Difference between casuals and everone else please ?

Daoin · August 25

so people in the eso forums occasionally call out casual players, could someone describe the alternative playstyle and why they differ ?

Soarora · August 25

Casual players, as said by endgame PvE players, doesn’t really mean “they play this game casually” as much as it means “these people don’t do veteran group content or do so very rarely”. Someone who hardcore maxxes out daily writs and events and worldboss/delve quests are still called casual under that definition (shout out to these people for supporting the in-game economy though

).

I can’t speak for PvP players but the dichotomy in regard to there being “casuals” vs “endgame” for PvE tends to boil down to exclusion and attitude. There are people who don’t want any more dungeons/trials and don’t want dungeons becoming base-game (called casuals), there are people who don’t want HA players in their group (called endgame). There are players who refuse to change their build for anyone and get argumentative about it (called casuals) and there are people who get very toxic about people not already being good at the game (called endgame).

They are very expansive groups and not everyone within each grouping fits the stereotypes I outlined above, but that’s usually the arguments that get brought up.

CE_Nex · August 25

It wholly depends on who you ask. Terms like 'endgamer' and 'casuals' tend to be very subjective according to friend groups/communities. For example, in one of my old raiding guilds, endgame was reserved for scorepushing and world records. In another raiding guild I was in, endgamers was for whoever did trfiecta and HM runs. And I know many players who consider the definition of PvE endgamers as anyone who does veteran content.

For PvPers it gets a bit muddy because much of the PvP community is more stratified. For example, there are duelers and 1vXers who focus on maximizing singleplayer PvP. And then there are high end ball groups that optimize group play to the point where they're nearly invincible in Cyro.

And there are many people who unironically consider housing to be endgame.

The term 'casual', similarly tends to have different interpretations within different social circles. I knew trade guilds with lax rules and quotas who considered themselves casuals but would not extend the same definition to the behemoth trade guilds in Mournhold or Rawlkha. Some people consider casual players as those who refrain from doing dungeons and trials, even on normal mode. Similarly, I have heard opinions that anyone in a guild who does group content is not a casual player and only those that play solo by themselves are (admittedly, I've only seen this opinion two or three times over the years.)

As with anything on the internet - everyone has their own opinions.

freespirit · August 25

I do think that endgame players and for this description I would classify people who push for vet content, hardmodes and trifecta's as "Endgame players", are often a bit limited in their allowances of other playstyles.

Many would argue that Housing should also be considered "Endgame", I would too and that's because it requires a lot of gold and substantial game completion to access many of the furnishings. The houses on their own are pretty damn expensive too!

I am perfectly capable of doing 99% of group content available but I choose not to, so apparently I am a "Casual" player, which to me is very weird.

Too many entitled people over 12 years has really put me off joining groups but if I wish to I am in several Guilds that will happily join a group if asked to, the great thing about this is some of us have known each other for years so arguments and elitism don't rear their ugly heads.

My go to definition of casual would be more about how much a person played per week rather than what content they played but in ESO it seem to be all too often an insult!

DoofusMax · August 25

The big definitional problem here is "what is endgame?" I'm probably a casual by most common definitions, but I'm definitely an endgame player. The issue is that what I think is endgame doesn't agree with those common definitions. I enjoy doing the stuff that I enjoy doing and "endgame" in ESO is pretty much whatever you decide it is and you're there when you decide that you're there.

Meta? Don't much care. Min-Max? Nope. Achievement chasing? Can't be bothered most days. Solo vs group? Definitely solo except where grouping is necessary. Fashion? Walking faux pas and I mostly detest flash and bling anyway. Housing? OK, you might have something there. Champion Points? I'm not quite to the 1M XP per point level, but it's a lot closer than I thought it was. I don't PvP and I don't do Trials, but that's personal preference (don't) more than ability (can't). No one who hasn't been indulging in a bit more recreational use than is probably healthy would ever think of calling me "sweatlord," but that doesn't mean that I'm not an endgame player.

spartaxoxo · August 25

Casual, vet, and endgame usually refer to the types of content rather than playtime except in discussions specifically about playtime in my personal experience.

Casual players being anyone who does the easier activities and doesn't really play for a challenge.

A vet/endgame player is typically people who run veteran activities, named for the name of setting of the provides higher difficulty in most content.

sweaty/elite players are the ones who engage in stuff that is even harder than just regular clears of vet stuff. Think players that do stuff like trial trifectas and leaderboard content.

Some people use casual, sweaty, and elitist in a derogatory way. To modify an old George Carlin joke it's basically the mindset of "Everyone worse than me is a stupid casual and anyone better than me is an elitist with no life," but I wouldn't call that the norm or assume such things just based off these terms being used alone. Someone might be really against one idea that benefits the "other side of things," for whatever reason while really supportive of another. Generally, most posters are a lot more nuanced than that.

JustLovely · August 26

freespirit wrote: »

I do think that endgame players and for this description I would classify people who push for vet content, hardmodes and trifecta's as "Endgame players", are often a bit limited in their allowances of other playstyles.

Many would argue that Housing should also be considered "Endgame", I would too and that's because it requires a lot of gold and substantial game completion to access many of the furnishings. The houses on their own are pretty damn expensive too!

I am perfectly capable of doing 99% of group content available but I choose not to, so apparently I am a "Casual" player, which to me is very weird.

Too many entitled people over 12 years has really put me off joining groups but if I wish to I am in several Guilds that will happily join a group if asked to, the great thing about this is some of us have known each other for years so arguments and elitism don't rear their ugly heads.

My go to definition of casual would be more about how much a person played per week rather than what content they played but in ESO it seem to be all too often an insult!

Housing, by definition, is casual game play. No end game player has EVER referred to housing as end game. Only casual players make that reference. So maybe that's the definition. Anyone who thinks housing is end game is a casual player.

YffresTrill · August 26

It is a false dichotomy and very few people fall on one end of the spectrum or the other.

These terms can be useful when making some point or other, but there is little use in getting hung up over them, and even less in using them derisively.

Gagoimaliu · August 26

For me I always thought of a casual player as someone who logs on, plays for 2-3 hours, does a few quests, a couple dungeons maybe, some housing, some fashion, and logs off. They don't really care about efficiency or min-maxing, just having a build that's good enough.

On the other hand, you have "endgame" players, like PVPers or Trial runners, where min-maxxing and builds are more important, a casual can get by on having overland sets, but probably not someone who wants to run vet dungeons and trials, or PVP

It's what I gathered from playing WoW for ~10 years, so it's different in ESO, because you also have the entire trading guild aspect, and that's where the real sweats come out, not pvp, not endgame vet dungeons, trading guilds.

At the end of the day though, it's just a word, the casuals almost always outnumber the other kind of player, which you can tell by the output of content, no real pvp or dungeon content, only small questlines that you can do in an afternoon for some cosmetics

Valkanos · August 26

I think there is a pretty significant difference between a casual player vs a true endgame player, and that difference isn't simply the amount of difficult content they have completed.

Casual players
By casual, I don't mean bad players or inexperienced players.
A casual player is someone who primarily plays ESO because they enjoy the game itself. They might roleplay, do daily random dungeons, quest, collect achievements, decorate their house, farm sets, experiment with different builds, or join groups for Normal, Veteran, and sometimes even Hard Mode content.
They use whatever build they enjoy and whatever playstyle makes the game fun for them. They don't necessarily care whether their build is the absolute strongest possible option.
And that's perfectly fine.
In fact, I would argue that these players should be a major focus for ZoS, because they are the broad player base that keeps the world populated and the game alive. Not everyone needs to be chasing the highest possible DPS or the fastest possible clear.
Endgame players
These players aren't primarily motivated by simply completing content. Their motivation is to master it and optimize it.
They care about HM, trifectas, speedruns, leaderboard positions, perfect execution, and constantly improving their performance. If they parse 180k and somebody else parses 181k, they don't simply say, "Nice, I completed the content". They start looking for that extra 1k.
They are competing against their previous performance, against their group, against other groups, or against the best players in the game.
For these players, completing a trifecta isn't necessarily the end goal. It's another benchmark to beat.

And that's a completely legitimate way to play ESO too.

The important part is this

I don't think someone automatically becomes an endgame player simply because they have completed a few trifectas or Veteran Hard Modes.
A player can have completed several difficult achievements and still fundamentally be a casual player who has accumulated a lot of experience. Just that!
Likewise, being a casual player doesn't mean being bad. A highly experienced casual player can be an extremely competent player without having the same competitive mindset as someone who spends hours optimizing every possible aspect of a run.

You can actually see some of this difference in Group Finder.
From time to time, you will find genuinely hardcore endgame players in Group Finder. But there is an important difference here.
If a true endgame player can parse 180k+ on a dummy, believe me, they're not suddenly going to become a 70k DPS player just because they joined a random group.
They have the gear. They have the sets. They have the skills. More importantly, they have the knowledge and experience to adapt. They understand what buffs, debuffs, skills, gear, potions, positioning, and rotations they need. They can look at the group composition and make adjustments before the fight even starts, just to maintain their real parse or stay very close to it.
But that's the important part: they also know when their personal DPS doesn't matter. If the group is struggling, they can simply switch to a support role or change their setup to help the group succeed. They don't care about protecting their parse in a random group. Believe me, they will often be the first ones to adapt and sacrifice their own DPS for the sake of the group.

Casual players can parse 130k with Beam and 140k with WW on a dummy, but then do 40k DPS inside a random group, and any decent HA\1bar player will kick their ass. Not because 1bar\HA builds are better, but because they’re simply not experienced enough to understand what they actually need to do in a real fight or how to adapt to random groups.

That's one of the things that, in my opinion, separates a genuinely endgame player from an experienced casual player who has completed difficult content.

What a damn difference... And yeah, everyone gets to use the same title, and almost everyone gatekeeps players who are at the same level. Well... this is ESO!
Real endgame players aren't recognized at all, while casual players earn the same titles and then use them to gatekeep other casual players. Real endgame players should be the ones those titles actually represent. ^^

EDIT:
You can find these "fake endgame players" every day in Group Finder. Just, join any vTrial group with a title like "vDSR Speed Run 120k DPS". That RL will ask for your achievements, ask you to link your sets, make sure you have Hodor, and then... What will you see? One player who can actually do 120k DPS, and he might be a true endgame player, or just a casual player with a good parse. Then everyone else will be doing 70k, 50k, or even less, and the group will disband at Twins because they can't burn the boss or handle the mechanics. Oh, and of course, if any 1bar\HA build ever does better than them, they’ll cry and start asking for nerfs as soon as possible.
Lol. Funny. ^^

Danikat · August 26

I agree there's no specific or universal definition and it depends on context (including who is saying it) but in general a casual player is someone who isn't always trying to do the best they possibly can or learn to improve. They're much more likely to pick skills they enjoy than try to make the best possible build for example, and have similar priorities in other areas.

For example a casual dungeon run just means getting to the end without spending all evening on it. It doesn't matter if people make mistakes, even if the whole group wipes and has to try again (as long as it doesn't take hours). Any achievements you get are a bonus and no one's going to check your time or DPS or whatever against community benchmarks or comb through combat logs to figure out where you could shave a few seconds off an encounter.

It doesn't mean they're bad players, or even that they won't or can't ever try to do better, it just means it's not usually their priority.

Some people are fully capable of switching between both. They'll happily join a 'story mode' normal dungeon run where we listen to the NPCs, poke around in the corners, read books and laugh at WTF just killed all of us on that one boss. Then they'll switch characters to join a Trifecta run in a trial.

Renato90085 · August 26

i know some casuals player sometime do pug trial hm or pvp
and some true endgame player do house/RP or just afk and chat so many hour when they are not Scorepush/trifecta/pvp
last month i play sheogorath quest with my best player,a casuals player who main housing and parkour and met my trifecta core member doing quest too
i mean,why can't we be both at the same time?

Nestor · August 26

I play the game to pass time and have fun. Other's play the game to max out some, or all, aspects of it. This does not mean I don't fine tune aspects of the game nor do those who are maxing out something about the game are not having fun.

Taarente · August 27

Gagoimaliu wrote: »

For me I always thought of a casual player as someone who logs on, plays for 2-3 hours, does a few quests, a couple dungeons maybe, some housing, some fashion, and logs off. They don't really care about efficiency or min-maxing, just having a build that's good enough.

On the other hand, you have "endgame" players, like PVPers or Trial runners, where min-maxxing and builds are more important, a casual can get by on having overland sets, but probably not someone who wants to run vet dungeons and trials, or PVP

It's what I gathered from playing WoW for ~10 years, so it's different in ESO, because you also have the entire trading guild aspect, and that's where the real sweats come out, not pvp, not endgame vet dungeons, trading guilds.

At the end of the day though, it's just a word, the casuals almost always outnumber the other kind of player, which you can tell by the output of content, no real pvp or dungeon content, only small questlines that you can do in an afternoon for some cosmetics

Er I do all of this, i make gold to invest in builds. I’ve done trials and dungeons and now prefer to spend time in imperial city and cyrodiil. I don’t do labels i’m afraid.

Frayton · August 27

A casual is simply someone who doesn't play the hardest PvE content that requires combat or has never dedicated any serious time or effort into PvP (PvDooring doesn't count).

There's nothing wrong with being a casual. ESO is a casual game after all, and there's also nothing wrong with that.

Eldovar · August 27

We all have different definitions.

I still think people who are CP2500, have 100 percent zone completion, have most sets from dungeons and trials, have all companion keepsakes and play some battlegrounds from time to time are not casual players

But some people think you are because you don't interact with that 1 percent of game content that's considered 'hard'

It all depends who you ask.

Galatherys · August 27

My focus is housing and pretty much always has been. I’ve reached Overlord rank in PvP more or less just for the sake of unlocking the achievement furnishings of siege equipment and I only really want to do vet content to unlock furnishings/cosmetics for my characters.

Hardmode and other vet achievements don’t remotely interest me unless they’re essential for personalities, skins, furnishings etc. Parsing and fine tuning builds also doesn’t interest me at all (in fact I actively hate it).

Presumably that means I’m some sort of end gamer/casual hybrid lol

ketsparrowhawk · August 27

Galatherys wrote: »

My focus is housing and pretty much always has been. I’ve reached Overlord rank in PvP more or less just for the sake of unlocking the achievement furnishings of siege equipment and I only really want to do vet content to unlock furnishings/cosmetics for my characters.

Hardmode and other vet achievements don’t remotely interest me unless they’re essential for personalities, skins, furnishings etc. Parsing and fine tuning builds also doesn’t interest me at all (in fact I actively hate it).

Presumably that means I’m some sort of end gamer/casual hybrid lol

I call this "semi-casual"

Danikat · August 27

I think an important point is that casual (and whatever you want to call the opposite) is "just" a play style, not an immutable part of who that person is.

Kind of like how if you play ESO then you're a gamer, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's the only thing you ever do with your life, you could also be a parent or a banker or a marathon runner, or a professional interpretive dancer, or all of the above.

Similarly someone could play ESO casually, but that doesn't mean they are fundamentally a casual player who must always approach games that way. They could just be doing it because they've had a long day of competitive interpretive dance and want to chill out, or they used to push leaderboard scores and got tired of it. Or they're perfectly capable of pushing themselves to do better but choose not to because they don't want to play the game that way.

Eldovar wrote: »

We all have different definitions.

I still think people who are CP2500, have 100 percent zone completion, have most sets from dungeons and trials, have all companion keepsakes and play some battlegrounds from time to time are not casual players

But some people think you are because you don't interact with that 1 percent of game content that's considered 'hard'

It all depends who you ask.

This too. I think every aspect of the game could have it's own definition.

For example I consider myself a casual housing enthusiast because my approach to it is to get a house I think looks nice, then decorate it like a house with whatever furnishings I find, some of the ones I find plans for and occasionally ones I buy from vendors. For me making a big effort to decorate means something like searching through all the rugs to find one the right size and shape for a room and then looking up how to get it instead of picking the best of the rugs I've already got.

That is a world away from the people who not only devote a huge amount of time and gold to it but get so impressively creative, turning furnishings into completely different objects by turning them around, clipping them into each other etc. and turning into houses into completely different landscapes.

Don't get me wrong, I like the results I get and I have fun with the process, but I'm aware it's very much the casual end of in-game decorating.

Ordinator199 · August 28

Lol I love how people think that there are some sects where "end-game players" just constantly non-stop do same 15 trials hard-modes years in a row 12 hours a day.

Monte_Cristo · August 28

I've always assumed 'casuals' is like 'normie', and basically means 'person who does things I don't like, who does/likes different things to me, or I disagree with'.

StrandedMonkey · August 28

spartaxoxo wrote: »

...

Some people use casual, sweaty, and elitist in a derogatory way. To modify an old George Carlin joke it's basically the mindset of "Everyone worse than me is a stupid casual and anyone better than me is an elitist with no life," but I wouldn't call that the norm or assume such things just based off these terms being used alone. Someone might be really against one idea that benefits the "other side of things," for whatever reason while really supportive of another. Generally, most posters are a lot more nuanced than that.

This needs to be brought up more, because it seems to happen around me more often. It's sad to see people having misconstrued opinions of something that places this harsh mental barrier from trying different content. You can have valid reasons for not wanting to do something, but I'm absolutely baffled by the number of people acting like experts and defending their opinions quite personally after doing something once X amount of months/weeks/years ago.

We can all enjoy this game together however I personally don't think I need to be strung up on a cross because I'd like to see pvp focused balancing.

Daoin · August 28

i would consider myself a casual player with almost 12k hours spent in eso having done a bit of this and a bit of that of everything, although i do have my preferences in content, when i think of the word casual player the word hardcore player springs to mind and i prefer the term casual over hard core and thats why

Oceanchanter · August 28

For me the difference is something along the lines of:

Casual players - play normally, no addons, maybe some map addons for lorebooks and skyshards.
Their screens look like this:
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hq720.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEhCK4FEIIDSFryq4qpAxMIARUAAAAAGAElAADIQj0AgKJD&rs=AOn4CLChafHNfbJ9wsP8SFc07WFt4Nm9XQ

And they build whatever they seem fit, not really being concerned about meta all that much. Often functional RP builds. Low cortisol level play, maybe some normal Trial here and there.

"Extremeh Proh Playerhs" install every addon tracking every single thing they do so they can deal 67.69 more damage 0.5 sec faster, and their screen looks something like this:

I know it's a WoW screenshot, but I'm on borrowed time looking for addon-cluttered ESO screenshots I've seen before. This one is very close anyway.
They follow meta very closely and post "[set/class/skill] is ruined!" when ZOS nerfs the numbers by 0.1%, high-cortisol level play.

I'm obviously exaggerating and being comedic
...or am I?

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Difference between casuals and everone else please ?

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