Path of Exile is much more casual than World of Warcraft and Farmville

I've brought this up in a couple other threads, but decided to make a whole topic about it.

Path of Exile is more casual than World of Warcraft, because you can just pick it up and play through all the content by yourself, whenever you want.

In contrast, World of Warcraft requires putting together and organizing a group of 25 people for some of the high-end content. The difficulty involved in doing that obviously exceeds copying someone else's build for Maelstrom of Chaos. Plus, some dungeons take hours to complete, as opposed to the relatively small distance you need to reach between waypoints in Path of Exile in order to make progress.

Even Farmville is less casual than Path of Exile. The system is designed to lure you in and make you play at the oddest hours. I've heard horror stories about people being asked to harvest their friends' crops in the dead of night. Whenever a game has some kind of system where you have to wait a period of time whether or not you are logged in (daily quests and such), the game reduces its casualness by tying itself to your real life in an excessive way.

Personally, I enjoy the casualness of Path of Exile, and I fail to see why it's often thrown around as an insult. It's great to have a relaxing game without insane hardcore commitments like Farmville or World of Warcraft. It's a nice, casual game that you can relax with on a coffee break.

As an aside, the hardcore ladder is more casual than the default ladder, because it takes much less time to reach the top. It's not as hard as it seems if you think of it as driving - if you make a severe mistake while driving, you can crash and instantly die, but if you follow a few simple rules, it's not that hard to survive. Stay alert, be defensive, don't take risks, etc, and you will get there much faster than in default. In a way, playing hardcore is like enjoying a casual drive without the gas costs or risk to one's physical body.

I stopped reading at Casual.

If your stupid enough to need to copy someone elses build to accomplish something, Congratulations, you win the 1% Award.

I read the whole OP, and I get Silty's point.

PoE isn't as demanding as the other games he mentioned; this isn't about "casual simple," it's about "no strings attached casual." An interesting observation, though I think to use the word "casual" might've been a mistake, since it has such a stigma attached to it in the ARPG arena. =^[.]^=

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Neokolzia wrote:

I stopped reading at Casual.

If your stupid enough to need to copy someone elses build to accomplish something, Congratulations, you win the 1% Award.

Why bother responding if you're not going to read my post?

The point is that end-game content Path of Exile requires much less of a commitment than raiding in WoW, because you don't need to put 25 people together and organize them. I think that's a good thing, or did you just assume I was insulting Path of Exile because you didn't bother reading?

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Raycheetah wrote:

I read the whole OP, and I get Silty's point.

PoE isn't as demanding as the other games he mentioned; this isn't about "casual simple," it's about "no strings attached casual." An interesting observation, though I think to use the word "casual" might've been a mistake, since it has such a stigma attached to it in the ARPG arena. =^[.]^=

Well, I meant to imply that people who stigmatize games for being "casual" are stuckup elitists, and casual can be a good thing. But you're right, I didn't realize that it actually carries a different meaning. Thank you.

I also find it really appealing when games aren't hardcore in that sense! With a quite busy real life (you have a life?) many games would be off the list for me. Altough I admit being a super nerd, I want to catch as much sun as possible this summer. Games of this type IS time consuming, sure, but I really enjoy having the option of choosing when I want to play. I have played some games like farmville and boy is it inhumanely addicting (at a "say farewell to your normal life level").

With that said, I'm gonna grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the beta, cheers! :)

Lack of commitment does not = casual. Simplified systems so that not quite so 'game' minded folk can just pick it up and play = causal.

My gran could play farmville and world of warcraft (plus WoW is an MMO so in terms of 'finishing' content you are barking up the wrong tree comparing it to an ARPG). She would struggle mightily with PoE.

But I agree 'casual' should not be instantly assumed as an insult. Some casual games are great fun. I bloody loved peggle! However in most gaming circles the e-peen comes out and no one likes to be tarred with the 'you play easy games' stick. Me? I don't care. I always get grief off xbox friends when my profile tells them what difficulty I am playing on, because 9 times out of 10 it is easy or normal. When I wan't a challenge I play online competitive multiplayer. Much more rewarding than beating some algorithms cranked up to 'insane' difficulty.

Pretty much all ARPG's are very casual. Diablo, Titans Quest, Torchlight, all of them you can "pick up and go" at pretty much any time. You can progress at your own pace.

Though if you want the best possible gear and getting to max level, you'll need to devote more time to any of those games, including PoE which is usually the draw for some of us.

To each their own I suppose.

I always associated "Casual game/-rs/-ing" with casual dressing.Its something that you are not serious about or generally don't care.In that case game like Farmville are casual in design,because they don't require from player to be serious,but that don't mean that all people that play it are casual gamers.If you log everyday and do stuff with your farm/kingdom/city/civ and generally you care about the game I think you are not casual.In that case for me almost every game can have casual,normal(or just gamers) and hardcore people playing it at the same time.It is about attitude.
PoE have all this modes like Hardmode,PvP,Leagues,events and so on that give incentive to have more hardcore players ,so for my point of view the game can be called "hardcore".

Casual has little to do with time investment / commitment. Using that logic you could argue that Tiny Tower is 'hardcore' because you need to wait 4 hours to upgrade a floor while sitting there with a thumb up your ass.

It's more about - style of play, complexity of mechanics/systems, punishment (or lack of) for failure, how much 'hand holding' goes on in the game and the difficulty of game play. It's also about how you approach the game.

You can play PoE in a very casual way, you can also play it in a very hardcore way.

But, an example - back in EverQuest days, me and a friend of mine started to play at the same time.

I ended up getting into the hard-core/uber-guild raiding side of things. He liked to dick around, solo, role play, level alternative characters, craft.

By time I was lvl 50 (max at the time), raiding Plane of Fear and decked out in gear from Dragons - his highest level character was lvl 30.

I forget what the exact numbers on our /played time were on our main characters - but his was about 3x as high as mine.

He played WAY more often than I did, just his goals in playing were far different.

So, just because he invested 3x the time I did, who was the more casual player?

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Silty wrote:

"

Neokolzia wrote:

I stopped reading at Casual.

If your stupid enough to need to copy someone elses build to accomplish something, Congratulations, you win the 1% Award.

Why bother responding if you're not going to read my post?

The point is that end-game content Path of Exile requires much less of a commitment than raiding in WoW, because you don't need to put 25 people together and organize them. I think that's a good thing, or did you just assume I was insulting Path of Exile because you didn't bother reading?

"

Raycheetah wrote:

I read the whole OP, and I get Silty's point.

PoE isn't as demanding as the other games he mentioned; this isn't about "casual simple," it's about "no strings attached casual." An interesting observation, though I think to use the word "casual" might've been a mistake, since it has such a stigma attached to it in the ARPG arena. =^[.]^=

Well, I meant to imply that people who stigmatize games for being "casual" are stuckup elitists, and casual can be a good thing. But you're right, I didn't realize that it actually carries a different meaning. Thank you.

Your judging a Unfinished Product, Endgame content isn't even in the game yet, Chaos is a place holder. This game isn't casual.