Guild Wars 2

Astralporing.1957:

Ryou.2398:

How is that hardcore? And if you organize it right you will be fine, you can make mistakes just not allot.

That’s how.

Except that doesn’t make it hardcore lol, I dont think you understand the definition of hardcore gaming.

I’ll have to take your word for it that LFR saved WoW raiding. As I said, I absolutely hated LFR and I was not alone in that.

I’m not a “hardcore” raider, but I used to be. I can only imagine what raid leaders in WoW have to put up with as far as turnover rates since LFR. It was always the death of guilds: burnout. Now by the time players begin progression raiding, they’ve already completed all of the bosses multiple times on easier modes. Hitting the wall at that point is a motivation killer.

But I suppose if you never intended to engage in challenging raids, it wouldn’t bother you to stop at the lower tiers. So perhaps it makes sense from your perspective. Like I said, I enjoy the current raid tier even while my guild is progressing very slowly. But I seriously doubt I would bother with it if I had already run through it on several tiers of easy mode.

You also provide no answer to my points regarding resource allocation (more raid tiers = more resources locked up in raids) and elitism. LFR didn’t address those problems, but made them worse. Of course, resource allocation isn’t a huge issue over in WoW. Blizzard has plenty to go around. But here it’s a different story. I think what we’d up with is a solution that makes everyone miserable. But I could be wrong.

Blaeys.3102:

I don’t think removing raids is the answer. But raiding has changed the nature of the game and it is definitely not for the better.

GW2 is no longer the friendliest community in MMO gaming – something the developers bragged about at one point. If anything, it is now one of the most toxic environments in gaming. That is evident both on these forums and in the game itself.

And, that is because of how they chose to implement raids. When you build PVE content for segments of your population based on difficulty (with no provisions for the rest of your PVE community), you can’t then be surprised when the community fractures into opposing factions based on those segments.

Yes some of this existed with dungeons before, but the current toxicity around group (and even guild) kicks and elitism can be traced back to the introduction of raiding in its current form. Enrage timers (with no other form of raiding) and other similar artificial barriers only serve to punish diversity and limit strategic choices. This causes people to single out those who do not conform to a specific meta or playstyle. In fractals and dungeons (even the hardest ones), these lines were still there, but they were much grayer. In raids, because of enrage timers, its often now “play my way or GTFO.”

Every other raiding MMO out there sees this and makes provisions for it. Whether they use multiple raid tiers (preferred solution) or natural content obsolescence through gear and level treadmills (no a good solution for GW2), they realize (or came to realize over time) he importance of including all PVE players (especially where story is involved). And Astralporing is definitely right about LFR (and more recently flex raiding) in WoW – it didn’t kill game interest. If anything, it justified continue investment in raids – and, based on what my friends say, actually saved the game.

I will say it again. Raiding has changed GW2 – and not for the better. That doesn’t mean raiding (even at its current or higher difficulty) doesn’t have a place in the game.

It just means that locking one aspect of PVE away and saying “this is where the big kids play” is (of course) going to create (actually has created) cliques in the game in ways that other content approaches never did.

GW2 went from one of the friendliest communities around to one where certain groups of player now feel superior to others and are happy to call attention to that through insults, nasty posts on the forums, exclusionary behavior in game and many other ways.

I want the GW2 community we had in the first few years of the game back – and Anet can make that happen. Stop with the walled off content – build a game for everyone and then look at how you can add in tiered difficulty (through levels, challenge motes, achievements, etc) to ensure the game remain engaging for all.

You have a point about the community, many mmorpgs start with raids so it’s hard to notice what they can do to a community, but as you said getting rid if raids is not the answers.

I feel like hate for raids comes mostly from the term “raid”. It’s exactly the same as fractal and dungeon meta zerk lfgs. Nobody forces anyone to join such PUGs. Find likeminded people, set the expectations right and try it in chilled atmosphere. I did that with my guild, we wiped a lot, we tinkered our set up a lot, nobody got ever mad becouse they knew what to expect and we finally made it and it was the best feeling ever. Raids haven’t changed anything, there always were and always will be toxi and kitten players who think they are superior just becouse, just find the ones that are not and play with them.

AliamRationem.5172:

I’ll have to take your word for it that LFR saved WoW raiding. As I said, I absolutely hated LFR and I was not alone in that.

I’m not a “hardcore” raider, but I used to be. I can only imagine what raid leaders in WoW have to put up with as far as turnover rates since LFR. It was always the death of guilds: burnout. Now by the time players begin progression raiding, they’ve already completed all of the bosses multiple times on easier modes. Hitting the wall at that point is a motivation killer.

But I suppose if you never intended to engage in challenging raids, it wouldn’t bother you to stop at the lower tiers. So perhaps it makes sense from your perspective. Like I said, I enjoy the current raid tier even while my guild is progressing very slowly. But I seriously doubt I would bother with it if I had already run through it on several tiers of easy mode.

You also provide no answer to my points regarding resource allocation (more raid tiers = more resources locked up in raids) and elitism. LFR didn’t address those problems, but made them worse. Of course, resource allocation isn’t a huge issue over in WoW. Blizzard has plenty to go around. But here it’s a different story. I think what we’d up with is a solution that makes everyone miserable. But I could be wrong.

The main problem with WoW LFR is that it is the primary way to get geared for higher raid difficulties, which in turn get you geared for even higher difficulties of the same raid. That certainly leads to burnout. A massive mistake was when Blizzard decided to make LFR gear better than dungeon gear, while dungeon gear should have been better, with LFR simply being a story mode if you are unable to raid. WoW has a total of 4 difficulties and the casuals of GW2 are only asking for 1 more difficulty.

Since this isn’t a gear-based game, most of the reason for burnout isn’t there. All that Anet would have to do is make an easy mode with a few new rewards, and casuals would play it. Of course, the new rewards would also be available to normal mode, so that raiders wouldn’t have to do easy mode. This way, more players would get introduced to raiding and if they want more challenge and greater rewards, they can progress to normal mode.

Alternatively, they could just make some sort of content in those maps that takes place after the raid story-wise. I think that it would be a shame to let those maps go to waste by keeping most players out.

Are there enrage timers in the 3rd wing? I thought I heard there were not, at least for the first ‘boss’. Thus, one can take their time?

Ryou.2398:

How is that hardcore? And if you organize it right you will be fine, you can make mistakes just not allot.

You have answered your own question here. but with the correction not “alot” but a single or maybe (if winds are in your favor) two.

But i’ll extend this – you simply don’t take new-to-raid people but rather people that know it like their back of the hand – and that’s hardcore definition to you. Add to that all those who want you to ping equipment, insights (or how the f are those things called) and food or gtfo and there you have.

Ryou.2398:

And I didnt say anything about dnd online, but your point about having class roles is not valid in this point.

It’s valid as hell here, if healer or tank did f-up like in GW2 – that was BAD, but with the exception that D&D was more forgiving when it comes to this due to extended skills that often saved the day, and i mean loads of skills that you could prepare for the worst case scenario not only 5 avaible in GW that you are stuck with because rest is useless. You would be surprised how many times my Warchanter did save the day by using ressurecion scrolls, extended healing or simply taking the role of tanking enemy. (about dps i won’t talk here because only Rogue or Sorcer was better then this mofo)

Or you try to tell me that you don’t use a healer and a tank ? Simply going full peartart* ?

DISCLAIMER – im against removing raids – god save me – there are people who enjoy them and so be it, but i just want in the same time as adding new stuff to raids to add same amount of content for those who have enough raids for the next 38 millenniums.

• Full peartart – it’s not an insult but means going with full berserker gear on whole party. (so mods – dont ban – no! bad! )

Ryou.2398:

Blaeys.3102:

I don’t think removing raids is the answer. But raiding has changed the nature of the game and it is definitely not for the better.

GW2 is no longer the friendliest community in MMO gaming – something the developers bragged about at one point. If anything, it is now one of the most toxic environments in gaming. That is evident both on these forums and in the game itself.

And, that is because of how they chose to implement raids. When you build PVE content for segments of your population based on difficulty (with no provisions for the rest of your PVE community), you can’t then be surprised when the community fractures into opposing factions based on those segments.

Yes some of this existed with dungeons before, but the current toxicity around group (and even guild) kicks and elitism can be traced back to the introduction of raiding in its current form. Enrage timers (with no other form of raiding) and other similar artificial barriers only serve to punish diversity and limit strategic choices. This causes people to single out those who do not conform to a specific meta or playstyle. In fractals and dungeons (even the hardest ones), these lines were still there, but they were much grayer. In raids, because of enrage timers, its often now “play my way or GTFO.”

Every other raiding MMO out there sees this and makes provisions for it. Whether they use multiple raid tiers (preferred solution) or natural content obsolescence through gear and level treadmills (no a good solution for GW2), they realize (or came to realize over time) he importance of including all PVE players (especially where story is involved). And Astralporing is definitely right about LFR (and more recently flex raiding) in WoW – it didn’t kill game interest. If anything, it justified continue investment in raids – and, based on what my friends say, actually saved the game.

I will say it again. Raiding has changed GW2 – and not for the better. That doesn’t mean raiding (even at its current or higher difficulty) doesn’t have a place in the game.

It just means that locking one aspect of PVE away and saying “this is where the big kids play” is (of course) going to create (actually has created) cliques in the game in ways that other content approaches never did.

GW2 went from one of the friendliest communities around to one where certain groups of player now feel superior to others and are happy to call attention to that through insults, nasty posts on the forums, exclusionary behavior in game and many other ways.

I want the GW2 community we had in the first few years of the game back – and Anet can make that happen. Stop with the walled off content – build a game for everyone and then look at how you can add in tiered difficulty (through levels, challenge motes, achievements, etc) to ensure the game remain engaging for all.

You have a point about the community, many mmorpgs start with raids so it’s hard to notice what they can do to a community, but as you said getting rid if raids is not the answers.

Getting rid of raids is not the answer, that wine bottle can’t be unopened, and nerfing the raids is also not the answer. Casual Raids are a bad idea, that would be Anet saying that everyone needs to do raids which is a Very, Very, Bad Idea.

One answer would be to build more content geared towards casual players, that has equal rewards to raids, and feels “end game”, right now the ‘end game’ is all about raids, where at one time there is a vibrant “Choose your own end game” where you could do all kinds of things, now there is only raids. So if they somehow (No idea how) manage to bring back that original lateral end game that they once had, that might fix the problem, but lets get real, doing that would take a ton of time and resources.

So, Assuming they don’t drive off their casual population before they can make these changes, it could work, but it’s a time issue, something that should have been considered before Raids ever got put in.

Just because Anet came out with raids doesn’t mean thats all they are gonna focus on. Take a chill pill. 6 devs on raids, and the rest are working on other things.

And even so, you must all remember that this is only 1 raid. 1 raid broken into 3 wings. Just because they introduced it periodically doesn’t mean its there new number one focus. MMO’s are about variety of play, not just one game mode. Otherwise its not much of an MMO.

Dragon.8762:

Just because Anet came out with raids doesn’t mean thats all they are gonna focus on. Take a chill pill. 6 devs on raids, and the rest are working on other things.

And even so, you must all remember that this is only 1 raid. 1 raid broken into 3 wings. Just because they introduced it periodically doesn’t mean its there new number one focus. MMO’s are about variety of play, not just one game mode. Otherwise its not much of an MMO.

I think we can measure that based on how quickly the next raid comes out.

If they choose to retain the model they are currently using, I hate to say it, but I hope it is well into the future. They really need to focus on other things now.

Blaeys.3102:

Dragon.8762:

Just because Anet came out with raids doesn’t mean thats all they are gonna focus on. Take a chill pill. 6 devs on raids, and the rest are working on other things.

And even so, you must all remember that this is only 1 raid. 1 raid broken into 3 wings. Just because they introduced it periodically doesn’t mean its there new number one focus. MMO’s are about variety of play, not just one game mode. Otherwise its not much of an MMO.

I think we can measure that based on how quickly the next raid comes out.

If they choose to retain the model they are currently using, I hate to say it, but I hope it is well into the future. They really need to focus on other things now.

They have been focusing on other things with the main-stay of their development force for quite some time. We just can’t see what they are working on.

Frediosz.2718:

Ryou.2398:

How is that hardcore? And if you organize it right you will be fine, you can make mistakes just not allot.

You have answered your own question here. but with the correction not “alot” but a single or maybe (if winds are in your favor) two.

But i’ll extend this – you simply don’t take new-to-raid people but rather people that know it like their back of the hand – and that’s hardcore definition to you. Add to that all those who want you to ping equipment, insights (or how the f are those things called) and food or gtfo and there you have.

Ryou.2398:

And I didnt say anything about dnd online, but your point about having class roles is not valid in this point.

It’s valid as hell here, if healer or tank did f-up like in GW2 – that was BAD, but with the exception that D&D was more forgiving when it comes to this due to extended skills that often saved the day, and i mean loads of skills that you could prepare for the worst case scenario not only 5 avaible in GW that you are stuck with because rest is useless. You would be surprised how many times my Warchanter did save the day by using ressurecion scrolls, extended healing or simply taking the role of tanking enemy. (about dps i won’t talk here because only Rogue or Sorcer was better then this mofo)

Or you try to tell me that you don’t use a healer and a tank ? Simply going full peartart* ?

DISCLAIMER – im against removing raids – god save me – there are people who enjoy them and so be it, but i just want in the same time as adding new stuff to raids to add same amount of content for those who have enough raids for the next 38 millenniums.

• Full peartart – it’s not an insult but means going with full berserker gear on whole party. (so mods – dont ban – no! bad! )

Again bro this doesnt make sense, for one thing most mmorpgs ive played eq1, 2, and city of heroes had tons of classes beyond the holy trinity where it was more fogiving, and guild wars 2 isnt that much different for one every class has a rez, and more then just druid can heal. So I dont get how this makes it hardcore.

And no I did not answer my own question, again I dont think you understand the definition of hardcore, if your into a decent guild they dont tell you to play a specific build or get out, yes you need some optimization but not as bad as your making it out to be. Your talking about the attitudes of some of the players, the raiding itself isnt hardcore you cannot blame the raiding design on player attitude completely.

webtoehobbit.4201:

Has ANet Forgotten the Casual Gamers?

Short answer: no
Long answer: nooooooooooooooooo

webtoehobbit.4201:

With this severe content drought and nothing but very specific content aimed at the more hardcore crowd, I can’t help but to feel a bit forgotten. Sure we have current events, but those are nothing compared to the love that the other parts of the game have seen.

I’m sorry that you feel that way. I think there needs to be a clear definition to ‘hardcore’ to have a solid discussion about this. You mention the current events, yup they’re there. But what about all the WvW changes? Do you consider WvW hardcore? I’d say it’s honestly a mix… I’m largely a carebear, but I’ve found it kinda fun to roam with the zerg now and then… I’m certainly not hardcore when it comes to any type of PvP.

And, the love for the other parts of the game… I’m assuming you mean raiding. It’s important to remember that there didn’t exist a raid before, so to add any type of respectable/worthwhile raiding where there wasn’t any before it’s gunna have to feel like a lot is being added… they’re adding a new bedroom onto their house… so you’re gunna notice the construction. They’re investing time and resources into adding raiding, so they’re not going to want it to come off as a joke… and now it’s a new addition to the family… a new aspect of the game that needs catering to on top of the ‘casual’ crowd, the ‘pvp’ crowd, the ‘farming’ crowd, and all the other crowds that make us one big argumentative family.

webtoehobbit.4201:

Do you think that the casual base is a minority? I have always felt that the casual gamer base was quite populous in GW2, but maybe I was wrong, maybe its full of hardcore players.

It’s not a minority. Casual gamers make up a huge percentage of most MMOs. Most of the current content in the game is directed towards casual play; even world bosses. And, no MMO has ever been able to keep up production of new content in order to constantly appease the masses.

There’s also a lot of forum threads that debate how ANet has chosen to divide their resources, and in ways that players have asked… such as transferring from LW to an expansion…. and now we’re heading back towards LW but also an expansion. There’s good reason for there being (and feeling) like there’s a content drought.

webtoehobbit.4201:

I’m just feeling left out lately, waiting for Living World Season 3 is going to be tough. :-(

Seriously, take a break and go play another game. If you’re not having fun, or have run out of stuff to do, then go play something else. It’s silly to waste your precious free time intentionally sitting around board and frustrated. The game will still be here when you return…. and with new goodies to please you and everyone.

~EW

Blaeys.3102:

I don’t think removing raids is the answer. But raiding has changed the nature of the game and it is definitely not for the better.

I don’t think anyone wants to remove raids. What non-raiders want is for the story content and maps to be opened up for individual players to explore. This wouldn’t kill raids or even affect them as they happen on a separate instance. They aren’t even asking for the high rewards. They just want to explore it without the pressure of high strung party dynamics.

Tekoneiric.6817:

Blaeys.3102:

I don’t think removing raids is the answer. But raiding has changed the nature of the game and it is definitely not for the better.

I don’t think anyone wants to remove raids. What non-raiders want is for the story content and maps to be opened up for individual players to explore. This wouldn’t kill raids or even affect them as they happen on a separate instance. They aren’t even asking for the high rewards. They just want to explore it without the pressure of high strung party dynamics.

But the thing is they are open for exploration, it just requires some communication.

Just need to post in the LFG asking for a cleared raid instance. Then you can explore the whole zone to your hearts content.

AliamRationem.5172:

I’m not a “hardcore” raider, but I used to be. I can only imagine what raid leaders in WoW have to put up with as far as turnover rates since LFR. It was always the death of guilds: burnout. Now by the time players begin progression raiding, they’ve already completed all of the bosses multiple times on easier modes. Hitting the wall at that point is a motivation killer.

If someone is going to burnout after X raids, then they’re going to burnout after X raids. Difficulty can manipulate that number, but only inasmuch as the higher difficulty carries with it the higher burnout rate.
Let’s face it, most of the raiders burned out due to rigors of hardcore raiding, not because of LFR. Most of the guilds of the people i have known broke not because of LFR, but because the organizational side generated a ton of stress, which tended to cause bad reactions if something went wrong, either in raids themselves, or around them. Someone “didn’t pull their weight”, “performed badly”, or “stood up their friends by not showing up on schedule”. Others were “showing favoritism” when assigning roster (and often during loot distribution). Any of those might cause someone (already stressed by doing challenging content) to flare up. This would in turn cause a reaction from the accused, closest friends of both sides would join the fray and in time, fault lines would form between members. With the end result a broken or split guild, and quite often some of the players leaving the game (at least for a time).

AliamRationem.5172:

But I suppose if you never intended to engage in challenging raids, it wouldn’t bother you to stop at the lower tiers. So perhaps it makes sense from your perspective. Like I said, I enjoy the current raid tier even while my guild is progressing very slowly. But I seriously doubt I would bother with it if I had already run through it on several tiers of easy mode.

Depends i guess on why would you want to run Raids in the first place. Those more interested in the challenge would stay at the level that offered them that challenge, unless there would be some serious reward imbalance that would make running the harder mode impractical.

AliamRationem.5172:

You also provide no answer to my points regarding resource allocation (more raid tiers = more resources locked up in raids) and elitism.

Raid team is supposedly 5 people. Adding 2 more people to that team just for the purpose of doing easy mode is hardly going to impact any other content in any visible way. Not with the numbers that are working on that content, and speed we’re getting it at currently.

Ya know. I just finished LS S2 last month. I thought it wasn’t bad.

Why the rush? I didn’t even make it to Dragon’s Stand until February and didn’t get most masteries until lately. There’s a lot of those skins and collections to go for me. Been a pretty good path if you ask me. Rushing through all of that would have ruined it for me personally.

Yea I know I don’t main PvE; but I think i fall squarely in the casual category for this; do other casual players really have such ravenous appetites?

As I’ve said before, I’m willing to wait for higher quality. The later half of season 2 just didn’t seem as good, for example.

STIHL.2489:

One answer would be to build more content geared towards casual players, that has equal rewards to raids, and feels “end game”, right now the ‘end game’ is all about raids, where at one time there is a vibrant “Choose your own end game” where you could do all kinds of things, now there is only raids. So if they somehow (No idea how) manage to bring back that original lateral end game that they once had, that might fix the problem, but lets get real, doing that would take a ton of time and resources.

Raids as endgame content drop rewards that seem to take a lot of repetition. Afaik, no one has made L. Armor yet. There is a skill gate, and a time gate associated with those rewards.

HoT dropped a ton of “endgame” open world content. This came in the form of multiple goals, many boss battles, and several zone meta events. However, when ANet attempts to make the repetition of such content anything even in the same ballpark as they did for raids, they get lambasted for making content not geared towards “casuals.” People post hate for time gates. Others post hate for skill gates.

The raid came split into three parts. Raiders are still doing all three, religiously, afaik. Open PvE aficionados, on the other hand, are already treating HoT as old content not worth doing. There’s plenty of “endgame” content for open PvE players, but they turn their backs on it because they browbeat ANet into making it easier to get the carrots. So, they’re done with it and ready for something else. The problem is, that isn’t how MMO’s work.

There are times I think the complaining casuals are their own worst enemies.

IndigoSundown, I was a “complaining casual” because I bought the expansion only to find out it was too hard for me. A whole new beautiful jungle and I could not participate in it because I am a clutz.

When they made the Jungle easier, I was finally, finally, able to play it and marvel at all the work the artists put into it.

If they had not made the Jungle easier I would not have my elite specs , (happy grin, I have added a Tempest and a Scrapper to my stable of Elites now ) nor would I have my advanced gliding…let me tell you, to me, the ability to be able to glide through the Jungle without worrying about endurance is totally worth the required number of mastery points.

Not all of us casuals who cried about the difficulty of HOT have turned their back on it..some of us are deeply appreciative for this gift.

Lisa-Hoping that the next Living World story thingy has this level of difficulty.

The casuals had nearly 3 years of content , now for 6 months weve had mostly hardcore stuff which ended for awhile with last update. Now casuals wanna cry.. lol dont worry ls3 starts in less then a month . Then ull have casual stuff for most likly 6 months or more before hardcore comes back

Julischka Bean.7491:

IndigoSundown, I was a “complaining casual” because I bought the expansion only to find out it was too hard for me. A whole new beautiful jungle and I could not participate in it because I am a clutz.

When they made the Jungle easier, I was finally, finally, able to play it and marvel at all the work the artists put into it.

If they had not made the Jungle easier I would not have my elite specs , (happy grin, I have added a Tempest and a Scrapper to my stable of Elites now ) nor would I have my advanced gliding…let me tell you, to me, the ability to be able to glide through the Jungle without worrying about endurance is totally worth the required number of mastery points.

Not all of us casuals who cried about the difficulty of HOT have turned their back on it..some of us are deeply appreciative for this gift.

Lisa-Hoping that the next Living World story thingy has this level of difficulty.

I’m happy that you’re enjoying the game more, Lisa. I remember the thread(s?) you posted, and was pleased then when you found you could enjoy HoT.

Honestly, my post was intended to focus primarily on the people who cried about stuff “taking too long to get,” and the ones who want raid rewards with less difficulty. I’m sorry you felt tarred by my brush.

Julischka Bean.7491:

IndigoSundown, I was a “complaining casual” because I bought the expansion only to find out it was too hard for me. A whole new beautiful jungle and I could not participate in it because I am a clutz.

When they made the Jungle easier, I was finally, finally, able to play it and marvel at all the work the artists put into it.

If they had not made the Jungle easier I would not have my elite specs , (happy grin, I have added a Tempest and a Scrapper to my stable of Elites now ) nor would I have my advanced gliding…let me tell you, to me, the ability to be able to glide through the Jungle without worrying about endurance is totally worth the required number of mastery points.

Not all of us casuals who cried about the difficulty of HOT have turned their back on it..some of us are deeply appreciative for this gift.

Lisa-Hoping that the next Living World story thingy has this level of difficulty.

I think you’re probably not giving yourself enough credit. The zones aren’t that much easier. The rewards are much better, but that really wouldn’t change the difficulty, although it makes it less frustrating. They did fix the wps so they got contested less, removed a mob here and there, and made some of the Hero Points more reasonable, but that’s more quality of life changes I feel. Chak Gerrent is probably the big exception to this but really that was just soo >.>

IndigoSundown.5419:

STIHL.2489:

One answer would be to build more content geared towards casual players, that has equal rewards to raids, and feels “end game”, right now the ‘end game’ is all about raids, where at one time there is a vibrant “Choose your own end game” where you could do all kinds of things, now there is only raids. So if they somehow (No idea how) manage to bring back that original lateral end game that they once had, that might fix the problem, but lets get real, doing that would take a ton of time and resources.

Raids as endgame content drop rewards that seem to take a lot of repetition. Afaik, no one has made L. Armor yet. There is a skill gate, and a time gate associated with those rewards.

HoT dropped a ton of “endgame” open world content. This came in the form of multiple goals, many boss battles, and several zone meta events. However, when ANet attempts to make the repetition of such content anything even in the same ballpark as they did for raids, they get lambasted for making content not geared towards “casuals.” People post hate for time gates. Others post hate for skill gates.

The raid came split into three parts. Raiders are still doing all three, religiously, afaik. Open PvE aficionados, on the other hand, are already treating HoT as old content not worth doing. There’s plenty of “endgame” content for open PvE players, but they turn their backs on it because they browbeat ANet into making it easier to get the carrots. So, they’re done with it and ready for something else. The problem is, that isn’t how MMO’s work.

There are times I think the complaining casuals are their own worst enemies.

Lets get something clear here, HOT content among Casuals, is a “never was”, between the long drawn out chained together meta’s and mob density, with everything being scaled to be just a little bit harder I don’t think they could have done a better job of alienating the Casual group, if they tried, and you know, if not for their sudden change, it kitten well looked like that was their intention. The only people that ground HoT Open World were Content Locusts not Casuals, there is no surprise that group devoured what they could and moved on, treating it like yesterdays trash, and no wonder it feels old and worn out now, since it was literally anti-Casual content, which would have been the group of players that would have moved in and carried the population for the later months and years, making it feel alive. But given how badly against Casual Play All of the HoT content was designed, it’s no wonder that HOT Bombed as bad as it did.

Yah, we all know that Anet realized their total screw up, and dialed it all back, and pumped it full of rewards, and whatever else they did to try to make it attractive, but all that did was get some ‘hard core’ gamers a playground to grind it for loot, it did not really bring the casual group back into it.

You want to talk about a total blunder in the PR department far as GW2 being marketed as Casual Friendly, HOT was like a shot in the head. Nothing about it was attractive to the casual demographic, and the next Expansion, I’m gonna bet bombs so bad, it won’t even be funny.

Is it all because of raids.. Not at all!. It was this massive package of “Lets kitten this entire Casual Demographic” called HoT, and there were issues long before the first raid wing was put in, it was just a really bad package, coupled with the fact that Raids were the only new thing seen in several months, being that final nail in the coffin.

They could have put out some stupid spring festival for casuals to grind, to distract from the whole lack of anything but raids, and that would have done wonders to build relations, but too late for that.

Anyway, love the post. Great Props, and lets not start any name calling we both know my feeling about Elitist.

Spring festival.. that sounds nice, even lord of the rings has tons of festivals like that, why cant gw2?

I get a real laugh out of GW2 “raiders”. Compared to WOW, EQ2 and several other games “raiding” in this game is a trivial exercise of a small group of people fending for themselves in some form of egotistic frenzy. It’s the equivalent of winning a power scooter race versus opponents hobbling along with canes.

Still, that power scooter enables my guildmates to act and assume an air of supremacy that trickles down to erode the base of WHY I started playing GW2.

I want to achieve the highest level of rewards by playing MY way. If I don’t want to do fractals, raids or even dungeons I can still earn the best gear in the game through hard work.

This has now changed, Legendary backs are only available to people who suffer through months of fractals and legendary armor tied to raids is even worse.

Kitten you who say “Ltp” or “gitguud”. I’ve supported this game as much (if not more) as you have and all of a sudden (because I’m not in your special click) i’m excluded from top gear doesn’t sit well with me.

The MMO generation is here and alive in GW2, don’t chase it away by granting special rewards to those who can’t hang with the real raiding games and want to come here and pretend to be elite because they couldnt hack it in the raiding world.

STIHL.2489:

Lets get something clear here, HOT content among Casuals, is a “never was”, between the long drawn out chained together meta’s and mob density, with everything being scaled to be just a little bit harder I don’t think they could have done a better job of alienating the Casual group, if they tried, and you know, if not for their sudden change, it kitten well looked like that was their intention. The only people that ground HoT Open World were Content Locusts not Casuals, there is no surprise that group devoured what they could and moved on, treating it like yesterdays trash, and no wonder it feels old and worn out now, since it was literally anti-Casual content, which would have been the group of players that would have moved in and carried the population for the later months and years, making it feel alive. But given how badly against Casual Play All of the HoT content was designed, it’s no wonder that HOT Bombed as bad as it did.

Yah, we all know that Anet realized their total screw up, and dialed it all back, and pumped it full of rewards, and whatever else they did to try to make it attractive, but all that did was get some ‘hard core’ gamers a playground to grind it for loot, it did not really bring the casual group back into it.

You want to talk about a total blunder in the PR department far as GW2 being marketed as Casual Friendly, HOT was like a shot in the head. Nothing about it was attractive to the casual demographic, and the next Expansion, I’m gonna bet bombs so bad, it won’t even be funny.

Is it all because of raids.. Not at all!. It was this massive package of “Lets kitten this entire Casual Demographic” called HoT, and there were issues long before the first raid wing was put in, it was just a really bad package, coupled with the fact that Raids were the only new thing seen in several months, being that final nail in the coffin.

They could have put out some stupid spring festival for casuals to grind, to distract from the whole lack of anything but raids, and that would have done wonders to build relations, but too late for that.

Anyway, love the post. Great Props, and lets not start any name calling we both know my feeling about Elitist.

I won’t/can’t disagree that there has been backlash against HOT, and that posters making those complaints often self-identify as “casual.” That they don’t always complain about the same things highlights the fact that “casual gamer” is a broad term, and that not all who self-identify as casuals care about/want the same things. For example, Vayne and I both identify as casuals Other than a desire for immersion and a predilection for PvE, we don’t seem to share that many preferences.

What I’m left with is a question. I’ll start with the premise that “endgame” is an aspect of MMO’s designed to keep players interested in p(l)aying after the leveling experience is over. Because of the old “devs can’t produce content that keeps up with the players” thing, this generally involves a great deal of repetition, usually fueled by pixilated rewards. Given that, what constitutes a “casual’s” endgame? I think the answer is going to vary much more for the “casual” demographic than it does for the raider, the so-called Elitist or the dedicated hobbyist. To my mind, this makes the casual market harder to design for, because what motivates some of them does not motivate the rest.

Story I can see as a possible element. Collections. Achievements. Possibly other game elements. I’m not sure what else.

So why has ANet taken this long to start coming out with new stuff? What I’m hoping (for the sake of the game) is that the lengthy projects to revamp systems and also HoT is over, the next XPac ix underway, and we will start to see story chapters every 2-3 months, without the lengthy downtimes that preceded and proceeded from HoT.

Fingers crossed.

I bought Guild Wars because it was casual friendly and had the promise of regular PvE content updates.

Beyond HoT which is not casual friendly we have had almost no PvE content added in a year and a half. Raids which by its very nature is elitist has zero appeal to the casual crowd. Arena Net have really let down a large portion of their player base with rewards and story locked behind elite content or requiring long periods of active play.

The direction they have chosen lately is not in the spirit of the game I originally purchased.

IndigoSundown.5419:

To my mind, this makes the casual market harder to design for, because what motivates some of them does not motivate the rest.

Casuals want the same thing every gamer wants, they want to feel special while playing a game.

It’s not much to ask, and it’s not hard to provide, because at one time GW2 did a pretty decent of job of doing exactly that. HOT, really ruined it, an entire expansion and not a single thing directed towards the casual demographic.

The raids where just salt on the gaping wound that was HOT.

How exactly do people define casual?

For heavens sake, HoT is not hard, not even by a long shot.

You can get in, play, get out.

I don’t exactly know how you define casual here but for me at least it’s: Easy to learn.

And GW2 is just that, easy to learn. HoT is not harder than any other content and if you feel that it is you should complain that the core game didn’t teach you enough/anything.

Honestly, adapting to a few counter skills and maybe needing to have one or two other people for most events, as long as there aren’t any champions/legendaries around you shouldn’t need more, shouldn’t be considered hardcore either.

This whole: “Waaah, HoT is not what i bought the original game for” feels really hollow when the same people before complained about: No endgame, no expansions, and the need to log in every two weeks due to livestory.

You wanted this, if you want to admit it or not.

webtoehobbit.4201:

With this severe content drought and nothing but very specific content aimed at the more hardcore crowd, I can’t help but to feel a bit forgotten. Sure we have current events, but those are nothing compared to the love that the other parts of the game have seen.

Do you think that the casual base is a minority? I have always felt that the casual gamer base was quite populous in GW2, but maybe I was wrong, maybe its full of hardcore players.

I’m just feeling left out lately, waiting for Living World Season 3 is going to be tough. :-(

Most of this game is geared towards casual come and go content. Personally I have no issue with “hardcore” content. I only wish anet wasn’t trying to be like other mmo’s in terms of restricting more and more high level rewards to hardcore, or forcing players into cross areas of the game pve/pvp that they might simply hate-in order to achieve those rewards. Even things like ascended viper rings which can only be gained in raids is in my view taking exclusivity way too far.

Cater to all but anet stick to your philosophy of access to all. I don’t mind paying the equivelent of time for an item. Just don’t create one path to victory rewards. Gw2 is supposed to be different than other mmo’s.

I don’t think that they have “forgotten” the casual gamer, but they clearly have lost sight of the notion of “play how you want” that they had at launch.

At launch, the only thing that was really “endgame” was having a legendary weapon. You could craft it yourself, or you could buy it. It didn’t matter how you played the game, you could do any mode and eventually get a precursor drop (if you were lucky) or make money to purchase one.

At the launch of HoT, you can already see they have deviated from this some. I get that the journeys’ were supposed to alleviate some of the issues with precursor RNG, but account binding the HoT legendaries so only someone who bought the expansion can craft them skews the original intent in my opinion. I get that it was a selling point, but I think they made a mistake in making the HoT precursors only craftable. They should have been a rare drop in the HoT zones just like the original precursors…and not account bound.

With raids, however, they have locked (and account bound them) ALL legendary armor. Meaning, the only way to get to “endgame” is to do raids. This goes completely against the “play how you want” idea that made the game awesome at launch.

Honestly, if they were going to lock “legendary” armor behind any gate, it should have been the legendary tier in the pvp track (and I don’t pvp, I’m still rank 1 on both accounts). But, I don’t think they should lock it behind any one mode of play. Whether that means make them sellable on the TP or coming up with equal effort paths in the other modes to get them so be it.

I get that games want to evolve, but they shouldn’t lose sight of where they came from either.

I don’t get why so many feel entitled after getting 1000s of hours from this game, I have never seen so many make such a deal and claim the sky is falling over an mmorpg releasing some harder content before, usually people understand why there needs to be a mixture, your just going to have to be patient, you aren’t paying a monthly fee if you don’t mind it, then play something else until they release the content you want.

Its not doing any good making thread after thread as how you think the game should be, there is criticism and there is entitlement.

Ryou.2398:

I don’t get why so many feel entitled after getting 1000s of hours from this game, I have never seen so many make such a deal and claim the sky is falling over an mmorpg releasing some harder content before, usually people understand why there needs to be a mixture, your just going to have to be patient, you aren’t paying a monthly fee if you don’t mind it, then play something else until they release the content you want.

Its not doing any good making thread after thread as how you think the game should be, there is criticism and there is entitlement.

YES perfect solution, I agree. We should all leave the game and come back in a couple years (or longer) after they’ve added something we’d enjoy doing. Eureka!

Ellie.5913:

Ryou.2398:

I don’t get why so many feel entitled after getting 1000s of hours from this game, I have never seen so many make such a deal and claim the sky is falling over an mmorpg releasing some harder content before, usually people understand why there needs to be a mixture, your just going to have to be patient, you aren’t paying a monthly fee if you don’t mind it, then play something else until they release the content you want.

Its not doing any good making thread after thread as how you think the game should be, there is criticism and there is entitlement.

YES perfect solution, I agree. We should all leave the game and come back in a couple years (or longer) after they’ve added something we’d enjoy doing. Eureka!

Hyperbole isn’t your strong suit.

With the raid fully released, everyone can now look forward to lots of Living Story and the side-content that comes with! Aside from upcoming months of this content, the next expansion given how the HoT Revamp patch included members from the expansion creation team, looks to have a better focus on what did and did not work for HoT Launch. Again good news!

With the sole exception of maybe fractals, the supposed ‘hardcore’ folks people are labeling all raiders from those who spend maybe 2 hours of 2 different days going into Forsaken Thicket to the progression guilds who have craved something like the raid in this game for a long time will actually likely have more than a year to wait for the next raid. But I think most of us on this raiding side won’t hate the devs for it, we are mature enough to understand that there is a balance.

I’m just wondering how there is nothing to do if you play casually. Surely you have lots of things still to do if you actually played casually.

Unless casual means “I have done everything upto now and completed it as fast as I could.” Though I don’t consider that casual at all.

Aedelric.1287:

I bought Guild Wars because it was casual friendly and had the promise of regular PvE content updates.

Beyond HoT which is not casual friendly we have had almost no PvE content added in a year and a half. Raids which by its very nature is elitist has zero appeal to the casual crowd. Arena Net have really let down a large portion of their player base with rewards and story locked behind elite content or requiring long periods of active play.

The direction they have chosen lately is not in the spirit of the game I originally purchased.

You are not alone. I REALLY enjoyed season 1, with it’s zerg around the map and kill X Scarlet minions, I was never so happy to get home from work to kill things to relax. Season 2 was less of a pleasure and more of a chore to get it done. 90% of the achievements I will never do simply because I don’t like to repeat content as I find it boring and in this case it was more like work than my job. Many players it seems disagree and I am all for them having their elite content, but I play the game to have fun and it seems lately it has become less so.

I quit the game for about 4 months recently and other than a few changes to WvW it seems they are still content to continue on with the current season formula. I guess that what they want to accomplish is to expand their player base to “be the best they can be” and I personally just want to kill things to have fun after a hard day of work.

When the game was in it’s infancy and they announced that every 2 weeks they would be adding new content,THAT was the game for me! Now, not so much; I already have a job thanks. If it makes me a carebear, so be it, but to me the game is much less fun than it once was.

Ellie.5913:

Ryou.2398:

I don’t get why so many feel entitled after getting 1000s of hours from this game, I have never seen so many make such a deal and claim the sky is falling over an mmorpg releasing some harder content before, usually people understand why there needs to be a mixture, your just going to have to be patient, you aren’t paying a monthly fee if you don’t mind it, then play something else until they release the content you want.

Its not doing any good making thread after thread as how you think the game should be, there is criticism and there is entitlement.

YES perfect solution, I agree. We should all leave the game and come back in a couple years (or longer) after they’ve added something we’d enjoy doing. Eureka!

+1 I agree with this solution. Casual players should take this moment to move on to something else, nothing gets your voice heard more then when you quietly stop paying.

Ryou.2398:

Again bro this doesnt make sense, for one thing most mmorpgs ive played eq1, 2, and city of heroes had tons of classes beyond the holy trinity where it was more fogiving, and guild wars 2 isnt that much different for one every class has a rez, and more then just druid can heal. So I dont get how this makes it hardcore.

I don’t give a crud about some korean-grinders – ANET DEVS stated that GW2 will be different and better then other MMOs – now it starts to becoming the same litter box as other korean-grinders are. (which is very bad)

Rez that is interrupted by even farts add to that tonns of AoE farted everytime by mobs + mobs themself, therefore if you die you lie dead until end of combat or wipe because bessurecting during combat is a waste to character spot.
Druid is only class designed to play healer role rest is just waste of potential (engi and sorc are better used as dps)

Ryou.2398:

And no I did not answer my own question, again I dont think you understand the definition of hardcore, if your into a decent guild they dont tell you to play a specific build or get out, yes you need some optimization but not as bad as your making it out to be.

First of all if you need a decent guild to – its already setting the bar at hard, decent guild is hard to find – most are blobbadons and good ones are usually full.

And if you join a decent guild that do raiding you will need to be playing specific builds otherwise person that will use it will boot you from group going on raid if you won’t. But you’ll still be in that guild…

Optimalization is more like change your gear to one of three depending on your role in a group, you need food, sharpening stuff and oil/tonics, specific skills and go watch 1000times how someone fights every boss PLUS teamspeak – there is not a SINGLE raid run without TS because communication is crutial.

Everytime doing raid i feel like soloing Lupicus but with the exception that there is one Lupicus for every group member (10 in total) and if someone fails – i also get punished even though i didn’t make any mistake.

And by those power combined we do have:

Hardcore – you need a guild (pugs are out of the question), specific gear and food (otherwise someone will hop into your spot or if you take wrong gear boss will be running after you, you’ll heal for kittenz or dps will be lacking), and verbal communication (there are no people that go there without it – its ultimate requirement)

Ryou.2398:

Your talking about the attitudes of some of the players, the raiding itself isnt hardcore you cannot blame the raiding design on player attitude completely.

If it wasn’t hardcore there wouldn’t be people getting kittened that you don’t wanna ping shtooff, that you don’t wanna join TS, that you have failed as a healer because you are learning this profession same goes for tanking.

Lastly (again) you would not need guild and ts if it wasn’t hardcore.

This thread is lost and without hope. People are just posting in circles now.

Amineo.8951:

They are making content to force people into login in the game rather than experiencing it, simple as that.

Speak for yourself. I haven’t logged in in months. I finished my Bolt a while back and thought “now what?” I realized there wasn’t anything new to do besides the same tired content, so I simply stopped playing. I’m sure I’ll log in again when Living World Season 3 finally comes out, but for now, I’m realizing the great benefit of this not being a subscription game.

Nothing to do? Play something else.

Well said Stihl

Ellie.5913:

Spring festival.. that sounds nice, even lord of the rings has tons of festivals like that, why cant gw2?

I do miss the festivals, though the last one that happened in GW2 was that Year of the Ram one, right? I didn’t even participate in it. Halloween is always my favorite because there is a bigger variety of things to do. Even carving pumpkins while you are already doing other things in other maps adds a bit of fun to it. I wonder what the next one will be, and when? Those always have something for every kind of player.

FrizzFreston.5290:

I’m just wondering how there is nothing to do if you play casually. Surely you have lots of things still to do if you actually played casually.

Unless casual means “I have done everything upto now and completed it as fast as I could.” Though I don’t consider that casual at all.

Casual means whatever is convenient to suit your own needs. Same goes for any other generic label like hardcore.

Basically if you claim that you are being disenfranchised, people may not be as sympathetic than if you say this group that you projected yourself in is suffering even if you’re just speaking on behalf of this group based entirely on your own experience and that person you asked yesterday.

So instead of saying
“Who left this stuff here? I can’t pass!”

Say,
“Who left this here? People can’t pass through and that’s highly inconsiderate”.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. There are most likely people that feel similarly to you, and one often tends to associate with others that have things to agree on. But I think it’s careful to realize that one may be speaking on behalf of a group that doesn’t agree as such.

The other thing to grasp here is that it is done to avoid “Why do you think Arenanet should cater to you?” as some kind of populist argument so one tries to seek the support of a large group. I actually don’t believe this at all. I am a customer, Arenanet should cater to me. That doesn’t mean it should revolve around me, and there are limits to this, regardless of what kind of majority I happen to belong to. But they should take care of my (reasonable) needs whenever possible.

With my own definition of casual, it just confounds me that one could play in such a fashion and still be hungry for more content. But that’s just me.

I keep seeing the same arguments over and over again.

However, one argument I generally don’t see is this: raids don’t seem to fit in with the idea of not raising the level or gear cap. In other MMOs, people can come back to a level 70 raid at level 90 when they are stronger. There is no such option in GW2.

Of the arguments against an easier difficulty in a raid, most of them boil down to a claim that they are a bad idea without saying why, or appealing to another MMO (usually WoW) where the same dynamic might not apply.

The only argument I accept against an easier difficulty level of raid is that either there are some rewards locked behind the harder difficulty or all rewards are available (less efficiently) in the easier difficulty. If rewards are locked, then many of the people who are currently complaining will keep complaining. If they are available, people will complain that it devalues their achievements.

I see that as the fundamental essence of the casual vs hardcore conflict. Casuals generally want access to (most of) everything, while hardcore players generally want exclusive rewards that only they can get. Personally, I think that an easier, less efficient way of obtaining the same rewards is fine because I consider getting your rewards more efficiently is enough to have people still want to do hard mode.

The raid needs a story mode option, like dungeons, so that people can practice mechanics in this mode and allow them to get the story. Then have to current content as the non story version, with all the rewards.

This would stop a some of the arguements and some of their players leaving.

STIHL.2489:

IndigoSundown.5419:

To my mind, this makes the casual market harder to design for, because what motivates some of them does not motivate the rest.

Casuals want the same thing every gamer wants, they want to feel special while playing a game.

It’s not much to ask, and it’s not hard to provide, because at one time GW2 did a pretty decent of job of doing exactly that. HOT, really ruined it, an entire expansion and not a single thing directed towards the casual demographic.

The raids where just salt on the gaping wound that was HOT.

Not necessarily. I’m one of those players.

My character could be the most average looking character in the world and have everything in common with tons of other characters and I would still likely find enjoyment in this game.

Because my only requirement of games is that I find them fun and/or offer me ways to challenge myself. HoT does both. And yes, I find it fun despite dying quite often in HoT maps. And that’s because it’s a challenge that I have to overcome. I just have to be in the right mindset to do so (personal mental problems that no one but me can fix).

Then there are the casuals that do enjoy a challenge and do with their other casual friends and/or guild mates attempt raids. There’s been at least one person in this thread that fits this type of casual.

So please define casual as it applies to your posts or find another phrase to describe the people you’re posts talk about. Casual/Hardcore is way too ambiguous for debates without definitions.

ekarat.1085:

I keep seeing the same arguments over and over again.

However, one argument I generally don’t see is this: raids don’t seem to fit in with the idea of not raising the level or gear cap. In other MMOs, people can come back to a level 70 raid at level 90 when they are stronger. There is no such option in GW2.

Of the arguments against an easier difficulty in a raid, most of them boil down to a claim that they are a bad idea without saying why, or appealing to another MMO (usually WoW) where the same dynamic might not apply.

The only argument I accept against an easier difficulty level of raid is that either there are some rewards locked behind the harder difficulty or all rewards are available (less efficiently) in the easier difficulty. If rewards are locked, then many of the people who are currently complaining will keep complaining. If they are available, people will complain that it devalues their achievements.

I see that as the fundamental essence of the casual vs hardcore conflict. Casuals generally want access to (most of) everything, while hardcore players generally want exclusive rewards that only they can get. Personally, I think that an easier, less efficient way of obtaining the same rewards is fine because I consider getting your rewards more efficiently is enough to have people still want to do hard mode.

This hits the nail on the head. You see this in pvp as well, with the leagues and the legendary backpack. A lot of more experienced players want to be able to use it as a sign of experience and talent, while a lot of newer pvpers are/were worried they wouldn’t be able to get it in the time it’s available. Same with raids- people want to be able to try any content they want and work towards any given goal without drastically changing the way they play, while the more hardcore crowd wants to keep the shiny new gear to themselves as a mark of prestige.

In my personal opinion, I agree with the idea that there ought to be an easier difficulty and that the same rewards should be available, but much slower to get, in said easy mode. Now, before I’m jumped on by some of the current batch of raiders, let me explain myself. GW2 set a precedent very early on with regards to legendary gear. The original legendary weapons were not bind on pickup, you could buy them off the TP if you really wanted to. You could work towards getting one in any way that earns you gold, playing whatever parts of the game you enjoyed. Was it the most prestigious? No. But they were still cool, they were still nice to have, and anyone could feel like they had a shot at getting one if they really wanted. This was the tone they set, this was what legendary gear was for -years- before the expansion, and now they’re departing from that.

IndigoSundown.5419:

STIHL.2489:

One answer would be to build more content geared towards casual players, that has equal rewards to raids, and feels “end game”, right now the ‘end game’ is all about raids, where at one time there is a vibrant “Choose your own end game” where you could do all kinds of things, now there is only raids. So if they somehow (No idea how) manage to bring back that original lateral end game that they once had, that might fix the problem, but lets get real, doing that would take a ton of time and resources.

Raids as endgame content drop rewards that seem to take a lot of repetition. Afaik, no one has made L. Armor yet. There is a skill gate, and a time gate associated with those rewards.

HoT dropped a ton of “endgame” open world content. This came in the form of multiple goals, many boss battles, and several zone meta events. However, when ANet attempts to make the repetition of such content anything even in the same ballpark as they did for raids, they get lambasted for making content not geared towards “casuals.” People post hate for time gates. Others post hate for skill gates.

The raid came split into three parts. Raiders are still doing all three, religiously, afaik. Open PvE aficionados, on the other hand, are already treating HoT as old content not worth doing. There’s plenty of “endgame” content for open PvE players, but they turn their backs on it because they browbeat ANet into making it easier to get the carrots. So, they’re done with it and ready for something else. The problem is, that isn’t how MMO’s work.

There are times I think the complaining casuals are their own worst enemies.

I wish more people would understand this. If you are truly a ‘casual’ and have spent enough time in the game to have done every single part of every meta event in just HOT alone, you can’t possibly have spent so little time in the game that you can’t be skilled enough to do raids, unless you are just bad at games.

Frankly, the actual casual people who don’t spend much time on the game have literally so much to do if they just went and did it instead of not branching out. Set a goal for yourself (like a legendary weapon), don’t expect the game to do it for you.

Seera.5916:

So please define casual as it applies to your posts

Casual, defined is often associated with relaxed approach, with notations of not possessing Serious Intent while engaging in the activity. IE: They are just Casually Playing a game of B-Ball, they are not looking to deal with some NBA wannabe.

When it comes to MMO’s, often it means people who want to be able to just play the game, not treat it like a second job. Casuals realize they are not going to save the world playing a MMO, in fact they are not even going to learn any valuable life skills, it’s just purposeless entertainment.

Urban Dictionary Offered this Gem of a Definition.

“Casual” – A pejorative term used by the “gaming elite” to describe any person(s) who doesn’t measure up the standards these sycophants have set for their definition of what a true gamer is.

So it’s not a question of skill, but as you said,it’s only when you have the right mindset, but what do you do when you don’t?

STIHL.2489:

Seera.5916:

So please define casual as it applies to your posts

Casual, defined is often associated with relaxed approach, with notations of not possessing Serious Intent while engaging in the activity. IE: They are just Casually Playing a game of B-Ball, they are not looking to deal with some NBA wannabe.

When it comes to MMO’s, often it means people who want to be able to just play the game, not treat it like a second job. Casuals realize they are not going to save the world playing a MMO, in fact they are not even going to learn any valuable life skills, it’s just purposeless entertainment.

Urban Dictionary Offered this Gem of a Definition.

“Casual” – A pejorative term used by the “gaming elite” to describe any person(s) who doesn’t measure up the standards these sycophants have set for their definition of what a true gamer is.

So it’s not a question of skill, but as you said,it’s only when you have the right mindset, but what do you do when you don’t?

So by your own definition ANet hasn’t lost forgotten the casual gamer at all. The only thing that ANet has that doesn’t allow for casual player success is PvP leagues. But PvP is by nature competitive and not everyone wins so even casual players could have fun doing the leagues knowing they aren’t likely going to get first place.

Raids are enjoyable by players just doing it for the sake of doing it and not trying to beat the fastest time.

There are things that aren’t job related that you have to schedule. Group outings with friends. Where? When? Who’s coming? How long? And that could be all of a 5 minute conversation except maybe narrowing down the when and where.

So I wouldn’t necessarily say that having to schedule out a raid time among friends or guild mates as not casual.

It also complicates things when a player is casual in some regards but hardcore in others.