SWTOR: Lacking in appeal for the casual gamer?

[Skidrowbro]

Nope. Casuals latch onto any gametime saving feature, LFD is the biggest time saver feature there is. But I won't argue with you that Hardcore players want it also.

 

No, bads and hardcores latch onto it. Casuals enjoy the game

[Darkulous]

ok some definitions.

 

A hardcore player is someone that will do anything to maximize his play. This normally involves spending hours doing research outside of the game or spending 10 hours a week watching fraps of his own gameplay in order to optimize his UI.

 

A casual player finds it acceptable that the game was released without maximizing tools such as an ingame combat log or UI customazations but a hardcore player does not.

 

Hardcore players found a different game to be hardcore about shortly after hitting 50.

 

The definitions of both are very long, longer than your post. I would agree that casual gamers don't care too much about UI customization or Combat logs. Why would they? Those features don't save them any gametime. When describing casual players, limited game time is at the top of the list. Casual gamers don't have the gametime to sit in fleet for hours.

[gurugeorge]

I think it's already been pointed out on these boards that "casual" in the business context means "player who just tries out the game, and is not committed enough to subscribe" (i.e. they buy the game and run the free 30 days and that's it). This is different from "casual" in the sense of "casual" vs. "hardcore".

 

This should be obvious because the casual/hardcore distinction pertains to people who HAVE committed to subscription, and it refers to how much time they commit to playing the game once they are subscribed.

 

So a lot of this discussion is moot and/or muddying the waters, as is the Eurogamer article if it's making the same mistake as many here are making.

Edited May 10, 2012 by gurugeorge

[Darkulous]

No, bads and hardcores latch onto it. Casuals enjoy the game

 

Enjoy it so much that they leave. Don't get me wrong, hardcores enjoy features too, that's one reason they're leaving also. Basically, TOR is losing both gamers.

[discosoc]

Casual players tend to lose interest in a game that has too much "grind" or repetition. It kind of makes sense really. You hit 50, and go from experiencing a pretty good story arc, to doing dailies over and over again.

 

You can roll an alt, but you still have to run through 90% of the same quests just to experience the class stuff.

[Nauticas]

I think it's already been pointed out on these boards that "casual" in the business context means "player who just tries out the game, and is not committed enough to subscribe" (i.e. they buy the game and run the free 30 days and that's it). This is different from "casual" in the sense of "casual" vs. "hardcore".

 

This should be obvious because the casual/hardcore distinction pertains to people who HAVE committed to subscription, and it refers to how much time they commit to playing the game once they are subscribed.

 

So a lot of this discussion is moot and/or muddying the waters, as is the Eurogamer article if it's making the same mistake as many here are making.

I agree with your assessment. I felt that most posting in this thread misunderstood what EA meant by casual. With that said, I disagree with EA about growing subs. I doubt they ever get over 1.4 million ever again.

[UnmarkedFaith]

its lacking in everything for "almost" everyone..... keyword: "ALMOST"

[Grimne_Lothos]

so basically the only people that will continue to play this game are star wars fanbois that don't care if the game is good or not but will continue to sub for the simple reason that this game is in the star wars universe and other, better games are not.

[damican]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-08-ea-blames-star-wars-the-old-republic-subscribers-fall-on-casuals-leaving-game

Moreover, I do believe that SWTOR needs more features to appeal to casual MMO players. An MMO is a hard thing to make. You need to appeal to a wide audience, from most casual to most hardcore. The wider the appeal, the more popular the game will be. What do you guys think of this?

 

Absurd post. This game has more casual focus then hello kitty online.

 

The game practically begs you to level mass alts which is more or less as casual as it gets. Top it off with easy leveling and the fact that you can get the best gear in the game by spamming warzones and doing daily missions. What else more do you want?

 

Btw I am fully happy with the way these things are done

[Monoth]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-08-ea-blames-star-wars-the-old-republic-subscribers-fall-on-casuals-leaving-game

 

Upon reading this, I became a little disenfranchised with the way management is treating SWTOR. As a company, any business that involves customers should take the stance not to blame customers, ever. When you blame the consumer, you end up with a dead product.

 

Moreover, I do believe that SWTOR needs more features to appeal to casual MMO players. An MMO is a hard thing to make. You need to appeal to a wide audience, from most casual to most hardcore. The wider the appeal, the more popular the game will be. What do you guys think of this?

 

I think there talking about lookie loos, people who try out a game for a month or so and then move on..... the kind of people who prefer to play Facebook games....

 

In the beginning I would argue it was only the hardcore that were leaving, but the problem is the game has been out for 5 months now and the casual players have now gotten to lvl 50 and found it pretty much barren....

 

Static Dailies

4 Warzones

3 Ops

 

And thats pretty much it...... So yeah the casuals are now starting to leave also..... It's to bad, i really like this game but it is hard to justify staying given the shape of the end game.... After you've done several alts and their class stories your pretty much burned out on it....

[Kimyrielle]

Absurd post. This game has more casual focus then hello kitty online.

 

The game practically begs you to level mass alts which is more or less as casual as it gets. Top it off with easy leveling and the fact that you can get the best gear in the game by spamming warzones and doing daily missions. What else more do you want?

 

Btw I am fully happy with the way these things are done

 

Contradictory bits bolded, italicized and underlined by me for emphasis. Yes, the LEVELING in this game is as casual friendly as it gets, but the problem is that it's OVER TOO SOON. Like most modern MMOs, this game puts too much emphasis on the endgame and not enough on the journey that's the actual game. If a person like me (who often chats and RPs rather than kills mobs in any efficient manner) can get to max level in a MMO in less than four weeks of playing, something is WRONG. It should take much, much, much longer than that.

 

And the PvE endgame (which even a casual player will get confronted with really fast in this game) in TOR is not, repeat NOT casual friendly. It's all about raids, and since when are raids casual friendly? Raids, by design, are a hardcore activity. I could name you enough reasons why I hate raiding that the sheer enumeration of them would result in a huge wall of text. And everything PvE that's not raiding is a clear second rate activity, like in all other MMOs having raids that I have ever seen. That's, in my opinion, why casual PvE players are bored to hell after reaching L50 with a couple of characters. There is literally nothing interesting/worthwhile to do if you're not a raider (and most people actually aren't). A handful of repetitive dailies with mediocre rewards don't quite cut it for me at least. Crafting in TOR (an activity often enjoyed by non-raiders) can't produce anything that's on par with the good endgame gear and is thus essentially worthless - who enjoys making second rate stuff anyway? There is no customizable player housing (another typical activity enjoyed by casual players) or social professions (fishing anyone?). The RP support is lackluster at best, there is not even a lot of armour we could collect. No dynamic open word PvE events that are easily accessible (like Rift has with their zone invasions or instant adventures). No gear/content progression outsides of raiding/dungeons, for those of us who want a medium sort of challenge that's NOT a dungeon/raid with its silly "don't stand in the fire when the boss reaches 20% health" sort of scripted boss fight mechanics that weren't terribly original even back in the last millennium. Even the legacy system that BW sold us as the best thing since sliced bread for casual players is laughable, with it doing oh-so desirable stuff like reducing the cooldown of travel powers by like 10% or so. Haha, good one! Yes, that makes SUCH a difference...not. Perhaps the unlocking of non-standard races would have been some sort of interesting - hadn't casual me already filled all eight character slots with alts, since that's the only thing a casual player can really do in this game after reaching L50. Ok, except the space combat. That takes me around 15 minutes a day to do. I do those in the morning while drinking a coffee. That's my glorious PvE endgame moment!!

 

Other than that, the PvE endgame in TOR has exactly NOTHING that caters to a causal player and would give them that fuzzy "Hey' that was made for us!" feeling that people get when they feel welcome and appreciated. Instead we read about all those awesome raids and mini-raids (oh wait, the game calls them 'Flashpoints', sorry!) being added with each new patch. Yeah, that's what a casual player really wants! More raids!!! *rolls eyes*

 

Mind you, 'casual attitude' doesn't necessarily equal to 'not a lot of hours spent in the game'. I think I am putting more hours into the game than many hardcore players, just my attitude to gaming isn't hardcore. There is only that much time I need to level eight characters to max... *shrug*

[ConradLionhart]

Casual gamers were never the majority to begin with. If they were, 1.3 million gamers would have left, and the 400k would be the ones still in this game.

 

Casual gamers are casual. They don't play the game for long. They are not the long-term gamers that will keep this going. They are not loyal. It is not good business sense to cater to them. It has nothing to do with lacking in appeal.

[Eszi]

I think that the game was meant for the casuals, but casuals are....casuals and they never play any game for more than a month. But since the game lacks content for hardcore players, they are going to leave as well.

Bad design choice.

[ConradLionhart]

Contradictory bits bolded, italicized and underlined by me for emphasis. Yes, the LEVELING in this game is as casual friendly as it gets, but the problem is that it's OVER TOO SOON. Like most modern MMOs, this game puts too much emphasis on the endgame and not enough on the journey that's the actual game. If a person like me (who often chats and RPs rather than kills mobs in any efficient manner) can get to max level in a MMO in less than four weeks of playing, something is WRONG. It should take much, much, much longer than that.

 

And the PvE endgame (which even a casual player will get confronted with really fast in this game) in TOR is not, repeat NOT casual friendly. It's all about raids, and since when are raids casual friendly? Raids, by design, are a hardcore activity. I could name you enough reasons why I hate raiding that the sheer enumeration of them would result in a huge wall of text. And everything PvE that's not raiding is a clear second rate activity, like in all other MMOs having raids that I have ever seen. That's, in my opinion, why casual PvE players are bored to hell after reaching L50 with a couple of characters. There is literally nothing interesting/worthwhile to do if you're not a raider (and most people actually aren't). A handful of repetitive dailies with mediocre rewards don't quite cut it for me at least. Crafting in TOR (an activity often enjoyed by non-raiders) can't produce anything that's on par with the good endgame gear and is thus essentially worthless - who enjoys making second rate stuff anyway? There is no customizable player housing (another typical activity enjoyed by casual players) or social professions (fishing anyone?). The RP support is lackluster at best, there is not even a lot of armour we could collect. No dynamic open word PvE events that are easily accessible (like Rift has with their zone invasions or instant adventures). No gear/content progression outsides of raiding/dungeons, for those of us who want a medium sort of challenge that's NOT a dungeon/raid with its silly "don't stand in the fire when the boss reaches 20% health" sort of scripted boss fight mechanics that weren't terribly original even back in the last millennium. Even the legacy system that BW sold us as the best thing since sliced bread for casual players is laughable, with it doing oh-so desirable stuff like reducing the cooldown of travel powers by like 10% or so. Haha, good one! Yes, that makes SUCH a difference...not. Perhaps the unlocking of non-standard races would have been some sort of interesting - hadn't casual me already filled all eight character slots with alts, since that's the only thing a casual player can really do in this game after reaching L50. Ok, except the space combat. That takes me around 15 minutes a day to do. I do those in the morning while drinking a coffee. That's my glorious PvE endgame moment!!

 

Other than that, the PvE endgame in TOR has exactly NOTHING that caters to a causal player and would give them that fuzzy "Hey' that was made for us!" feeling that people get when they feel welcome and appreciated. Instead we read about all those awesome raids and mini-raids (oh wait, the game calls them 'Flashpoints', sorry!) being added with each new patch. Yeah, that's what a casual player really wants! More raids!!! *rolls eyes*

 

Mind you, 'casual attitude' doesn't necessarily equal to 'not a lot of hours spent in the game'. I think I am putting more hours into the game than many hardcore players, just my attitude to gaming isn't hardcore. There is only that much time I need to level eight characters to max... *shrug*

 

This game will never be SWG. After almost 6 months, you have to learn to accept it.

[StrykerOne]

I think Bioware is confusing what we think of as a casual MMO player with true casual gamers who would normally not play an MMO at all. I'm sure some of those thought "hey, cool... Star Wars!" and tried the game only to decide they didn't like the whole MMO thing but the more casual MMO players are the ones who are most likely to stay, simply because they haven't powered through all the story yet and are less concerned with buggy raids or PvP.

[Zocat]

What does this mean exactly? That the numbers they reported as subscribers in the first report was...wrong? fudged? Different definition of paying?

 

How does one say 1.7M subscribers earlier, 1.3M subscribers later, and the percent of paying subscribers has gone up? That only means to me that the hyped up 1.7 million was incorrect =P

 

Numbers just examples:

Earlier:

1.7m subscribers, 1m past their 1st month, actually paying

58% paying subscribers

 

Now:

1.3m subscribers, 1m past their 1st month, actually paying

76% paying subscribers

 

subscriber = anyone who can play the game (free month, paying subscribers, maybe trial users - dont know)

paying subscribers = people who are past their 1st month / trial and who pay a monthly fee

[Esproc]

Casual gamers were never the majority to begin with. If they were, 1.3 million gamers would have left, and the 400k would be the ones still in this game.

 

Casual gamers are casual. They don't play the game for long. They are not the long-term gamers that will keep this going. They are not loyal. It is not good business sense to cater to them. It has nothing to do with lacking in appeal.

 

Then what pray tell am I?

 

I quit hardcore raiding and won't go back to the grind. I may still play more than 20 hours a week in SWTOR and also play hours on another MMO I like (SMT). So I put in time, yes, but I will not grind raids or anything like I used to, like spending time studying raids and bosses and all the fights in general.

 

I consider myself casual. I am still playing SWTOR with no real plans to leave, vacation maybe, but not leave. Also during the vacation time I would not even need to suspend my subscription.

 

So I say that I am CASUAL, not Hardcore. Well, EA, what is it?

[Apilvas]

I'm personally in love with the content up to 50, and the difficulty of it. This and the difficulty of the Flashpoints. Yet, it's near impossible to find a group within 10 minutes, let alone 1 hour. It's awful.

 

I agree with the mentality that they have too many servers, definitely. Up the server amount as subs go up, but that is easier said than done.

 

Oh well, back to waiting on the Fleet and looking for a group.. ):

[Aedey]

Lacks appeal to casuals? it also lacks appeal to "hardcore" players.

 

the lack of appeal is caused by the fact that its designed like a single player game with large speed bumps in a attempt to expand on its linear gameplay. This is not something that can be fixed at this point of development as it would require a complete rebuild from the ground up.

 

That's what I keep saying to my mates. The game only feels like KOTOR 3 at times, it just hasn't got that feel about it. & I've not even hit 50 yet... I'm trying to drag it out until 1. I get a new pc & 2. They come up with some more content.

Edited May 10, 2012 by Aedey

[GalacticKegger]

Then what pray tell am I?

 

I quit hardcore raiding and won't go back to the grind. I may still play more than 20 hours a week in SWTOR and also play hours on another MMO I like (SMT). So I put in time, yes, but I will not grind raids or anything like I used to, like spending time studying raids and bosses and all the fights in general.

 

I consider myself casual. I am still playing SWTOR with no real plans to leave, vacation maybe, but not leave. Also during the vacation time I would not even need to suspend my subscription.

 

So I say that I am CASUAL, not Hardcore. Well, EA, what is it?

Casuals. They still have viable skills and can hold their own in a fair fight. They excel in team environments but have zero tolerance for attitudes. Their perfectionist edge is gone because achieving perfection in a game became pointless. They bask in the heat of battle but have no desire to fight an entire war. They play to win - just not at all costs. Mosquitos won't bite them out of respect. When they pat you on the back, you can add it to your resumé. And when they drink, they drink Dos Equis. Stay thirsty my friends . . .

 

I can say this because I am one of them. I'm a recovered extreme hardcore. I'm a casual and I'm proud of it.

 

Edited May 10, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Esproc]

I'll just name one because it's the most important. X-Server LFD. Casuals are not gonna sit in fleet for hours.

 

Guess it's too much to ask for friends and the soon (I Hope Very) transfers and then (perhaps) mergers.

 

If you want easy and casual with X-Server LFG.....

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4857376042

 

this was of course someone with a "Scroll of Resurrection", but should give an idea.

[Esproc]

Casuals. They still have viable skills and can hold their own in a fair fight. They excel in team environments but have zero tolerance for attitudes. Their perfectionist edge is gone because achieving perfection in a game became pointless. They bask in the heat of battle but have no desire to fight an entire war. They play to win - just not at all costs. Mosquitos won't bite them out of respect. When they pat you on the back, you can add it to your resumé. And when they drink, they drink Dos Equis. Stay thirsty my friends . . .

 

I can say this because I am one of them. I'm a recovered extreme hardcore. I'm a casual and I'm proud of it:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWH1j...30801732670E76

 

 

/cheers

 

And Cheers, /tilt drink

[Darth_Sinistor]

I think that the game was meant for the casuals, but casuals are....casuals and they never play any game for more than a month. But since the game lacks content for hardcore players, they are going to leave as well.

Bad design choice.

 

I'm a casual and I've been playing TOR since December 20th. I have also been playing WoW for over five years now and because that game is more easily accessible (cross server pve/pvp) I will be returning to it.

[GalacticKegger]

ZOMG. Read the article. Casuals aren't leaving the game. Players who opted out after their trial (which Bioware counted as subs) are the ones leaving. I think they chose the word "casual" because at the guild summit JO looked astonished at having to state that the average player was online for 35 hours a week (almost a full time job in his words) - not exactly casual. That is so funny. Edited May 10, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[-Azza-]

Hey Chaps,

 

I am not a hardcore game by a longshot, although I do play alot, cause its so much fun, nd I have holidays now. (Im a teacher). I havent played many MMO's in my life. Age of Conan (AOC) and SWTOR, BUT I have looked into WOW and Guild Wars by exploring their forums a bit to find out more about those games. Thing is, the current conversation that is going on here on the forums goes on at all MMO's across the board.

 

New Players will always come and go, Old palyers will return and go, such is life. The fear of a game shutting down or going dead that you have invested hundreds of hours in is always their for the player currently playing it, and any sniff of "loosing players" will cause a panic and cross section of a problem that might not be there.

 

That said, I have enjoyed SWTOR tremendously. Graphics are retro nice, like Star Wars should be, it is in my opinion very casual friendly. As I got good gear, havent had to grind for money, I just do my missions and as a level 20 char (I mostly pvp, so dotn level fast) and am always in the top 3 kills with my vanguard. So yeah, I can see that the hard core pvpers have a problem with that, but I think that pvp in this game is the most balanced that I have seen. Bearin mind I am measuring it to AOC.

 

There are some things lacking, there will always be, hell, theres some things missing in life, and I constantly complain to the Developer, but life goes on. I enjoy this game, so much so that I will be looking at joining a guld.

 

Can I end this off by saying THANK YOU, to every person who comments on these forums and play this game. As it is the players that make this game enjoyable for each other. And I thoroughly enjoy this.