No - Casual gamers are not screwed.

I have no issue with me having to take a LONG time to gear up. After all it took a LONG time to do that in Borderlands and we all loved it.

Right now I've done all the normal game content, and I'm staring at only doing survival/hallowen/UMF over and over. Why?

Point is, game is over. I've technically finished, other then topping all archivements. Not only would repetition be boring, it would spoil any new maps that come out if I'm "over geared" already. We should of had a much lower level progression, then level restrictions on items would have actually made sense. After all, how long did it take in linear play to get to 70th on Diablo2?

Woah level 70 in D2... Maybe if i had 16 DD toons. Not fully geared... I think I was in act 3 hell at 67 last time I played... the way I play it's 3 days to down baal, 5-6 more for NM baal, now here's where it slows down, 2-3 more for andy, 4-5 duriel, and maybe 4 more to mephisto. So 16-19 for my 67 so lets say 20 days in D2. But thats when I knew what I was doing and playing a touch more than I do in DD. So yeah, first time in D2 to 70 prolly = to 16 70's in DD or close.

That's just how I play d2. Not trying to powerlevel just playing the game. Now I'm going to go google D3 info, thanks for putting that in my head.

a casual gamer is a person who plays games every once in a while to have a enjoying pass-time activity. Basically, it doesn't mean 1 hour a day or 10 hours a day. It moreso means when they have time, they are open to other options besides DD, i.e. movies, bowling alley, skating ring etc. Casual gamers can just as well make a 8hr survival run if they wanted to. Most people run 40hr a week jobs, and essentially have at least a day or two off. A "Hardcore" gamer will spend their workdays playing DD when they get off or before they go in. Then, on their days off, they will spend the whole day doing the survival runs to essentially max out their gear. For the same exact results, a casual gamer will probably on spend a few hours of their workweek playing, and on their days off, a few more hours. After a few weeks, if it peeks their interest above all other choices to pass time, they may take their usual day away from work to make the survival run once or twice and get that superloot.

In short, A casual gamer will not consistently put out the hours, but consider the game a 400hr 100% completion quest, the casual gamer can still reach that mark, it will just take a lot more days/weeks to get their, depending on their average weekly time-input towards the game.

For those who whine saying that they are casual gamers who don't have the time to do the long survival runs are simply trying to find a much more reasonable arguement to make trendy change the current system for unlocks, an arguement that is not "i'm too lazy to do this" or "i don't want to do this 'this' way".

It's the same people who complained all the time about DE Warriors. Why change your strategy to protect your towers with multiple auras, and even towers behind the attacked towers (or crisscross them so they all defend each other), when you could just make threads in massive mob mentality format to try to force Trendy to nerf them to suit your stubborn, weak strategy?

Thats just not true, towers lack hard compared to traps and auras, because DEW kill them all the time.

For those who whine saying that they are casual gamers who don't have the time to do the long survival runs are simply trying to find a much more reasonable arguement to make trendy change the current system for unlocks, an argument that is not "i'm too lazy to do this" or "i don't want to do this 'this' way".

Hold on a sec. No one should "have" to do anything.

Survival was not a core mechanic. It was an optional game mode. Under a tickbox. How much more "optional" can you make something?

Survival never contained good loot. It got put there because of the complains of "If something takes this long, it should drop good loot", that's a circular argument, like rescuing a dog on a burning tower then demanding a reward. No one told you to do it, so why did you? And you want a reward? Charming.

There should be ZERO reason to do repetitive survival runs. We should have the ability to start again at map one, and have Insane+2 on Deeper well that takes off from Insane on Summit with extra difficulty and better drops, and a lot of us would be quite happy to play through the game properly "normally", as it was designed. If we fail a map we start again, if we make it we try the next map.

We don't want to play Survival from waves 1 to "x" with "x" being our Gear-to-Mobs-Threshold so we can get a better drop or two and redo to x+1, until we finally always get to wave 25. If that had been the core design, I never would of got DD, as I would have placed it in the "repetitive crap TD" genre to start with.

We. Need. More. Maps.

Hence we are waiting for a DLC with more maps. Screw survival, you only do that if you have OCD. How many times do you need to do something over until it's finally burnt into your neural net exactly?

Your term of casual is too narrow. This game was intended to be casual, fun, and coop. The casual crowd (you) that spends 70%+ time farming, playing survival, solo is not casual. That's IMO hardcore; the, "I want to be top of everything." Why the hell would you spend all that time to get all those gear if that is not your intention.

I'm plenty sure 70%+ of your game plays are solo one way or another. Getting all that loot, gearing yourself for end content is not casual my friend. It means you are a power gamer if you've done so. There is no way in hell to get so much mana without buying/selling (non casual feat), survival (non casual feat). All that is heavy time reliant and more beneficial on solo farming.

I'm sure 90% of players can beat levels etc if this game was not gear reliant but more strategic.

There is really no skill in this game to begin with, just luck (item drop), a bit of knowledge, and time (for hardcores, "aka I think I'm Casual but play solo farm all day and have all these gears to bash others)

You my friend is not casual, don't try to bump the guy that's trying to have some fun just cause.

I work 9-15 hour days(sometimes nights) have a wonderful wife and 2 kids, I have not gotten past wave 14 survival on anything(due to time)and have not completed UMF on even easy and have never had more than 8 mil mana at any given point, and according to steam i have played DD for 291 hours and i wouldn't even call my self a "casual".

I enjoy this game in every way so far :) Im with you on this one.

I work 9-15 hour days(sometimes nights) have a wonderful wife and 2 kids, I have not gotten past wave 14 survival on anything(due to time)and have not completed UMF on even easy and have never had more than 8 mil mana at any given point, and according to steam i have played DD for 291 hours and i wouldn't even call my self a "casual".

I enjoy this game in every way so far :) Im with you on this one.

UMF was never really meant to be completed as such. Well, Trendy would know people would get to wave 14, but it was just meant to keep them occupied with "look, shiny loot!" for long enough to sneak out more interesting content in a DLC.

Hopefully said DLC will have a bunch of stuff to continue on from Summit for new players, and some impossible content that requires Pets with higher stats then the character equipping it, so one day the pet can rebel and make the toon it's ******.

It's sorta like DnD. Once you have characters at max level with enough magic gear to kill gods, it sorta defeats the purpose of playing them, so normal people retire them and start new ones, in DD, people are starting to look for more gods to slay. It's just weird.

The progression in this game isn't casual friendly. Or at least hasn't been, can't say i've played since the new DLC much.

There comes repeated points where if you want to progress through the content, you have to spend progressivly more time farming larger and larger amounts of mana for upgrades, and survival for looot, both of which are a time investment that break natural progression.

When a game becomes 'Put 20 hours in so you can see the next 2' it's unsuited for 'casual' play. In theory, any peice of content you are playing should eventualy give you the gear needed to beat it.

Woah level 70 in D2... Maybe if i had 16 DD toons. Not fully geared... I think I was in act 3 hell at 67 last time I played... the way I play it's 3 days to down baal, 5-6 more for NM baal, now here's where it slows down, 2-3 more for andy, 4-5 duriel, and maybe 4 more to mephisto. So 16-19 for my 67 so lets say 20 days in D2. But thats when I knew what I was doing and playing a touch more than I do in DD. So yeah, first time in D2 to 70 prolly = to 16 70's in DD or close.

That's just how I play d2. Not trying to powerlevel just playing the game. Now I'm going to go google D3 info, thanks for putting that in my head.

What?

Level 70 in D2 is like level 45 in DD.





Level 99 on the other hand...

Hold on a sec. No one should "have" to do anything.

Survival was not a core mechanic. It was an optional game mode. Under a tickbox. How much more "optional" can you make something?

Survival never contained good loot. It got put there because of the complains of "If something takes this long, it should drop good loot", that's a circular argument, like rescuing a dog on a burning tower then demanding a reward. No one told you to do it, so why did you? And you want a reward? Charming.

There should be ZERO reason to do repetitive survival runs. We should have the ability to start again at map one, and have Insane+2 on Deeper well that takes off from Insane on Summit with extra difficulty and better drops, and a lot of us would be quite happy to play through the game properly "normally", as it was designed. If we fail a map we start again, if we make it we try the next map.

We don't want to play Survival from waves 1 to "x" with "x" being our Gear-to-Mobs-Threshold so we can get a better drop or two and redo to x+1, until we finally always get to wave 25. If that had been the core design, I never would of got DD, as I would have placed it in the "repetitive crap TD" genre to start with.

We. Need. More. Maps.

Hence we are waiting for a DLC with more maps. Screw survival, you only do that if you have OCD. How many times do you need to do something over until it's finally burnt into your neural net exactly?

The casual gamer has the option to go for that superloot. It isn't necessary to complete the main game and thus its up to personal preference.