Hardcore people, I don't care what you say...

[Kaphik]

This is so contrary to my actual experience. For hardcores, gear is simply a means to an end, in that it helps them get that much closer to that world/server first kill. It was the casuals that did it for the gear, hence all the ninjaing found in pugs.

 

Hardcores are rarely competing against their own server, they have bigger stakes in mind. Even after pugs could get raid quality epics from five mans, you never saw those people or their guilds pop to the top of the raid progress sites. Those drops actually were implemented just to give people access to content.

 

You seem to be confusing the usual hardcores with people who are into competitive raiding. They are about as different as hardcores and casuals are.

[Lord_Karsk]

These "hardcore" players suck anyway. They always need some sort of advantage or excuse to not actually play the content the way it's supposed to be played. They want macros, they want premades vs PUGs, they want to be overgeared for content, they want add-ons to make the game easy to play, then afterwards they want to wave their e-peens around.

 

Yes it's a joke, and yes the devs cater to them. Because the devs are stupid and MMOs have the absolute worst communities of any genre I've ever been a part of.

 

I can tell you never been in the FPS community. Here in the EU we have the best FPS players on the planet

i know i used to be one of them.

And because playing highhigh/semi pro/pro PC FPS like promode COD4 CS 16 etc takes 300 times more skills

and ingame iq to master then any other game, the FPS community over the years have gotten really bad, if your not top 15 in your country you are low.

And the egos and attitudes in the FPS community is 100 times worse then any

MMO community.When i started playing MMOs more then 3 years ago i was amazed how

nice and mature then MMO' community was.And i'm not going back.

Edited May 13, 2012 by Lord_Karsk

[SithEater]

Play a "Korean MMO" or EQ1 / EVE, then you will know what is a grind.

* When you kill 500+ mobs and only get 10% exp

* Then if you die you lose like 5% or worse you lose all your gear.

 

This game is as casual as a mmo gets.

THIS

 

The only way this game could be easier is if they paid you to play it. On the contrary I think 1.2 is a step in the right direction, ie being a little harder.

Edited May 13, 2012 by SithEater

[JeremyDale]

I just want to disagree with the OP - though I do think this game went over-board with their enrage timers. On that we DO agree. That seems to be their answer to everything on this game. Let's give it an enrage timer! It's stupid - and I've never enjoyed that mechanic - and it's deffinitely over-used here.

 

But this game really isn't made for hardcore players. I don't know why on earth he would even say that. It's made for people who like to repeat daily quests - watch cutscenes and roll alts.

[Dekai]

As others have already stated, this games far from Hardcore. Clearing NM in one night, nothing else to do, no challenge. Guild only logs in for the 3 hours we raid on 1 day, then poof, gone.

 

Ya, games really hardcore... /sarcasm. Though sub is canceled since it's a pita to pug since no one logs in, Bioware has until... August, when my time runs out, to add something fun and challenging as well as a way to group with others with more ease so leveling an alt isn't such a slow boring chore.

[Guajolote]

You seem to be confusing the usual hardcores with people who are into competitive raiding. They are about as different as hardcores and casuals are.

 

You'll have to enlighten me on what a "usual hardcore" is then, because I was on the same server as Blood Legion for five years, and those guys and the guilds that tried to keep up were how we defined hardcore. No one played more rigorously and seriously with higher standards than they did.

[Jenzali]

The OP's definition of "hardcore" is any player that socializes or communicates with other players.

[Razdek]

I bought the game months ago... My highest character is only lvl 40.. I am as casual as they come. I am still here... And will be here for years to come. Not everything is about end game. And when I do finally hit that level i will grind gear over time. I will never be as geared as 'hardcore people' but i will still be competative... It will just take longer. That is the nature of being a casual player. Just because you are casual doesnt mean you have no skills. You can learn the fights just like everyone else.

[Thaed]

 

*snippity*

 

I don't want to make this an issue on add-ons or macros however.

 

Funny, you're the one that brought them up.

[ironix]

...The game is NOT casual or EVEN semi-casual friendly. It was at least semi-casual friendly at launch, but since 1.2 it's only geared towards the hardcore, get over it, that's why so many people have quit. If you want the game to survive, you need to get over this whole hardcore enraged timers/tight tuning bosses/not letting groups rerun ops and just be loot locked that is going on. All these people that have left were the casual and semi-casual, and now you're realizing that the hardcore is almost the only ones left. Our server at least is dead in the water, and transfers are going to fix nothing, there needs to be forced mergers.

 

Wow... Quite the diatribe.

 

Anyhow, this game has thus far contained some of the easiest end-game content that I've seen in quite some time. You do realize that new content is generally tuned for people who have the previous content's gear, right? Or would you prefer BW to tune content such that any 2-man group and their companions can complete it without problems?

 

In any case, I honestly don't see how this thread can serve any constructive purpose.

Edited May 13, 2012 by ironix

[Guajolote]

I guess the op wants nightmare modes to be less nightmarish, perhaps an LFR tier like WoW added.

[ironix]

I guess the op wants nightmare modes to be less nightmarish, perhaps an LFR tier like WoW added.

 

Isn't that what story mode is for?

[ISDEnterprise]

There are different degrees. This isn't near the most hardcore MMO out there. It's not near the most casual game out there.

 

You can't just throw games into those two groups.

[amnie]

do I think the 'end game' of this game is casual-friendly? nope. you definitely can't jump into TOR for an hour and do anything 'high up there'. (granted you can eventually finish EV/KP/Denova in an hour - if you have the right gear/group, which you won't have if you only play an hour every day)

 

is it 'very hardcore'? nope. not by a long stretch, but I might just be saying this because I'm thinking back to waiting 2 weeks for a raid, waiting for the right in-game(!) moon-phase(!) to finish crafting an epic item that I'd been working on for a month.

 

granted this is 'hardcore = long time investment', not 'hardcore = super hard'.

 

think of the very word hardcore. it's the hard core. only a tiny faction of the 'player base' is 'the hard core'. that doesn't make them any more important or any less important, and some people want to be a part of that core, but will never be, and others don't give a damn and want everything right away.

 

I accepted a long time ago that I can have fun in a game as long as there is actually something to do for me, as long as there is actual 'progress' eventually. it doesn't have to be every day, but it has to be noticable (if after 3 months my gear/skills/credits/craftingskills/pvp-rank still look the same chances are I will find a new game)

 

stuff like crafting or pvp is definitely not 'hardcore' in this game, because you can have progess in these even if you only play an hour or two every day - and it's not that hard 'skill-wise' either. unless you are really really bad and don't get anything. but really, if you are neither willing/able to invest some time into pve nor doing pvp or crafting, what do you want here to begin with? what do you want in .any. MMO, for that matter?

[Squatdog_nz]

...The game is NOT casual or EVEN semi-casual friendly. It was at least semi-casual friendly at launch, but since 1.2 it's only geared towards the hardcore, get over it, that's why so many people have quit. If you want the game to survive, you need to get over this whole hardcore enraged timers/tight tuning bosses/not letting groups rerun ops and just be loot locked that is going on. All these people that have left were the casual and semi-casual, and now you're realizing that the hardcore is almost the only ones left. Our server at least is dead in the water, and transfers are going to fix nothing, there needs to be forced mergers.

 

BWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

 

One of the major problems with SWTOR is that the endgame content is FAR too 'casual-friendly', leaving competent players with little to do after they've breezed through the PVE content and rolled a few PUGs in PVP.

[V-Serp]

Heroic raids are no where near as simple as you make it out to be for hardcore raiders who don't have videos to watch to choreograph fights. It's a huge amount of trial and error, wipe after wipe, reading combat logs, etc to get that first boss kill. The gear they start new content with is just the best gear possible from the last raid. Then they actually need the better gear they get from drops to help down later bosses in the raid; that's where the progression part of progression raiding comes from. You cannot kill the final boss in a new raid in just the gear you earned from the previous raid, hence their very strict loot distribution rules in order to benefit the entire guild's raid progression.

 

It just feels to me like you're downplaying the hard work these pve guilds put into hardcore progression raiding. It reminds me of all the people that say WoW got too easy, yet they had zero heroic raid achievements to their name. The difficult content is there if you have the time to commit to it.

 

Whether it's worth that time or not is a different argument entirely, and one totally up to each individual.

 

And in your first paragraph you admit it's a gear issue. The reason why it's made easier down the line is progression has to be sped up, or else new players could never catch up. It's the same reason why BM gear is quicker to get in PVP now.

 

I'm downplaying "work" in a skilless videogame that pretty much boils down to time invested. If you want to prove that you're actually good at video games, go play a real competitive genre and perform there. I'm not going to stroke your e-peen for this joke of a game and genre. I flat out have zero respect for an MMO players. If you're raiding to impress chicks, you've got some serious issues.

[KevyB]

You do realize that boss's had enrage timers before 1.2 right?

 

Waitwhat? They removed enrage from all bosses, even world ones? God dammit been lvling alts so i didnt notice, that's bull...

[alifaraaz]

Casual doesnt equal bad. There's no ridiculously time-consuming stuff in this game other than grinding credits for legacy crap (optional stuff) and to soem degree rakata implants/earpieces and campaign relics, which tbh - at 30 dailies a day, makes them relatively easy to get.

 

So yeah this game does cater to casuals, there's very few things that are crazy time consuming for only hardcore or 'no-lifers' to get. And I think that's a good thing. Because casual GOOD players can still get the best PvE gear. With PvP not quite so much, still a lot of valor grinding, but even then not that much.

 

Imo casual = people who have less TIME to play, not people who suck.

[Kimyrielle]

BWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

 

One of the major problems with SWTOR is that the endgame content is FAR too 'casual-friendly', leaving competent players with little to do after they've breezed through the PVE content and rolled a few PUGs in PVP.

 

I quoted this post to point out how little the hardcore crowd even understands what a 'casual' player actually is and how they think and approach the game.

 

I will give you a hint: STWOR's PvE endgame content is about raids and nothing but raids (16-man raids, 8-man raids, and a 4 man variant using the same basic mechanics that the game calls 'Flashpoints'). There is virtually nothing else PvE side in the game that would be worth doing.

 

Now here comes to point: Raids are a hardcore activity. By design. There is a reason why raiders are a tiny, tiny minority in every MMO I am a aware of - because casual players strongly tend to not want to do them. No matter how 'easy' they are in your opinion.

 

Hardcore players define 'casual player = sucky player' or 'casual player = person who plays the game only for 2 hours a week'. But the true difference between both groups is the attitude they have towards gaming. Casual players are after fun and entertainment first, while hardcore players are in for the competition and challenge. Raiding, even the comparatively easy sort of, requires people to join a raiding guild, be in the game during fixed schedules, use voice com, agree to some sort of gear/loot distributing scheme, do theorycraftng and optimize their character, practice with a team of the same people for a while and suffer a more or less large number of team wipes while getting there, deal with the drama and debating triggered by said team wipes, commit longer periods of time to the raid during they are expected not to log off/afk for any reason. And so on. The biggest challenge of raiding isn't the actual fight, but all the overhead, drama and strings attached it it. AND THAT'S WHY CASUAL PLAYERS TEND NOT TO WANT TO RAID. Because that overhead is neither fun nor entertaining. Hardcore players are willing to pay the price to get the 'I have done that' T-Shirt and the bragging rights. Casual players tend to want content they can hop in, have fun, and log off whenever they want to, because playing the game is more fun then bureaucracy and drama.

 

Classical examples for endgame activities casual players tend to like is crafting (but SWTOR's crafting can't produce anything worthwhile), furnishing player-houses (SWTOR doesn't have that), social professions (fishing...), 'hop on-hop off' content like the zone invasions in Rift, where players could come, fight in a huge battle, and go whenever they felt like (but SWTOR doesn't have those). One other thing (and that's where casual and hardcore players really start to clash, because it's a conflict of attitudes) many casual players object to is being reduced to a second class sort of player because the entire endgame focuses about raiding and really -everything- decent drops only there, even the recipes/mats for crafting. A lot of casual players are rather competent players who want some sort of challenge too, just without all these strings attached to the raiding game. I have yet to see any MMO catering to that group at all, and yet I think it's the by far largest customer group in any MMO.

 

I hope that shed some light on the issue why many casual players say that SWTOR's endgame doesn't cater to them - because it really doesn't at all.

Edited May 13, 2012 by Kimyrielle

[krinaman]

The problem with all these discussions is that everybody defines casual and hardcord differently.

 

However, in the case of SWTOR the groups to look at are raiders and non-raiders. PVE end game in SWTOR consists of basically raiding and little else.

 

This leaves the non-raiders bored to death and the raiders arguing over whether the raids are hard enough or not.

[Erstok]

I don't care what hardcore people say but I'm gonna make a topic and show everyone how much I don't care what you say.

 

Why not post a video on youtube about bring on the hate then disable comments in said video. That will show them how hardcore you are bro.

[DragoVaughn]

Just to say, I'm not saying things should be easier. I'm saying we should have lockouts on loot, not instances, to cater to the casual, or so we can help casuals after other runs. I'm saying enrage timers are so tightly tuned that it's almost unforgiving of any mistake, a group geared for that content is usually within seconds of enrage timers. I'm saying there needs to just be one damn server with instancing, other games do it, why can't this, or at least forced mergers, not pick and choose, people will still be screwed with that system.

 

But thanks everyone that put words in my mouth instead of reading...

[Scrubtastic]

These "hardcore" players suck anyway. They always need some sort of advantage or excuse to not actually play the content the way it's supposed to be played. They want macros, they want premades vs PUGs, they want to be overgeared for content, they want add-ons to make the game easy to play, then afterwards they want to wave their e-peens around.

 

Yes it's a joke, and yes the devs cater to them. Because the devs are stupid and MMOs have the absolute worst communities of any genre I've ever been a part of.

 

Hahaha, that's too funny. BW should hire this guy and he'll show you how to fail even more than you are right now.

[Elkirin]

IMHO,

 

Casual and hardcore are personal, not universally agreed terms...It is stupid to hate people just because of a tag you applied to them.

 

IMHO, Nobody who is actually hardcore refers to themselves as hardcore. They are busy getting on with whatever goal they have set themselves.

 

Casual can mean any number of things, some of my best ever raid leaders, online as close to 24/7 as they could be, were very casual people.

[TheSeventhJedi]

I quoted this post to point out how little the hardcore crowd even understands what a 'casual' player actually is and how they think and approach the game.

 

I will give you a hint: STWOR's PvE endgame content is about raids and nothing but raids (16-man raids, 8-man raids, and a 4 man variant using the same basic mechanics that the game calls 'Flashpoints'). There is virtually nothing else PvE side in the game that would be worth doing.

 

Now here comes to point: Raids are a hardcore activity. By design. There is a reason why raiders are a tiny, tiny minority in every MMO I am a aware of - because casual players strongly tend to not want to do them. No matter how 'easy' they are in your opinion.

 

Hardcore players define 'casual player = sucky player' or 'casual player = person who plays the game only for 2 hours a week'. But the true difference between both groups is the attitude they have towards gaming. Casual players are after fun and entertainment first, while hardcore players are in for the competition and challenge. Raiding, even the comparatively easy sort of, requires people to join a raiding guild, be in the game during fixed schedules, use voice com, agree to some sort of gear/loot distributing scheme, do theorycraftng and optimize their character, practice with a team of the same people for a while and suffer a more or less large number of team wipes while getting there, deal with the drama and debating triggered by said team wipes, commit longer periods of time to the raid during they are expected not to log off/afk for any reason. And so on. The biggest challenge of raiding isn't the actual fight, but all the overhead, drama and strings attached it it. AND THAT'S WHY CASUAL PLAYERS TEND NOT TO WANT TO RAID. Because that overhead is neither fun nor entertaining. Hardcore players are willing to pay the price to get the 'I have done that' T-Shirt and the bragging rights. Casual players tend to want content they can hop in, have fun, and log off whenever they want to, because playing the game is more fun then bureaucracy and drama.

 

Classical examples for endgame activities casual players tend to like is crafting (but SWTOR's crafting can't produce anything worthwhile), furnishing player-houses (SWTOR doesn't have that), social professions (fishing...), 'hop on-hop off' content like the zone invasions in Rift, where players could come, fight in a huge battle, and go whenever they felt like (but SWTOR doesn't have those). One other thing (and that's where casual and hardcore players really start to clash, because it's a conflict of attitudes) many casual players object to is being reduced to a second class sort of player because the entire endgame focuses about raiding and really -everything- decent drops only there, even the recipes/mats for crafting. A lot of casual players are rather competent players who want some sort of challenge too, just without all these strings attached to the raiding game. I have yet to see any MMO catering to that group at all, and yet I think it's the by far largest customer group in any MMO.

 

I hope that shed some light on the issue why many casual players say that SWTOR's endgame doesn't cater to them - because it really doesn't at all.

 

This, this, and more this. I don't even have anything to add.