Hardcore is not a dirty word

Depends I might be working on a thread about the lack of investment in the game and put it up before the weekend *will be busy with my brothers wedding at the start of the month*

I think it will be a bit of a hot-button issue as it deals with the "Casual vs Hardcore" people alot.

Lol, who cares about hardcore or casual? Stop whining, go play a different game if it's too "casual" for you.

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Originally Posted by DoctorMog

Why does everyone assume the whole game has to be either casual or hard core?

Why cant it be casual with a bit of harder content?

Am I asking too much here?

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World of Warcraft is just like that and it so happens to be the biggest MMORPG out there. Coincidence?

Hardcores have their Hard-mode 25 mans, casuals have their heroic dungeons and for the inbetweens there are 10-man raids.

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Originally Posted by EmeraldHill

World of Warcraft is just like that and it so happens to be the biggest MMORPG out there. Coincidence?

Hardcores have their Hard-mode 25 mans, casuals have their heroic dungeons and for the inbetweens there are 10-man raids.

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Actually 10-man raids are harder than 25. 25 mans can take a few deaths and not be greatly affected by it, in 10 man losing 1 or 2 people could easily make the fight impossible.

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Originally Posted by Konachibi

Actually 10-man raids are harder than 25. 25 mans can take a few deaths and not be greatly affected by it, in 10 man losing 1 or 2 people could easily make the fight impossible.

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The coordination needed to make sure 25 idiots don't mess up is pretty intense though.

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Originally Posted by EmeraldHill

The coordination needed to make sure 25 idiots don't mess up is pretty intense though.

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True but co-ordinating 10 people to never make a mistake is surprisingly harder than 25 people. In 25-man people who have no clue tend follow around people who know what they're doing, this way they avoid standing where they shouldn't and that saves their life and everyone elses. In 10 man the group is spread out thin and when one makes a mistake everyone pays for it because the loss of a healer, good dps or tank often proves fatal.

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Originally Posted by Pandastirfry

And I would say that from a design stand point everything you mentioned is not "hard core" but poor design. Basically, I can spend several hours in game just playing around in Ul'dah making my LS mates laugh by dancing in my skivvies. I did this the other night for 7 hours, is that "hard core" I put in a lot of time and effort making my friends laugh and it was rewarding too, It took me 3 hours to rank my lancer from 6 to 15, grinding the crap out of dodo's solo, I guess that was just casual. Time spent doing something does not make something hard core...it is just time you will never get back that you could have been doing something actually fun.

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Hardcore might mean different things in different situations, but we're talking about video games, and in particular MMOs. The term "hardcore" in video games may refer to complexity, but MMOs aren't particularly complex. Therefore, the greatest distinction you can make is time commitment since that's the main deciding factor between the "good" players and the "bad."

Hardcore players want valuable things that take a lot of time to complete as a means to separate and distinguish themselves from those who don't play as much (but also so they don't get bored, having breezed through all the content there is to offer).

Casual players want to make progress with limited log in times in mind. Guildleves were designed for casual players. There's only a limited amount you can get in a 36 hour period, they offer greater rewards than you'd get from grinding in the same amount of time, and in case of battle and field leves they make it easy to locate your objectives.

Hardcore players can breeze through guildleves too, but they can spend the rest of the time grinding if they want to make more progress before the next 36 hour window arrives.

Hardcore for me implies immense skill necessary not time sink. Monster Hunter is a hardcore game- if you dont do everything predicatively and within a second you will die, even then you can if you dont have someone watching your back.

FFXI had a lot of time sinks. Killing anything with a standard party was pretty easy (lets not get started on level grinding especially after AU) , 12 manning with a good group was easy for just about anything. FFXI was hardcore if you played it in low man groups or with random setups. The things that made XI stand out were the party emphasis, music and a dangerous world(everyone remembers the walk to jueno the first time).

So i guess for me the ideal balance is hardcore immense difficulty = faster but casual easy = longer grind.

ps more people=more difficult stops for me after about 12 because more than that with loot distribution becomes polisci 101 more than skill and cooperation.

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Originally Posted by AmyRae

The term "hardcore" in video games may refer to complexity, but MMOs aren't particularly complex.

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maybe not the MMOs you've played, but i sure have played, and are still playing, one mmo that is quite complex.

What is your definition of hardcore? Making things take a long time? Huge time sinks do not make a video game hardcore or challenging. It just makes it tedious.

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Originally Posted by Aenarion

maybe not the MMOs you've played, but i sure have played, and are still playing, one mmo that is quite complex.

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Don't mistake the term complexity for difficulty. The rules to chess aren't complex at all. It doesn't mean you'll beat Kasparov on your first go. MMOs aren't very complex, either. It doesn't mean you can do everything with ease, but it's not rocket science. The concepts are simple enough most anyone can understand.

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Originally Posted by AmyRae

Don't mistake the term complexity for difficulty. The rules to chess aren't complex at all. It doesn't mean you'll beat Kasparov on your first go. MMOs aren't very complex, either. It doesn't mean you can do everything with ease, but it's not rocket science. The concepts are simple enough most anyone can understand.

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wait, are you seriously categorically denying the existence of complex MMOs?

Generally, true complexity in an mmorpg is a symptom of poor design. Usually characteristic of over abundance of stat/menu screens, lengthy processes to accomplish relatively simple ends, this is a failing on a developers part.

MMORPG concepts are supposed to be easy to understand and pick up, but demanding to master. I think the game is in a pretty good space with this atm. XI is filling the niche that want to spend all day waiting for a party because a single tiny river crab will kick your ass if you attempt it alone. XIV is clearly supposed to be (and at its best as) a hybrid casual/hardcore mix. I'd hate to give up following the storys of the game, and leave a world I enjoy being a part of because my job or school prevented me jumping on for some casual based progress.

It's not an underhanded or cheap thing to try and appeal to a larger playerbase. It's in no way greedy or simply money grubbing, it's attempting to allow as many people as possible be a part of the world you've created.

People are playing for a lot of reasons, lore, roleplay, hardcores, casuals. They all want to be a part of Eorzea, it's not really fair to shift the nature of the entire world to better accommodate just a fraction of the playerbase.

I understand what you're wanting from the game, but you know as well as I that in time, SE will give you all the hard grindan, low drop rating, hardcore content you could want, Because the hardcore are a valued and essential part of the communities makeup, No reason to deny the other demographics their time and fun here.

xello, didn't you get the memo? no reasonable posts and level-headed thinking allowed in here

Ah, The Hardcore Vs Casual debate again, this was the topic 3 months ago and i see its back up again.

Anyway, my version of Hardcore is as follows.. and time is really a factor.
-Skills(knowing their jobs) - gained by spending time in game for the purpose of factoring which skills would give the best result. Building a "strategy set" which could be set of skills or set of gears for certain situation.

-Adaptation(strategy for various situation) - Learning from various different situation, taking risk in fights sacrificing reward for knowledge, trying new strategy to get the best way to defeat a target.

-Preparation(planning things in detail) - Choosing a strategy and sticking by it without changing it in the middle because someone needed to get "win" or certain "chest" or wanna auto follow. Spending whatever time they have in game efficiently without fooling around or changing plans mid way.

-Patience(things come for those who put effort and time) - You cant have everything you want right away, if this is the case, the game would be over in matter of month because everyone has everything. Better item should come from events that are difficult and not "do it once and get the ultimate sword of destruction on the first day"

hardcore/casual does not mean time, but how they spend their time in game. 1) they talk with ls do few leves/have fun and maybe repeat this routine often, 2)they sit, trying to see what skills would generate more hate and what gears should i have it during certain tanking", and make macros, next day, test it out on mobs to if they working as intended. Both could have the same playtime but their activities are different.

Even in FFXIV casuals depend on Hardcores to give them strategy on how to do stuff, look at how the forums were during Dzmael Darkhold release. Players got strategy from those players who spend time to do trial and error(sacrificing their rewards and time) for others so others can also get the item. Even FFXIV fan sites gets updated mainly by Hardcore who spend time formulating strategies and crunching numbers.

There are bad players on both sides but imo hardcore mainly means players that are trying to get the max potential out of a game, then there are few of those who leech off and complain.

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Originally Posted by Aenarion

wait, are you seriously categorically denying the existence of complex MMOs?

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MMOs can have complexity, but they aren't complex to play. It's not like, say, a fighting game where there are a hundred different combos for your character that have to be performed with exact timing.

Fighting in FFXIV is not complex at all by comparison, especially if you divide up the activities into distinct roles. If you're a tank, wear lots of armor and try to get the mobs to fight you. If you're a healer, cast the cure spells on the wounded guy. What's so complex about that?

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Originally Posted by AmyRae

MMOs can have complexity, but they aren't complex to play. It's not like, say, a fighting game where there are a hundred different combos for your character that have to be performed with exact timing.

Fighting in FFXIV is not complex at all by comparison, especially if you divide up the activities into distinct roles. If you're a tank, wear lots of armor and try to get the mobs to fight you. If you're a healer, cast the cure spells on the wounded guy. What's so complex about that?

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It's not, but then again I wasn't referring to FFXIV :P

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Originally Posted by Aenarion

It's not, but then again I wasn't referring to FFXIV :P

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Then why won't you mention the title? Or is it the MMO you play in your mind?

I feel the idea that FFXI was so "Hardcore" is actually wrong. I found it to be quite "Casual Friendly". Let me try to explain.

I played XI off & on for about 6 years. I leveled several jobs, I completed almost all of the sidequests from every city/area, I completed RoZ, CoP and about half of ToAU & WoG before I quit for good. I never did any so called "EndGame" content mostly because I was in no rush to do so (and it required more time than I was willing or could invest).

I enjoyed all of the game content (minus endgame) at my own leisure. In XI's hey day, I could log on any evening and/or weekend and always find a grind party or LS friends to do missions with or a friend or 2 to do some quests or just Duo/Trio for a bit (Usually involved farming for something, skilling up or just having fun) or I would Hunt NM's and try to solo them, or I would solo farm to make some gil, or even do a little cooking.

There was always plenty of things to do and I did most of it and enjoyed all of it (except douchie players), but it took me years to get to where I was. Now I realize some would say I was a hardcore player for sticking with it so long and for trying to do all of the content, but the game allowed me to play extremely casually and eventually I did the same content everyone else did (and would have done it all if I had played longer).

XI was never "Hardcore" except to those that wanted to grind to "EndGame" as fast as possible. Then when populations began to decrease, it did become harder to find a Grind PT, and harder to do Missions/quests outside of friendly LS's and so SE changed the grind to be much easier since only the "Hardcores" were still playing (rushing new jobs to endgame).

I need to hurry up and make my point here (if I even have one).

I think it is this: XI was always both Casual and Hardcore depending how you played.

XIV is also both Casual & Hardcore depending how you play but in XIV, there was and still is not enough to do to make either playstyle happy. No Endgame for the hardcore grinders and no real adventure for the Casuals.

Hopefully SE will continue to add more content that Hardcores can burn through and Casuals can take their time on. We will all arrive at the same destination, it's just that some folks teleport there and others take a Chocobo (some even walk).

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Originally Posted by AmyRae

Then why won't you mention the title? Or is it the MMO you play in your mind?

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Eve Online

this is old, but still very much holds true today:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...rningcurve.jpg

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Originally Posted by Aenarion

Eve Online

this is old, but still very much holds true today:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...rningcurve.jpg

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Hehe, i love the Eve Online learning cliff picture, it's so true! XD

Except shouldnt that bulldozer be pushing the bodies back to the bottom?

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Originally Posted by Bled

Ever play FF11?

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"timesink" != "hardcore"