What is Casual?

spinnytop · July 2018

It's a word that gets thrown around a lot, oftentimes to justify content requests, other times as an excuse, and sometimes to point out that someone isn't who you think they are ( or that you aren't who you think they think you are ). It seems at times to be presented as the antithesis of "Elite", but I get the feeling this game has a lot of really casual elites ( that's certainly a title I feel applies to me ). So here's a poll!

Note: The poll is asking "What is Casual" not "What kind of casual are you". You are selecting what you believe are the requirements for being classified as casual rather than hardcore.

shadowolf505 · July 2018

Other combination or Your answer isn't listed.

1, 2, 3, 5

spinnytop · July 2018

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.

shadowolf505 wrote: »

1, 2, 3, 5

2 and 3 seems like an odd combo. It seems that people who don't have a lot of time to play would by necessity need to schedule their play time since it generally seems to be "I can play during this specific time period" rather than "I can only play X hours per week but it doesn't matter when those hours are".

shadowolf505 · July 2018

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Eh, its what I find applies to my definition

omnilord · July 2018

Casual means whatever you think it means because you don't listen and just belittle people who have a different point of view than you, Foxi.

omnilord · July 2018

In B4 another Foxi longwinded snarky response. o3o

spinnytop · July 2018

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.

omnilord#8416 wrote: »

Casual means whatever you think it means because you don't listen and just belittle people who have a different point of view than you, Foxi.

It's a poll tho o3o

kamokami · July 2018

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I think "casual" means you don't play a lot

magpieuk2014 · July 2018

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"Casual" is a difficulty setting on quite a few of my favourite games and it just means "Simpler", not necessarily "Easy".

In CO terms it's "Player who doesn't care too much about game mechanics". They would prefer making characters to refining them, designing themes and costumes to making "effective" builds, would choose Archetypes for fixed character progression and a simpler build experience, and aren't too bothered about traditional MMO end game content with its focus on learning attack rotations, roles, etc. That stuff doesn't give enjoyment in a limited game play time slot. There's enough variation in PUG Alerts, events, levelling content, solo play, etc.

soulforger · July 2018

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For me, it is both 2 and 3 combined basically. Don't have enough time to really play, so I play whenever I find a time to slot it in, and do not care about progressing fast.

aesica · July 2018

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3 and 4. 5 too, but mainly due to a combination of a dated PC that lags around large groups and because I tend to play late when the game is less active.

spinnytop · July 2018

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.

magpieuk2014 wrote: »

"Casual" is a difficulty setting on quite a few of my favourite games and it just means "Simpler", not necessarily "Easy".

In CO terms it's "Player who doesn't care too much about game mechanics". They would prefer making characters to refining them, designing themes and costumes to making "effective" builds, would choose Archetypes for fixed character progression and a simpler build experience, and aren't too bothered about traditional MMO end game content with its focus on learning attack rotations, roles, etc. That stuff doesn't give enjoyment in a limited game play time slot. There's enough variation in PUG Alerts, events, levelling content, solo play, etc.

I can't imagine this highly specific definition would refer to more than a small percentage of the game's population. Do you believe that most of CO's population is not casual?

roughbearmattach · July 2018

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For such a small pool of respondents, there are too many choices for meaningful poll results.

Also, I would combine 2 and 3.

xcelsior41 · July 2018

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Casual pretty much to me is 2, 3. Past summers(and years entirely) I haven't even played the game in general, but this summer I got time so I started doing #3 until I started not having time anymore around this month

. But it's almost always 2.

spinnytop · July 2018

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.

To the people combining 2 and 3, I have a question. If someone has all the time in the world to play the game, like they could be playing it 24 hours a day if they wanted, but they only play 1 hour a week, are they not casual? And if not, then would you categorize them as "hardcore"?

Keep in mind that the poll is asking what is the requirement to be considered "Casual" in your opinion. I find it strange that people would consider anyone without a limiting life schedule to be "hardcore".

warcanch · July 2018

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.

For me, it's the tortoise or the hare.

Tortoise: I want the stuff, but am content to work at it a little bit each session, or sometimes not at all.
Hare: Gotta have it as soon as possible (lvl 40 char in under 24 hrs; grind event token content for new shiny in a short time; etc).

So, I'm the tortoise, most of the time. Occasionally, I'm the hare.

magpieuk2014 · July 2018

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I can't imagine this highly specific definition would refer to more than a small percentage of the game's population. Do you believe that most of CO's population is not casual?

I think it's probably most of the game's population. That's probably why it's lasted so long.

soulforger · July 2018

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spinnytop wrote: »

To the people combining 2 and 3, I have a question. If someone has all the time in the world to play the game, like they could be playing it 24 hours a day if they wanted, but they only play 1 hour a week, are they not casual? And if not, then would you categorize them as "hardcore"?

Keep in mind that the poll is asking what is the requirement to be considered "Casual" in your opinion. I find it strange that people would consider anyone without a limiting life schedule to be "hardcore".

They'd still be casual. But, that doesn't change our answer Spinny. That is them and that is us. For people like them, they would not be able to select 2, 3 yes, 2 no. They'd be a solid 3.

So, completely different situation to us.

Here is the difference:

Us that selected 2 and 3: We don't have 24 hours a day of free time. We might have one or two hours are week, more if lucky. But, with this time, we do not schedule when we play or what we play, nor do we care to much about progress and stuff connected to progress.

The people that have all the time in the world: The have time, they just do not schedule when they play or what they play, thus, they are casuals due to only playing occasionally along with the fact they do nto care to much about progress.

For me really. Tags like Casual and Elites are flexible in the fact that you can be a casual one week, an Elite the next because suddenly you are playing 12 hours a day while focusing on progress and such, than the next week you are back to being a casual.

But, I am a 2 and 3 person. I don't have to much time and I never schedule what I do during that time nor do I care to much about progress when I actually sit down and play.\

Except in World of Tanks. I could be considered an Elite in that game. I actually put in the hours compared to any other game and care about progress and doing my best. But, outside of that game, I am at best a casaul in other other games.

spinnytop · July 2018

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.

soulforger wrote: »

But, I am a 2 and 3 person.

Well there's the problem. This poll isn't asking "what kind of casual are you", it's asking you to define what casual is and what in your opinion is required for someone to be classified as casual. When someone selects "2 & 3" they were selecting "you must have attributes 2 & 3 to be casual, and if you don't have them then you're not casual".

So if that's not what you were saying, then it would in fact change your answer. Going by what you said, "not having enough time to play" is not a defining attribute of being a casual for you, since you acknowledge that someone can be casual without having that attribute. It seems that your choice would have been 3, since your examples indicate that it's more about your attitude towards how often you play and what you do with your playtime.

soulforger wrote: »

For me really. Tags like Casual and Elites are flexible in the fact that you can be a casual one week, an Elite the next because suddenly you are playing 12 hours a day while focusing on progress and such, than the next week you are back to being a casual.

Well, I don't think just having a lot of time to play makes you Elite. Also Elite isn't the opposite of Casual. Hardcore is generally the term used for that. To me Casual is more a mentality, so in my mind you don't change from Casual to Hardcore simply because you have more time to play. Even someone with little playtime can be Hardcore about how they use that time, carefully planning and scheduling their activities and trying to maximize their time:reward ratio.

xacchaeus · July 2018

Other combination or Your answer isn't listed.

2,3 & 4

biffsmackwell · July 2018

magpieuk2014 wrote: »

"Casual" is a difficulty setting on quite a few of my favourite games and it just means "Simpler", not necessarily "Easy".

In CO terms it's "Player who doesn't care too much about game mechanics". They would prefer making characters to refining them, designing themes and costumes to making "effective" builds, would choose Archetypes for fixed character progression and a simpler build experience, and aren't too bothered about traditional MMO end game content with its focus on learning attack rotations, roles, etc. That stuff doesn't give enjoyment in a limited game play time slot. There's enough variation in PUG Alerts, events, levelling content, solo play, etc.

I consider myself mostly casual and this is basically how I would define it. My only difference is in end-game content; I'm fine doing it if it's easy to get into (cosmics, open-world content) and there's no real commitment to performance or attendance. Like, if I'm not performing well (dying at Kigs, not DPSing well at Dino) I can just drop out and not ruin the whole run and everyone can get on with their day.

I've recently (well, within the last few years) started caring more about my build performance but character theme or costume is usually my priority.

xcelsior41 · July 2018

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spinnytop wrote: »

To the people combining 2 and 3, I have a question. If someone has all the time in the world to play the game, like they could be playing it 24 hours a day if they wanted, but they only play 1 hour a week, are they not casual? And if not, then would you categorize them as "hardcore"?

Keep in mind that the poll is asking what is the requirement to be considered "Casual" in your opinion. I find it strange that people would consider anyone without a limiting life schedule to be "hardcore".

No one considers them hardcore, at least I don't. Your casual is fine(not you specifically, as I don't know/care how often anyone plays). What makes a hardcore player hardcore, at least in my eyes, is this: The inability to respect other people's limited time and lack of understanding of said limits, or, being belligerent to those who partake in endgame activity, going so far as to harass them for not choosing certain powers they feel are optimal. If someone tries to do either, I consider them hardcore, and a few other things.

pwestolemyname · July 2018

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Casual means you eat pizza while playing. There, now we're done talking about it.

cptmassive1 · July 2018

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I thought it was a dress code thing and I play naked. So, #6?

I choose 1,2, and 3 because "it depends." Don't have a lot of time most of the time but there are a few weeks a year I have nothing but time so I play in streaks -- almost never scheduled.

So, when I play I am sometimes hardcore on this game, but that is like 2% of the year, so that would make me hardcore casual? Casually hardcore? I have some toons that are among the best at what they do (because of retconning 14 times and getting nearly every bit/rank of gear) and I have builds that are deliberately what the leets would call "suboptimal." Uber builds in this game make it too comfy sometimes.

I play 3 of the 4 cosmics and find them easy yet do not pursue eido just because it isn't worth my time. I don't care how fast I progress as even when I am grinding I play 24 different toons, at least. No real goal in mind. I figure I will have them all geared 11 years after the game closes down.

So I say "pfft" to your attempt at labeling me. Back to STO. :-p

deadman20 · July 2018

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Casual, to me, somewhat loses its meaning in the context of gaming culture. People use it as a demographic and stereotype. It shouldn't be about overall playtime, or the "skill" of a player at all. The idea of someone not having skill being equated to being a casual is wrong, as is connecting it to the amount of time someone does an activity. These things can be anecdotal, but not a requirement for this type of classification. Some "casuals" can play better than their "hardcore" counterparts after all, even without the intense time investment that someone called "hardcore" would typically have with them.

Instead, I define a "Casual" as a person that performs in a way that can be perceived as less stressful or aggressive than the average. Likewise, "Hardcore" would be the opposite, performing more actively and in a way that can be perceived as more stressful to the average.

As far as what the average is, well... it's average. I've heard the term "Casual-core" thrown around every so often, so maybe some of us can take to that moniker? The real question is where do we draw these lines.

theglasskitten · July 2018

To answer the question “What is casual?” I checked a dictionary.

Casual - relaxed and unconcerned.

pwestolemyname · July 2018

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I'm going to say that "casual" means that murderlizing opponents with all due swiftness and efficiency is not your primary goal. I guess.

Maybe that's not it, either.

I mean, someone who spends a bunch of money on costumes and hours in the Tailor tweaking their costumes to be ridiculously amazing, but doesn't even care about fighting, except for getting perks to unlock costumes, casual or hardcore? Hardcore costumer, casual fighter. Is that a "casual" or no?

Someone who spends hours writing a backstory and hangs out roleplaying all the time, instead of trying to punch pixels. Hardcore roleplayer, casual fighter. Is that a "casual" or no?

Or maybe someone really likes exploring the "story" of the game. They spend enough effort on their character so they can get through content fairly easily, but not specifically to gather XP and loot, more to experience the stories. They probably run decent DPS builds with defensive passives good Con. Not really optimized for endgame, but great in story content. Hardcore storyliners, casual fighter. Is that "casual" or no?

I mean, if this were a PVP FPS with no character customization or roloplaying, I maybe could understand the difference between "hardcore" and "casual." In that situation, it would just be time and money spent getting better. But, for CO, where there are a variety of entertainment options, it just doesn't seem to make sense.

"Whale" on the other hand, that term I totally get.

axegaijin13 · July 2018

1, 3, 4, and 5

I consider myself a hardcore casual gamer.... or was it a casual hardcore gamer?

pantagruel01 · July 2018

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.

My assumption is that 'casual' means not spending a lot of effort on it. A lot of the choices are less binary than ranges:

Casual means you don't care about being good at a game and prefer easy content
Content that requires learning and practice = less casual.
Casual means you don't have a lot of time to play a game.
On average more time is less casual, but you can in principle be super-serious for an hour a week.
Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.
Scheduling and organization = less casual.
Casual means you prefer to solo.
Casual is often solo, since you should be able to just log on and do stuff, or log off and not worry that you're abandoning people in the middle of a raid, but it doesn't imply any specific fondness for solo play.
Casual means you don't play endgame content.
You can be pretty casual about cosmics. TA requires a bit more dedication, as it's hard to just get lost in the dps.

jonsills · July 2018

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theglasskitten wrote: »

To answer the question “What is casual?” I checked a dictionary.

Casual - relaxed and unconcerned.

Which is pretty much my playstyle too...

biffsmackwell · July 2018

pantagruel01 wrote: »

My assumption is that 'casual' means not spending a lot of effort on it. A lot of the choices are less binary than ranges:
Casual means you don't care about being good at a game and prefer easy content
Content that requires learning and practice = less casual.

Casual means you don't have a lot of time to play a game.
On average more time is less casual, but you can in principle be super-serious for an hour a week.

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.
Scheduling and organization = less casual.

Casual means you prefer to solo.
Casual is often solo, since you should be able to just log on and do stuff, or log off and not worry that you're abandoning people in the middle of a raid, but it doesn't imply any specific fondness for solo play.

Casual means you don't play endgame content.
You can be pretty casual about cosmics. TA requires a bit more dedication, as it's hard to just get lost in the dps.

Yup, agree with all this.

kamokami · July 2018

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theglasskitten wrote: »

To answer the question “What is casual?” I checked a dictionary.

Casual - relaxed and unconcerned.

Ah so all of us would self-identify as casual with the dictionary as our guide.

xcelsior41 wrote: »

What makes a hardcore player hardcore, at least in my eyes, is this: The inability to respect other people's limited time and lack of understanding of said limits, or, being belligerent to those who partake in endgame activity, going so far as to harass them for not choosing certain powers they feel are optimal. If someone tries to do either, I consider them hardcore, and a few other things.

And none of us would self-identify as hardcore with xcelsior as our guide.

spinnytop · July 2018

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.

xcelsior41 wrote: »

No one considers them hardcore, at least I don't. Your casual is fine(not you specifically, as I don't know/care how often anyone plays). What makes a hardcore player hardcore, at least in my eyes, is this: The inability to respect other people's limited time and lack of understanding of said limits, or, being belligerent to those who partake in endgame activity, going so far as to harass them for not choosing certain powers they feel are optimal. If someone tries to do either, I consider them hardcore, and a few other things.

When I was a hardcore WoW player I did none of these things. And before you say "well that means you weren't hardcore", people in our guild would get up early in the morning for scheduled raids so we could run raids for hours ( a few times we had 8 hour raiding sessions ) and we did this on a schedule that most of us planned our days around... I mean if that's not hardcore then I dunno what is. We were all cool with each other cause it's a video game, people who tried to yell at people or complain a lot didn't last very long with us, and we were always open-minded about people's builds and trying new tactics.

I wonder if you're like Jon, had some bad experiences with some jerks and now you assume everyone in that group is a jerk. Like that one guy around here who thought that everyone who tries to be good at a game is an elitist.

pantagruel01 wrote: »

My assumption is that 'casual' means not spending a lot of effort on it. A lot of the choices are less binary than ranges:
Casual means you don't care about being good at a game and prefer easy content
Content that requires learning and practice = less casual.

Casual means you don't have a lot of time to play a game.
On average more time is less casual, but you can in principle be super-serious for an hour a week.

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.
Scheduling and organization = less casual.

Casual means you prefer to solo.
Casual is often solo, since you should be able to just log on and do stuff, or log off and not worry that you're abandoning people in the middle of a raid, but it doesn't imply any specific fondness for solo play.

Casual means you don't play endgame content.
You can be pretty casual about cosmics. TA requires a bit more dedication, as it's hard to just get lost in the dps.

Some of these are referring to content being casual, while the poll focuses on players being casual.

xcelsior41 · July 2018

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kamokami wrote: »

theglasskitten wrote: »

To answer the question “What is casual?” I checked a dictionary.

Casual - relaxed and unconcerned.

Ah so all of us would self-identify as casual with the dictionary as our guide.

xcelsior41 wrote: »

What makes a hardcore player hardcore, at least in my eyes, is this: The inability to respect other people's limited time and lack of understanding of said limits, or, being belligerent to those who partake in endgame activity, going so far as to harass them for not choosing certain powers they feel are optimal. If someone tries to do either, I consider them hardcore, and a few other things.

And none of us would self-identify as hardcore with xcelsior as our guide.

As long as you don't do the first one as well!

I've been told this once(and, to y'all's credit, I believe only once), that someone couldn't understand how it takes me half a year if I try for decent play, to attempt to get one character a set of distinguished gear. Hell I only have one character with a set of almost complete distinguished gear. Incidentally, I have had people say the opposite(I play too much :P) due to having 40 40s. However, I inform them that that's over 6 years total, 3 of which I was not playing at due to RL :P it's pretty subpar seeing others in altoholic pages.

xcelsior41 · July 2018

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spinnytop wrote: »

xcelsior41 wrote: »

No one considers them hardcore, at least I don't. Your casual is fine(not you specifically, as I don't know/care how often anyone plays). What makes a hardcore player hardcore, at least in my eyes, is this: The inability to respect other people's limited time and lack of understanding of said limits, or, being belligerent to those who partake in endgame activity, going so far as to harass them for not choosing certain powers they feel are optimal. If someone tries to do either, I consider them hardcore, and a few other things.

When I was a hardcore WoW player I did none of these things. And before you say "well that means you weren't hardcore", people in our guild would get up early in the morning for scheduled raids so we could run raids for hours ( a few times we had 8 hour raiding sessions ) and we did this on a schedule that most of us planned our days around... I mean if that's not hardcore then I dunno what is. We were all cool with each other cause it's a video game, people who tried to yell at people or complain a lot didn't last very long with us, and we were always open-minded about people's builds and trying new tactics.

I wonder if you're like Jon, had some bad experiences with some jerks and now you assume everyone in that group is a jerk. Like that one guy around here who thought that everyone who tries to be good at a game is an elitist.

pantagruel01 wrote: »

My assumption is that 'casual' means not spending a lot of effort on it. A lot of the choices are less binary than ranges:
Casual means you don't care about being good at a game and prefer easy content
Content that requires learning and practice = less casual.

Casual means you don't have a lot of time to play a game.
On average more time is less casual, but you can in principle be super-serious for an hour a week.

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.
Scheduling and organization = less casual.

Casual means you prefer to solo.
Casual is often solo, since you should be able to just log on and do stuff, or log off and not worry that you're abandoning people in the middle of a raid, but it doesn't imply any specific fondness for solo play.

Casual means you don't play endgame content.
You can be pretty casual about cosmics. TA requires a bit more dedication, as it's hard to just get lost in the dps.

Some of these are referring to content being casual, while the poll focuses on players being casual.

Well, per your own poll, my opinion is what's casual to me, and will be casual to me going forward

Oh and no I didn't encounter anyone doing those two things, it's just how I envision what wouldn't be considered casual. If someone doesn't understand time and RL and/or is harassing other players for their build choice because it doesn't conform to what they view the meta is or norm is, I consider them to be overtly hardcore, because well again, that's just how I see it. And even then, hardcore is putting it very nicely. Of course your opinion is different, and that's great, but mine's not changing on the matter.

soulforger · July 2018

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spinnytop wrote: »

soulforger wrote: »

But, I am a 2 and 3 person.

Well there's the problem. This poll isn't asking "what kind of casual are you", it's asking you to define what casual is and what in your opinion is required for someone to be classified as casual. When someone selects "2 & 3" they were selecting "you must have attributes 2 & 3 to be casual, and if you don't have them then you're not casual".

So if that's not what you were saying, then it would in fact change your answer. Going by what you said, "not having enough time to play" is not a defining attribute of being a casual for you, since you acknowledge that someone can be casual without having that attribute. It seems that your choice would have been 3, since your examples indicate that it's more about your attitude towards how often you play and what you do with your playtime.

soulforger wrote: »

For me really. Tags like Casual and Elites are flexible in the fact that you can be a casual one week, an Elite the next because suddenly you are playing 12 hours a day while focusing on progress and such, than the next week you are back to being a casual.

Well, I don't think just having a lot of time to play makes you Elite. Also Elite isn't the opposite of Casual. Hardcore is generally the term used for that. To me Casual is more a mentality, so in my mind you don't change from Casual to Hardcore simply because you have more time to play. Even someone with little playtime can be Hardcore about how they use that time, carefully planning and scheduling their activities and trying to maximize their time:reward ratio.

After some thinking, I can only say this. You, as someone that does polls, shouldn't be asking such broad questions and than turn around and question the people that answer your poll with remarks and questions that basically says: You are wrong and need to change your answer to suit what I think. And if that was not your intent, than you shouldn't try to argue with someone's responses nor tell them to change their answer.

But, you are at least right on the Elite/Casual/Hardcore thing. I used the wrong word there.

xcelsior41 · July 2018

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soulforger wrote: »

spinnytop wrote: »

soulforger wrote: »

But, I am a 2 and 3 person.

Well there's the problem. This poll isn't asking "what kind of casual are you", it's asking you to define what casual is and what in your opinion is required for someone to be classified as casual. When someone selects "2 & 3" they were selecting "you must have attributes 2 & 3 to be casual, and if you don't have them then you're not casual".

So if that's not what you were saying, then it would in fact change your answer. Going by what you said, "not having enough time to play" is not a defining attribute of being a casual for you, since you acknowledge that someone can be casual without having that attribute. It seems that your choice would have been 3, since your examples indicate that it's more about your attitude towards how often you play and what you do with your playtime.

soulforger wrote: »

For me really. Tags like Casual and Elites are flexible in the fact that you can be a casual one week, an Elite the next because suddenly you are playing 12 hours a day while focusing on progress and such, than the next week you are back to being a casual.

Well, I don't think just having a lot of time to play makes you Elite. Also Elite isn't the opposite of Casual. Hardcore is generally the term used for that. To me Casual is more a mentality, so in my mind you don't change from Casual to Hardcore simply because you have more time to play. Even someone with little playtime can be Hardcore about how they use that time, carefully planning and scheduling their activities and trying to maximize their time:reward ratio.

After some thinking, I can only say this. You, as someone that does polls, shouldn't be asking such broad questions and than turn around and question the people that answer your poll with remarks and questions that basically says: You are wrong and need to change your answer to suit what I think. And if that was not your intent, than you shouldn't try to argue with someone's responses nor tell them to change their answer.

But, you are at least right on the Elite/Casual/Hardcore thing. I used the wrong word there.

Also very much this. It's kinda in the same vein of what I said earlier, except it's not builds.

theglasskitten · July 2018

kamokami wrote: »

theglasskitten wrote: »

To answer the question “What is casual?” I checked a dictionary.

Casual - relaxed and unconcerned.

Ah so all of us would self-identify as casual with the dictionary as our guide.

xcelsior41 wrote: »

What makes a hardcore player hardcore, at least in my eyes, is this: The inability to respect other people's limited time and lack of understanding of said limits, or, being belligerent to those who partake in endgame activity, going so far as to harass them for not choosing certain powers they feel are optimal. If someone tries to do either, I consider them hardcore, and a few other things.

And none of us would self-identify as hardcore with xcelsior as our guide.

The OP is asking "what is casual". It is not asking what we identify as.

jonsills · July 2018

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theglasskitten wrote: »

kamokami wrote: »

theglasskitten wrote: »

To answer the question “What is casual?” I checked a dictionary.

Casual - relaxed and unconcerned.

Ah so all of us would self-identify as casual with the dictionary as our guide.

xcelsior41 wrote: »

What makes a hardcore player hardcore, at least in my eyes, is this: The inability to respect other people's limited time and lack of understanding of said limits, or, being belligerent to those who partake in endgame activity, going so far as to harass them for not choosing certain powers they feel are optimal. If someone tries to do either, I consider them hardcore, and a few other things.

And none of us would self-identify as hardcore with xcelsior as our guide.

The OP is asking "what is casual". It is not asking what we identify as.

And its poster is subsequently taking issue with every single definition that doesn't match his own. And for extra added fun, he hasn't provided his own. Everyone likes playing guessing games with no correct answers, right?

lezard21 · July 2018

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To me casual is a made up term created by people who are bad at a game in order to attempt to justify and deceive themselves as to why they are bad. Thus why the word casual can apparently mean a lot of things cause each individual uses different excuses as to why they are bad in said game (I don't have enough time to play, I'm not interested, I prefer solo, I only use powers that start with the letter G, etc., etc.)

Like, whenever someone says they are a casual player (generally right after doing something wrong) I can't help but picture that same person being invited by his friends to play a game of Monopoly and losing and going "Well, I lost cause I'm a casual Monopoly player, I only play it for fun cause I don't have much time".

We are all playing for fun.
We all enjoy different things.
We all have limited time.

You are just bad. Deal with it or go see a shrink.

xcelsior41 · July 2018

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lezard21 wrote: »

To me casual is a made up term created by people who are bad at a game in order to attempt to justify and deceive themselves as to why they are bad. Thus why the word casual can apparently mean a lot of things cause each individual uses different excuses as to why they are bad in said game (I don't have enough time to play, I'm not interested, I prefer solo, I only use powers that start with the letter G, etc., etc.)

Like, whenever someone says they are a casual player (generally right after doing something wrong) I can't help but picture that same person being invited by his friends to play a game of Monopoly and losing and going "Well, I lost cause I'm a casual Monopoly player, I only play it for fun cause I don't have much time".

We are all playing for fun.
We all enjoy different things.
We all have limited time.

You are just bad. Deal with it or go see a shrink.

Forums ate my post. To be bad at CO is a helluva feat. To brag about being good(not that you're doing that) is a joke and actually doesn't impress me slightly, as being good at the least challenge superhero MMO is as easy as pushing a key

xcelsior41 · July 2018

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jonsills wrote: »

theglasskitten wrote: »

kamokami wrote: »

theglasskitten wrote: »

To answer the question “What is casual?” I checked a dictionary.

Casual - relaxed and unconcerned.

Ah so all of us would self-identify as casual with the dictionary as our guide.

xcelsior41 wrote: »

What makes a hardcore player hardcore, at least in my eyes, is this: The inability to respect other people's limited time and lack of understanding of said limits, or, being belligerent to those who partake in endgame activity, going so far as to harass them for not choosing certain powers they feel are optimal. If someone tries to do either, I consider them hardcore, and a few other things.

And none of us would self-identify as hardcore with xcelsior as our guide.

The OP is asking "what is casual". It is not asking what we identify as.

And its poster is subsequently taking issue with every single definition that doesn't match his own. And for extra added fun, he hasn't provided his own. Everyone likes playing guessing games with no correct answers, right?

A one true correct answer shouldn't exist. Every answer posted, as long as it pertains to the word 'casual' and how they define it for themselves as per the vague nature of the poll, is correct.

shadowolf505 · July 2018

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Problem with being *good* varies. Either in endgame, in costuming, in lore wise things or in Role Playing. Anyone can be good at any of these things, anyone can be great. But nobody can be the best at them.

monaahiru · July 2018

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People doing CO for ERP are not casual. Otherwise, casual. o3o

lezard21 · July 2018

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xcelsior41 wrote: »

Forums ate my post. To be bad at CO is a helluva feat. To brag about being good(not that you're doing that) is a joke and actually doesn't impress me slightly, as being good at the least challenge superhero MMO is as easy as pushing a key

Exactly. While I can kinda see the casual term in regards to not having enough time to play being justified in certain games like TERA that are heavily grind oriented, the same I cannot see in CO at all.

We've had the same endgame gear for the past uuuh 4-5 years? And the same mod system for the past 6+ years? Whereas games like TERA in the past 4 years had easy a total of 9 endgame gear changes that make CO's power creep curve look like a flat line, and had changes to how gear progression works at least 3 times.

And at the end of the day even with slight mechanic changes introduced in new fights, CO will always be a tab target MMO at the end of the day. Tab target requires very little effort and require very little time to learn

spinnytop · July 2018

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.

xcelsior41 wrote: »

Well, per your own poll, my opinion is what's casual to me, and will be casual to me going forward Oh and no I didn't encounter anyone doing those two things, it's just how I envision what wouldn't be considered casual. If someone doesn't understand time and RL and/or is harassing other players for their build choice because it doesn't conform to what they view the meta is or norm is, I consider them to be overtly hardcore, because well again, that's just how I see it. And even then, hardcore is putting it very nicely. Of course your opinion is different, and that's great, but mine's not changing on the matter.

Well, hardcore is generally used to indicate an individual who puts a lot of time/effort into progressing in a game. That's not my opinion, that's just been its general usage in MMOs for decades. I find it very strange that someone would say "hardcore" when what they mean is "jerk", since we already have plenty of words for the second one so I don't know why we would throw hardcore in there.

soulforger wrote: »

After some thinking, I can only say this. You, as someone that does polls, shouldn't be asking such broad questions and than turn around and question the people that answer your poll with remarks and questions that basically says: You are wrong and need to change your answer to suit what I think. And if that was not your intent, than you shouldn't try to argue with someone's responses nor tell them to change their answer.

You can't change your answer, once you've chosen a category it locks you in.

jonsills wrote: »

And its poster is subsequently taking issue with every single definition that doesn't match his own. And for extra added fun, he hasn't provided his own. Everyone likes playing guessing games with no correct answers, right?

You can see my response in the poll results. I do find it interesting that you are both accusing me of forcing my opinion on others, while at the same time complaining that I haven't given my opinion. Sort of a "Stop stabbing people and draw your sword!" situation.

xcelsior41 wrote: »

A one true correct answer shouldn't exist. Every answer posted, as long as it pertains to the word 'casual' and how they define it for themselves as per the vague nature of the poll, is correct.

Well you see there's a bit of a problem with that. People say that content should be more "casual friendly", but if casual means a bunch of different things, some of which contradict each other, then how could that request ever be fulfilled? This is why I believe it's important for people to be more specific about what they actually mean, rather than throwing out a term and expecting other people to decode what they mean by it. Of course I'm sure there are some people who say "casual friendly" when what they mean is "easier", but they're just too embarrassed to say it because as you say it's "a helluva feat to be bad at this game" so someone asking for easier content would be assumed to have achieved this feat.

kamokami · July 2018

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theglasskitten wrote: »

The OP is asking "what is casual". It is not asking what we identify as.

In reading through the multiple choice answers in the OP's poll I interpret them to signify that the OP is asking what we self-identify as. I doubt that the OP is hoping to get objective semantic definitions of terms from polling game forums. At least I hope they're not.

magpieuk2014 · July 2018

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To me casual is a made up term created by people who are bad at a game in order to attempt to justify and deceive themselves as to why they are bad.

No, that's incorrect. I saw someone mention World of Tanks earlier. Personally I play World of Warships a lot and it's quite revealing as to what "Casual" players are and what they want to do, because that games offers lots of different play modes. It's mostly Random PvP, or PvP between specific groups or for rankings. In those matches you find lots and lots of bad players. And by "bad" I mean "people who don't know how the game works, even though they've played thousands of games". They don't understand how to aim, or why they get spotted so easily, or how to equip their ship, or their captain. They're not casual - just not very good. But that's OK - people are allowed to be bad at video games.

There's another type of gameplay, though, where you play humans vs bots. The bots aren't very clever. They can aim alright, but they tend to sail in predictable lines and do predictable things. And there's a huge number of people who play that mode. Thousands and thousands of players, playing thousands of games. And they enjoy playing that simpler, easier version of the game. And why not? Those are the Casual players.

To be bad at CO is a helluva feat

CO is an old game with fiddly mechanics. It's not difficult when you work out what it's doing but working out what it's doing can take a while as it is not well documented or particularly intuitive. It also goes out of sync with itself a lot, leading to things like Jon's Cosmic Death Problem: those "Does 500 damage per second if you didn't start blocking two seconds before the attack tell appeared" things so beloved of our mega-bosses.

chaosdrgnz43 · July 2018

1 and 3

for me, being a casual is just being lax. going at you own pace and do whatever.

spinnytop · July 2018

Casual means you just play whenever and you don't really schedule when you're going to play or try to maximize how fast you progress.

kamokami wrote: »

In reading through the multiple choice answers in the OP's poll I interpret them to signify that the OP is asking what we self-identify as. I doubt that the OP is hoping to get objective semantic definitions of terms from polling game forums. At least I hope they're not.

I'm asking people to give their definition of the word. For example, when someone says "casual friendly content" they are implying that casual has a specific meaning to the degree that content design could be built around it, and I would like to get that meaning. Naturally, the person should self-identify as the definition for casual that they have, if they do consider themselves to be a casual player, because it would be very strange for the case to be otherwise. However, this poll is not only for those who self-identify as casuals, as people who don't identify thusly would also have a definition to give.

This is not a "what kind of casual do you identify as" poll, this is a "what do you believe the qualifications for being a casual are" poll. It goes in with the assumption that the word has a specific meaning to people, with qualifiers that are required for somebody to fall under that meaning in their eyes. I'm sure, of course, that many people use the word and have no real specific meaning in mind - this is already becoming clear in this thread. Those people should probably never ask for "casual friendly" content, since they don't even know what they mean by that and you can't design content for "you know, whatever you want it to mean".

magpieuk2014 · July 2018

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Well, you can. Casual would mean accessible (in Mil City or queued instance available any time) and relatively unstructured (bring what you like by way of roles). Alerts, really. Thats difficult to implement though, unless you have done form of team builder which does some behind the scenes equalising.

What is Casual?

What is Casual? 38 votes

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