents like in EQ or something

[Zyrinx]

If you're just playing to increase you item level, why even bother playing? I tend to do it the other way around: I increase my item level so I can play the game.
And Slime Serpent? Really? That mount you get effortlessly in two months?

Edit: the post above this one summed it up perfectly.

Because it's progression? Idk what to tell you.

This argument is 50% of this entire forum at this point, no minds are changing.

People like bigger numbers in an MMO. News at 11!

[Nightgloom]

Hmm, I am a little puzzled with the notion of being a casual player but wanting to micromanage your character to switch covenants to be able to play another spec. I really dont think the difference is that huge especially if you're not pushing the more difficult & endgame content.

I at least have been able to play other specs on my alts even if they wouldn't be the exact ideal covenant for a certain role. And I'm talking about this on a level of 12-15 keystones in M+. If you're worried you dont have that last 5% of HPS or DPS because you're not the right covenant for your off spec, I'd say you are not very casual(minded)

WoW has always rewarded the best gear for group-play and your ability to play in said groups. To me thats the definition of an MMORPG at least, and I think thats fine - there are other games that offer you a more single-player oriented path of progression, but WoW has always been more about group play and I don't think thats going to change.

[Loveliest]

Here we go again with "casual". If you used to be hardcore and spend a whole lot of time ingame but just cannot commit to a schedule anymore, you are not a casual. Casual denotes those who are not engaged in ANY of the 3 main endgame activities: raiding, M+, Rated pvp.
So if you want to do any of this, you cannot be casual about it. Because they are gear-based and group-based so they require constant progression until you reach an objective.
To forego progression, you would need to change how the game works. Make gear not matter. In a FPS like manner, where you log in play some matches, not log in months and still be the same.
So as crap as it sounds, this is why we play wow. We sub for months upon months and progress. Those who don't spend that time, do not progress as fast. It is probably time for solo games or fps games if the core progression mantra of an mmo is not something that fits anymore. Because if you removed all the progression that requires you to invest time, all those who play it for this aspect will stop playing.

[Malkiah]

Hmm, I am a little puzzled with the notion of being a casual player but wanting to micromanage your character to switch covenants to be able to play another spec. I really dont think the difference is that huge especially if you're not pushing the more difficult & endgame content.

it's a sad feedback loop.

see, most people are pretty dumb. on top of being pretty dumb, they also lack any ability to tell the difference between observable reality and a preconceived notion of what they think reality is supposed to be.

so what happens is this:
1. person is a casual player but interested and involved enough to be aware that forums and icy-veins exist.
2. person reads the forums and icy-veins and is told repeatedly that only covenant X is viable for Y spec.
3. person concludes any covenant but X will make your toon literally catch on fire and explode.

you've got this immense swath of players too dumb to grasp that the minutia of upper end mix/maxing has absolutely nothing to do with running a +5 or pugging a normal difficulty raid 6 months after the tier came out.

people in these threads freak out about covenant switching because of the fact they've been repeatedly told to blindly follow the instructions of guides and discord servers that are dedicated solely to a type of gameplay that in no way represents what these people are doing, and so they have this completely unrealistic idea of what playing the game is actually like.

[M1r4g3]

The game is tailored against everyone, its just designed in a manipulative way to maximize profit, fun is an afterthought.

[D3athsting]

Because lead content designer is a former hardcore raiding guild member and a mod on a forum called "elitistjerks" where you could get infracted for asking a simple question about a spell

[Tiwack]

Don't be a meta-slave, play the game how you want and the way you find it fun. Simply put Blizz wants to squeeze more playtime out of you as well as everyone else hence all these perceived gates and fences to jump to feel worthy in the eyes of your peers. Forget about it.
Sidenote: A ton of comments here don't seem to have read a word of what OP wrote, they read what they want to read and respond in kind going off on the usual tangents about casual vs hardcore and gitgud or quit.

[Nightgloom]

it's a sad feedback loop.

see, most people are pretty dumb. on top of being pretty dumb, they also lack any ability to tell the difference between observable reality and a preconceived notion of what they think reality is supposed to be.

so what happens is this:
1. person is a casual player but interested and involved enough to be aware that forums and icy-veins exist.
2. person reads the forums and icy-veins and is told repeatedly that only covenant X is viable for Y spec.
3. person concludes any covenant but X will make your toon literally catch on fire and explode.

you've got this immense swath of players too dumb to grasp that the minutia of upper end mix/maxing has absolutely nothing to do with running a +5 or pugging a normal difficulty raid 6 months after the tier came out.

people in these threads freak out about covenant switching because of the fact they've been repeatedly told to blindly follow the instructions of guides and discord servers that are dedicated solely to a type of gameplay that in no way represents what these people are doing, and so they have this completely unrealistic idea of what playing the game is actually like.

I actually mostly agree with you, but I just usually don't like throwing it in people's faces like that

But yeah, what the OP actually said in the post about the part of "John, could you heal today so we could raid?" has actually happened in our Mythic raid already.
And I'd guess with a less than optimal covenant for that situation. I'd say in a lot of cases you can still be quite viable even if it means you wont be making that 99 percentile rank on the boss because you didn't have that covenant min-maxed for a situation. But there really are very few situations even in mythic raiding where its ABSOLUTELY necessary to do X or Y. Especially later on once people have managed to get a bit of gear your can work around those even with a few non-BiS items and/or covenants.

So I'd actually say that is already perfectly possible to do, you can swap out to your hybrid healing or tank spec if needed and help out your group. Even if a guide tells you another covenant or trinket is BiS for situation X, Y or Z .

Of course, at the very very top end and the race for a world first or progress-oriented mythic raiding you'd want to do everything possible to min-max. But thats a completely different world to the vast majority of the playerbase. Maybe the general mindset and the overall atmosphere sometimes makes you think that you absolutely cannot play a spec with a subpar covenant...but it definitely is possible, especially in a situation where your group needs someone to fill a special role just for today, to be able to raid or run that Mythic+ dungeon.

[Nite92]

Because lead content designer is a former hardcore raiding guild member and a mod on a forum called "elitistjerks" where you could get infracted for asking a simple question about a spell

Yeah sure, because no one ever changed in 15 years.

- - - Updated - - -

The game is tailored against everyone, its just designed in a manipulative way to maximize profit, fun is an afterthought.

Dunno, speak for yourself. It is fun for me.

[Ange]

Because it's progression? Idk what to tell you.

This argument is 50% of this entire forum at this point, no minds are changing.

People like bigger numbers in an MMO. News at 11!

WoW is so casual friendly, it allows people to join, treat it as a seasonal thing that they can FINISH and they LEAVE till next content.

It's really hard to explain how endless games require some kind of progression for every player, when the game allows season players to exist, so they never experience MMO's as they are. But hard time-gating is not as successful as WoW's variant, so it is what it is.

It's fighting flat-Earth theory.

[Loveliest]

Also, if you are on a forum, you are not casual.
So can we stop lying? Just say what bothers you without making stuff up about how casual you are or how would a new player deal with it, stop making what ifs that are not real.

Just say what you tried to do and what you expect. Like "I wanted to join an M+ 13 but I wanted to tank and i realized switching specs would make me suboptimal and it sucks". Because no casual would have an issue about being perfectly optimal. And no content designed for casual play will require you to be optimal. Pugs will, for high end game stuff but that is so far from "casual".
So please, just say what YOUR exact issue is, without trying to make it some core issue against a group of players. If we could get proper feedback from people, maybe things would change, but nobody's gonna do anything about something as generic as "blizz makes it hard for casuals" while going on about issues that actually have nothing to do with casuals (needing to optimize spec, by def if you do that you are hardcore, even if you dont spend 24 hours a day ingame).

[Zelk]

I'm sorry but there is nothing in SL that stops you from raiding on an offspec every few weeks. It's even more ridiculous to claim that Shadowladns somehow makes this worse than BFA(Azerite armour, essences and Corruptions!) or Legion ( Artifact Weapon, Legendaries and relics). On top of that hardcore guilds would surely be punished more if this was the case since they're doing harder content?

[Malkiah]

Yes, if you want to have the best gear and rating you cant so it casually... that is how it should be.

i think for most people it's not about "the best gear", it's about "the point at which gear enables you to do that content without it being a huge struggle"

as someone who runs a ton of alts i can tell you with certainty that universally across classes and specs the difference between 190-200 ilevel and 205-215 ilevel when it comes to how difficult it is to solo torghast, or perdition hold, or some rares out in the world, is ENORMOUS.
at 190-200 there is a lot of open world solo-oriented content that is still extremely difficult for all classes and specs, and at 205-215 there's no open world content that presents any significant obstacle, barring perhaps the "power of a colossus" weekly quest in the maw.

if there was a way to get your character power to the point where open world content was soloable without needing to invest heavily into group/raid content, i'd agree with your statement entirely.
but since that's a bit of a strawman, i have to quibble.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Honestly I feel this problem is more a content drought right at the start of an expansion. If we were in 9.1 a month ago or so people would be progressing forward with the catch ups and newer entry level gearing options combined with the newer systems they added in with 9.05.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

So time invested equals to skill, by this logic. Good to know.

Can be, but it doesn't have to be. Depends how the time is spent.