Gamer lables -- why

[Mere]

This is what I understand about casual, midcore and hardcore. It might not be 100% true or applicable to FFXIV, but I think is the ideal.

Casual: Storymode, simple content that you can complete leisurely, at your own pace and in a short time, without even knowing whats going on. You can't do wrong. People identified as casual are usually parents or people with a busy real life, leaving them with limited playtime to do anything "serious" (like a 2 hours raid). Content like Titan HM/EX, Ramuh EX, Bahamut coil tuns 5, 9, 12 and 13 and even Alexander normal are WAY too much for them. For whatever reason, expending hours studying that content and trying to beat it is just not fun for them.

Hardcore: Raids, Savage mode, maybe EX primals. Content that requires a well organized group, voice chat and the best gear in order to successfully and repeatedly beat it. Everyone has to study the mechanics and be efficient in their role. One "lazy/clumsy" member can ruin the "hard work" of everyone in the party. People labeled as hardcore tend to care a LOT about their gaming experience. They strive to be "server first". Must have the best available gear, be able to say that they "beat it" -- whatever "it" is --, they know everything about the game, about their class/job/role, and of course, can dedicate hours and hours to the game. Not necessarily because they have 'no life', but because they want and can.

Midcore: Something between casual and hardcore. They can do raids, savage, ex primals and stuff like a hardcore, but they aren't as dedicated. They still tend to progress the game at their own pace, while hardcores are max level and all geared up, midcores are still a several levels behind and havent even start to gear up (meanwhile casuals are still just taking in the scenery and trying to decide if they are interested in the new content yet, or not.) Midcores might have been hardcores in the past, but for some reason or another, they cannot longer dedicate that much of their time and energy to games as they used to. They do enjoy hard-to-beat content, but they are able to take things slowly, and even enjoy old content with the casuals.

Anyways, that's how I would define those labels. I don't think they are stupid or unnecessary, I think they are just different play styles, very much in the same way we have different games preferences. Me for example, I consider myself midcore: I enjoy hard content, I study it, I can perform my role well and I'm able to carry my own weight and others. But I can't be bothered trying to be "server first" on whatever and not gonna bother leveling every job just so I can have all the crossclass abilities. "I will get there, when I get there... and will do it well".

[azlewood]

where it the PvP'er vs Non- PvP'er label?

[Havenae]

To answer the original question:

I see it like this. Many gamers, have exactly that (gaming) in their lives, and that's it. That's quite a hit to take sometimes . Sure gaming can be a profession but only a very rare few are anywhere near good enough to take advantage of that. Some people get so lost into the world of gaming but with no real point to their existence within it that they feel the need to feel important, feel special. They do that the only way they know how, by creating divisions within the community at large to make themselves seem more important within it. During this they often lose sight of the ultimate point of doing what we do, and that's having fun.


Couple this ^, with the generally toxic and obnoxious behavior of western culture and the entire concepts of 'winning' and 'being the best of the best' and you end up with ridiculous elitist attitude for something that ultimately does not matter in the real world. No one outside of whatever game you play cares if you cleared this raid or got this item or progressed to this dungeon. They don't give two squirts of piss about your arena ranking or how well you can mash buttons. Because unless you're pro, it does NOT matter.


And by the way, 'casual' and 'hardcore' are not opposite extremes of the same scale. One is simply a matter of the amount of time one has to devote to a game or activity (not necessitating that content be 'easy') the other is a preference of difficulty. Midcore is a bullshit term someone made up to try and fill in the gaps between two 'labels' that are not related.

[Ashkendor]

Man, there are some really negative views on player labels/groupings. I honestly think it's more a case of this:

Humans are hard wired to try and define and organise things they see into systems they can understand.

than anything having to do with epeen waving or thinking that clearing content makes you The Specialest Snowflake Evar. The vast majority of us don't have any illusions about being just another nerd-child behind a keyboard or gamepad here. It's categorization, nothing more and nothing less. Further, it's gamers wanting to play with others that are on the same wavelength. That's not to say that nobody has friends with other interests, but a raiding static that wants to do progression 5 days a week for 3 hours a day probably isn't going to try someone out that's here for glamour and roleplay. This kind of organization is a tool, and like any tool it can be misused. Misuse is not the fault of the tool itself and doesn't make it any less useful to those that use it wisely.

I honestly think that categories are somewhat fluid based on the point of view of the person giving the definition. A six day a week raider would see me as being less into raiding than them (we go 2-3 times generally), but someone that is mostly here for glamour or roleplay might lump all people interested in raiding together into the same category. I'd consider myself midcore. I enjoy raiding, but it's not all I'm here to do. My static's filled our roster (finally) and started on A3S; we expect to make progress on it in the coming weeks. The thing is, I'm just as apt to be found crafting, gathering, redecorating my house, or helping with learning parties as I am to be found in progression. Outside of raid times I'll review videos if there's anything I need help with, but ultimately I find that going into a raid too often is detrimental to my learning it. So I limit my raid time and accept that I'm going to progress slower than others.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with categorizing people; it's when you start pigeonholing them and slapping detrimental meanings on those labels that the problems start. That's where you run into overused epithets like elitists, filthy casuals, etc.

[Yukiko]

It started when players were out of arguments and searched for excuses to defend a bad gamedesign!

It is possible to have "all" and make "everyone" happy, but you have to fix stuff and not cover it with more and bury it alive...
Example Currency: Lets take MGP -> Can you buy them with tomestones or Gil, not even with hunting seals or scrips...
Other Example: So, we have scrips to farm just to trade them into books as currency for the "real thing"...

Square Enix should focus more on the Characters viewpoint and have it like an adventure!
Can we hire mercenaries with our self made leve quests?
Can we hire Crafters thrugh the ingame system without paying them gil we dont have?
Can we finally have some recovery in bossfights and not whipe with one failure?
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[Havenae]

The vast majority of us...

You might want to break this newsflash to the rest of "the majority of you". Because the way "the majority of you" act on forums and in game says exactly the opposite of what you're trying to claim is just so simple as categorization.

[Eye_Gore]

Why? Because we're human. I too have been gaming a long time, since the Atari era. Online gaming has really only come to fruition in the latter half of that, where competition between people greatly increased. A lot of people need the feeling of being better than others. What we do in real life also affects that, from what we drive to what we wear to what we eat. Don't even bring up religion. So I think a lot of this has transferred to the virtual world. Everyone wants to feel special in their own way and anyone who challenges that will take offense to that. Online gaming has also brought the entire world to one place and interacting with other cultures will create tension. As one may think what they say or do is fine, the other may take offense to it, creating a snowball effect.

Labels exist everywhere, like it or not. Whether it be out in the open or what people just think about you, its human nature. We are not all the same person, would be pretty bad if we were. We are not robots we have free will and thinking, deep thinking. It actually baffles people how our brain function differs so much from the animal world (aliens). Put a diverse group of people into the same room together and see what happens. People will eventually break up into groups of like minded and start making labels or talking about the other groups. Online gaming is just a really big room.

[Elazu]

It keeps going because some people who clear difficult things want to inflate their e-peen by pretending it makes them part of some Special Cool Kid Club when in reality it just means they beat a hard thing in a video game. So they label themselves "hardcore", and anyone below their mythic status is "a casual".

In general, people want to beat difficult things for the challenge, gear and other rewards, it's only the casuals who believe that the evil raiders do it for e-peen and to look down on you. If you actually think the raiding community cares enough about you to go beat raids just to look down on you, you have issues.

FFXIV enforces this distinction too. Alex Savage is the only hardcore content in the game, everything else is casual/easy and there is currently no midcore content at all.

[Fluffya]

The word "hardcore" is often miss use. It quantify the amount of time put into something.

Hardcore gatherer: red scrips, favors, log every day.
Hardcore crafter: red scrips, high end recipes, craft every day.
Harcore player: play every day.
Harcore raider: Alex Savage every day for fun and challenge.

Casual gatherer: do it for fun or comodity.
Casual crafter: do it for fun or comodity.
Casual player: play once in a while for fun.
Casual raider: log once a week for Alex Savage.

Someone can be "Hardcore" without raiding. Someone can also be "Casual" even if he do Alex Savage.

[Souto_Nami]

In general, people want to beat difficult things for the challenge, gear and other rewards, it's only the casuals who believe that the evil raiders do it for e-peen and to look down on you. If you actually think the raiding community cares enough about you to go beat raids just to look down on you, you have issues.

FFXIV enforces this distinction too. Alex Savage is the only hardcore content in the game, everything else is casual/easy and there is currently no midcore content at all.

You realize by calling out "casuals"by not only generalizing but by assuming that " casuals" don't have the drive or skill to want to beat difficult things that you're making the problem between the two worse right? Though I will say the game does indeed extremely separate the difference between easy and hard content.

On topic though, I don't mind categories as humans we're going to do it regardless. What I mind is the words we choose to categorize each other. Instead of naming different gamers by the free time they have to play games and leaving it at that, we also (stupidly) tie it into skill.
Instead of the term casual depicting someone who has a busy life and plays games at a casual pace. It gets tied to difficulty, not being able to play difficult games, or lacking the skill to do so. The term hardcore is also just wrong to depict someone with more free time and gets tied to having greater skill which is wrong. The only difference is in how quickly either one will go through a difficult game.

For example, I only have about an hour to two a day to play games. It took me about two months to beat each of the souls game but not because I lacked skill, I lacked time.

I don't know what people like you do to have such less free time. 1 or 2 hours is not enough for me to do anything meaningful, I simply wouldn't bother.

Work and family time for the most part. "Anything meaningful" varies as I'm obviously not beating a boss in every sitting but with a small amount of thinking about what I'd like to do or where I'd like to head every day helps to always move forward and never stall. I honestly have more fun in these small sittings than when I have hours to play as I find it easier to get frustrated in long sittings when I get stuck on a difficult point. Feels I have more freedom to think on what went wrong or what I (or in an mmo case what the party) could do different to clear the content.