It’s also an attitude. So for example my SL main from the start of the expac was a Necrolord warrior. I cared far more about the cosmetics than the fact that I’d do half the dps of a Venthyr warrior.
i’d base casual off of ilvl atm tbh, like someone who is sub 200 ilvl on their main this far into the first patch i’d call a casual, between 200-220 i’d consider regular playerbase and anything above 220 i’d consider hardcore
but then again i consider myself a casual player who avoids group content so i dont know anymore
We’d probably be better off if we stopped trying to sort people by arbitary, binary, black-and-white definitions.
Some of the discussions I see about “Casual vs Hardcore” around here, you’d think each group was a secretive, cult-like cabal plotting world domination and the destruction of the other side.
They’re just freaking people. Playing a video game.
Hello, just a filthy casual here. Yes, I play for many hours without any kind of meaningful advancement for my many toons.
Why?
I am having fun.
Also, I don’t do much of the m+ dungeons, or anything more than LFR raids and definitely, absolutely no PvP. Why? Usually, not always when I have dipped my casual toes into that content, do not have fun. It is intense, I feel all worn out and glad whatever I was doing is done. Then it’s really bad when people are screaming at each other. It’s just a game, the only reason why I am there is for the gear so I don’t have to work so hard on the “normal” content that I do.
Someone stated it above, I think elites are the ones who log in for “raid night” with their guild (progression stuff), do a M+15 or two, have a high rated pvp number and that is all. I also consider an elitist, whether they have the achievements or not, that stream on the internet and come to these forums and brag that all the content is easy and everyone else need to “git gud”.
Here’s how I define them:
Hardcore - player who spend a lot of time to the game. They farm/grind a lot of stuff making their toon above average.
I considered myself Hardcore with no life in the past.
I remember I reached Lt. Commander on PvP mostly on weekend while I raid Naxx40 4 hours a day during weekdays with my elite raiding guild. And I also spend 2 to 4 hours a day farming before the raid to have high end enchants, flasked , dual pot’d every boss, on food buff.
I was also hardcore on WoTLK. I had 2 toons doing Gold DKP. On Saturday, I used 1x toon to do and farm ICC-25. On Sunday, I used another toon to also do and farm ICC-25. On Weekdays, I did all the chores/reps and farming like 4 hours a day. I also did a lot of BGs. I had friends who like to twink… we destroy those rich low level twinks on low level brackets as we are also rich with Gold from our Gold DKP runs. I was a WoW addict.
But I cant be hardcore forever. My WoW addiction has to stop.
Casual Player - player who plays the game not that frequent. A player who is not serious anymore.
After Cata, I became Casual. I left WoW but I kept coming back but as Casual. I play dungeon/heroic dungeons here and there. Was not able to raid anymore since I cant find Gold DKP runs anymore. I think Master Loot was taken away. I was fine. I was Casual. But I was fascinated with 5-man ZG and ZA. I can do that. I love it. I can only do Heroic 5-man not raid.
Then Legion came. Mythic+ was born. Wow. I can do that. Then Dungeon Finder for Raid was introduced. Really? I can also do that. I dont like to boast but as Casual like 4 days a week with 2 to 4 hours a day, I reached M+15 and even completed the whole Mythic Emerald Nightmare all on Dungeon Finder. Unfortunately, I was not able to find Mythic Nighthold raid on Dungeon Finder. I left WoW for Diablo 3 Necromancers but I came back on Antorus just enough to get AoTC and M+15 all on Dungeon Finder.
BFA is the same. It has M+ and Dungeon Finder. Again as Casual, I reached M+15 and AoTC. Shadowlands would be the same.
I consider myself Casual since I dont care about Mythic Raiding anymore. I do have limited playtime but I can reach M+15 and AoTC with my limited play time. All I need is the Dungeon Finder. I cant commit to guild’s raiding schedule.
I play when I want to play. And it works for me.
BTW, the problem with Casual is you would lack Gold. You dont have enough play time so you dont have time to grind. Without gold, it’s hard to push high end stuff without resources: gold for repair, flasks, potions, food buff, augment runes, expensive enchants, etc. Legion solve my gold problem by the introduction of WoW token. I only need 1 token for every 3 months. It was okay. It’s cheap and legit. But BFA is better when they introduced Paragon Gold… 4k gold for each Paragon Chest and I can get 3 Paragon Chests per week … more than enough to fuel my endgame expenses. On Shadowlands, Gold was hard at first. I admit, I bought 1x WoW token to help me with my dungeon expenses. I cant do dungeons without flasks and other buffs. But right now, I am exalted on the 4 main rep and paragon gold starts to flow. Daily Calling sometimes give 1.8k gold. I am becoming more efficient due to some Sanctum Upgrades. Anima just keeps on coming in by just playing the game. These really help me fuel my endgame push.
I am now at M+10… my progression is still ongoing. Yup, I am Casual… not noob, just less play time. My gaming is like this right now:
Day 1: Renown Upgrade, Daily Calling, and one M+ run.
Day 2: Renown Upgrade, Daily Calling, and one M+ run.
Day 3: Weekly Oribos, Weekly Quest (Done with Timewalking), World Boss and one M+ run
Day 4: Maw and one M+ run
If I have spare time, I do Torghast and/or raid. I usually do 1x M+ per week on Legion and BFA. But SL pushes me to do 4x M+runs. I am okay with it so far.
BTW, Covid opened up more extra hours of play time on me. I have more play time right now than on early BFA and on Legion. Maybe I am becoming a semi-hardcore. Nope, I am still Casual. LOL.
this here is a good definition of casual. Someone who has limited play time. Weather he play end content or not doesn’t matter.
Not the so called casual because you dont do high content. If you log in everyday/every night to play sorry to tell you but you aint casual. You’re just a bad hardcore player.
Honestly I still go by the time spent metric for the distinction, that and re-arranging life things for WoW. If you do that, you’re pretty hardcore. Just like even if you’re part of an amateur baseball club and you have to carve out specific times just for those games, you’re also a hardcore (yet amateur) baseball player.
A casual is anyone who is incapable of doing challenging content, whether by choice, because they’re bad or due to limitations like available time. It has nothing to do with time played, or attitude towards the game. Many casuals are bitter and angry at their faults.
So, based on my own research on the forums I’ve developed the 2 main woking definitions below.
Because we need something that’s quantitative I’ll be using iLvL 220 (1800 in PVP/KSM in Mythic+) as the point when somebody transitions from a casual to an elite, as that seems to be the most common opinion repeated on the forums.
Time Spent.
This was always my understanding of what being a casual meant, they just played less. Problem with this definition is that I largely consider myself to be casual as I only play for maybe an hour or two a night but I’m +1800 in PvP, and I know guys who are online all the time and are -200 iLvL. So this definition may no longer hold true.
Anti-Social/Solo Players.
Nearly every thread on here about player housing, or solo content also mentions the word casual. These type if casuals just people who don’t like to play with other people. Or perhaps prefer to be randomly grouped with people with minimal human interaction.
Casual is comfortable and smart. Hard-core is like a hernia for your brain.
People just forgot what words mean
It’s pretty much how many hours you can cram in a week and somehow the community diluted it into different play styles
So we got people playing 30 hours a day 8 days a week RPing and doing old quests and people that log on for 2 hours a week to nut out the mythic raid
Guess which one is hardcore now and which one is casual
Hardcore: Tryhard meta slave who looks down on everyone else as worse than them at the game
Casual: Wants top tier gear for doing nothing, wants difficult content they don’t do nerfed or removed because it serves as a constant reminder they’re actually terrible at the game, looks down on tryhard metaslaves for being tryhard metaslaves
“Hardcore/Elitist” and “Casual” are terms usually used in the context of someone the game be altered in some form or another. Otherwise they’re relative terms, a WF raider will think a Cutting Edge raider who does 2 nights a week is “casual”, a +19 pusher will think someone who stops at Keystone Master is “casual”, etc. It kind of works the other way too, but the main thing it’s a relative term used by people to describe groups of people relative to themselves.
Aaannd another overly rinsed and repeated topic of the week.
Let’s put this to bed once and for all, shall we?
There’s no such thing as “casual vs. hardcore”.
There is nothing “hardcore” about sitting at your computer playing a video game.
What we do have is players who play the game for fun vs. what I like to call the slobber-hard, the kind of person that sweats and slobbers entirely too much over a game that’s available to just about everyone on the planet.
Players who play the game for fun have their fun doing solo stuff, queing, LFR, that kind of thing, all the way up to running super-duper-ultra mythics with their guild or friends. Whatever is fun to the individual player.
Then you got the slobber hards. The ones that spend entirely too much time crying and complaining about who gets to do what, when and how, and what others are rewarded. Then another disproportionate amount of time pondering the difference between “casual and hardcore”.
Time logged in is not a factor on any level of difficulty that’s pursued.