Real Talk — Grinds, Strikes, and Profitability

[Hypnowulf.7403]

I want to open this by saying that I'm a fan. I've got accounts for Guild Wars 2 stretching back to the beta. I remember Colin Johansen talking about swinging sowrds. I got the Collector's Edition with the giant Rytlock statue in it. I have lods of merch and both of the hardcover art books. So where this topic comes from is genuine concern and worry.

I've been talking to some minor league hardcore players and they mentioned that they never really buy gems because of the gem exchange. They just don't see the need to spend money. I mean, why would they? There's no real impetus to do so.

This means that Guild Wars 2, from the ground up, is designed only be profitable if the game can draw in enough casual players.

What does a casual player hate more than anything? Things that they want locked behind content that they can't do. Whether it's months of grind, forced grouping (this one is really bad), or content that requires one of the prior two to even be accessible. Strike missions are so guilty of this. I mean, I'd like the Whisper of Jormag mini but there's no way I'm getting it. I don't know if I have the time or the will to grind for the new infusion despite how much I'd love to have it.

What this is doing is leaving me less inclined to spend money on the game. There was a point where I could spend thousands per month. It's... much less now. I'm tired. These tactics of locking things away from casual players that they might want and not having casual accessible options is really alienating. Even if I had to pay gems for them? I'd do that.

What I'm being told though is that because I'm not a hardcore player... I'm not allowed to have any means to access these.

That's fine. I mean, sure, if you've designed your game around being profitable to hardcore players then that's absolutely fine. I mean, locking casuals out so that they can't enjoy the same things that hardcore players can is fine. If you've designed your game around being profitable to hardcore players. Except Guild Wars 2 isn't. For whatever reason, ArenaNet has made the choice that hardcore players can access both these fun rewards and everything on the gemstore.

This means that casual players are left out in the cold, feeling like second class citizens. There's this sentiment that casual players are the only ones paying, but we're paying for other people to have fun things that we can't. I continue to be okay with that, within tolerances. I still put out a lot of money on Guild Wars 2. Right now I'm invested in the Icebrood Saga storyline. Though depending on how that turns out and how I feel? I may bounce. I'll be taking my money with me to whatever game I go to next.

Right now, it's only my interest in Jormag that's keeping me around. If Jormag ends up dead then I might be gone. I was thinking initially that I'd stay anyway as I still like Aurene but I'm getting more and more tired of ArenaNet making casual players feel worthless.

What am I paying for?

This brings me to my worry. If I feel this way then I imagine that a lot of casual players feel this way. If they don't yet? They will. All they ahve to do is experience being locked out of things just because they're not hardcore to end up feeling this way. What that means is that casual players who try this game are going to end up bouncing off of it. I'd say that this will cause a profitability crisis for ArenaNet, but given the recent downsizing, firings, reshuffles, and the switch from sagas to the Cantha expansion? I'd say it is already causing a profitability crisis.

These hardcore things may sound fun to the hardcore people in the gameplay design team but it means the death of the game financially. So there are only two choices that can be made.

1. ArenaNet has to stop treating casuals like dirt and ensure that everything is available to them via the gem store;2. ArenaNet has to remove the coins to gem exchange;3. Introduce a necessary subscription fee.

The problem is is that this is a mounting issue. It's not static. It's growing. Each new piece of content adds mountains of grind that casual players won't have the time or ability to do. It's adding scenarios that people who're disabled or those who suffer with social anxiety can't engage in that locks them out of the rewards from those scenarios. Thus far, strikes that force grouping haven't had unique content (Forging Steel really isn't a strike) but I feel it's only a matter of time.

The thing is? I'm fond of Guild Wars 2. Sometimes, I don't know why. I mean, sometimes it feels like an abusive, one-sided relationship so I really don't know why. I guess it's because I really like the charr, I really like the dragons (like Aurene and Jormag). I've put up with a lot for those reasons alone. Though even my patience is fraying and I tend to have a lot of patience. I'm tired of it.

So like I said, depending on how the Icebrood Saga goes? I may end up bouncing out of GW2 permanently. Then that'll be that. I'll take whatever I spend on ArenaNet now with me. I'll be giving that to another game that treats me better. I don't want to, but I'm tired. And if I feel this way? A lot of casual players feel this way. If a lot of casual players do, then GW2's profitability is done. Which leaves ArenaNet with the aforementioned two choices. Treat casual players better, introduce a subscription fee everyone has to pay, or remove the gold to gem exchange.

All I can think is that Cantha is going to be another Heart of Thorns and we're looking at the sunset of Guild Wars 2.

I wonder if we'll see private servers?

[Ayrilana.1396]

Locking valuable rewards through grind, and even behind certain content, is very important for a healthy MMO to function. Without it you run into the situation where there’s nothing left that you want and you lose interest in playing.

And just to make a correction in your post, casual players can obtain practically all of the rewards in this game This most definitely includes that mini from the strike you mentioned.

You don’t have to wait for a group to magically appear with open arms welcoming you in. You can simply just create your own.

[panzerdragon.8791]

Hmm I feel like the game treats players with actual investment into the mechanics and builds as garbage. The game only has 7 raids and a few strikes to speak of. The worst part is that the hardest content in the game doesn't even pay.

I only raid and daily t4 fracs for mystic clovers. I've had to buy gems to gold to craft my legendary armor, backpacks, and weapons since my gold generation is real low. Think my last two leg armor pieces cost about 300g. Grinding some weird map meta only nets about 50 gold per hour. 35 bucks is about 500 gold. I lose time and money by grinding. The question becomes full clear on my accounts or get gold by doing map stuff while missing clear runs.

There is also the issue of prestige and incentives. Why would I burn raid currency on some cool dhuum armor if it is available on the gem store. There would be no prestige in the item and no cool end goal for the end game. Gen 1 legendary have zero clout or prestige since they can bought off the tp. Gen 2 don't have that problem and I actually look longingly at some of those items. I'll probs never make a gen 2 since it requires even more map currency and gold , but I'm happy they exist. If I ever wanted to play the rest of the game they can be a long term goal.

Let's be clear anet already is skewed heavily to a casul player base and end game rewards are very minimal. The place the game is in financialy is a reflection of it's casul stance for years. Would providing more end game content attach more profitable people ? IDK but op is suggesting changes that actually are mostly in place already.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I'm certainly not a hardcore player; don't use a build that anyone would want, as I haven't really changed it much since launch. I don't feel any rewards are out of my reach, other than Raid Legendary Armor, because I'm 'casual'.
And, even with my terrible build and gear, I can do all the easy Strike Missions: Steel, Bears, Cold War, Shiverpeaks, et al.

Probably shouldn't speak for others, as they may not feel the same.

[Randulf.7614]

Shout out to a fellow Rytlock Statue Collectors Edition player!

High fives! o/

[Cyninja.2954]

@"Hypnowulf.7403" said:I've been talking to some minor league hardcore players and they mentioned that they never really buy gems because of the gem exchange. They just don't see the need to spend money. I mean, why would they? There's no real impetus to do so.

This means that Guild Wars 2, from the ground up, is designed only be profitable if the game can draw in enough casual players.

Define hardcore in this case please, because the majority of gold is gained via open world farms. Are we talking hardcore players in the sense that they are playing 6 hours per day farming gold non stop? Are we talking hardcore players who clear difficult content? Are we talking hardcore players who do all of those things?

You are equating hardcore player here in one case as a player who plays difficult content, yet at the same time as someone who has tons of gold available due to spending a lot of time in game. That's misleading.

Yes, the "hardcore" players who:

• clear their weekly raids (after mastering them)
• clear their daily T4+CM fractals
• farm open world content
• do daily strikes

Will have a ton of gold. That is to be expected from players who spend 4-5 hours per day and more on the game.

At the same time, a player who farms 4-5 hours per day open world content will have a lot more gold available if he goes to lucrative meta events. Why? Because the gold gain there is higher and not limited compared to difficult content.

So which "hardcore" player are we talking about?

I for example know a few very skilled players who excel at pvp and raids but are notoriously broke because they do no open world content at all. At most occasional T4+CM fractals.

TL;DR:Your definition of hardcore player applies to any player who spends significant amounts of time on this game and knows how to grind for gold, especially in open world content. Yet you apply this definition also to difficulty of content and design, which can be misleading. If this is about pure gold availability, time spent on the game is the most significant aspect and is unrelated to difficulty of content (on the contrary, some of the easiest content yields the highest reward).

[Asum.4960]

@"Hypnowulf.7403" said:

What does a casual player hate more than anything? Things that they want locked behind content that they can't do. Whether it's months of grind, forced grouping (this one is really bad), or content that requires one of the prior two to even be accessible. Strike missions are so guilty of this. I mean, I'd like the Whisper of Jormag mini but there's no way I'm getting it. I don't know if I have the time or the will to grind for the new infusion despite how much I'd love to have it.What this is doing is leaving me less inclined to spend money on the game. There was a point where I could spend thousands per month. It's... much less now. I'm tired. These tactics of locking things away from casual players that they might want and not having casual accessible options is really alienating. Even if I had to pay gems for them? I'd do that.

It's not that they can't do the content, but simply don't want to. There is plenty "forced" casual content in the game, much much more so than hardcore, for much more tangible rewards, such as the Skyscale, Beetle, Skins, the vast majority of Achievements etc., with the game vastly favouring casual players, it's just that most hardcore players just buckle down and force themselves to get it done for the reward, or just get over not having it, instead of proclaiming they just can't do it and asking for the devs to change the game to cater entirely to them.Not to be rude, but that feels like a fairly toxic degree of entitlement.

If all those things like Mounts, the majority of skins etc. were all Raid exclusive Rewards I might see your point, but it's entirely the other way around.

Also if grouping is such a major roadblock to access something, picking an MMO to play just might be a fairly major miscalculation.

What I'm being told though is that because I'm not a hardcore player... I'm not allowed to have any means to access these.

You are allowed, you just don't want to.Things like the new Infusion are niche by any means, casual, hardcore or otherwise, and will only appeal to an extremely small portion of the playerbase.How much merit there is in having such ridiculous time/money sinks is debatable, but I don't really see that as a major drawback for the game either, even though I personally would never invest into such a thing.It's not for me, so I move on to things that I am interested in, both in terms of rewards, but mainly the process of getting there.Maybe you should focus more on gameplay and what you actually enjoy doing ingame (and from there if the game is for you), rather than obsessing over rewards and your entitlement to them.

That's fine. I mean, sure, if you've designed your game around being profitable to hardcore players then that's absolutely fine. I mean, locking casuals out so that they can't enjoy the same things that hardcore players can is fine. If you've designed your game around being profitable to hardcore players. Except Guild Wars 2 isn't. For whatever reason, ArenaNet has made the choice that hardcore players can access both these fun rewards and everything on the gemstore.

This means that casual players are left out in the cold, feeling like second class citizens. There's this sentiment that casual players are the only ones paying, but we're paying for other people to have fun things that we can't. I continue to be okay with that, within tolerances. I still put out a lot of money on Guild Wars 2. Right now I'm invested in the Icebrood Saga storyline. Though depending on how that turns out and how I feel? I may bounce. I'll be taking my money with me to whatever game I go to next.

How are casuals the second class citizens of GW2? Almost all content released, and we are talking about ~95%+, caters pretty much exclusively to casual players and the vast majority of rewards are locked behind walking around and pressing F on things or other equally.. engaging activities.

Right now, it's only my interest in Jormag that's keeping me around. If Jormag ends up dead then I might be gone. I was thinking initially that I'd stay anyway as I still like Aurene but I'm getting more and more tired of ArenaNet making casual players feel worthless.

At least you are getting content. If you want to feel worthless as customer, I recommend getting into hardcore content like Fractal CM's and having to wait for over 3 years for more content, or Raids and having to wait 9 months for content drops, if ever again. Not even to begin about the state of PvP and WvW, or well.. anything you can go hardcore about ingame.

What am I paying for?

This brings me to my worry. If I feel this way then I imagine that a lot of casual players feel this way. If they don't yet? They will. All they ahve to do is experience being locked out of things just because they're not hardcore to end up feeling this way. What that means is that casual players who try this game are going to end up bouncing off of it. I'd say that this will cause a profitability crisis for ArenaNet, but given the recent downsizing, firings, reshuffles, and the switch from sagas to the Cantha expansion? I'd say it is already causing a profitability crisis.

These hardcore things may sound fun to the hardcore people in the gameplay design team but it means the death of the game financially. So there are only two choices that can be made.

The crisis as I see it mostly started with Anets decision to abandon any and all not extremely casual content and focusing entirely on Living World/Sagas instead of going for another expansion.What we see now with them moving away from that is the course correction from a financially horrible 2019, year of the Living World/Saga.

1. ArenaNet has to stop treating casuals like dirt and ensure that everything is available to them via the gem store;2. ArenaNet has to remove the coins to gem exchange;3. Introduce a necessary subscription fee.

You are not entitled to every and all rewards in the game. Making everything available with a simple cash purchase devalues any ingame rewards and turns the game into little more than an interactive store, which it already is closer to than comfortable.Point 2 and 3 are a surefire way to kill off what's left of GW2.

The problem is is that this is a mounting issue. It's not static. It's growing. Each new piece of content adds mountains of grind that casual players won't have the time or ability to do. It's adding scenarios that people who're disabled or those who suffer with social anxiety can't engage in that locks them out of the rewards from those scenarios. Thus far, strikes that force grouping haven't had unique content (Forging Steel really isn't a strike) but I feel it's only a matter of time.

Strikes are fairly casual content (to a point were most can be completed by 1-3 players), increasing to moderately casual with later releases. Anyone who wants to do them can do so without too much effort. Speaking as someone with pretty severe social anxiety - it's something one can work at. But if it's really that severe to a point were one simply can't ever imagine joining a random group or forming a group/guild of friends to play together, then as stated before, an MMO truly is the worst possible choice of a game, and expecting the entirety of all content to cater to that at the detriment of everybody else who enjoys engaging and group content is more than silly.

The thing is? I'm fond of Guild Wars 2. Sometimes, I don't know why. I mean, sometimes it feels like an abusive, one-sided relationship so I really don't know why.

That pretty much sums up how probably about almost every hardcore player feels like at this point.

So like I said, depending on how the Icebrood Saga goes? I may end up bouncing out of GW2 permanently. Then that'll be that. I'll take whatever I spend on ArenaNet now with me. I'll be giving that to another game that treats me better. I don't want to, but I'm tired. And if I feel this way? A lot of casual players feel this way.

And again that's not a boat just casual players sit in, who are most catered to with content in the Saga, but mostly hardcore players as well.And yet here we are, waiting for Fractals CM's since 3+ years, Raids since over a year, and Expansion and Elite Specs since 3 years, watching PvP be overrun by Bots and Hackers and wondering if WvW even still exists etc., imagining how it must feel like to receive content every ~3 months and be a "second class citizen".

[Hashberry.4510]

Ehh the business model is to get people to click on the gem shop as often as possible, so that a few will occasionally spend money. We are all just eyeballs in this respect, treatment wise there is nothing to complain about once you get past that. The game is actually too good in this respect, leading to inflated hopes and expectations.

[Khisanth.2948]

@"Hypnowulf.7403" said:What does a casual player hate more than anything? Things that they want locked behind content that they can't do. Whether it's months of grind, forced grouping (this one is really bad), or content that requires one of the prior two to even be accessible. Strike missions are so guilty of this. I mean, I'd like the Whisper of Jormag mini but there's no way I'm getting it. I don't know if I have the time or the will to grind for the new infusion despite how much I'd love to have it.

The mini is only 70,000 karma and 4g ... a single strike can give 5000 karma and 2g from the daily. It does require completing that strike once but while it is one of the more difficult strikes it isn't especially difficult assuming the people involved actually bothers to learn what the mechanics are beforehand or someone provides an explanation before the fight. I don't think that is expecting a lot. It is like expecting a person to know how to turn a steering wheel and use the gas and breaks before getting into a car. That is "know how to drive" level of skill not "qualified to be a race car driver" level of skill.

What this is doing is leaving me less inclined to spend money on the game. There was a point where I could spend thousands per month. It's... much less now. I'm tired. These tactics of locking things away from casual players that they might want and not having casual accessible options is really alienating. Even if I had to pay gems for them? I'd do that.

What I'm being told though is that because I'm not a hardcore player... I'm not allowed to have any means to access these.

No it is because people throw around labels like casual and hardcore without ever defining what they mean. What it unambiguously requires is a certain level of skill among the group.

That's fine. I mean, sure, if you've designed your game around being profitable to hardcore players then that's absolutely fine. I mean, locking casuals out so that they can't enjoy the same things that hardcore players can is fine. If you've designed your game around being profitable to hardcore players. Except Guild Wars 2 isn't. For whatever reason, ArenaNet has made the choice that hardcore players can access both these fun rewards and everything on the gemstore.

So you complain about the lack of access but then complain about the gemstore which everyone can access? Seems contradictory to me.What is the practical difference between and easily obtainable item and an easily purchased item?

This means that casual players are left out in the cold, feeling like second class citizens. There's this sentiment that casual players are the only ones paying, but we're paying for other people to have fun things that we can't. I continue to be okay with that, within tolerances. I still put out a lot of money on Guild Wars 2. Right now I'm invested in the Icebrood Saga storyline. Though depending on how that turns out and how I feel? I may bounce. I'll be taking my money with me to whatever game I go to next.

Anyone can make claims if those claims do not need to be backed by evidence. You claim there is a sentiment that only casuals are paying but where is your evidence?

Here again we see the uselessness of the casual and hardcore label. In MY opinion it would be very reasonable to define a hardcore player as one who very interested in the game and highly engaged with its content. It would be ridiculous to label someone as who only has passing interest in the game and only occasionally plays it as a "hardcore GW2 player". Who would be more likely to buy stuff? The person who is highly engaged with the game or the one who barely cares?

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

A casual player complaining gw2 isn’t casual enough. Is this real life?? ??

[mindcircus.1506]

Know how we can all tell your post is filled with false rhetoric?

@Hypnowulf.7403 said:What does a casual player hate more than anything? Things that they want locked behind content that they can't do. Whether it's months of grind, forced grouping (this one is really bad), or content that requires one of the prior two to even be accessible. Strike missions are so guilty of this. I mean, I'd like the Whisper of Jormag mini but there's no way I'm getting it. I don't know if I have the time or the will to grind for the new infusion despite how much I'd love to have it.What this is doing is leaving me less inclined to spend money on the game. There was a point where I could spend thousands per month. It's... much less now. I'm tired. These tactics of locking things away from casual players that they might want and not having casual accessible options is really alienating. Even if I had to pay gems for them? I'd do that.If you actually felt the way you claim to in your post you would just gems to gold and buy a carry for the strike then get the mini.But you don't.So you are clearly pushing some other agenda.

Good luck with that.

[Cyndercat.7615]

This is just another rant of someone wanting everything handed to them with 0 effort hidden behind a massive wall of text, with some unsubstantiated claims about 'hardcore' and group content players thrown in for good measure.

For what its worth, I disagree with basically everything the OP argues about and think its borderline hilarious for someone to be complaining gw2 ignores its casual playerbase, considering thats the ONLY playerbase the game is currently supporting.

I am a player who does group content , occasionally raiding and doing cms and I am permanently broke in game, usually sittting on 3g max. If i want something from the gem store, I have to pay for it with rl money, which I used to do, but dont anymore since anet stopped making content I enjoy.

[panzerdragon.8791]

Yeh I lold as well , but let's look at op point of view. He sees hc players as raiders and grinders getting all the good stuff. True if you engage in neither grinding or in end game content then yeh no rewards for you. No legendary from grinding or ascended armor and leg armor from fracs and raids. If you play super casul like 3 hours a week or just do the daily and log off then yeh the game might seem stacked.

@OP please understand that this game and many MMOs have long term and or hard content. Minimal effort to these goals does result in minimal progress. I get it. Looking at any gen 2 legendary or even infusion is real scary. I can get enough chak eggs and gold to get my armor, but I understand my issue stems from low gold return game modes. You might need to accept that you either need to enter the end game and take the rewards through severe effort or grind out gold through sustained effort.

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:A casual player complaining gw2 isn’t casual enough. Is this real life?? ??

[Psientist.6437]

A mini that requires beating a Strike mission can't be considered a betrayal of casual Tyrians. If you are spending thousands of dollars per month then wealthy can not be your definition of a hardcore Tyrian.

I agree that the game does need to evolve. The studio is stuck in the mindset that combat mastery and shiny gear is the truest expression of an mmorpg. They let weak market agency subsume all their thoughts of player agency. Guild Wars 2 doesn't really want to be a theme park.

[Zeivu.3615]

There is nothing wrong with a little grind. The problem is the odds of getting anything worth while is so abysmal there is no point in trying. Hell, PSO2, even with all it's cash grabs, is still more generous than gw2 will ever be.

[Cyndercat.7615]

@panzerdragon.8791 said:Yeh I lold as well , but let's look at op point of view. He sees hc players as raiders and grinders getting all the good stuff. True if you engage in neither grinding or in end game content then yeh no rewards for you. No legendary from grinding or ascended armor and leg armor from fracs and raids. If you play super casul like 3 hours a week or just do the daily and log off then yeh the game might seem stacked.

I agree with you but simple matter of fact is the game cannot survive on players who only log in for 3 hours a week. It would be dead if they were the only players. If you do not give players who play alot, or even average hours, something to do they will get bored and leave. THEN most content in the game will actually become impossible, and rewards unreachable since there is noone to play with.

Anyone who considers whisper of jormag as hardcore content is beyond casual, and shouldnt speak for all casual players.

If OP does not like grind and grouping, then an MMO was the worst choice of game, its like joining an FPS game and complaining you hate shooting.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Hey, OP, remember me? The 'casual' player with the cruddy build and gear who has never done Raids or a Fractal above L2? Having re-read the thread, previously I didn't realize the Mini-pet you mentioned is one I have. It's from one of the more difficult Strike Missions, I will agree, but even I have managed to complete it twice.And, as mentioned above, if you are the whale you stated you are, you can easily buy a carry for that Strike Mission so you can obtain the Mini-pet. (Or anything else in-game, for that matter.)

Good luck.

[Infusion.7149]

Is this a bait?Casual content has gotten more attention than instanced content, WvW, or PvP ever has.We've been promised WvW alliances for years now and if you look on the roadmap for Q2 2020 they missed the Tournament of Legends target ( https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-to-spring-summer-and-the-future/ ) even if it is understandable due to the pandemic.For Q3, what's on the map? (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-to-summer-days-and-nights/)A festival and a fractal.

If you really want the Boneskinner mini then you can find someone to help you do it if you can't manage to do it, with the revamped boneskinner vials there's a lot of people doing it again. Before due to the nonexistent reason to repeat it and the high chance for failure , most people didn't bother. I've run people with undergeared characters and 1K AP through it so if you truly are the veteran you say you are you surely have more connections than they did.

[Dreams.3128]

Lol the Whisper of Jormag mini? Really? You can literally lfg for that with a semi crappy build and still kill the thing. All you need is quickness, alacrity, a healer that has burst heals and a revived. Everything else is just big dps. If you're telling me even that can't be organized then idk what to tell you on that note chief.

[Strider Pj.2193]

@Hypnowulf.7403 said:So there are only two choices that can be made.

1. ArenaNet has to stop treating casuals like dirt and ensure that everything is available to them via the gem store;2. ArenaNet has to remove the coins to gem exchange;3. Introduce a necessary subscription fee.

I love the definition of ‘two choices’

But this also highlights the OP’s likely motivation and point:

3. Introduce a necessary subscription fee.

[skarpak.8594]

@"Hypnowulf.7403"

hi, "hardcore" player here. i am playing gw2 since prerelease and my playstyle 3 months into the game turned into: mostly group content only, leaning towards speedrunning and soloing dungeons (not doing records tho, never bothered with that). later fractals, raids, raidselling. most of my gametime is probably in dungeons & raids...i do story & openworld content, i just don't farm it if not needed. i also never bothered optimizing my gold gains in terms of: selling stuff on TP, mostly hoarding materials. i have 15 chars with arround 26 or 27 ascended armor sets.

...my account value is 79k (without gemstore items, that would be 124k). i bought my fair share of gems over time with money.

the ONLY time i ever had enough gold to "farm" the gold to gems shit was when i was selling raids. this was literally the ONLY time i had always enough gold. else its always: you buy something shiny, your gold is gone because raiding, dungeoneering and fractals give good gold yes, but that is once per day, or once a week in terms of raids. apart from ascended armor stuff (which has high value, but doesn't get me any gold for dropping it) i think through food i spend more gold in raids then i will ever make back.

now compare that to those "casual" 30 - 50g /h farms in openworld. there were times when you just mined 2 to 3 iron ores and you made more gold in a few seconds then doing some dungeon path.

so one question to you: HOW do hardcore players ruin the game with "hardcore content", when its the gros of the "casual" players, doing openworld stuff, getting a shitton of mats for basically nothing and just sell them on TP for big gains. how delusional are you? those hardcore players which have a lot of gold either sold a lot more raids or are just farming like everyone else in the openworld because its the most profitable thing you can do. this and playing the trading post.i farmed a bit of drizzlewood this week and you can literally see the jump on my accound value graph where i did. raid and fractal time: KEKW.

[Ototo.3214]

The game is flat out designed with casual players in mind, many "hardcore players" complain that content is too easy for just this reason; the devs design things like the story with casual players in mind. Heck, strike missions were supposedly made as an attempt to help casual players learn how to raid.

That said, the "casual player" you seem to be describing is more of just a busy person, someone that just doesn't have loads of free time they can dedicate to playing the game. And that's perfectly fine. However, just because you don't have tons of time you can dedicate to playing the game doesn't mean you should just get a free pass to get whatever you want; rewards like raid legendaries or PvP/WvW related things are meant to be rewards for putting in time and effort in those parts of the game. If you can't or aren't willing to do that then you don't get that thing.

And I'd argue that almost nothing in this game is completely out of reach for most people. Many things require a lot of time to get no matter how "hardcore" you are. I'd rank myself personally as a casual player and I've been able to slowly work on dang near every type of legendary whatever regardless of what content. I'm not great at PvP or WvW and most of the time I can't get my rotation right in a raid wing, but I've still been able to clear raids and complete PvP/ WvW achievements and the pip reward chests. Sure, I don't earn them nearly as fast as some, but nothing is stopping me from working toward those goals. I put in the time when I have it to spare and made an effort to find people willing to raid with me on occasion, it's....really not that hard to do imo. It's not always easy to get stuff done but I don't expect it to all be easy. And neither should you.

[Algreg.3629]

seems to me OP confuses casual player with being socially awkward. I haven´t noticed casual players not enjoying socializing in games.

[zallesz.1650]

Mostly casual player here.I never had any problem with the fact that some rewards will not be given to me. I literally took years to get the legendary armor achievement part 1. And I am fine with it. I absolutely do not want things to be handed to me. I am proud to have completed all the story achivements and a lot of collections up until Icebrood Saga. If I ever get my hands on a legendary armor, it will be my achievement, and not just Anet giving me something because I was a casual who begged for it.On the other hand, I feel completely uninspired by the grindy nature of the recent story. It all started with kill 1000 mobs in the 3 areas in Dragonfall. That was the first time when I felt I will be skipping a story achievement. Icebrood Saga is FILLED with these. These are not fun.Grind in itself is not the devil, but having mostly only grind in later content, just pains my heart.

[sitarskee.5738]

I can't agree with any points you've made but I am not going to post a wall of text because it's pointless at this point. I will just say this:

1. You don't need to do achievements which seem too "grindy" or "hardcore". Noone makes you do them and they don't give any advantage.
2. This game is already overcasual. And it's the opposite of what you said IMO - hardcore players are not being rewarded enough for their efforts.
3. The ability to buy everything with gems is straight up retarded - sorry but that's true - no need to explain why.
4. Everything except for raids and high tier cm fractals is rather casual content and requires little effort to be honest. Raids and high fracs are also not that hard, you just gotta learn some basics and then learn in practice.
5. The "casual" excuse, oh man. It's so wrong on so many levels it boils my blood every time.

It's just sickening that ANet could easily see this post and view this as players feedback for next patches while it's straight up bs.