At this point in the game, "rushing" is not a valid argument.

[Shirai]

I can post 3 things out of that list that apply to me.
Am I bothered by this? Not at all, I just find it amusing that there are people on both sides of the scope that consider being a casual player is something vile and horrendous.

[Energy2k8]

I am really casual, play about 10 hours a week since early access and my highest level is a lvl34 WHM. I also did some gathering and crafting and helped my friends do some lower level dungeons. I am really curious what casual means according to the OP.....

[Heartstopper]

I call total bullshit on the OP's timeframe.

[Zfz]

The word "casual" is very loaded with meanings; I think mostly it can refer to two aspects of how one play games.

#1. Time.

A casual player in terms of time is someone who don't spend a lot of time on the game. So say 10 hours a week, maybe even less. I feel that if you approach 20 hours a week you are no longer casual.

#2. Commitment.

You may be playing 10 hours a week, but in that 10 hours you play according to the most efficient routines, you pre-plan for the maximum benefit. You will not leave your chair for that 10 hours and you actually have this game time as part of your schedule that you set aside so nobody interferes with you. This is not casual.

Casual in terms of commitment means you would log out if you feel the weather is nice and you get on your bike for a nice ride. You are not seriously committed in the game, you are casual.

--

A lot of people define casual with things like bad skill, bad gear, etc. They are reversing the cause and effect, and they are taking the part as the whole. A player who plays less may have bad gear, but he may also simply spend longer to prepare and still show up with the best gear as if he played 80 hours a week. He just won't be showing up with that gear in 1 week, but rather in 1 month or even 2 months time.

There are casual players who are very skilled and very serious about the game, but play 10~15 hours a week. There are also casual players who play 30~40 hours a week but will log out at a moment's notice to go to a movie or to watch TV.

I've found that most of the times, when one wants to make a point, it can be done better without even relating to the concept of casual vs hard-core. "Casual" is a convenient concept, but is so loaded with meaning that it is also a useless concept if you're seriously trying to communicate.

[Kanzer]

*snip*

Oh look, it's this guy again. Always gotta be whining about something don'tcha?

/yawn

[MasamuneBranford]

I'm a married attorney and I've had the game since launch. In 1.0 I had a 50 BLM. Since early release, I've taken Arcanist to level 24 and am currently on the 4th dungeon. Clearly everyone has a different opinion of what constitutes "casual."

[Retrograde]

If we could meet halfway and agree that "rushed" is a subjective judgment and not a pejorative truth, could we all hug?

[Svennyblaze]

If you are a rusher or as Dorf said a person who wants to focus on a single class and do end game content and come on here and complain people are not going to have any sympathy for you. If you did any research at all before purchasing this game you would have known exactly what content would be out at launch. Also you would have known when and mostly what new content is due.

People come here and constantly complain about not enough end game content and its getting annoying. It is entirely your fault that you have played it all insane numbers of times. If all you are concerned about is end game content why on earth would you purchase an MMO at launch and then a month in be surprised there isnt tons for you to do.

[Rivienne]

To reiterate: Just because someone hit 50 before you, doesn't mean they were rushing. Just because they were playing the game and using all the options to level at their disposal instead of basking in the sunrise(which I'll do IRL if I want a beautiful sunrise), doesn't mean they are rushing. You literally have to TRY to not level fast in this game if you were to stick to just one job.

You appear to be missing something fundamental here: You are conflating one approach to gaming as being the only one that isn't the one you took, even as you attack others for doing the same to you. As I said before I have no issue whatsoever with the approach you took. It isn't the only one. Nor is the "bask in the sunrise" approach the only other one.

While I don't approve of the attitude of those who bash the approach you took with this game, I also have an issue with this argument of yours which is in turn trying to belittle other players who didn't play the same way as you.

For fun to see on my own time table what it would take to hit 50 if that were my only focus, I did some rough math this morning, I leveled an arcanist a few levels before work, trying to do nothing but leveling for the sake of argument, but still taking the time to read the story bubbles and instructions (because I would never play without actually trying to follow the storyline). I timed how long it would take at that rate to level from 0 to 50 if everything was a constant rate of leveling: 95 hours, give or take, which is including 1 hour per story dungeon(including any queue time) being hit once, and only once. Obviously this is based on my own rate of play, but I wasn't intentionally taking it slow, I was trying to be fairly efficient about it to make it a reasonable benchmark. And this is without any side activities such as exploring, or watching the sunset, or playing with gathering etc.

So 95 hours, say at 25 hours a week, is 4 weeks. So by your own metric, it is in fact perfectly possible that a "casual" with 25 hours a week whose sole goal was to hit 50 (but cared about the storyline), to hit 50 by now. If everything went perfectly for them, they never repeated a dungeon (and always did it the first run through, in under an hour), and never had a long queue, or managed to use the queue time to continue leveling via other means. Or if there were simply faster than I am.

Which is a lot of ifs. For those who rerun dungeons it will take longer. For those who had to take several tries to pass primals/dungeons, it will take longer. For those who always needed the full amount of time to beat a dungeon, it will take longer. For those who when faced with a long queue leveled a different class, or didn't do anything, it will take longer. For those who have less than 25 a week it will take longer. For those who are slower to play/learn it will take longer. The point being there are a lot of factors just taking into account the dungeons.

I personally have run dungeons successfully over 50 times ( It is actually a lot more, especially over if you count failures, but lets stop and look just at the 50 number).

50 dungeon runs, at an average of 40 minutes each, is 33 hours. I have already stated that is about how much time I spend in a week. So even if that is all I had done besides leveling, it would take me at least 5 weeks to hit 50. Not by not trying, but because I was running dungeons more.

This being my first MMO I could be incorrect so feel free to interject on this point, but I was made to understand that dungeon raids were the key goal of many people. So how is running dungeons prior to level 50 "trying not to level fast" or "not playing the game"? I am not being argumentative or snarky here, I truly don't understand why what I am doing is somehow wrong or abnormal by your standards or "trying not to level".

There are many ways to play, and yours isn't the only one, nor are those who play differently "trying not to level" necessarily (though certainly I know there are some like that). Your attempt to attack those who in turn attack you isn't helpful to getting your own real issues with the game across, it just makes for a negative thread where everyone tries to undermine each others point of view.

Everyone is entitled to play this game how they prefer, and SE is hopefully going to look at the larger view. But this never ending attacking of other peoples play style isn't going to help get your point across. And that is how you came across in the OP, and subsequent posts. There are ways of getting your opinion across without resorting to the underhanded attacks of other people, even if they are doing the same to you in turn, but that is not how you presented yourself here.

Pushing past the hostility in this thread and others like it: I agree with the point that they probably could have and maybe even should have waited until 2.1 to release. Some aspects of the launch do feel rushed. Certainly a longer open beta or longer early access would have given them time to address many of the server issues prior to launch. And some of the subsequent quality of life issues we know are coming in 2.1 also would have made a difference for players of all styles, not just yours. But attacking others is not a valid way to get this point across, nor a way to foster understanding or compromise on an obviously currently divisive topic.