Casual Vs HardCore gamer

[seandeven]

beep-bop-boop-beep


What make a casual gamer and a hardcore gamer.
Particularly computer games.

Is it the individual game, the TT experience, crpgs, shooter/looters, Fifa strategizing.

Is it the time amount put in, the weekend warriors vs the dailies.

Is it the time-based strategies involved, Real-Time, rtwp, TB

Is it the years of pouring over books and lore with a beautiful scene scape, or playing a pick-up game with basic tokens and imagination.



I am a self described filthy casual in BG3. Albeit with over a thousand game hours in BG 3, I say casual, because I don't need to streamline and optimize with constant focus on the "best" gear with the correct feat set-up. Good gear great... get going. Fly by the seat of my pants play after a time or two I'll memorize the map anyway.

Whats fun for me is playing co-op with this game. If thats not your fun fine there are many ways to find the style that suits your style, as how the game was written.

The gatekeepers spouting filthy casuals ruin a game are out of touch with reality, without filthy casual money there would not be games for "hardcore" games. The hype has even moved corpos and brought back interest in making crpgs.



One last thing, either we all win in DnD or none of us win in DnD.
There is no "winning" against each other in this game earthings
The steam community on valve is the toilet of the DnD community so I need folks to quit thinking this game is only relegated to the steam community. Go to an actual DnD community site. I am sure you can find more of whatever material you are looking.

beep-bop-boop-beep

Still not dreamt up by digitized dreams.
Enjoy
Onward to 2024

[Grimbor]

Ironic isn't it. Hardcore players in modern D&D are min/maxers. Back in 3rd edition days, DMs were specifically looking to punish and make life hard for min max paladins, clerics, bards and the like by enforcing alignment and public service/donations. Back in the day, a hardcore role player had a flawed character which was subject to RNG, just like real life.

[seandeven]

Originally posted by Grimbor:

Ironic isn't it. Hardcore players in modern D&D are min/maxers. Back in 3rd edition days, DMs were specifically looking to punish and make life hard for min max paladins, clerics, bards and the like by enforcing alignment and public service/donations. Back in the day, a hardcore role player had a flawed character which was subject to RNG, just like real life.

Ironic, yes, very.
The RP classes, bard-Paladin-cleric were restrained by what I call Consequentials that flavored the characters and gave them an outlook. I enjoyed the flaws to game around, I felt it lightened the game and gave it that realism that everyone strives at the table.
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If you will indulge me, my analysis, an analogy.
The theatre kids loved BG3, what I see clashing now is the theater kids and the gamer jocks are elbowing for attention. While the computer geeks just want time in the computer lab, just like real life. :S

[✙205🍉🐆→]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/250520/UnderRail/

If in this game you chose maximum difficulty and alternative point exp, managed to get through the junkyard - congratulate you are a hardcore gamer.
Of course, if you haven't watched YouTube videos and other people's builds.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1233530/Knights_of_the_Chalice_2/

Also, if you have completed all the modules in this game, then you are also a hardcore gamer, which I congratulate you on

[myxlmynx]

These labels have kind of lost all meaning, because they're so subjective and everyone uses them to describe different ways of playing.

"Casual" is being used from everything between "just picked up the game, doesn't know anything about the game yet, plays 2h/week and on easiest difficulty" up to "really experienced player playing 40h/week but not into speedrunning or minmaxing".

For example, for a Dark Souls speedrunner, everyone who doesn't do that is just playing "casually". For a race to world first raider in WoW, everyone who doesn't raid 5-7 days a week when a new raid content is released, is playing "casually".

So, just define it for yourself. If you just use the terms without any other indication how experienced you are or how much you play, it's kind of meaningless.

[harken23]

When I played D&D in the '80s and '90s, we ran across a whole lot of gamers who treated the whole game as "Players vs DM(s)" and it was incredibly boring.
We played with one DM who had us all at 1st level, and we were accompanied by two NPC half-ogre brothers who were 4th level and somehow NEVER missed on their (hidden) attack rolls. So, one day, all us wimpy first level players (who never got experience, bkz the NPCs did all the killing, and he only gave exp for the kills) just attacked the half-ogres. They killed us in like 3 rounds, and we said "have a nice life" to that DM.

[seandeven]

^^ Appreciate the advertisement ✙205🍉🐆→. I will have to check those titles out more thoroughly.

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Kinda thought that was the way everyone was going, myxlmynx.

Guess it is a boost to crow about the newest, first, and shiny thing in a new game. Appreciate the frank nihilism because I agree if you just use the terms without any other indication how experienced you are or how much you play, it IS meaningless.

[seandeven]

Originally posted by harken23:

When I played D&D in the '80s and '90s, we ran across a whole lot of gamers who treated the whole game as "Players vs DM(s)" and it was incredibly boring.
We played with one DM who had us all at 1st level, and we were accompanied by two NPC half-ogre brothers who were 4th level and somehow NEVER missed on their (hidden) attack rolls. So, one day, all us wimpy first level players (who never got experience, bkz the NPCs did all the killing, and he only gave exp for the kills) just attacked the half-ogres. They killed us in like 3 rounds, and we said "have a nice life" to that DM.

Sounds like a nightmare experience. Glad you found a better group to have fun with.

I've never had that type of nightmare experience but did have a DM that had a monster that was one hp and you had to do exactly one hp(no more no less) took us all night to kill the thing and the group fell apart soon after, no_one felt that bunny funny.

[Smask]

20 hour gaming a week inc research. Casual
40 hour gaming a week inc research. Wannabe
80 hours + without need for research. Hardcore

Happy New year.

[Wokelander]

Originally posted by Grimbor:

Ironic isn't it. Hardcore players in modern D&D are min/maxers. Back in 3rd edition days, DMs were specifically looking to punish and make life hard for min max paladins, clerics, bards and the like by enforcing alignment and public service/donations. Back in the day, a hardcore role player had a flawed character which was subject to RNG, just like real life.

That's not really my interpretation of those days at all, maybe you just had crappy DMs 😅

[Maraxus]

I feel like all the editions having different focus adds to the confusion. xD

[Grimbor]

You guys have no idea of the early days then. Gary Gygax took particular pleasure in having a player's fireball destroy (vaporize) gold and magic treasure hoards. His son got so frustrated by that over the years he invented cold of cold when he became a DM. Sadism was common in DMs during 1st to 3rd edition with the most powerful characters getting the brunt.

[seandeven]

Originally posted by Grimbor:

You guys have no idea of the early days then. Gary Gygax took particular pleasure in having a player's fireball destroy (vaporize) gold and magic treasure hoards. His son got so frustrated by that over the years he invented cold of cold when he became a DM. Sadism was common in DMs during 1st to 3rd edition with the most powerful characters getting the brunt.

My parents were keeping me away from the satanic paraphernalia that was turning children against their parents our mid-sized midwestern American city nothing was piercing the exurbs in the eighties.
I had to play with the super buff action figures, play baseball, football, and do scouting. My grandfather was an avid turkey/deer hunter.

I played TT for the first time in the 90's, while enlisted in the navy. The 1 HP critter was from those naval experiences. Sadism and masochism was indeed common in those early iterations of DnD, what better way to depict a devil or a devils bargain. It is the dragonlance books and lore I read and knew before ever playing DnD. There was a rotating group of Dms in the first gaming shop I visited. Learned eventually who I needed an extra gaming sheet for, and who just wanted story-exposition-time.

I don't remember the name of the module, but the five of us went in with three character sheets a piece and I used all three. The DM clearly stated going in you will probably die. Disintegrate on a trap should not be a common, but anyway, I digress. Going in with that fore-knowledge does lessen the death blow and early in DnD you expected death..... alot. Sadism in character deaths were a common story in those days, they made for good stories. That was thirty years ago.