Originally Posted by
Sho
I think at this point, both sides (both devs and players) have absolutely no idea what they want anymore as their core vision. This is the downfall of the MMO genre as a whole -- devs pander to a specific block of MMO gamers within the genre, mainly the casual crowd, and it inevitably leads to a lack of innovation in favor of steady returns. Essentially the REAL problem is casuals. When you have a gamer block who is so volatile and has no real lasting devotion to the game (or other MMOs, MOBAs), you arrive at this never ending catch-22 problem (one that hasn't been truly solved in 10 years since WoW). So how is it solved now? Devs add hardcore content, usually exceptionally difficult, which leads to very little interest (and in most cases fear) from the playerbase in tackling the content. These same devs, in an attempt to increase interest at the endgame level, makes the next tier of content -- content that is deemed "too easy" right after. The devs envision making content that's easy to get into, players see and talk about content that was nerfed to shit. There's no middle ground ever.
The true answer honestly lies in not increasing or decreasing the difficulty of content, but vastly increasing the breadth of content of all ranging difficulties, and marketing them all under the umbrella of "endgame content". Simple in concept, but likely untenable in the long run without a specific investment (and interest) in mind from the higher ups in these companies (SE in particular).
No one should fool themselves into thinking making difficult content is a concept that is lost on, or hard to accomplish by Yoshida & his team. Especially after seeing how A3S or the original Twintania (after the first fix) turned out. Yoshida himself has implied time and time again, usually in Live Letters, that he wished players weren't bads at this game. The real problem is attempting to level up the typical casual gamer into a player who can play the game at a higher level, allowing for the devs to continue to release a steady flow of challenging, difficult content. This is best solved by adding a large mix of endgame content of varying difficulty, instead of modifying the difficulty of the highest tier of content.
Also the rewards need to absolutely match the level of content cleared -- there should be no reason why casuals are allowed access to weapons and equipment that can nearly rival the rewards given by Savage just because they want to keep players happy, even if they get it 2-5 months later.