Casual Is The Future, Despite What Us Vets Want To Believe

[Something]

As the title states, as much as us series vets and old fogies wanna howl at the moon about how our beloved franchises are being made hyper casual these days, the truth of the matter is that designing your game around the casual audience is the best way to make maximum profits and reach the widest amount of people. Personally I'd love to see another game like GU or TRI but that just isn't ever going to happen again. As much as people like to complain that things are too easy, too simplified, or too casual, a lot of those people saying that also only got into the game because of how easy it was to get into in the first place, how casual it was.

I mean there's a reason why Call of Duty is more popular than Escape From Tarkov. Because nobody wants to spend 4 hours before a run doing pre-game crap like figuring out what the good ammo is or what ammo type is best in what gun, they just wanna hit the damn reload button. Just like only a handful of people actually liked having to run around picking herbs and mushrooms and catching bugs and crap in order to unlock the actual monster hunting portion of their Monster Hunter game, they just wanna see uh dinosaurs in their dinosaur theme park while grabbing whatever they may need while chasing the boss down.

So love it or hate it, the overwhelming majority of the community prefers the casual MH experience. And Wilds from everything I've heard is the most casual version this franchise has ever produced.

[The Debauchery]

Originally posted by Mag Smrodu:

Casual Is The Future, Despite What Us Vets Want To Believe

Casual isn't just "the future". Casual is the present. Casual became a thing back in 1995 when S*ny made the first Playstation and marketed it to EVERYONE. Before that, gaming was generally regarded as the exclusive domain of geeks, nerds and children. The moment S*ny started marketing gaming to mundanes is the moment casuals were created. They've been consistently expanding since then and more and more games have been made to appeal to them specifically because they cost far less time and effort to amuse than dedicated gamers.
I get what you mean though. Eventually they'll have consumed everything and nothing will have any real effort put into it any more. Everything will become Candy Crush.

[Nyxtus]

Have you played GU recently? I went back this past month, beat G Rank and solo'd the deviants up to g5 (And I will not be solo'ing G5). I'll tell you this right now - Yeah, they were hard. Not for the right reasons.

Insta-Charges, Tremor chain stuns, hitboxes and the usual clunk like how when you commit to an attack you cannot change direction. These are elements that are better being left in the past. Yeah, it makes the game easier, but it makes it a lot more engaging.

If It's a numbers problem (like it always has been) and not a mechanics issue with the difficulty that'll be fixed like it always has. GU High-Rank was piss easy as well.

[Unlucky Genius]

As much as I love the old gen games, even I prefer faster gathering and easier inventory management. Yes I want challenging combat, but MH never really had difficult fights in the base game. The launch version of any MH game is almost entirely for onboarding new players. We already saw people struggle with Rey Dau in the beta, and I guarantee G-rank will still be challenging. Wilds will almost certainly have something similar to Alatreon or Fatalis later anyways, and then people will 180 on the difficulty discussion.

I think most vets of the series learn to just enjoy the dance of violence. It's not fun because you barely clear the fights, it's fun because you slip between monster attacks chipping away at their stamina until they topple over. That's my experience at least.

[Powercrank]

right, because no successful studio has ever failed because it tried to appeal to casuals and non-fans. i mean, it's not like the dumbing down of story, systems and interactivity resulted in Avowed and Dragon Age being sales failures.
please, get some basic pattern recognition.

[😎Astran😾]

Can confirm, I'm buying cosmetics in games which are easy and casual because I'm past the stage where I've had to validate my personality with pixel "challenges"

[The Debauchery]

Originally posted by Nyxtus:

Have you played GU recently? I went back this past month, beat G Rank and solo'd the deviants up to g5 (And I will not be solo'ing G5). I'll tell you this right now - Yeah, they were hard. Not for the right reasons.

Insta-Charges, Tremor chain stuns, hitboxes and the usual clunk like how when you commit to an attack you cannot change direction. These are elements that are better being left in the past. Yeah, it makes the game easier, but it makes it a lot more engaging.

Eh. Monsters and Hunters were in the same boat every step of the way.
Each subsequent game has got more and more frenetic. We get all sorts of insane new powers while monsters get all their subspecies special features grafted together to make increasingly insane movesets that explicitly NEED crazy powers just to survive.
I accept the clunk if it also means the monsters have clunk, as that gives me time to register what I'm seeing and respond to it in an appropriate timeframe. The way the games are getting now, my fingers joints are in agony after a few hunts and my eyes can't keep up with everything happening on screen. I ain't getting any younger. The games are all getting faster while I'm just getting older and slower.

[Unlucky Genius]

Originally posted by Powercrank:

right, because no successful series has ever died because it tried to appeal to casuals and non-fans.
please, get some basic pattern recognition.

This is simply how market incentives work, there was never any possibility that Capcom would make MH1 with better graphics over and over. If Capcom runs the series into the ground then some indie studio will take up the task of filling the demand for a more challenging 'Hunter-like' game, assuming the demand is still there. This pattern has happened with plenty of other genres.

Worst-case scenario, the old games still exist and we can go back to play them.

[bassphenomenon]

This is what happens when society values making money over producing quality.

Booooo crapitalism.

[Something]

Originally posted by Unlucky Genius:

As much as I love the old gen games, even I prefer faster gathering and easier inventory management. Yes I want challenging combat, but MH never really had difficult fights in the base game. The launch version of any MH game is almost entirely for onboarding new players. We already saw people struggle with Rey Dau in the beta, and I guarantee G-rank will still be challenging. Wilds will almost certainly have something similar to Alatreon or Fatalis later anyways, and then people will 180 on the difficulty discussion.

I think most vets of the series learn to just enjoy the dance of violence. It's not fun because you barely clear the fights, it's fun because you slip between monster attacks chipping away at their stamina until they topple over. That's my experience at least.

I'm not saying I personally dislike it. For me the more casual approach fits the way I like playing games. Now I don't mind a game that takes challenge. I actually prefer them. But I'm also a "spur-of-the-moment" kind of gamer where I play whatever may tickle my fancy at the given moment. Like I can sit here playing Grim Dawn for 2 hours, get up get a drink get the urge to play The Surge 2. Play that for like 20 minutes get the urge to wanna fight a big monster then hop on Worlds/Rise for a hunt or two, etc., etc.. I used to just laser focus onto one game until I've played it so much I know it like the back of my hand. These days I just play whatever strikes my fancy. And the more casual friendly a game is the easier it is for me to just pick up, play it for like an hour and then set it down. My biggest gripe with Worlds was just that without a mod you couldn't skip the cutscenes. And being the type of player who after being away from a game for a while will make a new character to get familiar with game mechanics again, or an altoholic as some might say, having to sit through like 20 hour worth of cutscenes is an instant turn-off.

This post was more just geared towards all the threads I see of people going like "ERHMAGERD GAEME DED BEFOR LANCH BECUZ CAZUALS!"

[Loren]

Is it easier than beta I wonder. If so it is a sellout.

[GSPOTxJESUS]

All you sweats need to face it, this isn't your franchise anymore. There's always Dauntless.

[Something]

Originally posted by GSPOTxJESUS:

All you sweats need to face it, this isn't your franchise anymore. There's always Dauntless.

I thought Dauntless was shut down.

[*Gen*HeroCrusher]

Yeah I just watched a streamer play and he never even got close to dying. Looks like child's play for sure!

[Val]

MH is a console franchise that was niche and it's booming thanks to the "casuals" everybody seems to hate so much.

Also Escape From Tarkov is unoptimized garbage with disgusting development team that doesn't give a ♥♥♥♥ about the playerbase. Is it "hardcore" oriented? Yes. That doesn't exclude it from being trash.

[Something]

Originally posted by *Gen*HeroCrusher:

Yeah I just watched a streamer play and he never even got close to dying. Looks like child's play for sure!

I think the biggest issue people will have will be getting over their crippling arachnophobia long enough to fight the spider boss.