Can we get a definition of casual?
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2011-02-25 10:02 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I said she said what I said she said was not what I said she said, she said what I said she said not what she said I said she didn't say.
If what I said what she said I said she said was not what I said she said, what she said I said she said was not what she said. But as I said, I said she said I said what I said she said I said she said I said. I don't see what the problem is, its pretty straight forward. |
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...Buffalo.
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Originally Posted by Bosstone
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
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Casual stops when you leave your toothbrush at my place.
If you have time to think about whether you are or are not casual, you're not casual.
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That reminds me, check your PM's.|
Originally Posted by PumBumbler
Casual stops when you leave your toothbrush at my place.
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(not really...)
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Only after I said repeatedly I would in response to other posts. I always give fair warning. And actually, the only post that was really moderated was the post where I answered your direct question asking whether I enjoyed crushing other players. Cinco de Modo has no sense of humor.|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
To be fair, Arcana has directly attacked me in the past (in ways that have been removed due to moderation), and I've likely responded in kind, so we probably don't immediately approach each others posts on the most positive of notes in the first place.
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| Also, I'm not sure "said" is a word any more. I think she broke it. |
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This is why I think there needs to be a distinction between "casual play" and "casual player".|
Originally Posted by TheLadyK
I do think that there is an amount of time where the approach to the game becomes no longer casual - even if your approach to gameplay and game goals still is. Purely from the fact that someone who is spending enough time in game to call it a part time job... I just can't justify calling that a casual interest in the game, no mater what they are doing. (That's some hardcore Atlas Park dancing, right there.) That isn't a casual hobby any more, that's a focus of your life. However, there is a lot of overlap, its possible to be a non casual, highly focused player on much less gameplay time than double digit hours a week.
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I know a lot of people for whom the game is a social and/or creative outlet. I wouldn't call them casual players (or, maybe more accurately, casual subscribers?). They are most certainly 100% focused on casual play, though.
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| You can casually hunt for badges, but I don't think you can casually have a badging toon. Having a toon for badges is a focused effort. (You can certainly be casual about the rest of the game, but if you have a badging toon, you're not a casual badger.) |
It comes down to demand for investment. If an activity doesn't demand much, it can be approached casually and will appeal to people who favor that approach. Most everything in City can be approached casually. I'd call that one of its strengths.
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| I don't think you can casually set out to experience all the Praetorian storyline either. |
I know a group of people who I would say are serious gamers, but with a somewhat casual approach to the games they play. They have multiple game nights, they coordinate their activities and have goals to achieve.
But, when it comes to any given game, their time investment is minimal. With City, for example, they log in once a week for a few hours, do X (such as, for example a Praetorian arc), then log out. That's it.
Is that casual? They could nod to most of your checklist, but do they really qualify?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
 Who's got two thumbs and just betrayed his best friend? This guy! |
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I think this is a very valid point. I'll point to my own comments earlier (no, not "she said she said,") - I don't think I'd be called an overall "casual player," but I'm definitely "casual" in a few pursuits and tend to approach the game "in a casual fashion" (I don't min/max, really work on uber builds or even most IO builds, etc.)
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Originally Posted by Hydrophidian
This is why I think there needs to be a distinction between "casual play" and "casual player".
I know a lot of people for whom the game is a social and/or creative outlet. I wouldn't call them casual players (or, maybe more accurately, casual subscribers?). They are most certainly 100% focused on casual play, though. |
It took a little longer, but casual is starting to lose its meaning too. If it ever had one in this context, anyway.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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I'm not sure I'd go that far. There's a group that I team with on a weekly basis. In fact, we have a specific day that we all play. But, if one or four of us can't make it, no big deal.|
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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Now, that doesn't mean that a few of us aren't semi-power gamers. I like to tweak the numbers on most of my characters. I just don't play the market to gain the funds to IO out my characters. It'll happen when it happens. Fun trumps grinding to number tweak, for me. I guess I'm a casual tweaker.
There I was between a rock and a hard place. Then I thought, "What am I doing on this side of the rock?"
We should have Rummified definitions here:
1. Casual play by Casual players - people who play and have no idea what happens in Pocket D on Virtue.
2. Hardcore play by Hardcore players - people who farm and ruin the market
3. Casual play by Hardcore players - people who hang out in Atlas Park and spam recruitment ads for sg slave farms
4. Hardcore play by Casual players - Leeroy Jenkins.
5. Unknown unknowns -the ones we don't know we don't know.
i'm pretty casually hardcore. i mean, i've only ever slotted one purple set even though i can afford them. Of course that might be related to the fact that i'm more likely to build around defense bonuses and +max end with only a moderate focus on +recharge and +rec, so to me purples aren't especially worth the price compared to lower cost sets. Sure, i don't get most of the set bonuses when exemped, but i don't find set bonuses as needed on the rather easy content at lower levels. Still, i'm obviously not hardcore hardcore since hardcore players slot every purple set their character can use, and i'd rather keep my build costs around a few billion and focus on special purpose IOs than purples, which is definitely not hardcore hardcore. So i consider myself to be more casual hardcore than hardcore hardcore and i'm definitely not extreme hardcore hardcore or i'd be more hardcore about it. (If people can use "said" in a hardcore manner then i can use "hardcore" in a casually hardcore hardcore manner. So my definition of casual is being less hardcore than the hardcore hardcore are hardcore. Is that hardcore enough for the hardcore?)
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We can all be casual or hardcore at any given time. In my humble opinion, it's more of a state of mind than anything.
Prior to my kids, I was pretty hardcore, often logging 25+ hours in a week. Life happened, kids change things and my gaming habits changed. While I still consider myself of a "Hardcore" mentality when I'm gaming (when I have my CM hat on, it's completely different 
), I definitely don't have the time to put in the Hardcore hours.
I still make a point to play the game, many games actually, and those rare occasions that I can get more than a few hours per sitting are pure bliss. That being said, I still look at things "with my gamer hat on" from a fairly hardcore viewpoint.
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I got a good laugh outta that one.
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
I have a purpled out Warshade... am I casual?
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Even when I choose to see things from a casual point of view, I cannot help but *also* see it from a hard core point of view. I can never "unsee" anything.|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
That being said, I still look at things "with my gamer hat on" from a fairly hardcore viewpoint.
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Of course, my version of hard core is not the same thing as most people's version of hard core, I don't think.
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| I still make a point to play the game, many games actually, and those rare occasions that I can get more than a few hours per sitting are pure bliss. |
The other is when I find myself on one of those teams that really honestly doesn't need me at all, and I can just play, without thinking, and just be there as my character flinging powers around in mostly a reactive manner. Nary a thought about numbers, mechanics, or anything else except shooting, buffing, and just inhabiting the character for a while. Its in times like that moreso than perhaps any other that this feels most like a game and I'm just another player in it. Those are probably the moments I enjoy the most, and it has nothing to do with being hardcore or casual. I'm not sure I would call that *either* hardcore or casual.
Well, if I'm soloing half the ITF on my MA/SR, that's pretty hardcore, but all the hardcore stuff happened before I logged in that day. In terms of what's going through my head, its kick, kick, punch, backflip, sweep, kick, kick, punch... In fact, you could say that ironically my hardcore build allows me to play a casual session, because I don't have to care as much about what I choose to attack or how. I'm going to live either way.
Portrait of an MA/SR Incarnate, having a relaxing stroll through a park.
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Being a "casual gamer" isn't a matter of how much time you spend in game or necessarily how much resources you have to toss around or even how much progress you've made. It's a matter of how seriously you take it/how much effort you put into it.
And remember that just as "business casual" is still business, a "casual gamer" is still a gamer.
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Good topic.
The term is overused. I've probably used it too much, myself -- but rarely in an affirmative, definitive sense, as though there were some monolithic group of people out there who could be unreservedly characterized as casual.
Casual is more useful as a negation -- as in, "You're planning to have five purple sets? Not exactly a casual build there, is it?" Casual is like average, in its colloquial form. You can make a reasonable judgment that someone is average at a particular task or in a particular way, but any statement that someone is flat-out average is understood to be a subjective characterization. (And probably not a flattering one, but that's neither here nor there.)
It's easier to judge whether something is not average or casual than it is to figure out what is.
It's funny, for a couple of years there, I was mostly a solo player, the lone inhabitant of a long-dead SG. (A lot of people come and go over the course of seven years.) My primary interest in the game was in crafting builds, and as a result I probably spent more time out of game messing around with Mids and attack chains and whatnot than I did in the game. When I did log in to play the game, it was almost always with a specific purpose in mind -- to test something, to level a particular build, to earn money for a particular build, etc.
Then about three months ago, I joined a new SG basically at a whim -- got an out-of-the-blue invite while I was standing at the Black Market on my new, exhaustively (some might say feverishly) planned-out Dominator. In a matter of days, my play habits changed dramatically. Turns out, my new SG is full of good people whose company I enjoy. So now I'm playing more often, almost exclusively in teams, and I almost never have any idea what I'm going to be doing when I log on, or even with which build I'm going to be doing it.
I haven't lost the semi-OCD interest in game mechanics, but now I indulge it far less frequently, and when I do, it's usually only to help an SG-mate with a build. (And as an aside, I'm struck once again by how little some players care about the forums or game mechanics. I'm also struck by how good some players can be even without having a really solid grasp of the mechanics.)
Apologies for the long and rather self-indulgent story. Anyway, the point is that my play schedule used to be much more casual, probably very casual by the standard of many posters on this forum. Nowadays, my mindset is way more casual than it used to be. Depending on who you talk to, and what they're talking about, I could easily be considered a casual player or a hardcore player.
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That's a very good point. I've never thought of it that way. FWIW, I judge my own builds in large part with respect to how little they require me to care about how well my team plays.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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I have 2 50's, one of which I am slowly purpling out. I play *maybe* 4-6 hours a week, generally at most 2 hours a sitting due to the marvelous ability of being able to get distracted/bored easily.
I have been though (in the past) very hardcore playing, racking up about 40+hours a week for the 1st few months of the game life in the EU (still only 1 at level 50 as I generally tend to be a single character player).
I would probably call myself casual, especially after coming back to the game in September last year. I have probably managed about 80 hours in game since then?
About the most I've been able to decide about Casual vs Hardcore is that it's not a single line with "Casual" on one end and "Hardcore" on the other and most people in between. The initial metric of investment into the game may already be skewed in that we're already playing this game, which requires a monthly subscription and enough tech knowledge to install and play. (Which differentiates it from, say, a browser game.)
The term which really made me think was "casual raider". Which seems like a contradiction at first, since by the time you're raiding (Mothership or Hamidon, although I heard it first with regards to the Hamidon), I'm not sure you could be said to be "casual"... except I think the term does describe an existing type of player, who joins in these raids only occasionally, without a mind towards regularly pumping every advantage they can from its rewards. The Hamidon Origin might be useful for them, and it's a nice reward that they appreciate, but they don't think about HO-ing out their build (or at least IOs supplemented by HOs) in the most efficient way possible.
And yet, efficiency might not be the determining factor either, since we also have "casual RP" and "casual socializing", which are different things: costume contests might fit the latter without fitting the former, for instance. Having a "casual X" term for a given activity implies a "hardcore X", which may or may not actually exist due to demographics, but is at least plausible and reasonable.
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I'm inclined to agree with this.|
Originally Posted by Hydrophidian
To me, casual is less about investment of time and more about investment of focus.
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Based off of time, I can't really be considered a "casual" player. I've Been subscribed for over five years and have logged a few thousand hours. I have over a dozen 50s, and have planned builds in Mids for all of them. I have two accounts (financially I can't be considered casual either...).
But I do consider myself a low-impact player. I'll craft and sell on the market, but I don't seek out niches on the market or attempt to flip (but probably have 5B spread among characters anyway). I'm not part of an active SG. I don't obsess over badges. I can't run at +4x8 (or even 0x8). I can't solo pylons, or AVs, or TFs. I don't stealth objectives or run arcs/tips for speed. I have Incarnates, but have only participated in two WST (and no other TF that drop components).
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Casual players do not care about the definition of "casual player."
Well, I never really dress up to play. I really hate wearing neckties.
Oh wait...
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This always confuses me. Just carry one with you. You can always find toothpaste.
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Originally Posted by PumBumbler
Casual stops when you leave your toothbrush at my place.
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Enjoy your day please.
My own approach and attitude is, in a broad sense, definitely casual. If it feels like grinding to me, I stop doing it. I'm pretty laid back about obtaining the shiny stuff: I'll get it when I get it. My characters are not performance-driven, my play style not very goal-oriented. I much prefer loose/experimental gameplay over structured teaming. Until recently, I averaged only one 50 a year. Only three of the 50s I have are "tricked out", and it's taken me literally years to get around to getting them that way.
But I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a casual player.
This is because, at any given time, I am deeply vested in some aspect of the experience. It might not even be something in-game (like my game-related audio projects), but, whatever it is, it's taking up a lot of my free focus and attention (which usually means a lot of my free time as well).
I greatly value this game and the entertainment/inspiration/diversion/escape/exploration/community it's provided for me. I've been very dedicated to it for almost seven years now.
Yet, despite the fact that I am by no measure a casual player, one of this game's fundamental draws for me has been its accommodation of casual play...
- I don't have to worry about focusing all my time on one or two characters in order to participate.
- Almost any character I create is going to have some capacity to solo.
- Almost any character I create will contribute something useful to a team, and generally won't be excluded simply because they're not built just so.
- I can goof around with a dizzying variety of concepts. There is no inherent pressure in the game design to specialize in a particular niche. Due to the sheer number of possible alts you can play, it actually encourages a generalist approach. I'm very fond of that because, although I strongly favor support types, I do like to dabble in everything.
- Shiny stuff isn't a requirement. It's nice, but I don't need it. I still have some 50s with SOs, others with common IOs. They work fine, they contribute, they're still fun to play. They do not feel superfluous on a team (a feeling I particularly dislike).
- I can throw a team together composed of just about any mix of anything and be relatively certain that there's a way to make the dynamic workable and successful (yes, there are exceptions to this rule, but they are few and far between, and tend to only need one of two components in the mix). I don't have to spend a lot of time constructing the optimal team configuration, and everyone can play what they want.
- I can completely ignore the market, if I wish to do so.
- I can delve into various aspects of the game (base building, MA, badging, marketing, PVP) and then put them aside again at will. None of these things require a "lock" on my time and commitment to have fun with them.
- People do not have to be thoroughly versed in the nuances of game mechanics to play. It certainly helps, but they can get by without it. This makes bringing friends in much easier. Especially if they're casual. They can just log in and go.
- I can log in for all of a dozen hours over the course of a few months and not worry about falling way behind on the curve by doing so. This affords me the luxury of doing other game/community-oriented things: writing, art, audio, website design, social participation, and so on, without concern that my characters will be screwed. I can have practically zero investment in gameplay, yet maintain a deep investment in the game. That keeps me paying the subscription, and I don't think there's anything out there that accomplishes this as well as City does.
So. I'm not a casual player, no. But most of my play is very casual and I like it that way.The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
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