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

[Surfacin9]

There is literally nothing stopping casuals from switching specs whenever its needed. Casuals need to min-max the least, they don't have to be optimal. Its only in your heads. Even though the power disparity between covenants for most specs is clearly vivid, its only matters when doing the hardest content, or when you are trying to clear mythic while wearing hc gear. As for the rest, especially when people need to switch temporary - just do it. Soulbinds will still be useful, covenant ability can be less useful but not game-breaking. After all, it was never expected from people to play their offspec at the same level as their main spec. And legendaries - you don't have to craft 235 versions of them, anything below will still get the job done, you're only be missing some stats in ONE item.

Its actually the hardcore that got the short end of the stick when it comes to spec switching. its them who need to be optimal and level several characters of the same class for different covenants if it comes to it, or refarm renown when covenants get buffed/nerfed.

So you're looking at it from a completely different angle. Less optimal (not the best) =/= complete unplayable trash.

[kranur]

I think this is an exagerration. Yes, the covenants are bullshit but let's be honest, if you're a super casual that can't attend 2 nights x 3 hours per week, then mythic raiding just isn't for you. And for the rest of the difficulties you just don't need to have the absolute best covenant with the perfect choices.
There are many problems with the game but raiding isn't one of them. It's like complaining you can't get gladiator because you don't have time to play when your partners do.

[NecroVane]

How in the hell does anything in your post indicate they are designing the game against the casual player?

It's favorable to casuals to randomly have a boss designed to take 5 tanks?

Bad spec balance is somehow intentional design against casual players?

Casuals refusing to play offspecs is somehow indicative of design against casuals? And if so, how would having said boss that requires 5 tanks not massively exacerbate that problem?

You think there are huge numbers of casuals out there that all want to play tank, but they cant because standard group comp doesnt bring 12 of them? If anything, if they were to tailor the standard comps around what people want to play, a 20 man mythic group would be 1 healer 19 dps.

This game is designed almost exclusively for the casual audience, literally one tiny tiny slice, mythic raiding, is designed exclusively for hardcore players, everything else is designed for or accessible to the casual audience: group finder, rated and non rated pvp, M+, 3 easy raid difficulties with flexible raid size, world quests, weekly welfare boxes, pet battles, mount farming, achievements, professions, gear catchup mechanisms. It's just that most content in this game sucks because they spend so much time inventing new stupid systems every expac rather than developing and polishing content.

Most of the things that negatively affect a casual player, like the grindy nature of basically everything in the "borrowed power" era of wow, affect the hardcores much more. You have any idea how much time Mythic raiders have to put into all these dumbass systems and currencies to maximize their performance? Fighting against the intentional gating to be a few neck levels ahead to get that extra azerite trait a week or two early, or endlessly grinding m+ in legion for legendary chances, doing torghast every week, maximizing your weekly box reward for the .0001% chance you get that one specific trinket that's your bis.

Genuinely pisses me off when people complain about how bad the game is for casuals, when the hardcores have literally never had it worse; the amount of effort you have to put in to raid mythic is colossal compared to the miniscule rewards you can expect; a few extra ilvls compared to someone who pugs RBGs up to 1800 in an afternoon or does a bunch of m+5s, which will be invalidated when the next patch comes out by the catchup mechanisms anyway.

The game in general is just bad right now, for everyone, not just for one group.

[ippollite]

I think op was just trying to spin covenant locks from another angle. I dont think its really a pressing issue for super casual players per se (like me). But it COULD be an issue for much smaller guilds looking for heroic clears or competitive dungeon running. It explains why its a little confusing. I think if op didnt use 'casual' to define this, but rather mom and pop progressive minded guilds, the op would carry a little more clarity and weight.

[Tradu]

I think op was just trying to spin covenant locks from another angle. I dont think its really a pressing issue for super casual players per se (like me). But it COULD be an issue for much smaller guilds looking for heroic clears or competitive dungeon running. It explains why its a little confusing. I think if op didnt use 'casual' to define this, but rather mom and pop progressive minded guilds, the op would carry a little more weight.

The bigger issue is how he's trying to spin it to sound like this hurts casual players(even if we translate that to "heroic progression guilds" like you say) the most, when he's literally repeating the top complaints from higher end players since before launch. It's just weird.

It's not designed "against the casual player", these things are designed against all players equally(if anything they hurt the higher end more). The problem is that whenever this was pointed out before launch/early in the expansion, people kept claiming that it only affects high end players and is fine for more casual players and allowed Blizzard to hide behind that. Well, it turns out that, yet again, it hurts all players.

[Asrialol]

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.

[shise]

Not really. Casual does not only refer to the time invested in the game, but more to the attitude you have. If you want to play optimally, you're a minmaxer, not a casual. A casual is pretty relaxed, treats the game as a game. Of course there are skilled casuals (those that know that you can do amazing without the "right" covenants), but everything OP described least affects those that just want to play the game without overthinking it.

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.

[ippollite]

The bigger issue is how he's trying to spin it to sound like this hurts casual players(even if we translate that to "heroic progression guilds" like you say) the most, when he's literally repeating the top complaints from higher end players since before launch. It's just weird.

agreed, but we can give it a charitable reading and try and parse the key themes:

Do these smaller guilds have issues with a smaller roster forcing (specifically hybrid) players to change specs to fill the holes caused by absences?
Do they then struggle with completing these instances within the remit of their current covenant powers (even with easy to adjust soulbinds)?
Are locked covenants then an egregious hybrid tax which perhaps other classes dont face?
Is it also particularly damaging to smaller guilds?

If yes, (not saying it is), would opening the covenants make this... 'fairer'(?)
Should they just be opened anyway?

Lots of questions we could address instead of the least interesting one ('is this a casual or hardcore issue?')

[mojusk]

It's not designed "against the casual player", these things are designed against all players equally(if anything they hurt the higher end more). The problem is that whenever this was pointed out before launch/early in the expansion, people kept claiming that it only affects high end players and is fine for more casual players and allowed Blizzard to hide behind that. Well, it turns out that, yet again, it hurts all players.

and most of the "casuals" who disagreed with the "elitists", only disagreed because they dislike the "elitist" and blame them for all their mistfortune. so everything that "elitist" say must be wrong in their head.

[Tradu]

agreed, but we can give it a charitable reading and try and parse the key themes:

Do these smaller guilds have issues with a smaller roster forcing (specifically hybrid) players to change specs to fill the holes caused by absences?
Do they then struggle with completing these instances within the remit of their current covenant powers (even with easy to adjust soulbinds)?
Are locked covenants then an egregious hybrid tax which perhaps other classes dont face?
Is it also particularly damaging to smaller guilds?

If yes, (not saying it is), would opening the covenants make this... 'fairer'(?)
Should they just be opened anyway?

Lots of questions we could address instead of the least interesting one ('is this a casual or hardcore issue?')

Sure. I'd probably say yes, it does hurt those smaller guilds. It gets weird again when OP starts talking about wanting 8 tank bosses, though, because that just makes the existing problems worse(and would be bad even without heavy restrictions/power losses when changing spec)

It's a bit funny, though, because in lower end guilds I can see how the restrictions end up as mostly a hybrid tax. Meanwhile in higher end guilds they restrict pures(or multi-DPS spec classes in general) more because you generally have your core of tanks/healers with maybe a flex player or 2, so switching roles isn't as necessary. Instead, multi-DPS spec classes frequently want to play different specs for different bosses because they suit different fight styles, and this is heavily restricted currently.

[Daffan]

Because the elitist tryhards are the content creators so Blizzard is now leaning towards catering to them even though it's causing people to leave in droves.

lol what

The only thing making casuals leave is that the game plays itself with welfare, catchup and easy basic content that casuals complain there is nothing to do after 2 weeks.

[Amaterasu65]

Neither casuals nor hardcore players like the Covenants being locked. It's not a thing only for one part of the playerbase.

Hardcore players just have 1 or several alts on equal standing as their main so they can freely switch if the occasion arises.

Also I don't feel that Covenant locks are so important when it comes to early mythic bosses. We reached a point where we are geared well for Nathria M and it mostly comes to tactic execution.

[Venziir]

Because the "casual" crowd is the absolute majority of players?

[Ausr]

I think you, the OP, and a LOT of other people are confusing casual with lazy/bad players. Casual players can do end game along with the hardcore. They're just a step behind. Casuals can do a lot of end game.

[Echocho]

Why would a casual player care about having a 235 legendary / optimal covenant?

Why would a regular Joe care about having a fancy car?

[Aritra the Gnome]

It literally isn't. If you need to heal, then heal. You're still viable. It's the most casual friendly since WotLK. Us "casuals" need to get out of this mindset of non optimal specs being trash. It isnt. People need to actually do the rings instead of listen to someone who makes money off trashing your fav game.

Literally this.
The game has difficulty levels for a reason. And outside of mythic raiding and level 15+ Dungeons any special good enough to get the job done.

[kaminaris]

What the heck is this thread even on about?

OP complaints about expansion being casual unfriendly while saying he can't minmax his offspec on the fly?! And mentions mythic raiding.

Casuals don't suffer from this at all, its the blow to the hardcore crowd.
Casuals simply switch the spec and go.

SL is casual unfriendly but for literally every other reason than covenants.

[Raisei]

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,

Shadowlands is probably the most casual/alt friendly expansion in the last 10 years. No need to farm anything, no increase in player power can be endlessly farmed except for Stygia and that is such a small increase that it only matters for the absolute min/maxing, which casuals aren't doing anyway.

Covenants are similar. Sure they have an impact, because otherwise why would you even have them, but their impact is small enough that it's still completely fine to use an off-meta covenant unless you are doing +20 Mythics and Mythic raiding, which is hardly a thing casuals do anyway.

For example, I am playing all 3 specs on my Monk, depending what the group needs. I am Kyrian. Pelagos is the unbeatable zenith of soulbinds for every spec. But I am not gonna go through the trouble of constantly switching conduits, so I just picked a Soul Bind for each spec. Pelagos for Dps, Kleia for Healing and Mykanikos for Tanking.
This way I have done my KSM with several +15/+16/+17 keys and got my Curve + a few Mythic kills in the raid with no problem. Am I 100% min-maxed like this? No. Do I need to be for the content I do? No.

So unless you are telling me that your "casual" goal is to get Cutting Edge Denathrius and a +20 key in time then I can only say that your problems are simply imagined. You read online how this and this spec/covenant combo is bad, but don't realize that for the usual meta-slavery that it is. People will say something is "bad" if it performs 2% less then the meta combination and such a difference simply does not matter for 95% of the playerbase.

And as you see on my own example you can perfectly fine utilize all specs of a hybrid class like Monk. It's just a matter of practice as everything in life.

[Bomba the Shaman]

The reason many casuals perceive the game being tailored against them, I think, is because so much of the game is designed in and around instanced content, for which casuals were never crazy about to begin with, let alone the modern game doubled down on instanced content, being it's focus and selling point.

Were as before (a long time ago) you could just go out in the world and have fun. Just riding around in WoW, killing mobs, doing quests, collecting things, meeting people and enjoying your class, you could just have fun. This is what casuals want. They do not want, and will not do raids or mythics or arenas or even BGs, they just won't do it.
All casuals want to just simply go out in the world and have fun with their class.

Blizzard can't make world content fun anymore. They try with dailys and AP grind and what not, it just doesn't work anymore. The world isn't fun anymore. The Devs do not understand or do not know how the make world content fun anymore. So they try to push everybody into dungeons and raids, because that's the only thing they know how to make these days. What this effectively means is dumbing down everything and giving free epics in order to coax casuals to play content they don't care about.

And therein lies the source for the friction between the hardcores and casuals - is Blizzards literal inability to make WoW fun for the majority of their playerbase. They even tried to make instanced content that is soloable (therefore more approachable to casuals) with Torghast. By the looks of it, it didn't work as well as they thought it would.
They just can't make casuals care about instances no matter how hard they try.

All of these systems atop systems is designed to make the gap between hardcores and casuals as smaller as possible, this includes covenants. It doesn't work.
If Blizzard intends for wow to have a future, thy need to step away from systems heavy design, all it does is make the game convoluted and cluttered.
They need to try to make playing in the world fun again. This is why people got attracted into playing MMORPGs in the first place. Not this Diablo-like bullshit they call WOW today.

[MoanaLisa]

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.

I lean toward "don't want" while reminding myself that the game director used to run the Elitist Jerks website and has said that raiding and PVP are the only things in the game that are important. It's a mindset and is unlikely to change without significant changes at the top of the teams.

I'll add that if that's the game they want it to be then that's fine and is their choice. I don't believe it's a very smart choice but it's quite clearly a deliberate one.