Devs: Stay strong | Forums

[pvt.Davids]

Hi,

Just Wanna say STAY STRONG - you made interesting Shooter looter Game and i dont envy you make decisions how to pleasure both sides of player base

Casual players - which dont have much time play a game and are mostly impatient and want everything in 1 month
Hardcore players - which have like 900h in game (like me) and have everything and are kinda bored and doing ALT chars and Farming Raids and cant wait for more challenging content.

Ppls have to realize its Shooter looter (RPG) and it take time to made a great character and top build (like it takes months not a weeks made some good character in any RPG/MMO) yea its mindblowing but its like IN REAL LIFE so you have to hardwork for some success

But you made Good decisions about Exotic Drops from Heroic Tidal Basin boss its gonna feel like good old DIV1 and you gonna have reason play Heroic diff again
JUST dont became to WEAK and dont throw players everything at once. I feel ppls nowdays want everything ASAP then they gonna Cry how there is nothing to do Ironic right ? For Example now im at point when i playing for 2 Weeks and deconstruct like about 800+ eqp/weapons and then i finally got chest with 15,5% weapon dmg so now i have new goal - farm that Godroll talent/stats/mods fenris for recalibration.

Imo you doing great job which is unique nowdays with so many company Fails (i think most gamers know what im talking about )
Yea there are some Bugs (Spec ammo picking doesnt works sometimes, hive again still dont revive sometimes, NPC again stuck behind some wall or door - TIP - use flame nades or seek mines or firestarer chem launcher before you nade yourself for reset) but i can imagine how difficult can be program game like this.

Cya and have a nice day DEVS

[BOSS_TPH76]

Your mistake is posing this in "sides". If the devs would do the same they are not entitled to any form of sympathy...they should be called out on a bad design vision that by its very nature would create competition between them and results in a game that isn't enjoyable for either.

First...these sides are not equivalent. The far majority of the player base is more inclined to "casual" play...while a minority are "hard core gamers".

This isn't necessarily reflected by hours played either. It is more a reflection of mentality. Although I grant you that it is considerably more likely for players with such a hardcore mentality to invest more of their free time....if they have it.
Still....hours invested says much more about the amount of available free time and rl-obligations rather than the hardcore-casual divide.

Second, pandering to either side....which is a direct result of treating the game as a product of weighting in sides would lead to exclusionary content. Which is unfortunately what fe. the raid in how it is currently designed and implemented is.

Casual players aren't necessarily impatient....and don't necessarily want everything in 1 month. Including this negative stereotype also shows why approaching games as a balance between two opposing sides is not a very good strategy.

It is more correct to say that casual players want a game to respect their relative time investment and everything to be accessible to them. This isn't an unreasonable expectation.

Since this is a premium product and a game it is very unreasonable to compare this to real life or impose a very biased narrative of how real life works.

It could be equally valid and inflammatory to say hardcore gamers are selfish and want a game that excludes casual players so that they themselves can satisfy their own need for status and feelings of superiority.

Those approaches both are equally problematic, unhelpful, charged and don't really lead to a good game.

Either way the point is not trying to balance the two as opposing sides but as part of a wider community.

The point is that a healthy long term game, especially life service, needs at its core design to offer a product that makes the game enjoyable for as wide and varied a player community as possible for as long as possible...while at the same time have all their content be inclusionary.

This may sound the same...but sure as hell isn't.

I am hoping the devs are going for the latter. But the raid and how this was handled show the devs are pandering.

[Spidey456]

Causal players usually want to be strong now, and not put the work in.

also hardcore players want content that is not brain dead boringly easy. Casuals want difficultly nerfed even tho they aren't putting the time in to be strong. they want to beat the toughest content and then whine when its too hard. They want challenging and heroic nerfed. what is the hardcore players to play besides the raid if that happens? There are easier difficulty settings for them. There goes your time investment. Play at your level.

[Caraamon]

First off, I want to just say thanks to Ubi and the devs, on the off chance any of them see this. They are far from perfect in their work, but I want to thank them for continuing to try to make the game better.

Now, onto the meat of the post:

I have to agree with a lot of things BOSS_TPH76 wrote, though not all of them. I don't think the terms like "casual" quite capture the divide in players. I think it's more along the lines of short-term vs. long-term players.

It seems to me like the short-term players should get a game that they can play for a month or two, get a good plot, a large chunk of the experience and then they can move onto another game. Nothing wrong with that, not everyone wants to play a game for multiple months and they shouldn't need to to get a good game. I have friends who are reluctant to play this game because, as they put it, they're not interested in games that require making them a lifestyle. But on the other hand, they shouldn't be able to do as well or access everything that someone who puts in 500+ hours does.

The long-term players seem to me to be the harder part of the design. They need to get some sort of reward for their extended efforts, but it can't be something so good that short-term players see they can't reach it and give up playing the game. Sure, more playing time results in better builds, but unless there are challenges that require those better builds there's not much point. I find it hard to imagine most people would care that they can clear a mission 5 minutes faster than someone in a worse build. I see the raid as part of this, something not essential to the game that provides a challenge for long-term players.

But I also think there's somewhat a problem with some of the players, who need to realize which group they belong to, and not try to deny the other group their portion of the game. I try to take the mindset that while I consider myself a long-term player, it's the more numerous short-term players who basically fund the long-term development of the game, and perhaps more importantly, they paid the same amount of money as I did and deserve a good game too. Pardon the holy-than-thou bit, but I think it needs to be said.

So what's the solution on how to create a game that is good for both group? Hell if I know. If it were something easy enough that someone as clueless as me could figure it out, there wouldn't be a point to posting about it. So basically, I'm posting for no reason without any solutions. Welcome to the internet!

[nuclearbroccoli]

I'm speaking from the viewpoint of a "casual" player...

I actually want to spend hundreds of hours playing this game. The problem for me is that I'm more interested in PVP and playing missions. However, PVP is unbalanced if you can't get the best equipment, which I don't mind grinding for, but as a casual player, I don't like it being locked behind the hardest content (Eagle Bearer) which I just don't have the time for.
Furthermore, this game simply doesn't have enough unique content to actually DO. I had hoped for hundreds of hours of unique missions, but their plan for longevity is based on RNG rather than actual content.

Ubisoft needs to make a decision on what segment of the player base they are trying to appeal to, because the way they designed this game just fragments the player base. Either make it a tough game from start to finish, or make it a game for all skill levels and time commitments and add a ton more content.
Unfortunately, I am 90% convinced that they will keep trying to please everyone, because the alternatives are to either:
A) Make the entire game more difficult and drive away the majority of players (casuals).
Or
B) Make everything open for everyone, and make everything more easily attainable, and drive away the hardcore players, or spend more money developing a ton of content to keep players playing.

I don't see either scenario happening. They're going to piss off one side or the other no matter what they do, but they need to make a decision, because this isn't working.

[LANCERZzZz]

Your mistake is posing this in "sides". If the devs would do the same they are not entitled to any form of sympathy...they should be called out on a bad design vision that by its very nature would create competition between them and results in a game that isn't enjoyable for either.

First...these sides are not equivalent. The far majority of the player base is more inclined to "casual" play...while a minority are "hard core gamers".

"Majority rules" logic is fundamentally flawed, and usually results in good ideas being ignored because only one point of view is being shown. and don't even get me started on the psychological dangers of "groupthink"

This isn't necessarily reflected by hours played either. It is more a reflection of mentality. Although I grant you that it is considerably more likely for players with such a hardcore mentality to invest more of their free time....if they have it.
Still....hours invested says much more about the amount of available free time and rl-obligations rather than the hardcore-casual divide.

This argument has never made much sense to me. It's a video game, right? If you don't have time to devote to getting the most out of it, then maybe you should focus more on whatever it is in your life that's keeping you so busy? Instead of acting as if everyone is entitled to play video games and earn the same rewards, regardless of the amount of effort put in. Not every game is meant to provide instant gratification because that's not what every gamer is looking for, some of us actually do enjoy working towards a goal and achieving it because we understand it's 10x more enjoyable and rewarding than having everything just handed to us.

Second, pandering to either side....which is a direct result of treating the game as a product of weighting in sides would lead to exclusionary content. Which is unfortunately what fe. the raid in how it is currently designed and implemented is.

Nothing is exclusionary in this game. All of the DLC is free and all activities are available to everyone. Again, those who want to put the effort into playing this game are the people that the endgame content such as the raid was designed for. If you don't want to put in the effort to make a decent build or download discord to find a group, you probably would not enjoy the raid content either way. Raids are hardcore endgame content in anygame they are included in. Their very nature is designed to appeal not to the casuals, but the hardcore players who want to put their build to the test and find out how well spent their time and effort was.

Casual players aren't necessarily impatient....and don't necessarily want everything in 1 month. Including this negative stereotype also shows why approaching games as a balance between two opposing sides is not a very good strategy.

It is more correct to say that casual players want a game to respect their relative time investment and everything to be accessible to them. This isn't an unreasonable expectation.

Then what's the issue? Why is it always casual console players asking for stuff to get nerfed, rather than learning how to play more tactically or simply playing a different game? Why try to ruin it for the people who are currently enjoying the game just for an easier experience?

Since this is a premium product and a game it is very unreasonable to compare this to real life or impose a very biased narrative of how real life works.

Not at all. If a game is so easy that it just rewards everything to you without any effort, is it even a game still? In fact the very definition of a game is a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck. Please, elaborate more on how it's unfair to expect a game to require some form of effort?

It could be equally valid and inflammatory to say hardcore gamers are selfish and want a game that excludes casual players so that they themselves can satisfy their own need for status and feelings of superiority.

It wouldn't be valid though, since a lot of the time hardcore gamers are the ones who have been playing the game from the start because we enjoy the game design (for the most part) the way it is, as opposed to the people who seem to deliberately buy games that they don't like or aren't good at just so they can spend all their time in the forums trying to change how the game works.

There's nothing selfish about not wanting something you enjoy to change just because that's what the masses want. Say you have a favorite sushi restaurant, and suddenly one day they decide to stop selling sushi and start selling hamburgers. Sure, more people like hamburgers than sushi, but now where do you go to get sushi? Does the fact that you have a minority opinion mean you deserve to have something that you personally cherish and enjoy completely changed beyond recognition or enjoyment? Honestly, the only selfish ones I have seen on these forums have been the people constantly complaining to make the game easier all just for themselves

Either way the point is not trying to balance the two as opposing sides but as part of a wider community.

The point is that a healthy long term game, especially life service, needs at its core design to offer a product that makes the game enjoyable for as wide and varied a player community as possible for as long as possible...while at the same time have all their content be inclusionary.

This may sound the same...but sure as hell isn't.

I am hoping the devs are going for the latter. But the raid and how this was handled show the devs are pandering.

Again, I am in complete disagreement. Pandering does not equate to the devs standing their ground and keeping content that was meant to be difficult, difficult. Pandering is trying to make everyone happy (impossible, btw) which actually usually just translates into doing whatever whim or nerf people on the forums complain the most about without any thought as to how it will affect the game in the long term.

Games that make a name for themselves are the games that don't just do whatever the loudest voices of the community tell them to do. Counter Strike is a household, iconic game. People have been complaining since the late 90s about the AWP being a one shot kill, but did they nerf it? Nope, and now it's one of the most popular shooters in the world. Dark Souls forums were (and sometimes still are) full of people complaining about certain boss mechanics and parts of the game that are harder than others, but FromSoft stuck their their guns and just about everyone who talks about Dark Souls, whether they enjoy it or not, at the very least has respect for its difficulty. Meanwhile kids complained relentlessly about how Halo needed sprint and ADS, and when they finally add it in Halo 5 guess what? People see Halo 5 as the worst game in the franchise.

The real problem seems to be that there are too many people playing this game that actually don't like this game. If you have so many issues with how the division fundamentally works, maybe this just isn't the game for you? Maybe be a little smarter with your money and do some research before shelling out for anything with cool cover art.

There are plenty of things actually wrong with this game. Build diversity sucks (probably because they wanted to make creating a build as easy as possible, yet people still don't want to do it), PvP is terrible, Dark Zones are ghost towns and for good reason, and just about all of the exotic weapons are bad. But the difficulty is fine, and they don't need to waste anymore time trying to design a game where noobs can't die.

[BOSS_TPH76]

"Majority rules" logic is fundamentally flawed, and usually results in good ideas being ignored because only one point of view is being shown. and don't even get me started on the psychological dangers of "groupthink"

If you understood what I wrote there then you would know that this group think is what I reject. It is however very much a reality that the majority of players are more casual minded and that this makes the group think based on balance in itself a fundamentally flawed idea.

This argument has never made much sense to me. It's a video game, right? If you don't have time to devote to getting the most out of it, then maybe you should focus more on whatever it is in your life that's keeping you so busy? Instead of acting as if everyone is entitled to play video games and earn the same rewards, regardless of the amount of effort put in. Not every game is meant to provide instant gratification because that's not what every gamer is looking for, some of us actually do enjoy working towards a goal and achieving it because we understand it's 10x more enjoyable and rewarding than having everything just handed to us.

The argument doesn't make much sense to you because you fundamentally misunderstand the argument and are trying to line it up with your own experiences and biases...and forget to include such things as work, study, sports and family.

Everybody who bought a video game is entitled to play that video game and its content.

I absolutely didn't speak about instant gratification (which sure as hell isn't exclusive to casuals) nor feelings of everything being handed to them on a silver platter. These are words and descriptions you are using to straw man what I actually said and neither address anything in the pragraph you quote not in the entirety of the post I made. In fact...they directly contradict what I wrote in later paragraphs.

This shows me you neither comprehended what was said nor approach this in an intelectually honest fashion.

Nothing is exclusionary in this game. All of the DLC is free and all activities are available to everyone. Again, those who want to put the effort into playing this game are the people that the endgame content such as the raid was designed for. If you don't want to put in the effort to make a decent build or download discord to find a group, you probably would not enjoy the raid content either way. Raids are hardcore endgame content in anygame they are included in. Their very nature is designed to appeal not to the casuals, but the hardcore players who want to put their build to the test and find out how well spent their time and effort was.

This is pure and utter nonsense and disproved by reality...and runs a train of thought to its logical extreme that has no bearing on reality and is contradictory in its very first two sentences. I have sherpa'd hundreds of casuals through the raids in Destiny...and most of them throughly enjoyed the raids.

What is true is that in most games raids were locked off for most casual players. Not just by their design but because they required guilds and clans that demanded huge time investments or 3rd party LFG where new comers find themselves up to increasingly high demands. And it is equally true that as soon as game implement systems that adjust these treshholds for raid contents see a huge uptick in casuals playing raids and joining more dedicated raid groups.

So you couldn't be more wrong if you tried is in your classification of raids. Raids are thoroughly enjoyed in any game by casuals as long as the get the opportunity to play it....the problem is that access is made harder.

But I do like your arguments that raids aren't exclusionary...just designed for a select group of people...because I love irony.

Then what's the issue? Why is it always casual console players asking for stuff to get nerfed, rather than learning how to play more tactically or simply playing a different game? Why try to ruin it for the people who are currently enjoying the game just for an easier experience?

Actually it is not. In many games, including this one, some of the most arent voices for nerfing and creating balance are coming just as much from hard core gamers. You will go on to name a few examples yourself.

But nobody here is talking about nerfing. We are talking about making content accessible and offering content on increasing scales of challenge.

Not at all. If a game is so easy that it just rewards everything to you without any effort, is it even a game still? In fact the very definition of a game is a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck. Please, elaborate more on how it's unfair to expect a game to require some form of effort?

Can you point me to where I even remotely argued anything along the line of doing anything in this game "without effort"?

Instead I replied to the OP's exact use of "hard work" "as in real life". Now...since you love to throw around definitions...you must be aware that saying hard work should not apply and games are NOT real life and shouldn't be compared to them (for literally thousands of reasons anybody with half a brain cell could understand) does absolutely in no language translate as "zero effort" and neither does my argument that a game should respect time investment.

So again...you are strawmanning the hell out of what has been said. Especially by providing an out of context narrow definition of a term not applicable at all to video games.

It wouldn't be valid though, since a lot of the time hardcore gamers are the ones who have been playing the game from the start because we enjoy the game design (for the most part) the way it is, as opposed to the people who seem to deliberately buy games that they don't like or aren't good at just so they can spend all their time in the forums trying to change how the game works.

No...it would be entirely valid. I coud have also added that hard core players are usually the most toxic part of a community...again that would serve no purpose and would be highly polarizing. But you sure as hell are proving the point with your attrociously biased post.

And it is exactly that bias that is exacerbated by thinking about game design in terms of balance between "casual" and "hard core" rather than thinking of game design in terms of creating content that is accessible on varying difficulties and provides content that by its very design holds the attention and feels rewarding for the largest amount of people without pandering.

There's nothing selfish about not wanting something you enjoy to change just because that's what the masses want. Say you have a favorite sushi restaurant, and suddenly one day they decide to stop selling sushi and start selling hamburgers. Sure, more people like hamburgers than sushi, but now where do you go to get sushi? Does the fact that you have a minority opinion mean you deserve to have something that you personally cherish and enjoy completely changed beyond recognition or enjoyment? Honestly, the only selfish ones I have seen on these forums have been the people constantly complaining to make the game easier all just for themselves

Kind of like the Division 2 getting content pandering to hard core players because of years of whining? Because I could easily name a few examples of how the TD2 implemented elements that hard core players have been whining about in TD1. And that that would easily be able to fitted in the very sae Sushi analogy but from the other side.

But again...you straw man what was actually said. And I don't think you really comprehend the depth of your own bias. And this is why argue that this whole "balance" issue leads to a fundamental split in communities. If anything your post is proving that with each and every single parahraph.

Again, I am in complete disagreement. Pandering does not equate to the devs standing their ground and keeping content that was meant to be difficult, difficult. Pandering is trying to make everyone happy (impossible, btw) which actually usually just translates into doing whatever whim or nerf people on the forums complain the most about without any thought as to how it will affect the game in the long term.

I know you are in disagreement. You have made it abundantly clear you haven't understood a word I said and just straw manned it to hell and back in order to Don quijote yourself through it.

This is however not what pandering means. At all. Since you are fond of throwing around definitions...you should probably have looked this one up as well.

You keep blubbering on about "nerfs". This isn't about nerfs. This is about the design of game content, respecting time and access to content and inclusionary content.

Games that make a name for themselves are the games that don't just do whatever the loudest voices of the community tell them to do. Counter Strike is a household, iconic game. People have been complaining since the late 90s about the AWP being a one shot kill, but did they nerf it?

Ironically...a ton of people that complained about 1sk in CS were hard core gamers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But again...you utterly and completely failed to comprehend the argument digressing into "nerfs" and "the majority voices" and whatever. And none of what I said was anywhere near this. Maybe you should reread what was said and leave your obvious bias at the beginning of the post and work a little harder on what is actually written than the voices in your head interjecting all kinds of things in there that don't actualy exist.

Nope, and now it's one of the most popular shooters in the world. Dark Souls forums were (and sometimes still are) full of people complaining about certain boss mechanics and parts of the game that are harder than others, but FromSoft stuck their their guns and just about everyone who talks about Dark Souls, whether they enjoy it or not, at the very least has respect for its difficulty. Meanwhile kids complained relentlessly about how Halo needed sprint and ADS, and when they finally add it in Halo 5 guess what? People see Halo 5 as the worst game in the franchise.

Do you know what all the games you mention share? They have a clear identity that doesn't waver and all of their content is designed on an accesibly and level playing field. They are absolutely not comparable with what is happening in TD2. Especially not in the franchise. And most certainly not in the game type. As soon as these games abandon their identity in sequels...they lose their popularity. Which is what you are seeing in TD2.

The real problem seems to be that there are too many people playing this game that actually don't like this game. If you have so many issues with how the division fundamentally works, maybe this just isn't the game for you? Maybe be a little smarter with your money and do some research before shelling out for anything with cool cover art.

no...the real problem here seems to be exactly what I described in my first paragraph.

There are plenty of things actually wrong with this game. Build diversity sucks (probably because they wanted to make creating a build as easy as possible, yet people still don't want to do it), PvP is terrible, Dark Zones are ghost towns and for good reason, and just about all of the exotic weapons are bad. But the difficulty is fine, and they don't need to waste anymore time trying to design a game where noobs can't die.

Making builds in this game has become a convoluted overly complex and very overburdened system that turns out to serve no real purpose. Since you play this game for hours I would expect you to know that it has been made significantly more complex than buiding in TD1. On top of that the system is designed around DPS and abandoned the role approach. There are probably legitimate arguments for that move or explanations as to why that is...but here we are.

Nobody said anything about overall game difficulty.

But since you mentioned this a few times now...

I'd love to hear your argument about why the raid should only be available via 3rd party MM and on this very difficulty. Love to hear your justification for that. And I would equally love to hear how exactly a casual mode and an elite mode addition to the raid would radically change the game. Because I am betting based on what you said previously that it would very much be along the line of "but if there is als a casual difficulty the raid would lose all meaning" ...but who knows. Maybe you will surprise me.

[LANCERZzZz]

But I'd love to hear your argument about why the raid should only be available via 3rd party MM and on this very difficulty. Love to hear your justification for that. Because I am betting based on what you said previously that it would very much be along the line of "but if there is als a casual difficulty the raid would lose all meaning" ...but who knows. Maybe you will surprise me.

I'll respond to this, not for just for you but for everyone else who doesn't understand why simply throwing in some matchmaking for the raid would not work out. I'm not against matchmaking for the raid. I just know that once that add in matchmaking, then people will just complain even more unless it's rolled out in a way that allows for people to matchmake according to specific parameters:
-How much time each member of the group is willing to dedicate
-how much experience (clears) each member has
-if everyone has a mic
-if more experienced players are willing to match with less experienced players,etc.
Otherwise, it will become a ****storm of afk players getting matched into games, players with no experience getting matched with highly experienced players and causing frustration on both sides, people quitting immediately after one or two wipes and forcing everyone to wait for another player to match in at the same encounter as them, people just quitting unexepectedly for any other reason, people joining with no voice comms, etc. And if you really sherpa'd so much on Destiny, you would know that there is no real matchmaking for the raids in that game either, for the same reasons.

(Despite the fact that Destiny's "raids" are so easy that most of the encounters can be 3-manned or even solo'd, or that most encounters amount to 2 or 3 people actually doing something important while the rest just clear adds, so doing sherpa runs in that game is actually quite easy.)

There are guided games in Destiny, I know, but good luck actually finding a group on that, seeing as how everyone who raids knows that discord is superior for finding groups. And I'm sure the same thing would happen if they were to add matchmaking to the raid in this game, with everyone with any sense of how it works opting for discord and everyone choosing to use the ingame matchmaking finding themselves waiting much, much longer for a group (likely only to have that group quickly fall apart due to one of the previous reasons) than if they had simply downloaded discord and posted an LFG

If they can come up with a matchmaking system that somehow overcomes the previously mentioned issues and is capable of consistently putting together solid raid groups, then by all means I'd be happy for them to include that. But getting 8 random people together to coordinate and complete a set of fairly involved tasks is not easy.

I would respond to the rest of your post, but it's mostly just words without much substance. You can claim I have a strawman argument for everything that you don't know how to logically respond to, but if you can't prove how then you're just saying that you can't actually come up with a counter and you're too immature to look at it from a different point of view. the only one grasping at straws here is you, which is why you felt the need to type so much just to say so little.

[Spidey456]

I don't think the raid is particularly hard once you know the fundamentals. There are some good heroic players that know how to fight with good builds that would do good on the raid once learned. IF match making was in it from the start, yeah there would have been cries but by this time everyone would have watched the same videos and the raid would be a breeze. The raid has reached a point now that everyone doesn't need to talk. Boomer isn't even a speed bump anymore. I think the Devs shot themselves in the foot by not having matchmaking. Just communicate the difficulty IS WHAT IT IS! it is END GAME CONTENT. And wait a month or so to see if the cries die down before knee jerk nerfing content when people start to complain to see if it really is a problem.

Match making needs to be for ALL raids for the entire game to continue. Player base is horrible. The Eagle bearer is a draw that will have people go into other parts of the game. Requiring a 3rd party app was doom. There are casuals who know their **** but ain't putting up with the hassle of discord. The community can self police in match making on what is required. Devs need to have more faith and stop treating us as babies.

[Caraamon]

Everybody who bought a video game is entitled to play that video game and its content.

I agree with you in principle, but practically speaking there has to be a line drawn somewhere. To go to the silly extreme as an example, they don't let a character right out of the character generator run raids and succeed, so there is a limiter of some sort.

Since you haven't mentioned it, I'm assuming you are okay other examples such as the Black Tusk content being gated behind the upper levels of World Tiers, so how is any different with the raid being gated with even more effort and/or time?

Is it a matter of time, such as everything should be available after 200 hours of play? Or would you suggest a different metric?

The issue I see is whatever metric you use for full access, then the lifespan of the game ends not long after that. For example, if you can do everything after 200 hours of play, then what is left for people who play longer than 200 hours? There is only so much value you can get out of repeating the same missions/raids/etc without it working towards more content.

And I would equally love to hear how exactly a casual mode and an elite mode addition to the raid would radically change the game...

Your idea of splitting out various difficulties sounds like an interesting compromise. But to be honest I worry that if easier versions are available, there will be a lack of people wanting to do the harder ones; that people will be satisfied with those easier versions and not push for the gear to beat the harder ones. And since it's a group activity, if there aren't sufficient people to go, then it means I can't go either.

This could be offset by making the harder raid more rewarding, but if it's rewarding enough to warrant the full investment of practice and gear builds, won't people feel like they don't have full access if they don't go?