Player motivations
TL;DR If you want to talk about what sort of content a developer should focus on in a MMO, go read this first.
One of the perennial flashpoints I see in discussions of player types in FFXIV, and indeed MMO players in general, is the division between "casual" and "hardcore", and acting as though this is the only categorization that matters. This is so prevalent, and yet still so wrong that I cannot understand why it has spread so much.
It would be much more helpful if everyone involved knew about the other models for player motivations and behaviour, because at least then we could have some variety in our discussions, rather than simply a dichotomy between "cares a lot about mechanical achievements" and "doesn't care at all about mechanical achievements".
As usual, the standard warnings apply: the map is not the territory (ie don't assume that the theory describes the truth in all its details), and use the right tool for the job (ie don't force everything into the pre-conceived notions of how Things Should Be, no matter how ill-fitting or irrelevant).
Chances are you've heard about Richard Bartle's Taxonomy Of Player Types. It's the well-known four categories of players in MUDs, also applicable to MMOs. Bartle has proposed a slightly expanded eight categories, basically further dividing each of the original four categories into "explicit" and "implicit", but I don't think it's as well-known, because it didn't get turned into a popular online questionnaire. (I'm not going to go into the expanded categories because I'm not as familiar with them.)
Personally, I don't agree with some of Bartle's conclusions, but for a very basic starting point into what I'm trying to say in this post, it works out, and is certainly simpler than Nick Yee's theories, which I agree far more with. It's certainly more nuanced than "casuals vs hardcore".
The four categories are:
Achievers: Likes to obtain "points" or "levels" or some such concrete measurement of "success" in a game. This is probably what most people mean when they talk about the "hardcore" side. Raiders who raid for the sense of accomplishment, or to get the gear, or for the prestige of having cleared the raid, or any combination of the above: a UCoB or UwU raider who just wants the titles and weapon glamours is firmly in this category.
Explorers: Wants to learn all there is to learn about a game, be it mechanics or lore. The theorycrafters who do so for the sake of doing so, rather than because they want to get an advantage out of it fall into this category, as do the loremasters.
Socializers: Plays multiplayer games for the other people. These include roleplayers and "social" FCs and linkshells. Also tends to get attached to NPCs who they like, and often gather like-minded people to discuss them and the game. Generally the meat of the "community", and certainly the ones who seek out and make said communities in social networks. This is usually what people mean when they say "casual".
Killers: Probably better named "competitors". Which is a more descriptive term, since they like competition with other players, both friendly and otherwise. PvP is the obvious one, but marketboard control is another common activity. They're not content to just be the top, they want to be better than you (speaking of a general "you").
Readers who are paying attention might have noticed a drawback to these categorizations: they're categories, which means that under this model, a player is a Socializer or an Achiever or whatnot, and they are defined as being a Socializer or Achiever. Bartle claimed that a player is generally only one primary category, and all other motivations are secondary. Most online tests at least allow for the possibility of, say, 70% Achiever and 30% Socializer, but it's still awkward trying to fit multiple motivations into this model, especially since they allocate a fixed number of maximum "points" or "percentages" to be spread over all the categories. A pie chart, rather than a bar graph. I suspect this is because MMORPG playstyles are different enough from MUD playstyles for this to be an issue.
Hence, I'm far more inclined to Nick Yee's paper on Motivations Of Play In MMORPGs, where he suggests a component model rather than a category model. In other words, you can have multiple different motivations in playing the game, and a given player can have any and all combinations of components.
There are ten components, which may seem like a lot, but I find it useful to divide them (as Yee does) into three main components and ten subcomponents: Achievement (three subcomponents), Social (three subcomponents), and Immersion (four subcomponents). While I'll be summarizing the components here, it's probably much easier and simpler to go read Yee's paper, since he describes it well enough.
Achievement
Advancement: The "Bartle Achiever" type. Wants to accumulate points and power and prestige, whether explicit in terms of gear or gil, or implicit in the social acknowledgement from having a rare glamour. Yee mentions that this can come from both the Skinner Box micro-rewards of the grind, or the desire to reach an "end goal".
Mechanics: Half of the "Bartle Explorer" type, this time focusing on the mechanics part of it; Yee mentions that he couldn't find a "pure Explorer" in his research, but when he split it into two, suddenly they're everywhere. People who calculate Best In Slot and materia melds and the exact thresholds for stats.
Competition: As mentioned, competing with other players, either in fair and sanctioned matches, or unprovoked and impromptu attacks. Again, the primary idea is to "beat" and "defeat" another player.
Social
Socializing: More specific than the "Bartle Socializer" type, these players like to meet and chat with other players, usually in large and varied communities. "Social FC" and "casual friendly linkshell" advertisements are usually aimed at these players. In more pronounced cases, the MMO is a fancy chatroom with a game attached to it.
Relationship: More in-depth than the Socializing component, as players looking for Relationships are, well, looking for relationships, long-term and sustained and meaningful. Friends who act as a static duo or trio or light party, for example. Sometimes these are people whose relationships with their friends are carried over from other games and communities, eg RL friends or partnered streamers.
Teamwork: They just want to play together in group content. Players who like Teamwork want to do content in a party, be it a static or a PUG. Probably easier to illustrate with the opposite, ie low Teamwork component, who are the much-discussed soloers in MMOs.
Immersion
Discovery: The lore half of the "Bartle Explorer". Loremasters, map explorers, those interested in the setting and story and the world as a world, rather than simply as a game server with enemies to hit.
Roleplaying: Wanting to have their character be a character in the world, rather than merely a user avatar. They want to have their characters fit into the world setting, and create a backstory and story for their characters. The actual act of roleplaying in-game might not even be that prominent, since the Roleplaying component can manifest in fanfics of their character on other sites.
Customization: Glamour is the true endgame. Which I think sums up this component neatly.
Escapism: RL is stressful and annoying, and so they play the game to relax and forget about their worries for a while.
As can be seen, it's much easier to combine different components in any amount, rather than simply "you must be focused on Achievement or Social, but not both". There are probably much more refined and in-depth studies out there that fit the current state of MMO players more, but I haven't learned of any yet.
So what does this all mean? I am posting this because I want players to stop dividing activities and interests into "casual vs hardcore". A player can be interested in both "casual" activities like roleplaying, and "hardcore" activities like trying to maximize DPS uptime as a Healer or Tank. It's possible to be a player who likes chatting about the game to friends and acquaintances, and also knows the best way to optimize rotations.
However, the fact that any combination of components is possible means, tautologically, that any combination of components is possible. And so trying to force a playstyle into another will just appeal to people who have that specific combination and levels of those components, while alienating people who don't have them.
The usual example is in suggesting story content be put into Savage raids. The reasoning often given is from the viewpoint of the Achievement main component, in that they are trying to "convince" "casual" (ie Immersion component) players to "get good" enough to clear Savage, just so they can see the story, and in the meantime provide a larger pool to draw Savage raiders from. This will piss off players who have little interest in the Achievement component, while not actually doing much for the players who have little interest in the Immersion component. The equivalent would be to force players to be in a FC of a certain size (Social component) before they can even enter Savage raids (Achievement component). Players can meet the requirements, but they're not going to be happy about it, and most will try to find a way to circumvent the spirit of the rules.
These classifications are all descriptive, not prescriptive, as both Bartle and Yee (and others) warn many times in their presentations. If you create content that is aimed at players who score high in both Achievement and Immersion, and then the content is played by players who score high in both Achievement and Immersion, this doesn't mean your playerbase is entirely Achievement and Immersion; it just means you self-selected for those traits, and everyone else who isn't interested have gone away.
I want players to understand that there are many different motivations of play, and not just assume that what they are playing for is what everyone plays for, or should be playing for. I want players to understand that this is not a "them vs us" debate, where players must be one or the other. I want players to understand that just because someone scores high in a given subcomponent, this does not mean they will score high in every other subcomponent, or that they will inherently score low in an "opposing" component.
This is a hope that everyone will have some insight into why another player may not like all the same things they do, and yet still share some of the same interests.
