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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Qnubi View Post
    Yes, but OP starts off by describing what hardcore is, and then goes on that PvE Co-Op is a competition, which is factually wrong.
    I do not want to start that debate but it is still kinda a competition with Rio and its ranking.

  2. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Specialka View Post
    I do not want to start that debate but it is still kinda a competition with Rio and its ranking.
    If you determine how good someone is, it is not automatically a competition. I will easily show you what I mean:

    Let's say you have a 1-Star cook (500 rio) and a 5-Star cook (2000 rio) in the same restaurant. One cook is obviously better than the other, but in the restaurant (dungeon, raid) they are both working towards the same goal, they are both making food. They are NOT competing against each-other.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Qnubi View Post
    If you determine how good someone is, it is not automatically a competition. I will easily show you what I mean:


    jump to 0:40 to get a different viewpoint.

  4. #24
    Everyone know what does hardcore and casual mean.
    It's only the matter of commitment.

    You can be casual mythic raider and hardcore pet-battle warrior.

    There's seriously no need to make it even more complicated.

    Saying that casuals and hardcores are doing other content is wrong. Of course it's statistically different in both groups, but the difference between them isn't the type of the content.

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Qnubi View Post
    It is wrong to put PvE Co-Op as a "competitive" activity. When you run a dungeon or raid you are working towards the same goal. Outside of the world first race and the M+ tournament which is indeed a competition you are not competing against other players. Even the M+ rating that is soon coming is not making M+ a competition, it's entirely there to gauge player skill so that players of same skill come together, but they are still not competing against each-other. If you truly believe raiding or m+ is a competition between players you are not grasping the concept of pve co-op.
    You are still competing for ranks and parses. It doesn't matter if you are world 500, if you are trying to push that rank or pushing a orange parse - you are in competition against other teams doing the same.
    I am competing against other rio pushers and my class rank in world/class/overall rank in realm

  6. #26
    These terms have NO scientific value. But they have functional use. OP gave a solid bunch of definitions. If they choose to use the shorthand terms (Hardcore Hobbyist etc), then i'll know exactly what they're talking about and what kind of player/playstyle they're trying to talk about. This is the biggest problem with the hardcore/casual definition: Bad faith arguing for the sake of it. Did you understand what the OP was talking about? Did you understand that every individual player can move between each and every quadrant based on their current, previous or future interest and engagement with the game. Or that just because you personally might flit between them, this doesnt make the definitions problematic, flawed, or unintelligible. Its a nice way of reimagining the binary line. Im sure we could add a z axis as well if we were going for even more nuance. But as it stands, its perfectly understandable and reasonable. I mean, no ones really gonna use any of those terms outside of this thread, (it lacks the punch of terms like explorer, achiever, socializer, killer), but its certainly not an unreasonable way of including time into the metric.

  7. #27
    The game should be designed mainly based on HH. That's my opinion.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaver View Post
    The game should be designed mainly based on HH. That's my opinion.
    Actually when you put it like that, it suddenly offers an interesting comparative use. I would say since at least WoD the game has been primarily designed for the HH. If we look pre-wod, it was still primarily designed with that player in mind, but more closer to the casual hobbyist, and maybe even the center marker. It'd be fascinating, and i know none of us on this site would ever agree on it, to see the movement of the core audience through design over the various expansions. It would also work to help explain why ff14 has suddenly hoovered up a tonne of players who may find themselves in the left side of the center bar. I mean, thats my assumption. Again, theres no data to really support anything more than feelings. But it definitely has use-value for explaining these shifts if someone wanted to crunch the data. (it needs punchier terms though to hit the zeitgeist).
    Last edited by ippollite; 2021-06-23 at 09:45 AM.

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by ippollite View Post
    Actually when you put it like that, it suddenly offers an interesting comparative use. I would say since at least WoD the game has been primarily designed for the HH. If we look pre-wod, it was still primarily designed with that player in mind, but more closer to the casual hobbyist, and maybe even the center marker. It'd be fascinating, and i know none of us on this site would ever agree on it, to see the movement of the core audience through design over the various expansions. It would also work to help explain why ff14 has suddenly hoovered up a tonne of players who may find themselves in the left side of the center bar. I mean, thats my assumption. Again, theres no data to really support anything more than feelings. But it definitely has use-value for explaining these shifts if someone wanted to crunch the info.
    I imagine Blizzard uses similar, probably more complex, models when they decide where to focus their resources.

    If I had to bet, I'd say that they tend to design patch-to-patch content for the HH crowd, and expansion-long/evergreen content for the CL crowd, and hope that CH and HL people will find something to do with either.

    Ultimately, this is like D&D alignment charts. It might help define groups in broad terms, but it's rarely accurate on an individual basis. For example, I would say I'm somewhere between HH and CL, but nowhere near CH or HL, something that couldn't be represented by this chart alone.

    It's certainly more useful than "casual vs hardcore", which everyone understands differently, but there will also be many players who can't be described by these terms.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by ippollite View Post
    I would say since at least WoD the game has been primarily designed for the HH.
    I very much disagree. The HH player want to play competitive content with friends without having to do a lot of grinds. This doesn't comply very well with Legion, BFA and Shadowlands since these expansions have had central unavoidable systems that require a lot of grinding in content those players don't necessarily want to participate in. The HH player basically want to log on and just do the content that they want to do.

    Most of the systems (if not all) added to the game since WoD go against what the HH players want. Systems like Artifacts, Azerite gear, Titanforging, Corruption, Essences, Conduits, Soul binds, Legendaries, World Quests etc. These are all systems that incentivize grinding which goes directly against the desires of a HH player. These systems do to a large degree make grinding a requirement for playing the content of the game. Ever since Legion you basically cannot do any competitive content without also doing heavy grinding and that's why I disagree that the game have been designed based on the HH player.
    Last edited by Kaver; 2021-06-23 at 10:00 AM.

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaver View Post
    I very much disagree. The HH player want to play competitive content with friends without having to do a lot of grinds. This doesn't comply very well with Legion, BFA and Shadowlands since these expansions have had central unavoidable systems that require a lot of grinding in content those players don't necessarily want to participate in. The HH player basically want to log on and just do the content that they want to do.

    Most of the systems (if not all) added to the game since WoD go against what the HH players want. Systems like Artifacts, Azerite gear, Titanforging, Corruption, Essences, Conduits, Soul binds, Legendaries, World Quests etc. These are all systems that incentivize grinding which goes directly against the desires of a HH player. These systems do to a large degree make grinding a requirement for playing the content of the game. Ever since Legion you basically cannot do any competitive content without also doing heavy grinding and that's why I disagree that the game have been designed based on the HH player.
    I did mention we wouldnt agree. Its fine. For me, the game has shifted to your quadrant. For you, its shifted to mine. We both suffer confirmation bias. Its fine. All ive seen is the towering three pillars i dont remotely want to play. You see the systems putting a road block in your progression. Averaging us both out, perhaps theyre really trying to deal with the problems of accessibility whilst carving out a unique space in the mmo genre as the absolute best at what they do (three pillar content). But im oscillating between ch and cl, so ive found other games that scratch that itch.

    Thats cool, though. Thats why im subbed to its main competitor and not the game ive spent the past 15 years playing. Actually, thats an interesting question we should perhaps address... why arent i playing (and paying for) the game ive sunk about 3000 dollars into and have a huge sunk cost (fallacy) into? This isnt an attack. Its a question. With the sheer power of sunk cost and avatar permeance, why did i bail if this game is catered to me? If you had to plot a point where current wow is (inc 9.1 if you like), where would you put it? Which quadrant? How close to the center point? Just asking... And if you did, why is ff14 suddenly pulling away so many wow players? Why not in BFA when sbs was more recent and had the hype in the ff14 community attached to it, where was that point in bfa for you?
    Last edited by ippollite; 2021-06-23 at 10:45 AM.

  12. #32
    I don't think the game is designed to target any one quadrant - it's aimed at appealing to all four quadrants, and making them pay for 6-month subs. That is not a trivial target to hit at all.

    A lot of the problems with the current game can probably be explained in terms of the design team trying to appeal to very different subgroups and ending up with compromises nobody really likes.

    Also, I think that the idea that any single player will be all over the graph is very true, and also does not devalue the chart in the slightest. I'd describe myself as bouncing between casual hobbyist and casual lifestyle, while dipping into hardcore hobbyist when I find the right guild (which is kinda hard to do when I prefer to play with RL friends). While on the surface that seems like a failure of the system (it cannot place me accurately), I think it contains a lot of truth as it can place the varying amounts of time and effort I put into the game rather precisely.
    Last edited by paxen; 2021-06-23 at 12:59 PM.

  13. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by paxen View Post
    I don't think the game is designed to target any one quadrant - it's aimed at appealing to all four quadrants, and making them pay for 6-month subs. That is not a trivial target to hit at all.

    A lot of the problems with the current game can probably be explained in terms of the design team trying to appeal to very different subgroups and ending up with compromises nobody really likes.
    .
    Indeed. And just adding to this, I think a big reason it was able to do this more successfully earlier had less to do with design than simply lack of competition. Now there are other games that very successfully target CL and/or HH players in particular, while WoW remains really the only one attempting to woo HL players.

    For example, I could log into swtor/eso/ff and solo grind competitive gear if I wanted to, whereas in wow that's effectively impossible. That's a big appeal to CL players. Likewise, I could easily do challenging content in other games without putting in loads of chores to stay competitive, which is a big draw for HH players.

    But it's not like other games don't experience similar problems. In ESO, for example, the lack of a gear treadmill probably hurts CL players in the long run (once they are past the initial grind) since they eventually run out of stuff to do, but that might appeal to HH who want to be able to leave for weeks or months at a time and never feel behind.

  14. #34
    Overly obsessed with breaking down individuals into 'systemic groups' aka 'labels' are how you get systems after systems.

    Instead of players, or gamers, we have 4 systems of people. Lets build more systems to accommodate these 4 systems of people!

  15. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by gobio View Post
    Overly obsessed with breaking down individuals into 'systemic groups' aka 'labels' are how you get systems after systems.

    Instead of players, or gamers, we have 4 systems of people. Lets build more systems to accommodate these 4 systems of people!
    I mean..we always have and always will that's kinda how capitalism works in general. Hell the generational terms "Millennial, Boomer, Gen Z, etc" are mainly marketing phrases. Hell before we had casual and hardcore there's the whole card suit thing with Spades (Explorers), Hearts (Socialites), Diamonds (Achievers), and Clubs (Dominators) which wow does try to play into ..

  16. #36
    I fit quite well in the HH category, lol. But after I do the quitting, I end up in CL.

  17. #37
    Interesting OP. I'm very much in the Casual Lifestyle cadrant. It always felt weird to me when people say "casuals only play a few hours a week" and "I routinely clear M15 / Mythic raids but I'm actually casual because I don't play that much", as this isn't how I would personally define "casual" at all, but as you've pointed out it's more along the axis of hobbyist/lifestyle. I honestly don't know how much time I've put into WoW since I started playing during 1.8 and more or less unsubbed when Legion came out but um... definitely not what these people would call "casual". And yet the last time I stepped into a real raid without having my ass blatantly carried to the finish line for a FOMO mount by very kind people was ICC 10N. I just don't care for the commitment and having to deal with manual grouping, I find it stressful.

    Also I'd like to say that not doing any "hardcore" content doesn't equal "bad" in the "not even trying" sense. I, too, know how to read and look up guides on sites like EJ and Icy Veins to better understand rotations and openers and how the mechanics all fit together. Yeah so no doubt my gear fucking sucked compared to a hardcore raider, but that doesn't mean I didn't reforge, gem or enchant it to perform to the best of my ability. I spent most of MoP and some of WoD being a real, totally non-ironic LFR hero. I take my non-serious content seriously.

    Quote Originally Posted by Echo of Soul View Post
    Grinder here and I can confirm that it's exactly what I want. More specifically I want to be able to run LFG/LFR/random BGs to get a currency/badges/tomestones with a weekly cap in order to be able to buy a piece of high quality gear weekly to bi-weekly.

    I enjoy group content a lot but only if it's matchmade. Premade groups or schedules is a deal breaker and so is content that is stressful.
    Exactly this. I miss MoP too, but oh well. You know. There's this other MMORPG with a free trial up to level 60 etc etc.
    Last edited by Rappy28; 2021-06-24 at 11:06 AM.

  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Rappy28 View Post
    Exactly this. I miss MoP too, but oh well. You know. There's this other MMORPG with a free trial up to level 60 etc etc.
    I know. The one we're not supposed to talk about. Enjoying the hell out of it, especially the gearing.

  19. #39
    id chime in that what the Hardcore life style ate isnt nessicary world or solo content. What we hate is WAITING to be able to do world or solo content.

    Id be completely happy with murdering rares in the maw for 16 hours a day for a few days and then be done with the stygia grind. But the current system where it took some 3-4 months to get all the sockets and 226 potency conduits... Its just so fucking boring.
    None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.

  20. #40
    I enjoyed your post!
    I'm as HH as it gets. WoD was the only expansion during which I didn't quit and I was raiding in 3 mythic raid teams at the same time during the later months of HFC. Unfortunately the game isn't for me anymore.

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