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Proper Difference In Power Between Casual and Hardcore?
learis1
Member UncommonPosts: 169
Let's say the casual person averages roughly an hour of time playing an mmo a day. The hardcore averages... well lets just say a lot more than that. So in the end, what do you think is the proper difference in power level between the two? You can just throw out a percentage if you like: "the hardcore should be x percent more powerful than the casual". Or you can get as detailed as you like. And to spice things up: should certain areas of the game put players on a completely equal power level no matter how much time they invest?
Mend and Defend
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If the gap is small enough, then both can still play together in a lot of the content even if the amount of time to reach max is decades long.
More seriously, we can't even decide what count as hardcore or casual. How are we supposed to decide what the power gap between two undefined groups are?
It doesn't matter time played, standing alone. It matters how the time was spent. 1 hour guy may have speed run a dungeon. 4 hour guy may have collected butterflies. I agree, generally, that more time invested should yield more rewards. But it's not that simple.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Pvp you obviously MUST have pure balance,there is no power gap between players.
With Pve it is simply determined by the content you face.If you want to bring a powerful character to an easy fight,so be it but don't expect any xp for your encounter and no skillups either.
The only thing TIME should have a factor on is your skills which should increase as you use them,so the more you use them the higher the skill rating.
Right now too many games equate everything to levels,your gear is locked behind a level number and a Boss is locked behind a gear rating.So somehow we went from slowly ,very slowly over time improving rpg game design to now we are headed backwards with some really dumb ideas.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
For example, Lineage 2 and Everquest players tend to feel that time invested is rewarded with power. It is understood that a veteran player not only has a knowledge advantage but a significant stat advantage.
Now let's flip that around to Guild Wars 2. The expectation based on the game mechanics is that when a player is in a level-appropriate area, the players who have more time invested are going to be reasonably scaled to that level.
To take it a step further, MOBAs and Battle Royales have proven there is a significant audience for PVP as long as time investment and money are taken out of the equation. Most people seem to want either time or money(or both) to contribute to the power gap as little as possible, if at all. League of Legends, SMITE, Fortnite, and PUBG have all done very well with knowledge being the primary point (maybe even sole point, outside of *gasp* teamwork) of power disparity.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
"eventually" the casual player will catch up to a point.
Obviously rare gear and items that require specialized raids might be out of reach for the casual player.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The Casual Player is there to have fun, enjoy the game, socialize, relax. To them, it is a social game.
The Hardcore player is there to Win, or pursue whatever goals the game puts out that would be viewed as winning.
As for the power disparity. Depends.
For example, in a game like GW2, where both casual and hardcore can very easy get the same gear, levels, and stats, you would think that it would be somewhat fair, but, the game offers a lot of diversity in what stats you want to invest in, as well a selection of traits, runes, sigils, and finally weapon and skill rotations.
So with the way the game was set up, combining gear/traits/runes/sigils, in a meta way, along with knowing optimal combat rotations, the hardcore player can output (according to the Devs themselves) up to 10x more dps than a casual player.
In the end, the reality is, the more complex the game, the more disparity that will exist between the casual and hardcore, simply because, to the hardcore player, optimizing and meta are part of winning, and the casual will not have the same goal.
Now ideally, in a direct PvP game, the only disparity that should exist is the skill of the player, not anything the toon itself brings to the table.
In PvE games, and RPG's, it is the toon that plays the largest role in power disparity.
So I guess it depends on what kind of game you plan to make, at how much power disparity you feel is acceptable, it also highly depends on your market demographic.
Some games can get away with massive gaps because that is the nature of the game itself, other games, not so much, because of how they opted to market themselves.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I agree with those that pointed out "Hardcore/Casual is a mindset."
As far as "power gaps" go, players should get rewarded for their efforts. Those that excel should be ahead of those that "dink around."
This can cause problems. I don't see that as something the games need to address, but rather the players. If you want to "level with a friend", what are you doing logging on when they don't? Play an alt. Contact the friend. The other thousands of players should not be "punished" because you are impatient.
"Casual vs Hardcore" really is a non-entity to me. If you're having fun and NOT ruining others' fun, you're playing the game right
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Casual doesn't irk or negatively affect your family, relationships or job, hardcore does.
The end. Definition that spans all genres and all games. I win.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Casuals wear plate a sword and shield and kill a mob in 5 minutes. The serious player knows that dual wielding knives in medium armor is much more efficient so he kills 5 mobs in 1 minute.
The hardcore kills them all including the casual and serious, naked using just a rusty spoon.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
For example when FFXI and FFXIV came out did everything including the end game raids which is a low percentage of players that complete but without playing long hours and when tired would log out.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
There's a whole other level of ability and commitment beyond serious. I don't think many casuals are even aware of the elite HC unless they watch e-sports tournaments.
Time commitment is part of it but so is ability - both physical and mental.
Serious gamer is my sweet spot. I get my fun from knowing and playing games well but I have neither the ability nor the obsessiveness to go beyond that.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
If we treat those things like irl the casual gamer is close to getting a promotion while the poor hardcore gamer is stuck at his minimum wage job.
Since we want our games to be more like real life casuals should have more power than hardcore.