Listen to the hardcore players.

[FourTwent]

I agree with the OP

 

If they make the content too easy, the people get bored. Even if 5-10% of the population only gets to complete content, ever. That' means the othe 90-95% will keep trying and will always be learning something new

 

There's nothing wrong with catering to casuals, either in whole or part.

 

The problem is though that every game only caters to casuals now, and that market is notoriously unreliable and clearly too small to sustain the health of games.

 

very good point

 

i like the idea of making the newest raid EXTREMELY hard. and keeping it hard until the next raid comes out. then balance the older raid for the casuals

Edited November 19, 2012 by FourTwent

[Xiahoufig]

The problem with making things too difficult is the time invested versus the amount of people that get to see the work. Sunwell is considered by many to be one of the best raids WoW ever had...according to the ~10% of the population that saw it. If I was a game programmer, encounter designer, or hell even an artist, I would want as many people as possible to see the hard work I put into making something like a particular piece of content. Would make one feel appreciated to know that instead of say 5% of a game's population got to see the work I and my team made, 95% of them did.

[Kudach]

I agree this the OP casuals ruin games by asking for dumb'd down content because they cant "play" the game enough to get the gear required to compete

[Xiahoufig]

I agree this the OP casuals ruin games by asking for dumb'd down content because they cant "play" the game enough to get the gear required to compete

 

Such a flawed argument. 'Casual' and 'hardcore' are not indicators of skill, there are indicators of time investment. There can be great 'casual' and great 'hardcore' players. There are also bad 'casual' and bad 'hardcore' players. Stop using 'casual' as a synonym for bad because it's not true.

[Rayla_Felana]

Such a flawed argument. 'Casual' and 'hardcore' are not indicators of skill, there are indicators of time investment. There can be great 'casual' and great 'hardcore' players. There are also bad 'casual' and bad 'hardcore' players. Stop using 'casual' as a synonym for bad because it's not true.

 

I'd be in the bad hardcore player category.

[Beslley]

I like the cut of your jib, OP.

 

And the thing is, SWTOR has the ability to cater to both casuals AND the hardcore because of its 3 difficulty modes. So far, "nightmare" mode has been anything but nightmarish. Why not make hardmodes actually moderately difficult, instead of a teeny bit harder than story mode, and nightmare modes super difficult with rewards befitting that sort of difficulty? I'm talking about a difficulty level where it takes at the very least a month or two for top guilds to clear NiM content, maybe more. A month of intense, 6-7 days of raiding straight through. Not only does this prolong the life of the content, but it actually provides a challenge for top guilds (most of whom have disbanded in SWTOR, sadly).

 

There's a reason why nearly all my friends have stopped playing SWTOR, and it wasn't because the difficulty was too high.

 

There is really no excuse for the abysmal tuning of this game's raid content.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Beslley

[Avatarless]

So.. this is why WoW, with it's over 10 million subscribers once again, moved away from catering to the hardcore and made their game more casual friendly.

 

Obviously a poor business choice. In my experience it's the 'hardcore' players that are the first to jump ship when the next new MMO comes out cause they want to 'conquer' that as well. This game needs loyal players at the moment to keep it afloat.

[Beslley]

So.. this is why WoW, with it's over 10 million subscribers once again, moved away from catering to the hardcore and made their game more casual friendly.

 

Obviously a poor business choice. In my experience it's the 'hardcore' players that are the first to jump ship when the next new MMO comes out cause they want to 'conquer' that as well. This game needs loyal players at the moment to keep it afloat.

 

You do realize that many of the hardcore guilds in WoW have been around in some form since Vanilla, right?

And I'm not sure "casual-friendly" is a good way to describe the whole WoW experience.

 

Sure, the raid content is accessible to everyone through raid finder, but for hardcore players, there is more to do than ever in WoW. In order to be seriously top of the line competitive, you have to be doing a ton of dailies EVERY DAY. You have to be supplementing your gear with stuff from the raid finder and reg mode before doing hard mode, so you're looking at least 2 clears of reg content a week at times.

 

Some would say that WoW has substituted fun, well designed raids for grind and I think in some respects that is true. But even if hardcore players are an afterthought in WoW at this point (and I'd argue they are, because you are right, they have added more and more casual-friendly things to WoW as time has gone on), there are still plenty of things for hardcore players to do (something which SWTOR definitely lacks due to its overall difficulty alone).

 

WoW is also at the end of its life cycle, so it behooves them to include casuals more. If the players don't stick around for the long haul, no big deal. The game is old anyhow, and they just need it to keep making money until they release their Next Big Thing.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Beslley

[Erasimus]

You do realize that many of the hardcore guilds in WoW have been around in some form since Vanilla, right?

 

^^ This. There is still fierce competition in WoW to clear the Heroic dungeons and the Heroic mode dungeons are not trivial. Heck you should see how many people complain that the LFR dungeons are "too hard" and they are two levels below the Heroics. Boss health, damage, and mechanics increase quite a bit as you ascend the ladder as do the rewards. Take a look at http://www.wowprogress.com some time. It would be nice if SWTOR had that kind of competition at some point.

[Synxos]

So.. this is why WoW, with it's over 10 million subscribers once again, moved away from catering to the hardcore and made their game more casual friendly.

.

But they kept things that only the hardcore could do....

They had worthy achievements(like titles and cool mounts) for doing certain difficult things.

[CosmicKat]

So.. this is why WoW, with it's over 10 million subscribers once again, moved away from catering to the hardcore and made their game more casual friendly.

 

Obviously a poor business choice. In my experience it's the 'hardcore' players that are the first to jump ship when the next new MMO comes out cause they want to 'conquer' that as well. This game needs loyal players at the moment to keep it afloat.

 

WoW and hardcore in the same sentence is like McDonald's and gourmet in the same sentence. It's the cartoon MMO for people who don't like MMO's. Somewhere along the way the rest of the industry forgot that.

[JimG]

Without the hardcore, uber players staying here neither will the casuals and masses.

 

Anytime, I see someone refer to themselves as "uber", I definitely pay extra attention to what they have to say because they are obviously very important, lol.

[Cretinus]

It is obvious that the devs of this game and any MMO need to listen to the hardcore players.

 

Too those players already 50 and beginning some of the endgame.

 

These players win the loot and achieve the goals that the casual, poor and part-time (these are not the same player) players drive to emulate, they ride mounts and hold titles that pull the masses on to play the game.

 

Now you are going to see ALOT of responses from players saying they DONT want this, that they dont look to players that play insanely long periods, or succeed with less time played. They will say that the game does NOT need these players.

 

They are flat out wrong

 

Without the hardcore, uber players staying here neither will the casuals and masses. They say they will but if there are no top end players playing SW:TOR then it will become a bit of a joke in the mmo world.

 

Please I beg you BW, listen to those players that are already 50, already beginning endgame operations, these people KNOW what makes an MMO succeed and what will keep them playing.

 

Ultimately KEEP THE HARDCORE/Elite PLAYING = Keeping the masses playing.

 

*edit below..

 

No, I do think we are social animals though, that like it or not we do look up to those we play with, and ultimately those we play with look up to other people they know or play with.

 

My point is if you do not keep the very highest achievers interested in the game then they will move on, the effect of keeping these people interested is keeping all those that play down the chain interested.

 

Those saying "I only care what my friends do... etc" are only reinforcing my point, without knowing it.

 

The bottom 1% "look up" to the 2% the 2% aspires to achieve the 3%'s loot and success, it is a chain effect all the way to the top.

 

There is a chain, an unbroken link to the very highest achievers in game.

 

EDIT 2**

 

It is absolutely staggering how so many posts do not address the actual point of the post.

 

Im going to copy/paste my response now as it irks me to see it.

 

************************************************** **********************

 

This is not about looking up to the top 1%

 

This is about EVERYONE playing the game with friends and peers they DO look up too and wish to emulate, this is wanting to achieve goals WITH those players, these players you DO wish to emulate and DO respect look up to others and so on, right up to the very top.

 

Now the question is...

 

WHO do aim the most difficult endgame content at?

 

On a scale of 1-100 WHERE do you target the difficulty level?

 

************************************************** **********************

 

The point of the OP is too make sure the devs aim the difficulty level of the endgame content at as high a percentage as possible, I would say the top 5-10%.

 

If you aim it at the average gamer 50% mark, then you will have half your player base bored out of their tiny brains, the upper eschelons of this percentage will jump ship fast, this will leave the best players in the game as average players.

 

Finally you will see players OUTSIDE of the game begin to ridicule players that play this game, a meme will appear, with the derogotory nature "Are you a SW:TOR player?!"

 

Only a few people it seems really understand the point im making.

 

AND IT IS NOTTHAT WE SHOULD ALL WORSHIP AND LOOK UP TO HARDCORE PLAYERS!

 

Please go away.

 

Thank you.

[Scan]

I agree this the OP casuals ruin games by asking for dumb'd down content because they cant "play" the game enough to get the gear required to compete

 

Problem is most of the top 60-70% of the playerbase has left. Most of the replies to this post are from those that are still levelling to 50 or at least still struggling to complete all content. So you will see alot of support for the game in its current state because 60-70% of the people that agree cant post.

 

Meh, im only subbed for one month to see how they implemented F2P so ill be gone again soon, i am a massive SW fan and mmo addict, however the way they screwed this game up is ciminal in my view (and it seems the evidence supports my position, sacking staff, merging and closing servers, forcing name changes and ultimately going F2P before its first year is even up) the super secret space project is a tiny glimmer of hope BW, just make sure there is ALOT of open world faction conflict and a system in place for player driven lore.

 

(fat chance)

Edited November 20, 2012 by Scan

[Scan]

But they kept things that only the hardcore could do....

They had worthy achievements(like titles and cool mounts) for doing certain difficult things.

 

QFT 100% right.

 

I agree farmville style players NEED to be catered too, but there is NOTHING in SW:TOR for the competative raider, as i said im not what i would consider ultra hardcore, but even our guild had a raiding party of 50's BEFORE early access was finsihed and we had completed NM EV before the end of January!

 

If there had been at least one or two bosses requiring a few months practice with rewards to suit then we would still be playing, never tune these bosses or the titles they gave, then when new content hits just remove the boss forever, JUST ONE OR TWO BOSSES out of reams of content would not be missed.

 

These bosses would then become legendary within the lore of TOR. My most vivid memory of WoW was the Vanilla defeat of C'thun (it took six weeks of practice as a 40 man raid), we were the first ally guild on our server to down him and if anyone knows what it took then they know of the pedigree required. My respect to anyone that killed the Sleeper in EQ or C'thun in Vanilla.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Scan

[GrandMike]

QFT 100% right.

 

I agree farmville style players NEED to be catered too, but there is NOTHING in SW:TOR for the competative raider, as i said im not what i would consider ultra hardcore, but even our guild had a raiding party of 50's BEFORE early access was finsihed and we had completed NM EV before the end of January!

 

If there had been at least one or two bosses requiring a few months practice with rewards to suit then we would still be playing, never tune these bosses or the titles they gave, then when new content hits just remove the boss forever, JUST ONE OR TWO BOSSES out of reams of content would not be missed.

 

These bosses would then become legendary within the lore of TOR. My most vivid memory of WoW was the Vanilla defeat of C'thun (it took six weeks of practice as a 40 man raid), we were the first ally guild on our server to down him and if anyone knows what it took then they know of the pedigree required. My respect to anyone that killed the Sleeper in EQ or C'thun in Vanilla.

 

Wow, would THAT make you feel important enough rofl

 

Theres no such content because diverting so much resources to developing content for 0,1% of players is plain stoopid.

 

Go back to EQ.

[oakamp]

So.. this is why WoW, with it's over 10 million subscribers once again, moved away from catering to the hardcore and made their game more casual friendly.

 

Obviously a poor business choice. In my experience it's the 'hardcore' players that are the first to jump ship when the next new MMO comes out cause they want to 'conquer' that as well. This game needs loyal players at the moment to keep it afloat.

 

yup, but hardcore players don't care,

they always speak loud at forum about GAME too EASY,

the causal ppl r silence , they just keep unsub, not say anything, cause they don't care,

and the fanboi tell them to shut up and leave quietly,

so u can see once again , after f2p, the server online ppl is fewer than server merge at 2012.06!

well done, BW, average PUG still failed at hm ec, what the hel is that?

and hm tfb is not hard but still freak average ppl away from it?

why is that? cause u listen to hardcore nerd, then u keep ur sub away from ur company pocket.

 

we have a good team once,

easy progress endgame raid,

but we know ppl don't like hardcore stuff these days,

EQ already prove it it wrong, and BW still didn't learn mistake from history,

 

now our RL gone because he is sick of members don't show up,

and why is that? cause u , BW, listen to the hardcore ppl, make this game don't entertain average ppl,

so they don't show up on schedule , then u will suffer of sub dropping again, this fake f2p won't save it, watch.

Edited November 20, 2012 by oakamp