Differences Between Hardcore and casual players.

Quote from Madao

There is unfortunately people who have the whole family, or paid farmers play their account 24/7/365

I'd like to know exactly what they will be "farming" there is nothing to farm. Even gathering nodes are on a timer for each player, some are on a week long timer. It's a game, enjoy it for what it is, those that rush it are the first to say "there is nothing to do", and that's their problem, whilst those who take their time and enjoy the WHOLE game, never run out of stuff to do and really couldn't care less what so called "hardcore" players are doing as they are never likely to play with them. As for not finding groups for dungeons, there are always people willing to help others through them, they only have to ask in chat.

Quote from Rosy

I'd like to know exactly what they will be "farming" there is nothing to farm. Even gathering nodes are on a timer for each player, some are on a week long timer.

Technically, the only way you are reaching the weekly caps on most in-game special currencies is with farming. You have like 3 pvp currencies to farm to the cap each week. That category alone is a huge time sink, but it is also very isolated from the rest of the game. PVP only effects PVP progression. But you also have leisure land and it's currency that you will need to farm most likely by playing mini-games. You got quests that are dailies but not on the daily cultivation tab menu, And there is some other currencies/items you can farm to a cap each week. Like housing quests and the weekly exchangable bank note limits. You got heroic quests each day. Most people will probably only do the highest tier heroic quests because that's the only one they see in their cultivation tab. But there are 3 regions that offer heroic dailies and those lesser regions still pay good cloud rider command and money. A certain... mundane types of questing has weekly caps on a special hidden reward as well. Though that is quite secret information I don't want to share as to help me take higher positions on a certain leaderboard.

Honestly, the amount of weekly stuff you can do that has a set daily/weekly cap but isn't explicitly a part of your "daily/weekly cultivation" tab is quite large. I didn't even get into the weekly leaderboards and their resets and rewards for them. You'll have to treasure hunt or play cards for hours or tens of hours if you want high spots and the decent rewards from those leaderboards. And, as you said, you also need to use all your weekly produced fortune on either the fishing or gathering.

I'd reckon that the game is not designed to excel or top the boards in every aspect that SOLO offers. You'd probably have to pick those that you are comfortable doing with and stick to those and tbh, the game rewards you just enough for doing the content that you like with stuff that is also usable in that given part of content.

Of course you could argue that a casual player will lose out on potential caps while a hardcore player will strive to complete everything he can to be better at a certain part of the game - and all power to those who do. But it is in no way necessary like it is in other MMORPGs. While other games force you to do side activity x at maximum efficiency to be just good enough at your favourite activity y, the only thing you are losing on not doing "everything" is time. A hardcore player might complete his PvE set much faster than a casual player, but in the end, they all end up with the same stuff. Some just a bit later than others, given that both have the same knowledge and understanding of the game, that is.

At least thats my perspective on the grand scheme of things.

Quote from Uhrwerk

I'd reckon that the game is not designed to excel or top the boards in every aspect that SOLO offers. You'd probably have to pick those that you are comfortable doing with and stick to those and tbh, the game rewards you just enough for doing the content that you like with stuff that is also usable in that given part of content.

Of course you could argue that a casual player will lose out on potential caps while a hardcore player will strive to complete everything he can to be better at a certain part of the game - and all power to those who do. But it is in no way necessary like it is in other MMORPGs. While other games force you to do side activity x at maximum efficiency to be just good enough at your favourite activity y, the only thing you are losing on not doing "everything" is time. A hardcore player might complete his PvE set much faster than a casual player, but in the end, they all end up with the same stuff. Some just a bit later than others, given that both have the same knowledge and understanding of the game, that is.

At least thats my perspective on the grand scheme of things.

I slightly disagree with the first part - everything costs tons of money, so bes to do how ever much one can. Only doing those of the liked categories, does not provide enough money

(Especially Housing)

Quote from Uhrwerk

I'd reckon that the game is not designed to excel or top the boards in every aspect that SOLO offers. You'd probably have to pick those that you are comfortable doing with and stick to those

I'd definitely recommend sampling everything even if you feel specializing in everything is impossible.

If a person doesn't want to do treasure hunting, it might still be worth while to do until you earn all the astral xp related to the activity. A person who tries to do everything in this game will probably have quite a few more astral levels over people who tunnel a select few activities.

To give out my opinion as someone who is in fact a progress player and did all hm dungeons etc during beta: there wont be a big difference between casual and hardcore players long term. You dont have that many things to buy with gold to begin with. From what we saw this far you wont have anything more to buy with gold when 3-4 weeks in(for pve gear). And getting max gearscore will always be pretty easy the way it works, since you get MISSING gear everytime you run a dungeon and later on only the latest dungeon/raid will give you an gear update. casual players that play 3-4 times a week for 1-2 hours will be catching up within weeks even after a new raid/dungeon gets released. Same goes for new players catching up later, since you are in theorie able to get almost full gear in 1 day if you run the latest dungeons/raids (getting carryd by friends f.e.). I personally like that alot, since i have a friend who pretty much just starts out and wont be as fast as me in the beginning, but we will be on the same gearlevel even if he doesnt manage to do the hm dungeons in first week. I just hope that they patch it that you can run dungeons multiple times over the dungeon finder before they reset (only 1 time reward of course) since its pretty sadge that you can only run in private partys after. This just makes it harder for ppl like me when i want to help my friend running the hm dungeons and will even encourage selling runs later on since new ppl will have it harder to find partys for "older" content they need for updating their gearscore. Thats it for pve gearing at least. PvP is of course a little harder and more grind involved, but i think thats fine since you usually dont aim for top 10 anyway as a casual player. The other Stuff you can sink gold in (housing etc.) dont give you that big benefits that they are needed in order to do the latest dungeons. Doing your buff foods and stuff might be needed later on, but you will always only need it for the newest/hardest dungeon/raid. And the content is pretty easy, and from what you hear from other regions the raids etc arent that hard too. Usually all hardcore guilds, semi-progress guilds and even some casual guilds are able to clear em first day. So for real, there is 0 reason to think that you have to be a hardcore progress player to play on max gearscore. Min/maxing gear and damage rotations in dungeons will always be better when you just play more and have more knowledge about the game, but that are just numbers on a damagegraph. As long as you understand what youre doing and manage to play dungeon mechanics you will be fine.

Quote from BK201soren

Quote from Rosy

I'd like to know exactly what they will be "farming" there is nothing to farm. Even gathering nodes are on a timer for each player, some are on a week long timer.

Technically, the only way you are reaching the weekly caps on most in-game special currencies is with farming. You have like 3 pvp currencies to farm to the cap each week. That category alone is a huge time sink, but it is also very isolated from the rest of the game. PVP only effects PVP progression. But you also have leisure land and it's currency that you will need to farm most likely by playing mini-games. You got quests that are dailies but not on the daily cultivation tab menu, And there is some other currencies/items you can farm to a cap each week. Like housing quests and the weekly exchangable bank note limits. You got heroic quests each day. Most people will probably only do the highest tier heroic quests because that's the only one they see in their cultivation tab. But there are 3 regions that offer heroic dailies and those lesser regions still pay good cloud rider command and money. A certain... mundane types of questing has weekly caps on a special hidden reward as well. Though that is quite secret information I don't want to share as to help me take higher positions on a certain leaderboard.

Honestly, the amount of weekly stuff you can do that has a set daily/weekly cap but isn't explicitly a part of your "daily/weekly cultivation" tab is quite large. I didn't even get into the weekly leaderboards and their resets and rewards for them. You'll have to treasure hunt or play cards for hours or tens of hours if you want high spots and the decent rewards from those leaderboards. And, as you said, you also need to use all your weekly produced fortune on either the fishing or gathering.

I don't consider any of that "farming", it's simply playing the game. Also it against the ToS to allow anyone else to play on your account, so YOU will be playing the game You won't find bots doing daily quests.

Farming in most other games is where you get bots 24/7 taking resources, which can't be done in this game. You may get Rampagers "farming" world bosses and killing PvEers, but that is also sorted in this game, as long as you get a hit on the mob just once, you get rewards, and also there is the jail/debuff system that should keep that problem in check.

Quote from Rosy

Farming in most other games is where you get bots 24/7 taking resources, which can't be done in this game.

I used to play a lot of Aeria anime MMORPGs. Eternal Eden and the like. People did make bots for those games that could quest. You would see thousands of bots in a server or area auto-walking from quest to quest to farm endless amounts of gold for gold sellers. These bots could quest through basically the entire game just for the questing gold. Questing is actually a very good way to make money on SOLO as well.

I agree that botting doesn't really seem possible in Swords of Legends Online. But I think that's mostly because the Buy to Play entry fee, the economy not being nearly as gold or generic mob farming centric, and alternate character accounts being limited (a 7 day timer exists for deleting them if they quested too much).

Quote from Rosy

I'd like to know exactly what they will be "farming" there is nothing to farm.

Highly overlooked by a great many people is that SoLO does not have a botting problem for this very reason.

I consider myself a casual. Some people define casual as someone who only play a few hours per day, a point about the duration. While I define casual in terms of commitment. For instance lets look at it in terms of dating. To date someone casually is not about the duration in hours..but your commitment to each other overall.

If you're serious, your commitment will last but if you're not serious your commitment will soon come to an end. An individual does not judge their commitment based on the duration they share with their significant other because life doesn't always give everyone time to spend with those they love. Your commitment to each other can be a serious one but the amount of time you spend with one another can be short or long. However this doesn't point out that your commitment to one another is not serious just because you aren't around each other a.lot.

Going back to games, I'm a casual. I'm not serious about SOLO or any other game except for FFXIV. My commitment to FFXIV have lasted for a long time. I don't judge this by hours in a day but rather how consistent I am in playing the game. I have taken breaks and have come back many times with these several years.

I think in general the framing or the words we use is the cause of the confusion. To be hardcore it means that you're going all in..more than 7+hours per day that which most of us can't afford because their commitment to the game is serious. One can say that another person is also serious and committed to the game but they only have 1-2 hours to spare..but according to some people this amount of hours is not considered as hardcore.

So again, how I define who is casual and hardcore is based on their commitment/their consistency in playing the game NOT about how LONG they play the game. I think a better way to phrase it is to change "hardcore" player to "full time" player because the only difference here is the duration for how long someone plays a game but it doesn't mean that they're committed to the game. Some people can be playing the game for hours but they don't really care..they just mindlessly smash keys..streamers and youtubers do this a lot. They do this for views-this is their content. Just because they play the game for a long time per day and get gears it doesn't mean that they are "hardcore". So commitment is the key here.

Quote from Tomotomi

I consider myself a casual. Some people define casual as someone who only play a few hours per day, a point about the duration. While I define casual in terms of commitment. For instance lets look at it in terms of dating. To date someone casually is not about the duration in hours..but your commitment to each other overall.

If you're serious, your commitment will last but if you're not serious your commitment will soon come to an end. An individual does not judge their commitment based on the duration they share with their significant other because life doesn't always give everyone time to spend with those they love. Your commitment to each other can be a serious one but the amount of time you spend with one another can be short or long. However this doesn't point out that your commitment to one another is not serious just because you aren't around each other a.lot.

Going back to games, I'm a casual. I'm not serious about SOLO or any other game except for FFXIV. My commitment to FFXIV have lasted for a long time. I don't judge this by hours in a day but rather how consistent I am in playing the game. I have taken breaks and have come back many times with these several years.

I think in general the framing or the words we use is the cause of the confusion. To be hardcore it means that you're going all in..more than 7+hours per day that which most of us can't afford because their commitment to the game is serious. One can say that another person is also serious and committed to the game but they only have 1-2 hours to spare..but according to some people this amount of hours is not considered as hardcore.

So again, how I define who is casual and hardcore is based on their commitment/their consistency in playing the game NOT about how LONG they play the game. I think a better way to phrase it is to change "hardcore" player to "full time" player because the only difference here is the duration for how long someone plays a game but it doesn't mean that they're committed to the game. Some people can be playing the game for hours but they don't really care..they just mindlessly smash keys..streamers and youtubers do this a lot. They do this for views-this is their content. Just because they play the game for a long time per day and get gears it doesn't mean that they are "hardcore". So commitment is the key here.

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That's all true. Thanks for your text.

Hardcore / progress is far more into

to bring their class into perfection.

To take every bit of the game to the best or as much as possible (quests, dps perfection, achievements, being 1st killer of a dungeon/ world boss, PvP ranking to highscore, push up own guild for ranking, ignore normal mechanics and test new ways to kill the boss faster, to get the highest gearscore (as fast as possible))

Etc.

There is another thing to say.

Not every Casual player just play the "normal" endcontent.

Even they play the higher difficulty (for examble hard mode) but with more relaxed aims. Maybe to clear hardmode xy, try to clear it, if not then at another day.

Not every Hardcore player does not have to have the same aims.

Not everyone of them sit at the computer all the time and sweat cause of the panic not to do it now.

Even they can be relaxed in a hardmode dungeon cause they had run it over 50 times or have an arranged good team.

In some games you can buy gold/ ingame valuta or high equipment for a new character with real money. Are you now a Hardcore gamer cause you are one of the characters with high gearscore on your server? No.

The are more layers to a player than just casual and hardcore. I am a person who is in between casual and hardcore.

A casual player just wants to have fun and do their own thing and perhaps throw some friends in with that. They don't worry if they are going to get all their chores done or even if they get a dungeon run.

Then there are driven players. People like me who want to get into the end game content and do the hard dungeons. We will do our chores even if it feels like work so we can advance in the game and we make our guild dungeon calls and raids unless life gets in the way. If the dungeon/raid is unsuccessful then the group is still happy and just vows to get it another day. You have the goals of a hardcore player without the pressure.

Then there are hard core players. The ones who feel they must be the first ones through the hardest mode of everything. Each person is required to give a certain level of performance and if you don't make it then you are reprimanded. You have certain things that you must do for the group. If you don't, then you are out. I don't know what that set up would look like for Solo but in WoW I lead a casual guild as a driven player. I pushed my players into mid range in raids and dungons often by picking up pugs to fill out what I didn't have. I went into a mythic level dungeon because this guild wanted to recruit me and we made it through 1 boss. We likely would have made it through the second boss with one or two more tries but the raid leader ended the session an then berated everyone about it. I was like 'fuck this, I'm out'. This might be fine if you can handle that kind of stress and get off on being able to perform more complicated fights and don't take being pushed to perform in a personal way. It just wasn't a way I wanted to interact with other players. (note not all hardcore people act this way. but it is a given that it is more pressure to be in a hardcore guild than a casual one)

When I joined a guild in Solo, I explained who I was as a player. Someone who is driven but who can't always consistently have the same output. I am disabled and part of that is my arms being deformed. Being dps is painful so I don't always help during trash pulls. If they were going dps shame then it wouldn't have been the guild for me. They were cool with it.

So no matter what kind of player you are, when you approach a guild, it is best to tell them who you are and ask what their expectations are. Because if you aren't happy, then you shouldn't be playing the game. Sometimes getting happy means changing who are you playing with. Other times it means finding a new game.

Does this game have a lot of elitists in the east?