Catering to Casual Crowd Hurting the Game

That's just the thing. HoP2 delivered the easy part for most of the episode, got people done with both gears, feats and other achievements very quickly, plenty left because the whole episode felt empty. I had a very hard time gearing up alts because of people leaving mid-episode.

Then we have to wait 3 months before monthly content comes, which is 2 pieces of content and what we get, even though so many addressed how easy it was on test, it came out pretty much the same on live. Again, I am talking about completing it without glitching or using cheesy bench-positioning.

I tried the Elite-alert on test, it still lacks in difficulty, it's more of a chore, once again the reflect mechanic is the main thing, which now displays a tell. What I like about it is the encouragement of balanced group a'la 1-1-1-1 but that won't last too long once people get used to the instance and starts gearing up.

Didn't the first SM only have 10 rounds? And there were only a few groups beating it. I can't remember if Trigon had rounds beyond 10.
The FOS-SM was beaten to round 20 i believe. HH SM didn't, in case I missed it last second.

But R10 has become a much, much easier accomplishment compared to the first two SM's, and with progress points it gets much easier. So both Elite-instances and SM is now much, much more viable for EVERYONE, so once again the ones who want to claim a challenge gets robbed a bit more in favor of catering almost completely towards the casual end. It's no wonder that people complain.

I'm aware of how the numbers are dwindling. I just think people are putting too much stake into it being solely the content causing it. Gear drops through RNG play a factor, the changes to combat mechanics play a factor, the changes to combat rating scaling play a factor, the way the community behaves toward one another in top content plays a factor, etc. It's not just the difficulty or lack of difficulty that have driven people away.

I avoid the top tier because I am tired of the drama that ensues in the raids. The blame game drove me away from the top tier. I still play, but I'm playing in the tiers below tier 7 instead. I doubt I'm the only person doing so, either. If there's one player playing one way, there are probably at least a few others doing the same.

I am, which makes it all funny that you chose to point fingers towards my supposedly bad attitude instead of grasping the points you actually didn't agree with, you missed them. Your last 3 posts proves that. Oh well, you and I won't get anywhere, so I'll leave you here. You can still catch up, if you want.

I think I hit on the points I disagree with in the post above yours. And really, "grasping the points" is what you think I'm missing? I agree with Sbel: it really is a shame you cannot have a discussion without being insulting.

You missing or chose to ignore the points I've made only to assume I meant something entirely different, just like he did, isn't me being insulting. It's a shame people can't handle that other has differing opinions without trying to make it look like personal insults.

I've responded to you discussing the nerf threads, I've responded to you discussing difficulty changes, I've responded to your post about drop rates during OC being an issue, and I've responded to your posts about population changes during OC and since. What points did I ignore?

I may not have responded when you repeated your points, but I have responded to the points themselves. Repeating yourself doesn't make anything you say any more or any less true.

Responding to any reply doesn't mean anything either, if you chose to ignore the points themselves or try to spin them off into something else. But as I said, you and I are done, our little reply-content right now doesn't help anyone with anything. If you really want to hear me, read what I've been talking about.

I have no issues if things become easier; as long as the ELITE and SM content is really tough for the players seeking that type of challenge.

So, let me get this straight. You're saying that having a large number of customers suddenly drop your product is a good business move? I'm just trying to make sure I'm reading you right.

Alright, since you seem to think I ignored your points or spun them to something else, I ask that you go read my posts in this thread. I have responded directly to everything you have said, either through posts responding to others or to you. Yes, I responded directly to you reading what you said and responding literally, which obviously bothered you because you were unable to adequately phrase things to get your point across as you had hoped. The "Take me for what I mean and not for what I say" not withstanding, I have touched on every one of your points in at least one of my posts. For clarity and brevity, I will outline below:

Yeah, it was Trigon. They had the little demon pets for rounds above 10. No one got them. The next SM was purposely easier to round 10, so folks could get those exclusive items. That's intended. The new goal is round 20.

Which proves what I am talking about. Both SM and Elite gets intentionally easier for more people to access it, which further destroys the purpose of said content, targeting the minority wanting a real challenge. With progress points now being a standard thing in SM, I see no reason decreasing difficulty from R1-10.

Yea those statements about WoW being hard make me laugh. I was an EQ player and WoW is such a vanilla game. It does so well because it is easy not difficult nor does WoW play to the "Hardcore" crowd they bring out full expansions like every 6 months or year so they all have Raids new zones etc.
One of the biggest bonuses WoW did was made itself available to almost all by making the graphics low key and last gen.

This. Plus 1000 sad isn't it.

But, why have 20 rounds? No one could get farther than round 10 in Trigon. Has anyone gotten to round 20? Or are you saying there should only be 10 rounds?

Indeed, there's more than one factor at play in that regard. Personally I wouldn't go so far as to say disregarding other factors is being ignorant (rather a strong word to use in my opinion), but at the very least it hints at having tunnel vision as to what did factor into the devs' decision. That in and of itself can be a problem.

I'm saying it was always going to happen. There was no way around it. But if the devs retained those that stayed after OC and the transient players continued to come and go, they would have been fine. Howver.. they saw the immediate impact and did not look further down the road. If a player is not subbing, especially back then how much do they truly care about ur product.. the diehards and end gamers were going nowhere.. it was the small leagues, solo players and casuals who bailed.. these players are not ur true player base. There new direction has directly impacted their loyal customers and now we see the end results

We've seen the dev team stay the course on other things, though. The fact that they didn't after OC says something to me about what they were seeing, information that we don't have access to. Whatever it was they saw, it was enough to go a different route, and I just don't get the impression that it was a panic move on their part.

That's the biggest problem we face as players, we don't have the same level and amount of information that the devs have. So any guesses we make are done with incomplete information, at best.

Sorry if you thought I directed the ignorant comment to any group of people. That discussion was directed only at one person and was outside the scope of the overall discussion taking place in this thread. It was meant more as a subtle example and not as an actual label or insult toward that person, either. Perhaps it was too subtle.

There are a lot of factors that have led people to leave the game. Changes in difficulty or depth of content only make up a part of that. I know my fiancé left for several reasons:

1. The appearance that the game is trying to squeeze money out of its customers instead of providing enjoyment.
2. The bugs that go unfixed for months or even years.
3. Login server issues.
4. A toxic community (granted, all games have this to an extent, but the game she currently plays does seem to have a more respectful group of players when compared to this one).
5. The RNG issues with style feats often being difficult to obtain or progression constantly seeming to take forever to get the next piece of better gear.
6. The inconsistencies with mechanics, difficulty, updates, hotfixes, etc.
7. The appearance that customer service does the minimal needed to exist but really provides no service.