Proper Difference In Power Between Casual and Hardcore?

learis1

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?

cameltosis

Intrinsic Power - 10 - 20% power difference max.

Extrinsic Power - Whatever you want

Primary difference in "power" should not come from stats, gear or anything like that, but in player skill. If you design a system with enough depth then the hardcore vet *should* beat the newbie every time because they are much higher skilled and not just because they have higher stats.

[nb if ur making a game around action combat then depth is unlikely, so do whatever u want as i wont be playing it]

ChildoftheShadows

I prefer to not think about time played and instead the difference between a starting character and a max character. The "gap" as it's most often referred to is typically too large to fathom between 1 level let alone 80. 

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.

Quizzical

The hardcore should be exactly 6.387 W more powerful than the casual.

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?

Amathe

Ooooh an old fashioned Casual v. Hardcore thread!

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.

Wizardry

OP didn't specify pvp or pve.

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.

cheyane

Is casual a state of mind towards a goal or is it pure hours spent? If a person works slowly and without any hurry towards a goal does that make them casual even if they spend a lot of time on the game. 

LynxJSA

Whatever your target audience considers an acceptable percentage derived from the chosen measure for power. You presented time as that measure, so we'll go with that.  

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. 

Sovrath

I think the percentage is whatever it turns out to be. If someone is leveling 8 hours per day and the other person is in chat "chatting it up" for 2 hours per day, does 30 minutes of content and logs out, then as long as both individuals enjoyed themselves it doesnt' matter.

"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.

Aeander

Ideally not even a relevant point of conversation because the two should have as little contact (in PvP) as possible. Whether that's through rank based matchmaking or dedicated hardcore PvP areas.

Ungood

Casual and hardcore are how a player approaches a game. Their Mindset.

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.

LynxJSA

Aeander said:

Ideally not even a relevant point of conversation because the two should have as little contact (in PvP) as possible. Whether that's through rank based matchmaking or dedicated hardcore PvP areas.

BLASPHEMY!!! How else are you going to keep the high level players entertained once the content runs out?   

AlBQuirky

Amathe said:

Ooooh an old fashioned Casual v. Hardcore thread!

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.

This was my thought as I read the OP. It matters not the number of hours, but rather how that time was spent. A player that spends 2 hours in a group leveling as much as possible is far more hardcore than the player that is social and/or roleplays

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

Cryomatrix

Easy way to differentiate;

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. 

Iselin

Hardcore is not the opposite of casual - that would be serious. Hardcore is to serious like serious is to casual.

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.

Theocritus

One genre where I can really see the difference between hardcore and casuals is in PBBGs.......Hardcores are willing to spend thousands more for advantages and will find ways to play 24/7 if possible. I don't know if those means are legit or not but somehow they are always way ahead.

DeadSpock

There is also in between I consider myself in between.
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.

DeadSpock

Also casuals and mid cores help others and enjoy when they do that where hard-cores never help and the trend now is they sell runs and become mercenaries.

Mendel

Determining casual and hardcore is like applying calculus to peanut butter.  You only end up with a sticky headache.

Cryomatrix

I am sure you can calculate the stickiness factor and how much peant butter can hold before it collapses on itself

Iselin

Torval said:

Not so much that you bruise the hardcore ego while still keeping that sweet casual revenue flowing in.  

Iselin said:

Hardcore is not the opposite of casual - that would be serious. Hardcore is to serious like serious is to casual.

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.

I love that answer.

All I know is I get my ass kicked in Fallout 76 a hell of a lot more often than I ever did in most of my full on MMORPGs. When I go into a building or area now I often wonder if I'm going to come out alive or wrecked or if I'll end up doing a corpse run to get my junk back (both literally and figuratively).

I'm a serious player in the games I like. I get into them and eventually get to be good - sometimes really good -  at them. But I'm definitely not HC.

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.

LynxJSA

Mendel said:

Determining casual and hardcore is like applying calculus to peanut butter.  You only end up with a sticky headache.

The OP made it easy. They said that, at least for the purpose of this discussion, the measure was time. 

TwistedSister77

Practice makes perfect, so all else being equal... the player dedicated to learning the game should be better... no need for artificial bonuses on top.

bcbully

No matter the gap PvE guy is gonna cry when he dies...

Bloodaxes

bcbully said:

No matter the gap PvP guy is gonna cry when he dies...

Fixed it for you pal

Shaigh

Hardcore is treating gaming like its a second job that doesn't allow for 30 minute coffee breaks. Casual is treating gaming like a job where you show up 45 minutes late just to spend 30 minute in the morning and 30 minute in the afternoon on your phone and somewhere you actually find 1.5 hour to do some actual work.

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.