Death to New/Casual Players

[Gremmlynn]

Yes, to me the game is about 'entertaining' challenges - the challenge to succeed and a sense of achievement in doing so. The beauty of DDO, tracing it back to its pnp roots, is that it was the imagination at work which made the game fun. Taking your thought, below:



... reveals a simple extension of mine. New powers, skills and abilities for characters levelling up require new 'entertaining' challenges. What is the point of having powerful characters if there is no sense of achievement in it? This is the bane of Monty Haul. If the challenges become too easy, it is like eating too much candy - you get sick and stop.

I don't think this dichotomy is limited to DDO, I think it applies to all MMOs. Some handle the dichotomy better than others. I just hope the DDO devs can find a way to smooth out the divide between player styles and break the mold.

What divide? There is making a game that entertains the masses or making a game that doesn't make enough profit (considering in the business world anything that could be making more profit is not making enough profit). Games that challenge any of their players in a way that isn't attainable by all the players, generally through artificial methods, tend to be avoided by those who can't face that challenge. Thus DDO is a game that only requires it's players to grind out the right gear combination and maybe read a walk through to be a winner at.

[Tammuz]

I gotta call BS on both of you. I have done nothing but deconstruct EVERYTHING that I get on all my toons and create lots of shards, which I think deconstructed again, and I'm only 42 in Divine, 35 in Arcane and 30 something in Elemental. It most certainly does NOT only take 8 to 10 hours and no monetary cost to get to level 50 in crafting.

How much time and how much money did you spend?
What are you spending the plat on?

[Doxmaster]

This has been posted in many replies on other threads but I just wanted to make it clear that this patch could be the end to casual players.

I am a casual player. I've been playing the game for two years and have capped...two characters

With the new requirements for crafting, not only will you have to buy the adventure packs from where the named loot comes from but ALSO you need to grind out and PULL the named item.

Why?

Cause no one who crafts will pass their items any longer. Why pass that extra dreamsplitter when you can keep it to craft a useful weapon with it on another character?

As a casual player, most of my raid loot comes from rolling on them. I haven't even gotten 20 completions on any raids on any of my characters and I've played for two years!

This is an outrage because I thought the crafting system allows casual players to eventually reach a high enough crafting level for them to craft weapons that can be useful without having to raid constantly to get them. (I'm looking at you greensteel items. Still have yet to make a Tier 3 GS item as well).

So thank you Turbine.
Thank you for making my characters have an even harder time keeping up with people who've played longer than I have and who play more than I do.

edit: any casual player love out there?

Nope.

[Feralthyrtiaq]

do you really need to craft to play this game ?
i don't think so
only elitist players need that

You R right you don't need to craft to play.

You can be a casual player and take advantage of the crafting system. ML1 Superior Ardor I kama clicky for my Light Monk. +75% to monk AOE Healing.

It isn't just for elitists or w/e

[SilkofDrasnia]

Disagree.

DDO was a 100% hard-core ONLY game for the first ~3 years of it's life.

Solo'ing was impossible.
Tough mobs would 1 shot players.
Raids took months to beat. (Titan...)
Elite was to be feared.

It was hardcore, It was fun, and it never died.

Today it isn't even close to the same game, but that doesn't mean that such a game isn't viable. Turbine prooved it was.. Well the old turbine, nearly none of the original programmers that created that game are still around.

face facts shade ddo did work for a few years then started dying with the "vip hardcore" model, its thanks to premiums that your still enjoying the game so yes the poster u qouted is on the right track and your not

[Victorhammer]

Dear 420,

every game HAS TO BE for CASUAL PLAYERS if it wants to stay in operation. at least every mmo does. you
can run your own game out of your basement and make it as hardcore as you want but you probably won't make
a dime off of it.
i've been a "casual player" for over 4 years now. by casual I mean actual time spent in the game on a daily
or weekly basis. i've completed hundreds if not thousands of raids. so please, don't try to tar all casual
players with the same brush.


On Topic,
I don't think that this change marks the death of the casual player in ddo. it will significantly alter the difference
between the haves and have-nots though.
I do not believe that Turbine/Warner bro's have a coherent plan for the future of ddo based upon their recent
decisions and actions. it's almost like there isn't any comms between the development team. either that
or they're just playing games with their playerbase
seems to me that crafting is a seat of the pants project. and it's looking more and more like a seat of
the pants where ya don't make it to the potty in time project.

New players will be in the same boat they always were:
so far behind that the only viable method of catching up is to join a guild and mooch off them until you can
carry your own weight.

I am not sure the devs understand this is what happened to this game. Or maybe they do and are trying to fix it by adding crafting. But then they do this enhancement of crafting for power gamers and drastically change the nature of the game for new players for the worse. Maybe unintentional but it happens none the less.
New players are not in the same boat they always were it is worse. Costs for many items new players need to be competetive are changing going through the roof because of high level crafting which has an impact on new players. But more than that is attitude. Anyway the game is developing a high entry level bar which works to keep new people out. In the end that means fewer and fewer players as the old timers move on to something else.
The game dries up and dies from lack of support as not enough money is being made to continue the game.
It seems obvious to me that this means new players are a must to keep the game alive.
Then any thing added to the game that increases the entry level hurdle for new players is bad for the continued future of this game.

[Zachski]

I'm really confused about how Shade seems to think that DDO "wasn't dying."

It was receiving horrible reviews, little to no new revenue, and they weren't able to make ends meet.

That's why they had to switch to F2P in the first place.

I would like to point out that "casual" and "hard core" are not the only gamers in DDO.

There's also, what most people would fit into here, the "normal" gamers. They don't play the game hardcore, but they don't play it casually either.