I'm going to rephrase this question, see the following.

Which in game mechanics and/or metrics do you think CCP should use to define "Casual" and "Hardcore" such that the most rewarding and long lasting play experience in Dust 514 is promoted?

The key to this is finding traceable elements within the game that can be used by CCP to identify "Casual" and "Hardcore".

Post back with your sense of what they should be and why. Please be detailed.

Cheers,
Cross

A casual player seems like someone who'll play every once in a while, mainly in high sec but goes into lower systems for the thrill.

As for hardcore, i can't explain it without it becoming about people who grind all day, every day

No those are the no lifers, hardcore is what i think the 2nd guy who posted is, because i play even less then that (4-5 hrs) and i consider myself HC LOL, or maybe apparently not? I think it also depends on how good you are on a particular game in conjunction with how many hrs you put into it. I'd say casual is more like 1-2hrs a day tbh.. because there never that good lol. But alot of things determine it, including persistence, etc..

Interesting question. I play 5 to 6 hours a day, between work, wife, beer, eating, beer. I'd consider myself casual, I never hit the SP Cap.

That would be 40 hours a week which would make it the same as a full-time job. Sorry, but there's no way that's casual. I'm surprised that you haven't hit the cap yet, I only play 1-2 hours a day and I was approaching the cap by the end of the first week of the new build. I've never hit 0 but 1000 SP for killing 10 people sounds pretty close to the cap.

It's not about how many hours someone plays. There are people that play Bejewelled or Angry Birds for hours every day. That doesn't mean they're not still casual.

It's more about the amount of depth and complexity someone wants from a game I think.

The following topics were discussed by the dev team this week regarding gameplay issues in the beta:

Casual vs. Hardcore players in DUST 514

Player concern on how will casual players be able to keep up with hardcore players who might spend more time playing and gaining an advantage in SP and ISK.

Planned resolutions
- A revamped reward system will narrow the gap between casual and hardcore players
- Match Making system (introduced soon) will help put players into fair matches
- Dropsuit HP will be more consistant to avoid some becoming overpowered

I would personally put the divider somewhere around the 5-7 hours a week mark. I play around 4 or 5 hours a week and would consider myself right close to the edge of being a "hardcore" player.

Hmm. Casual/Hardcore=how important is playing games to you when you have free time? I'm playing Borderlands 2, DUST and XCOM right now. I think many would consider this hardcore. But at the same time I play much less than other players because I work 48-60 hrs per week. If I had more time I would definately play more. To me casual doesn't necessarily mean playing less.

I'd agree generally however that's not something which could actually be balanced around. And what with CCP specifically stating that it's a balance consideration I figured time played as one of the only traceable metrics which could be used.

Hence why I'm trying to get feedback regarding how many hours per week in Dust 514 it would take to be considered "Hardcore" as opposed to "Casual".

I suppose I'm asking "what's hardcore vs casual play within Dust 514" as opposed to "what makes a Hardcore vs Casual gamer" because the latter doesn't pertain so directly to game balance.

Thanks for the response
Cross

Casual: A player that does not care about about winning or losing, he is just there to have a good time.

Competitive/ hardcore player: A player who wants to win at all costs.

Casual: you play dust

Hardcore: dust plays you

Hardcore, a person looking to make a lasting impression on new eden, whether it's defying massive alliances or becoming uber rich through persistence, hardwork, and good leadership.

Seem about right?

Casual: A player that does not care about about winning or losing, he is just there to have a good time.

Competitive/ hardcore player: A player who wants to win at all costs.

Pretty much.

Casual: "Weekend Warrior" - 8 to 24 hour a week gamer (typically on their weekend, when they don't have anything better to do).
Casual: "The Hobbyist" - 4 to 12 hour a week gamer.
Casual: "The Occasional" - ??? hours a week (Dust 514? Yeah I'm in that beta. No, I haven't played any matches yet this week.)

Hardcore: "The College Student" - 20 to 30 hour a week gamer (whenver they can fit it in and they don't have anything better to do)
Hardcore: "The Professional" - 40 hours a week gamer.
Hardcore: "The No Lifer" - 80 hours a week gamer

Pretty much.

Casual: "Weekend Warrior" - 8 to 24 hour a week gamer (typically on their weekend, when they don't have anything better to do).
Casual: "The Hobbyist" - 4 to 12 hour a week gamer.
Casual: "The Occasional" - ??? hours a week (Dust 514? Yeah I'm in that beta. No, I haven't played any matches yet this week.)

Hardcore: "The College Student" - 20 to 30 hour a week gamer (whenver they can fit it in and they don't have anything better to do)
Hardcore: "The Professional" - 40 hours a week gamer.
Hardcore: "The No Lifer" - 80 hours a week gamer

Pretty much.

Casual: "Weekend Warrior" - 8 to 24 hour a week gamer (typically on their weekend, when they don't have anything better to do).
Casual: "The Hobbyist" - 4 to 12 hour a week gamer.
Casual: "The Occasional" - ??? hours a week (Dust 514? Yeah I'm in that beta. No, I haven't played any matches yet this week.)

Hardcore: "The College Student" - 20 to 30 hour a week gamer (whenver they can fit it in and they don't have anything better to do)
Hardcore: "The Professional" - 40 hours a week gamer.
Hardcore: "The No Lifer" - 80 hours a week gamer

Pretty much.

Casual: "Weekend Warrior" - 8 to 24 hour a week gamer (typically on their weekend, when they don't have anything better to do).
Casual: "The Hobbyist" - 4 to 12 hour a week gamer.
Casual: "The Occasional" - ??? hours a week (Dust 514? Yeah I'm in that beta. No, I haven't played any matches yet this week.)

Hardcore: "The College Student" - 20 to 30 hour a week gamer (whenver they can fit it in and they don't have anything better to do)
Hardcore: "The Professional" - 40 hours a week gamer.
Hardcore: "The No Lifer" - 80 hours a week gamer

Pretty much.

Casual: "Weekend Warrior" - 8 to 24 hour a week gamer (typically on their weekend, when they don't have anything better to do).
Casual: "The Hobbyist" - 4 to 12 hour a week gamer.
Casual: "The Occasional" - ??? hours a week (Dust 514? Yeah I'm in that beta. No, I haven't played any matches yet this week.)

Hardcore: "The College Student" - 20 to 30 hour a week gamer (whenver they can fit it in and they don't have anything better to do)
Hardcore: "The Professional" - 40 hours a week gamer.
Hardcore: "The No Lifer" - 80 hours a week gamer

Nicely done. I'm in the group Hardcore: "The College Student".

Interesting question. I play 5 to 6 hours a day, between work, wife, beer, eating, beer. I'd consider myself casual, I never hit the SP Cap.

Pretty much.

Casual: "Weekend Warrior" - 8 to 24 hour a week gamer (typically on their weekend, when they don't have anything better to do).
Casual: "The Hobbyist" - 4 to 12 hour a week gamer.
Casual: "The Occasional" - ??? hours a week (Dust 514? Yeah I'm in that beta. No, I haven't played any matches yet this week.)

Hardcore: "The College Student" - 20 to 30 hour a week gamer (whenver they can fit it in and they don't have anything better to do)
Hardcore: "The Professional" - 40 hours a week gamer.
Hardcore: "The No Lifer" - 80 hours a week gamer

Here's my opinion. It's all about the mindset.

Casual: Play to have fun. If it's not fun anymore, stop playing. Winning is nice, personal/corp stats are nice, but not the primary focus of the casual player. Most people in almost every game fall into this category.

Hardcore: Win at all costs. Win for personal stats, win for corp stats, win every metric you can think of. A side effect of this is that they're typically more driven to play more so that's what happens. You can still be hardcore and only play 5 hours/week, it's all in how you play and where your focus is when you do play.

Casual: A player that does not care about about winning or losing, he is just there to have a good time.

Competitive/ hardcore player: A player who wants to win at all costs.

Ok, let me get ready for this, it's going to be a big one!


LOLLL!!!!!!! 5-7hrs a week and you consider yourself a HC player!?!? I play that nearly every 2days and even i don't consider myself "HC", and people think i'm the troll....................

Nah - I am casual but when I play I still like to compete and I still hate loosing.

In my younger mmo days I was certainly hardcore - I was logged into my game 24/7 and was active 16-18 hours, and that included at work... (which is bad btw). I would camp for up to 24 hours for a boss spawn. I kept this up for three years in one game - ******* Korean grinder stole my life. Following that I played Eve and the SWG to the same extent.

I think I have balance now and I play 3-4 hours a day, more on weekends.

enhanced matchmaking my arse, will it scan and read every players skills and possible permutations for every possible possition that player might play and pit them against an equal and opposite team? NO you **** off then dont try.

Your Wife allows that much........beer?

you lucky Sod!

To my knowledge CCP has released no details regarding the mechanics of how this system will function. As such I'm avoiding assumptions as much as possible, but it seems like at minimum it would require an assessment of total skill points earned, and likely W/L ratio as well.

To reiterate however, there are no details released on this system.
A system is indeed planned however and as such should not simply be ignored.
Pretending an aspect of the game does not/will never exist only leads to bad balance feedback and less useful beta testing.

Cross

ps ~ even an advanced system really shouldn't scan every possible permutation of skill build, making sure players have generally the same level of development to work with is great, trying to hand hold them into not needing to learn anything about the game/not being able to make any mistakes? That's just bad game design as far as I can see.

tell that to me when there 2 fully skilled fully kitted tanks on the other team and zero av on mine GG CCP. if your going to make such an unique game follow it through ffs.

ccp have so far used the packaged respawn mechanics, the ones where epic take the **** out of developers that buy the engine/kit by spawning people in the opposite base, at least till they work it out. my next logical guess is that they use the crap matchmaking too.

and enhanced matchmaking (still a work in progress currently).

For game balance what is the proper number of hours per week for Dust 514 to balance around?
With the intent of balance being;
A) Providing a rewarding play experience for a diverse group of playstyles
B) Not having "casual" gamers be totally outpaced to the point of losing a reason for playing.

3-4 hours a day isn't hardcore?

So, if a guy told you he played softball EVERYDAY from 5pm until dusk, you wouldn't think he was a hardcore softball player?

How about a guy that gets up and works out at the gym every day from 4 am to 8 am? He's not "hardcore" into working out?

You guys are so funny.

I guess if I hadn't got the experience of a true no lifer (of which I am less than proud) I might have thought it was hardcore - but no 3-4 hours isn't hardcore. After work if I wasn't gaming I would probably just watch TV for 3-4 hours and I assume you wouldn't consider that hardcore ?

Gaming is not exactly physical so I do not think you can equate it to going to the gym.

7 hours a week is definitely casual. Not sure where to draw the line between casual, semi-casual, and hardcore though

Good list, I fall into the weekend warrior.

I think mindset has to be in conjunction with time spent playing though. When I'm playing, I'm all about the win. Also Dust is the only game I'm playing right now. I don't have a ton of time to play so when I find a game that I like I devote all my gaming time to it.

I think I have the hardcore mindset but I don't have the time available to be considered hard core. Does that make me casual?

I would steer away from absolute numbers and suggest that a percentage of free time would be a more accurate measure of gameplay dedication.

If a person has a job, family and other obligations he may have only a few free hours a week. If he devotes all of those to a game I would argue he is "Hardcore".

That's why the term "Hardcore" is next to useless for this purpose.


I also believe that the casual/hardcore debate is a red herring.

As as been pointed out multiple times, once you max out a given role's skills you are the equal of any other player in that role regardless of total SP.

It's really all about limiting how soon anyone can top out every skill. CCP doesn't want that to happen for seven years, so it becomes a simple calculation. Subtract seven years of passive SP gain from the total SP count of all skills projected to be in place at that time and divide by (52 x7) and you arrive at your weekly cap.

They have you arguing amongst yourselves with the casual vs hardcore distraction.


Edited my arithmetic

Do you have a second to grab us skill details from the market for our debate then? Total cost of maxing a x1 skill & a total of how many skills are x1, x2, etc... would give me something to do while I'm not working at work.

Can't get to that right now, but it would be an interesting exercise. Keep in mind that we probably don't have anywhere near the number of skills that will exist in seven years so the number would come out low if not negative.

You could reverse that using the existing cap to calculate the projected skill tree cost.

Casual<>Hardcore<>No Lifer

I think you have an extremely unrealistic idea of what the average casual gamer invests in gaming.

To me, a casual player is the guy who plays a few hours of games a week. Maybe Saturday afternoon he flips on his PS3 and kills an hour or two casually burning some time on whatever game he feels like messing around on.

A "hardcore" gamer, is someone who invests free time to try and achieve specific results in specific games. For a hardcore gamer, the gaming is an actual hobby rather than simply a time waster. A hardcore gamer is usually actively playing multiple games. So even if they are spending 3 hours or more every night gaming, it's unlikely they're gonna rack up all of that time on a single game.

I personally probably spend 10-20 hours per week gaming. Ask any casual or non-gamer if that's "hardcore" and I'd wager they will answer in the affirmative.

What YOU are, is closer to a "no lifer", which is basically someone who devotes as much time to a single game as many people devote to an actual job. 20+ hours a week, every week, on a single game is well beyond your run of the mill hardcore gamer, especially assuming you don't just play Dust 514.

Ok, so I'm aware of what the terms mean generally, but when we speak of Dust 514 specifically what defines a "casual" player? Where's the line which pushes someone into "hardcore" territory?

I'm interested in player base sentiments on this (yes that means you unless you can't resist trolling ).
I'd also love to hear how CCP is defining this.


The current Skill Point system is in part presented as a balance for Casual players so they are not outstripped by Hardcore players, but who's who?

If you play 7 hours of Dust in a week (counting all time from game client boot up, till game client shutdown as "play time" for this example) does that make you a "casual" or a "hardcore" player? (also please include a "why" here, detailed feedback > vague/general proclamations)

As an 05 Eve player I have experienced all types and here's my .02 ...

Casual Player - Logs on whenever real life permits. Usually a couple of hours a day/night and varies on days off from work. Though competitive, plays solely for fun. Doesn't get emotional and could care less about the politics and "bullcrap" of it all. If he/she joins a corp its usually to have people to play with and or access to better space, etc. Will either be an older person with a real life, a student heavy into their studies, or an Eve vet who's seen it all, done it all, and smart enough to play the game on their own terms and still be very successful...

Hardcore Player - Logs on at every given opportunity. If doesn't have the time will make the time. The game will sometimes supersede real life depending on the importance of the situation. His/her stats are very important. Will use real money to buy lots of aurum, will look for every advantage possible. Uses words like "pro" and "leet". Winning and losing have an emotional effect, sometimes severe (rage). Is very much into the politics and the "who's who". Will either be a teenager, early twenties, or an older person with no life. Sometimes also called a "Dork".

Thanks to everyone who's responded thus far :)

I'd like to reiterate that I'm seeking definitions for within Dust 514 and measured in traceable in game metrics.

Since CCP has stated that balance between "hardcore" & "casual" is a concern I am interested to see what the player base sees those terms to be within D514 in a tangible context which could actually be relevant to in game balance.

Cheers :)
Cross

Thanks to everyone who's responded thus far :)

I'd like to reiterate that I'm seeking definitions for within Dust 514 and measured in traceable in game metrics.

Since CCP has stated that balance between "hardcore" & "casual" is a concern I am interested to see what the player base sees those terms to be within D514 in a tangible context which could actually be relevant to in game balance.

Cheers :)
Cross

"Casual players are the ones who are happy playing the easier content."

uh....

"casual players are the ones who can't play the hardcore version"


hell they can't even play THIS version of a beta.

the easiest of em all.

then again, they couldn't play mag... or bf3... or bc2... or bc1.

oh, wait i see a pattern.

Peace
B

I'm not convinced I support the binary division of the player base (casual/hard-core), but I'll have a bash anyway.

The simplest metric I can think of is to create content with different levels of "hardness", balancing rewards to the difficulty level. Hardcore players will be the ones who only play the hardest content. Casual players are the ones who are happy playing the easier content.

Right now the beta only has one level of content, with essentially a random hardness level because it depends on who you spawn against.

Expecting a game to be able to balance things so that casual and hardcore players can both be happy playing the same content is a bit unrealistic, imho.

What would "easier" content would look like?

For PvE (against drones, for example), difficulty is easy to assign. Do the drones have 100, 500 or 2000 points of armour?

For PvP it will be harder, but not impossible. Having battles with lower ISK/SP rewards and with certain modules & weapons banned would be a start. Matchmaking algorithms incorporating K/D ratios, etc. might also help.