Can we get a definition of casual?
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2011-02-25 10:02 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
It's like a definition of middle class. We will never agree what it means, but many of us will want to include ourselves.
A casual player is anyone who spends less then 15 hours a week playing.
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I'd say someone who spends 10 hours a week running task forces is far less "casual" than someone who spends twenty hours a week loitering around Atlas Park, entering costume contests and chatting in globals.
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Originally Posted by LISAR
A casual player is anyone who spends less then 15 hours a week playing.
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I don't think you can use inf as a guide. It's absolutely possible for a thoroughly casual player to get a Hecatomb while playing their 50 and suddenly be 350 million inf richer.
Hours played per week is an indication of casualness, but I don't believe there's any hard cutoff.
Badging is also a potential indicator, especially if you're working toward the Master of badges.
In my opinion, the best indicator is how far you push your characters with IO builds. If you build a character to solo x8 content, you're hardcore. If you build for perma-Hasten, perma-Dom, or more specific permas like perma-Heat Loss (I just came up with a great build for my Cold Defender last night), you're hardcore. IOs by themselves aren't a necessary indicator, though; if you just fill your attacks with Thunderstrikes or Crushing Impacts and don't think about them beyond that, you're still casual.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
I'd define casual as "without planning". Casual players hop in and do stuff - they don't plan out when to play and what to do. They just do whatever.
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That's close, but I'm not sure I'd entirely agree with that. Casuals can and do respond to carrots dangled in front of them; the whole Alpha slot progression certainly requires, if not planning, then the pursuit of a goal at least, and that's definitely not a hardcore-only part of the game.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I'd define casual as "without planning". Casual players hop in and do stuff - they don't plan out when to play and what to do. They just do whatever.
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De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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It's too much work to define casual.|
Originally Posted by TheLadyK
Conflating casual with solo is grating on my nerves. I team almost exclusively and I consider myself to be casual, but without a definition, or a checklist, or something it is hard to say. I also think that there are several flavors of casual. Here are my attempts to try to form some guidelines. And start arguments, so feel free to state why you think I'm wrong. This is intended to be like a diagnosis checklist - one or two doesn't mean you're a casual player, just casual about some things, but around five or six, its almost assured.
1. Casual players don't invest much time - busy with life or whatever. play schedules from several hours once a month to an hour a day (More than an hour a day is hard to call casual to me. Less than 2 hours a month is hard to call a player... though I'm glad CoX is gettig the subscription revenue!) 2. Has less than 100 million influence on any given alt - casual with the market. 3. Doesn't have a badging character. Bonus point for not knowing what badging consists of as an activity. 4. Casual players don't run everything through Mids. Bonus point for not having Mids. 5. Casual players don't use purple IO sets. Bonus point for not using IO sets. 6. Casual players don't know how to get to the Shard. Or what the Shard is. 7. Casual players have fewer 50s than veteran's badges. 8. Casual players don't read the forums. ...I'm running out of diagnosis questions without going into PvP (I personally don't think there are casual PvPers, but I have a huge personal bias.) Mostly i think casual is an attitude, the opposite of "no pain, no gain". A player who does only what they feel is fun and doesn't worry about min/maxing rewards by doing certain activities. |
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Plays 4-6 hours a week.
No 50s.
Uses single origin enhancements.
Doesn't use IOs.
Doesn't use market.
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Anyone who plays less than me is casual, anyone who plays more is hardcore.
As far as I can tell, that's the definition most people use by default.
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I think you can only consider yourself a casual player if you happen to be this guy:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/member.php?u=348930
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If you spend 20+ hours a week in game you're logged in too long to be casual, you may not be "hardcore" but you sure as hell aren't casual.
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Originally Posted by Jophiel
I'd say someone who spends 10 hours a week running task forces is far less "casual" than someone who spends twenty hours a week loitering around Atlas Park, entering costume contests and chatting in globals.
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I think my definition would be: if NCSoft announced that they were refunding all outstanding subs and closing the servers at the end of the month, would you just shrug and go 'oh, well, never mind'.
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Well, yeah, but they don't exactly plan to pop in and make Incarnate progress (making Incarnate progress is just one of the things they're going to be doing when they hop in.) A casual player might hear about the WSTs, and "plan" to get in to play the WST, but they won't put much more effort into it than "LF WST Team".
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Originally Posted by Bosstone
That's close, but I'm not sure I'd entirely agree with that. Casuals can and do respond to carrots dangled in front of them; the whole Alpha slot progression certainly requires, if not planning, then the pursuit of a goal at least, and that's definitely not a hardcore-only part of the game.
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I was casual. Now I am not.
I think it is easier to separate the "uber-gamer" or "power-gamer" from the mere "harcore" gamer than to determine what 'casual' is.
If you own every purple your AT can use, on more than 5 toons; you are uber...
If you have not only had over a billion, but you routinely keep over a billion, on hand, on more than 5 toons, you are uber...
Other distinctions-
Hardcore gamers design builds that solo +4/x8
Uber-gamers design builds for soloing MoXTF/SFs
Harcore gamers fully utilize Mids and don't need any guidance making the ultimate AT build.
Uber-gamers don't need Mids; "It's all in the ol' noggin."
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To say "they do this" or "they do that" suggests there is an explicit group of "casual players" and we're debating what they do. When in fact there is a continuum of players and we're trying to draw an arbitrary dividing line. To say that casual players don't plan to make Incarnate progress is to say all players you want to define as casual players don't actually think to themselves "I want to log in my level 50 blaster and see if I can get on a sister psyche task force today." This is what you're disqualifying from being a casual player.|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Well, yeah, but they don't exactly plan to pop in and make Incarnate progress (making Incarnate progress is just one of the things they're going to be doing when they hop in.) A casual player might hear about the WSTs, and "plan" to get in to play the WST, but they won't put much more effort into it than "LF WST Team".
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I think at that point, eliminating all players that have ever acted on such a thought would eliminate virtually all players from contention, including many who would not admit it, because this is so difficult of a thought to completely avoid.
I would say casual players are less likely to play the game in a structured manner. That means less likely to plan out builds in Mids, less likely to direct their playing activities towards specific goals over a sustained length of time, and less likely to be focused on pure performance. They are more likely to play for short term gratification (in terms of content or rewards) and more likely to play for shorter periods of time. However, I doubt many if any casual players strike every casual indicator precisely.
That's a relative definition, by the way, and deliberately so. I can judge whether player A is more casual a game player than player B. I cannot usually judge whether player A or player B is a "casual player" except in extreme cases. By most metrics I'm the very definition of someone that is not a casual player. However, in the specific case of my solo play, I often play as if I am.
One more thing: in keeping with the theme that "casual" refers to lots of different things, I think that there is a difference between a casual player in terms of gameplay and a casual player in terms of attitude. Those two are not synonymous nor are they directly linked: players can be one and not the other. Someone could, for example, take their own gameplay very casually. They could build informally, they could wander from mission to mission without specific goals, and they could only team under completely impromptu circumstances. And they could drop team because someone has too much knockback, think defenders are supposed to be healers, and demand speed boost regularly. They could, and I'm certain there are players that play casually but do not treat their fellow players casually.
In fact, I think a disproportionate number of "hard core" players have a surprisingly casual attitude towards other players. Having mastered all elements of the game, they almost never require such mastery from their fellow players, and will play and team under almost any circumstances other than the deliberately annoying.
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If you think you are casual you are not.
I have a purpled out Warshade... am I casual?
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Eh, I spend considerable time in game where I'm not even tabbed into the window. I'm not defending my own casualness/hardcoreness (I'm further to the latter than the former) but I'd consider anyone who treated the game "casually" -- as in without many goals, drive to be on top, avoiding market-madness, just happily futzing around -- to be a casual player.
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Originally Posted by LISAR
If you spend 20+ hours a week in game you're logged in too long to be casual, you may not be "hardcore" but you sure as hell aren't casual.
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Only if you deliberately misread what I wrote, because that mindset was exactly what I was describing.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
To say that casual players don't plan to make Incarnate progress is to say all players you want to define as casual players don't actually think to themselves "I want to log in my level 50 blaster and see if I can get on a sister psyche task force today." This is what you're disqualifying from being a casual player.
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I'd placed lowball bids for complete sets of Set IOs that make up the core in my builds in the Market 2 years ago that I just picked up and crafted last month, then stored them away for my future characters to use. So does being frugal and not pursuing instant gratification make me a "casual player"?
Teams are the number one killer of soloists.
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/disagree with all of this. No reason a "casual" player who's been around couldn't have several 50s, or that they'd not use IOs or the market. I don't think I'd be called "casual" in most respects, yet I have characters at 50 with all (or mostly) SO builds - and I don't really do much with the market at all other than dump stuff there. |
Originally Posted by Neuronia
Plays 4-6 hours a week.
No 50s. Uses single origin enhancements. Doesn't use IOs. Doesn't use market. |
It's probably easier to define "casual" subcategories as opposed to an overall "casual player." For instance, regardless of what ladyk thinks, I'd call myself an (upper side of) casual PVPer. I don't have PVP builds, I'm not part of a PVP supergroup or whatnot. I hop in on occasion, screw around a bit, and leave when I'm ready to. Or a "casual" badger is going to grab explore badges, maybe keep in mind they have to kill a bunch of X for Y badge, but isn't going to spend the entire time doing that, and certainly isn't going to set up "heal farms" or whatnot to leave running overnight for a week at a time.
A "casual" player could easily burn several hours in a day on TFs, because they hopped into the game, one was running, it sounded interesting and they joined, someone said "Why don't we run this next" and they hang around for it.
Now, if someone was sitting there with a spreadsheet planning out a way to get .00001 DPS more out of their build to solo pylons and GMs, I'd think we'd be comfortable putting that under "not casual."
"Casual" has to be lumped in with that definition for obscenity (or porn or whatever it is) - "Can't define it, but I know it when I see it."
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Makes you patient and smart in my book...
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Originally Posted by SerialBeggar
I'd placed lowball bids for complete sets of Set IOs that make up the core in my builds in the Market 2 years ago that I just picked up and crafted last month, then stored them away for my future characters to use. So does being frugal and not pursuing instant gratification make me a "casual player"?
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Except you didn't say much. What you said was:|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Only if you deliberately misread what I wrote, because that mindset was exactly what I was describing.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Well, yeah, but they don't exactly plan to pop in and make Incarnate progress (making Incarnate progress is just one of the things they're going to be doing when they hop in.) A casual player might hear about the WSTs, and "plan" to get in to play the WST, but they won't put much more effort into it than "LF WST Team".
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I'd argue the opposite. Instant gratification is what 'casual' players want. Being frugal means you care about your money supply and take it seriously.|
Originally Posted by SerialBeggar
So does being frugal and not pursuing instant gratification make me a "casual player"?
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Tangentially, I don't believe that anyone who posts on the forums is truly 'casual'. We come here because even when we're not playing we're still thinking and talking about the game.
(Casual in quote marks because Arcana makes a good point about degrees of casuality.)
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
Conflating casual with solo is grating on my nerves. I team almost exclusively and I consider myself to be casual, but without a definition, or a checklist, or something it is hard to say. I also think that there are several flavors of casual. Here are my attempts to try to form some guidelines. And start arguments, so feel free to state why you think I'm wrong. This is intended to be like a diagnosis checklist - one or two doesn't mean you're a casual player, just casual about some things, but around five or six, its almost assured.
1. Casual players don't invest much time - busy with life or whatever. play schedules from several hours once a month to an hour a day (More than an hour a day is hard to call casual to me. Less than 2 hours a month is hard to call a player... though I'm glad CoX is gettig the subscription revenue!)
2. Has less than 100 million influence on any given alt - casual with the market.
3. Doesn't have a badging character. Bonus point for not knowing what badging consists of as an activity.
4. Casual players don't run everything through Mids. Bonus point for not having Mids.
5. Casual players don't use purple IO sets. Bonus point for not using IO sets.
6. Casual players don't know how to get to the Shard. Or what the Shard is.
7. Casual players have fewer 50s than veteran's badges.
8. Casual players don't read the forums.
...I'm running out of diagnosis questions without going into PvP (I personally don't think there are casual PvPers, but I have a huge personal bias.)
Mostly i think casual is an attitude, the opposite of "no pain, no gain". A player who does only what they feel is fun and doesn't worry about min/maxing rewards by doing certain activities.
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60+ characters, 5 years, 3 50's.