Quote:
I saw Hyan make another thread about how he believes these lockouts help his demographic. I'm going to assume he's talking about casuals. I'm going to say this does nothing to help casuals at all. The people who would feel inclined to blitz through gear acquisition, were it possible here, will likely be forming their own 8-man groups (and then some if it's ever possible). They'll probably do it on Monday and not give a @#%^ for the rest of the week to boot. Hence it being highly unlikely they'd actually want to play with the casuals, or would do so as little as possible as not to offend their delicate sensibilities. In personally approaching this from the casual perspective, I consider that maybe I have a Saturday all to myself, and thus 8 hours I could throw at CT for the sake of a secondary job. I get in and in under 2 hours with my first run, I get a drop. CT is now useless to me for those remaining 6 hours. Could I do something else like level another job? Sure. But then what I do when everything is 50 and in full DL? Make money? Why? Crafting is arbitrarily second-rate.
I do not disagree with you regarding what the hardcore population would do in this scenario. Yet I personally do not see much value in the hardcore and casuals playing together. If that's what somebody wants from the game, then SE's design direction may not be for their interests.
When you say that this does nothing to help casuals at all, I'm not sure whether you mean that the hardcore population will not run the dungeon with them or something else. I suppose that you mean the former, sorry if I'm mistaken.
The point of my previous post was simply that the delicate balance between the hardcore and casual calls for one of two measures. You either artificially lock the hardcore population out of progressing too fast in an environment where equipment is easily accessible (meaning it doesn't take lots of time to obtain equipment). The other possibility is that you don't lock the hardcore out of clearing the content in an environment where equipment takes significant time investment to acquire.
We can see that SE has chosen to go with the first option, which as a casual works in my favor. It works in my favor because the equipment does not take a lot of time investment to obtain, plus the effort I put in does not exceed the caps enforced by the devs.
Yoshi-P discussed the overall progression design in the recent interview, stating that the players are encouraged to create a content rotation cycle for themselves. Afaik in 2.1 this can consist of the Duty Roulette, Daily Beastmen quests and the CT (for casuals). All in all during a single week you should be able to cap out your tomes as well as obtain a piece of gear from the CT.
Maybe we are in a disagreement for what is considered casual. Having every job at 50 in full DL does not sound casual to me. Then we can just agree to disagree.
EDIT: Regarding how lockouts hurt casuals: That is only true if there is something meaningful to lose by not clearing the content. The patch cycle is loose enough that no harm will come to those who aren't constantly maxing out their tomes. Of course, the more jobs you want to utilize the more pressure is put on you. It should be a decision based on how much time you can invest in the game.
Edited, Dec 5th 2013 6:15pm by Hyanmen