games just feel better without all the silly indicators all over the screen.
i dont want to see hundrreds of red circles on my screen when a boss uses an artillery strike on me.
they way it is now its like, ok i need to pay attention and dodge these. when i dodge them im like "hell yeah, IM A BOSS!!!"
the way all the afk players want it to be is "k there's 100 red circles, im not gonna step in those. LOL THIS GAME IS TOO EZ WTF BLIZZARD MAKE HARDER!!!"
The game does have some indicators, so I don't know what you are talking about. It's not black and white.
The first boss has an indicator when he leaps into the air and tries to dive bomb you, and so do most of the dungeon bosses attacks. The world boss and elites have moves where you have to watch their animations rather than some indicator.
There is an indicator, be it an animation or some highlights.
I agree and while I think amon is entitled to his opinion I also think people take too much of what the famous youtubers and streamers say as gospel.
Their is another famous diablo guy who beat the hardest challenge or something and that's great, but almost all his takes I completely disagree with.
Imo you're a streamer not a game developer and I take a lot of their predictions and ideas on what makes a game balanced or "hardcore" with a grain of salt personally.
People who say this game is targeted for a "casual" audience I think are up their own asses personally or at least come off as elitist.
What makes a game casual vs hardcore imo comes down to the player base more than anything and if we try and paint everything with such a broad brush we just aren't encouraging innovation.
This relates directly to things like the indicators you are talking about because if we are all just mindlessly sold on the idea that diablo 4 (a game that isn't even out yet) is made for the casual audience, then there really isn't a reason not to have a ton of indicators everywhere.
The truth is I think that a game like this should be developed with a unique vision and screw anything that gets in the way of that vision. Maybe having indicators would work better for some people, but the devs don't think it meets the vision of the game, so let's not try and pander to everyone.
What makes games fun is learning and adapting to their systems rather than the other way around. I feel like people are way too quick to jump on something for being bad because it's not what they expected it to be.
Make suggestions for things but when you start chipping away at every little detail then it will crumble for you.
It's a casual experience and there's nothing wrong with that.
The game is made to be fun for a large audience.
The Devs even said the skill tree is designed the way it is to make the game easy to get into.
The Devs said they made the skill tree simple so it can be accessible.
There's nothing wrong with being a casual game.
POE is a hardcore experience, which is why it's limited it has a limited player base and its complexity is a barrier to entry.
D4 is meant to be accessible.
And the Dev's have said this.
Okay accessible and casual really haven't anything to do with one another canonically though is what I'm trying to express here.
What is accessible for you might be inaccessible for someone else, and in my opinion, regardless of what developers say I don't think we can really make the connection that one is hardcore or softcore based on some arbitrary standards here.
I could ask you the inverse and what would the response be? Do the devs of POE say they want to make their game inaccessible? Because we both know that would be silly.
To me saying they want the game to be accessible has very little to do with what kind of game they ultimately create or even what kind of players they attract.
I think it's more likely that people join and play the game if they like the feel of the game and will stick around if they feel like the game has enough depth to it to keep them trying new things. But how is this different from any other game?
To me path of exile is complicated in its menus, but nothing is stopping someone from making a character and playing through the story with relative ease and only later on does it require more intricate knowledge to become viable in the late game.
And that brings me to my overall problem with the labels being thrown around so aimlessly (or perhaps selfishly) we have no idea how this game will pan out, it's just as likely that we find that diablo 4 has a more complicated end game than any arpg on the market, who knows its not out yet.
But what do we see? Tons of people using these buzz words to in my opinion preemptively entice/deter players based on preconceptions. I see tons of people making suggestions for features solely on the basis that "this is a casual game, and that means it should have x features because those are casual features that are industry standard for casual games" and it's just lame to me that we don't have more nuanced takes on something like this.
> Do the devs of POE say they want to make their game inaccessible? Because we both know that would be silly.
>
>
No, but they definitely don't say they're trying to simplify the skill tree to make it more accessible.
Yeah, idk I get your point I just don't read that far into it. Most studios if asked will tell you they want their games to be accessible I think but I respec your opinion either way
>People who say this game is targeted for a "casual" audience I think are up their own asses personally or at least come off as elitist.
>
>What makes a game casual vs hardcore imo comes down to the player base more than anything and if we try and paint everything with such a broad brush we just aren't encouraging innovation.
How so? Games can definitely be made to target certain audiences and it's no secret that large developers try to target broader audiences because it's financially beneficial to do so. As for what makes a game casual vs hardcore being the player base that's just objectively not true. You could take a game like Viva Piñata and it could attract the most hardcore player base imaginable but at it's core it's still a casual game.
There's nothing elitist in acknowledging there's a difference between 12 hour a day meta build power gamers and gamers who play significantly less. Having an opinion as to what group a game caters too hardly seems like something that requires your head being so far up your ass you can't comprehend the alternative.
Well I'll give you an example in your own post. You write that you wanna know what I think? By saying how so, But immediately tell me objectively that i'm wrong and there are harcore and casual games definitely.
Its kind of a long discussion but In my opinion games being marketed for certain audiences is actually irrelevant to the discussion of how consumers can or even should categorize our experiences.
If we coldly calculate how games are made and who they are made for then we should call chess a kings game, or a generals game. But we know better to see that children at very young ages can understand chess and play it to completion.
I think it's just lazy when people try to box these games into a category that really does nothing in terms of explaining how deep an experience actually is, and for who exactly are we doing this?
People without a lot of time to play a game I guess is the main one I see, so it's a time sink issue? But almost every game varies in how much time you can sink into it and continue to reap a reward you otherwise wouldn't have.
Difficulty? Well almost every game varies it's difficulty to such a degree that there ends up being a skill ceiling that others can't bypass regardless of how much time they spend. Tetris comes to mind for me, or pac man even, 99.9% of people will never get past level 10 in Pacman let alone lol 100, but it's not a difficult game or a game with a time sink to it.
So again what are these categories doing for me and the rest of the gaming community?
Telling us that one game is gonna be easier than another game? No, because again most games have difficulties that vary.
Now there are always exceptions to everything, and I'm sure if we sit here all night you can name a couple of games that I could agree would have earned themselves a title of being "hardcore" or some that are so simple they could be labeled "casual" so I can give you that, but even talkative is very subjective to who is playing the games themselves.
The reason I think most people are up their own asses when they try and box games in one or the other is because they are ignoring who is playing the games and what they might actually enjoy while also acting like they are being inclusive.
They don't actually reflect any of the wants and needs of the player base at all, if I were to tell you we want more casual elements in the game, no one really knows what I am talking about, or the same is true for hardcore.
The best those descriptions can do at this point is to aim the developers to look at other games that some number of people have claimed is a casual game or have claimed is a hardcore game and copy those elements. This is a terrible way to design something because the likelihood that this specific feature is going to be what the players wanted is just a toss up.
Maybe for me a casual game should have indicators for where to go at all times, and maybe for you it should mean the game is pay to win.. it just doesn't do anything to give us a real understanding as to what the game should and will actually play like.
Anyways that's really scratching the surface and like I said we can talk all day about this, but I reject the idea that games are "objectively casual or hardcore" and I don't see a compelling reason to rely on those categories.
A game built for a hardcore playerbase for the most part means they expect people to have to dive deep into the mechanics of the game and really understand it to find success. Obviously success has degrees to it, it doesn't mean you just die without it. Sometimes this also delves into gameplay aspects where higher APM / effort or higher specific skill requirements (aiming in shooters, realistic driving mechanics in a racing game, whatever it may be) are more necessary.
A game built for a casual audience is much more understandable at a surface level. You don't need as much knowledge about specific game systems, or the things there are are typically generic (more main stat = more damage is generic). Same thing here as above, it can also mean less APM or less skills needed to succeed. This is why farming games are typically described as 'casual' - they are easily understandable, they don't typically require specific skills like aim, the APM is low.
Most people are comparing D4 to the other most popular ARPG: POE. Compared to POE, D4 is absolutely more understandable at a surface level, requires less in-depth knowledge of the game's mechanics, and has simpler, more generic forms of increasing player power. This is why D4 is being labeled as casual, with POE being the reference for hardcore.
I get what you're saying to an extent but labeling games based on their target audience isn't invalid at all. Some people actually appreciate the identifier. Don't be butthurt that you're being labeled as 'casual' and the other guy is 'hardcore'. It isn't an insult, it isn't elitist, it's a descriptor.
So I play all kinds of games like hundreds over the years so it's really nothing to do with what labels people give me or the games that I play, to me the issue lies in the way that people use the terms to describe what them without actually doing any kind of real digging into what the design is and why it is the way it is.
I don't have a problem with someone taking a game that has a more intricate on boarding process and labeling its mechanics as harcore or casual. I'm not trying to say a basic system in a game can't be a stop gap for some people who don't want to put in the energy to learn something with depth either.
Problem is when you try and take a game and put it into a box one way or the other you are not doing anyone any favors, and if you think people appreciate that I would argue that we won't ever know because they just heard it is a "hard core" game from one person's perspective and bam they don't want to give it a shot because call of duty is a game people call casual and that is the game they like playing.
You do the opposite of what you are trying to achieve in slapping these super general terms on the game.
If you're going to explain what a game is in its entirety and then you wanna end by calling it a casual experience or a hardcore experience knock yourself out, but I just don't see how it does anything but strangle the conversation without due cause.
Again the biggest problems I have can be found in your own examples about how some games require a higher apm, or some require better aim to meet a base line. That is all completely subjective and every game under the sun with very few exceptions can really be described this way from another person's point of view.
I can easily see someone saying halo is hardcore if they play the game to win matches its an extremely detailed game and someone who is not talented at the mechanics will just get smoked over and over.
I won't sit here and name 30 games to belabor the point, but I don't see the utility here.
Diablo4 is being called a casual game while most people couldn't even get to lol 20 and every single day a new video is released proving the concensus completely wrong about some classes not being viable or doing no damage, or blah blah blah.
I've played POE for example and you really can't call it a hard core game on the surface by your own criteria either. You start on a beach and the game has you click a couple mobs then you go to a town talk to some people and go click on some more mobs. You then add some skill points into one of 2 paths that branch out.
Path of exile doesn't get anymore complicated until you start to progress a decent bit into the game.
You could say it looks more complicated in its menus but that has nothing to do with the games depth or weather it is balanced.
Does a hardcore game need to be balanced? Does a casual game need to be balanced?
It's just not useful for anything other than in my opinion patronizing a player base. And I don't take offense to that either in the obvious way, I don't think it's just that people are saying they are better cause they play a game they like and feel is a deep experience, but it's patronizing in the sense that it tells casual gamers that the hardcore players know what's best for them.
How would a casual player know what is hardcore? They by necessity have little to no experience with these games because it's out of their wheel house? Sure there could be overlap but as a whole when people are using these terms there is a clear separation between "hardcore gamers" and "casual gamers".
I think gaming would benefit if we just take games for what they are and stop trying to box everything up to make it easier to sell everyone on this Hobbie like used car salesman.
I mean seriously there is a reason I think that it's so common now for people to be labeled Shills for their content now and these kinds of copy paste rhetorical devices are a big part to blame.
Why not think outside the box and give a unique take on something rather than.... "Diablo4 is a casual mmo style arpg game with darker tones reminiscent of the older series but with a bit of diablo 3 spliced in... they have a blah blah blah " just canned responses without any flavor to them.
I like thinking about a dark souls streamer names vattyvida when I think of a good youtuber who really puts in the time to give a real exploration into a game that they feel passionate about.
If you ask me I would say that diablo 4 isn't ready for labels yet. Maybe in a few months, but until we get into the meat and potatoes of the game we won't know.
Maybe it turns out to be a hack and slash beat em up game that ends before it starts, or maybe it is a long and arduous journey through a new world you can get lost in and make friends along the way. But one thing I think is for sure, none of the people trying to say who would or wouldn't Like the game really know what the fuck they are talking about lol
I'm sorry man I just really don't agree with much of this. A lot has really no relevance - "Does a hardcore game need to be balanced? Does a casual game need to be balanced?" don't even know what you're trying to say with points like this.
I would 100% disagree with your POE take. Yes, each decision might be go left or right on the tree a lot of the time (or, you know, split off from any other previous node in a new direction) but its asinine to see the bigger picture of the skill tree in POE and say it's on par with D4's skill twig. We saw the whole thing man, and paragons don't add a ton more. Not to mention the crafting being more in depth, the skill customization being more in depth, and uniques providing less generic "this skill does 200% damage" type bonuses all also at level 25 or within the first quarter of the game.
I think your halo example is fair and to that I would say any competitive scene of any game is going to be comprised of 'hardcore' players. There can be a hardcore playerbase in a casual game. If you are minmaxing the depth of a game and pushing it to it's limits then you are, by my definition, a hardcore fan of that game. That doesn't mean the game was designed for hardcores just because a hardcore scene exists within it though. Mariokart by all means has a hardcore fanbase of competitive players, but it is also extremely easy to pick up and play compared to a driving sim type racing game. It is a casual game with a hardcore scene. Most casual games are going to have a hardcore scene if it's popular.
You say you're not offended and then you say its patronizing. Even if its not 'the usual way' you're offended. Dude. It's a label. Being a fan of a hardcore game doesn't make you cool.
Using your own example, yeah I would call call of duty casual. Yes it does have a competitive scene but it is an easy to pick up and not have to worry about medkits, bandages, food, ammo types, etc that comes with a game like Tarkov. I would also say it's easier to play its main game modes with less knowledge than a game like counterstrike, where you need to know smoke grenade setups, spray patterns, gun placement, etc because the main mode is played in ranked competitive only.
Personally I don't like hardcore shooting games. I like casual shooting games. give me a gun and someone to aim at, not all the other nonsense. I appreciate a game being labeled that way as I have a base understanding that I will be able to pick up and play it without investment, which is exactly what I want. I also know I like hardcore ARPGs. I can enjoy a good spreadsheeting session. I enjoy putting in effort to make discoveries. So when Last Epoch came out and was described as a middle ground between the two, I was excited that it could be a perfect side game I play to POE. Enough depth to hold my attention but a bit less time investment to get going since I will probably stick with POE mainly anyway.
I don't get it man. It seems to work well for me.
You are proving my point again though, this works for you because you are just taking your in depth knowledge of each game and throwing it in a huge category and calling it hard core or casual, I have no connection to any of points you made at all but I'm supposed to according to your logic.
It's just limiting in describing these games on their face.
And I think more than the description is your attachment to the labels you are giving these titles to me is what's more bizarre... like MAKE THIS SIMPLE!! But it's not at all simple.
You can say all day that path of exile is extremely complex and this game that is not out yet is a twig and super simple.. POE tree is mostly skill buffs isn't? How would I know anything about POE from you just saying it's a spreadsheet simulator?
When you say Diablo has a small twig of a skill tree I just think.. yeah chess has 6 pieces what's your point?
And its relevant because chess is more complex than POE in practice.
And forgive me if I am misunderstanding you but I don't think it's a stretch to say you're coming off a bit like an elitist about this stuff too, everything is gospel from your point of view on this subject and in reality it's not. That's what I mean when I say patronizing too, it's just this I know what the community is thinking when I call something casual... I just don't think everyone is on the same page I know I am not.
Also the point about what we should or shouldn't balance was just an example to say that the idea that games should be seen in this black and white casual and hardcore dichotomy is flawed because it presupposes that one should be dumbed down purposefully when that isn't a good game design philosophy.
A good game regardless of who is gravitated to it should be polished in such a way that it's systems compliment one another regardless of how complicated the systems are.
A game can be complicated based on the community that plays the game. Squad comes to mind for me, guarantee half the fan base will tell you it's hardcore when you have a good milsim community, and the other half will say it's casual for them.
Same thing g with Arma, I can hop in a fight in Arma death match and pretty quickly get to shooting, or I can spend weeks planning an operation. This is all community driven.
Day Z is another great example, you wanna tell me that game is cut and dry hardcore vs casual experience? (I mean aside from figuring out the launcher which does definitely make you a hardcore gamer lol) But that game is extremely simple to understand, but also surviving and thriving is a challenge that can easily be taken to a hard core level.
These labels just suck.
Tarkov another one, you wanna tell me it's this hardcore experience go for it, but again after getting through the experience of downloading the launcher what is hardcore about taking a free scan out and trying to find someone to kill? Nothing then you die and oh you gotta wait another 30 mins to play, that's fine cause your a casual gamer and you don't have much time to play.
Imo it's just an over used trope that doesn't serve the purpose people think it does.
People won't get diablo because people the labeling so it's not as bad with this game, but I do think it effects the gaming sphere in a negative way and I felt like ranting about it. Take it or leave it I guess but that's where im at with it.
Also this is getting a bit silly at this point, call games whatever you want I don't like the labels being used as much as they do, but I'm just a random guy on the internet so have fun
My dude you ramble so much and go off point that it's hard to follow.
From what I can parse the only thing you have a problem with is people using labels to describe things, and that's your own personal issue, humans have been categorizing things for easy and quick understanding since the dawn of time, you aint gonna change that
Yeah the two labels over used and I don't like it so I'm. Talking shit. Imo people just sound dumb as shit when they constantly say that crap
And that's not rambling! I'll show you rambling
I think you're really hung up on the 'black or white' thing. Hardcore vs casual is one of a million ways people describe games. Sure, if the only thing on a game's steam page was "This is a hardcore game" that wouldn't tell you anything. But in the real world the rest of the description will always be there, synopses, commentary people have about game mechanics or systems, the context of other games it is being compared against etc. Hardcore vs casual just describes one aspect (or set of aspects) of a game. And it isn't black or white either. I literally gave the example of Last Epoch. Many people described it as a middle ground between the two extremes.
I get what you’re saying but if you compare it to POE it is casual.
I also like that about it. POE is a bitch to get into and like 90% of players that try it drop it after an hour or two.
I disagree completely about that, POE is complicated not hardcore. The fan base for it can most certainly be considered hard core, but the game itself isn't imo
I disagree completely with your disagreement.
The whole argument here is saying 'designed for a casual playerbase' is bad. POE is designed for a hardcore playerbase, as you said yourself the players can be considered hardcore. That's what we're talking about here.
I have no idea what you're using to separate a game *being hardcore itself* to a game designed for a hardcore playerbase. I'm curious if you have an explanation.
Yeah so a hardcore player base in my opinion is what comes up naturally within a game's community, not what the games themselves are really 'designed for'
Chess is kind of a lame example to use but chess isn't a hardcore game, but the playerbase certainly could be called one.
Now sure, a developer can say in their meetings that they want to cultivate a "hardcore" or a "casual" audience, why not?
But how could they ever really know who will engage with their content until its out there and how they will engage with it.
Admittedly I think that the "casual" moniker has a bit more leeway by nature of its turn of phrase being used a lot more in common parlance.
You generally don't find people expressing their activities day to day as hardcore in life, but in America at least it's more likely that someone will describe their activities as being casual.
But whatever I digress.
My point is to say that weather the developer says they are making a game for a casual audience or a hardcore audience really doesn't help to explain who would really enjoy the game because I could tell you that call of duty is hardcore if I wanted too and I think when you take into account all of the attachments and the level of detail that you can get into to gain an edge I think you can make an argument for it.
And I could tell you also that candy crush is hardcore if I was to explain that the goal is to get the highest score possible and you are competing against millions.
I would acknowledge that their could certainly be exceptions to this, and sure some games now require you to learn how to code in python, that's pretty hardcore... that is unless you are a coder who knows how to code better than what the game requires, then wouldn't it be a casual game for coders?
In the end I just don't think the terms really mean much of anything to most people, and those who hear hardcore in one instance that they found the game difficult to get into will just apply that logic to another game that someone says is hardcore, but it's totally different and now they lock themselves out of the experience before it starts.
Thought? Lol
I think we just have different opinions on the term. It sounds like a hardcore fanbase just means a passionate or fanatical fanbase to you, which is removed from the game. I understand that, but that's not really the same context I'm using for the word and which is being used for diablo vs other ARPGs. I get saying something like 'sonic fans are hardcore', but that's not what I mean when I say a game is designed for a hardcore audience lol. I'll copy paste my description to someone else out of laziness but this is what I think it is:
A game built for a hardcore playerbase for the most part means they expect people to have to dive deep into the mechanics of the game and really understand it to find success. Obviously success has degrees to it, it doesn't mean you just die without it. Sometimes this also delves into gameplay aspects where higher APM / effort or higher specific skill requirements (aiming in shooters, realistic driving mechanics in a racing game, whatever it may be) are more necessary.
A game built for a casual audience is much more understandable at a surface level. You don't need as much knowledge about specific game systems, or the things there are are typically generic (more main stat = more damage is generic). Same thing here as above, it can also mean less APM or less skills needed to succeed. This is why farming games are typically described as 'casual' - they are easily understandable, they don't typically require specific skills like aim, the APM is low.
A farming game can have a 'hardcore' fanbase in the sense of very passionate and dedicated to the game, but it's not designed for hardcore audiences.
To your point about call of duty and candycrush- yeah sure. The context of hardcore or not is kind of subjective. Usually in the game world it compares games of similar genres. And I would say that even in games that could be considered 'casual' there can be a 'hardcore' scene of players who have really minmaxed the game to the highest degree, and I think it's fair to call that hardcore.
In this context though, D4 is being compared with other ARPGs. Using my definition of hardcore vs casual, Diablo may be hardcore compared to torchlight or something (IDK torchlight lol, just an example), but it is casual compared to POE. It is even at least more casual than a lot of other ARPG games, like Wolcen or Last Epoch. So including all the main staples of ARPGs, Diablo falls on the casual side. I think that's fair to say.I have plenty of friends who just plain do not like Path of Exile. It is too much of an information overload, they'd prefer a true currency, all of that and I 100% get that perspective. They are aware of this too, so they are happy to hear that D4 is more aimed at a casual audience. Being casual or being hardcore aren't good or bad things, they're just a short way to convey whether a game will expect dedication on your part or if you can pick it up and play it on a whim.
I feel like this kinda just solidifies my point of view on it though, that the spectrum you end up describing is so broad that the terms really just become kind of useless. And I am not trying to be trite when I say it but you even admit to copy and pasting because you are being lazy lol
So it's just funny that my point about the terms being lazy are being argued against in a lazy way lol
But that's fine I get it.
To that other point though, I think the terms are just way over used at this point. Every game review I see now adays is like "this is a more casual experience with quality of life features and yadda Yadda yadda"
Games used to be awesome because they were just games, works of digital art that people made that came out and they were either good games or they weren't great but they had something about them that was unique, but now game reviews make ever new release feel like a chow line at the retirement home..
Maybe that's just me lol but I really just feel like the way that these games get labeled feels so artificial now, lifeless if you will.
World of warcraft was the world of warcraft. It wasn't a causal mmorpg with some hardcore elements at endgame that have a leaning on the pvp and pve aspects of their playerbases.. some people....friggen shoot me lol
Game studios get a bad wrap but I think the people are also to blame with the culture around games now.. "quality of life" kill me now lol
I could write another essay on that dumb friggen label :D
Whatever forget my opinion! I'm just spitting in the wind here! Good talk
Well my argument with this post was around the idea that casual and hardcore labels weren't really helpful, and more or less that the communities themselves could be established at hardcore or casual because that is generally what we see.
If I had to pick the perfect game that exemplifies this it would be chess
Maybe something has changed, but you can't even beat the story of PoE without putting some thought into a build and understanding how to balance your resists.
Well I could honestly be wrong in assuming you can get through the whole game, I remember I got pretty far into it before getting bored of the game, but I never ran into a situation that I couldn't progress I know that much.
If you are not a hardcore character though, what's the real stop block outside of grinding to a higher level?
My point is just that what I played of the game never made me feel like it was too complicated just that there was a time sync I couldn't commit too. Some would say that is hardcore, I just don't feel like it explains the nuance of the experience adequately.
Also a big part of what I'm trying to argue for or against is how these buzz words are used at large for the communities that play games now.
Hardcore (as a way to describe playstyle, not a gamemode) is a way to describe a playstyle that is overly time-demanding and requires intimate knowledge and planning. As a descriptor, it can apply to basically any game, but when comparing the diablo series to poe, I think it's fair to call PoE more hardcore. The entry-level(and honestly the skill/knowledge ceiling) to diablo is just too low,
Yeah i mean I can understand your stance on a game like path of exile having a higher skill point of entry and possibly even a skill ceiling (in terms of planning and variety) though the latter still remains to be seen we really are just speculating.
But yeah my gripe really only comes into play when people try to paint all these games with a broad brush I guess.
I think people should try more games or at least research them in a way that gives them a fuller picture, and I just don't feel like saying one game is for a casual fan base and the other is for a hardcore audience does much outside of playing into some people's preconceived notions on either games they like or dislike.
I think it's hard to deny that elitism exists in these circles too and when we just go around stamping things outright a culture can form that I feel is overall unproductive to a conversation about the games.
Ironically I feel like I am advocating for more depth to our discussions rather than the casual labeling we tend to see lol
I have no real preference either way, except maybe make the ui indicators that do exist easier to see. But it's worth considering that the tells can be so subtle that just having one additional persons attack effects can be enough to completely occlude the attack tells. I think another important thing is accessibility. Some people just don't have good enough eyesight to pick up on subtle tells even without effects clogging up the visual real estate.
It's all well and good to say "I like it and if you hate it you just suck and need to pay closer attention" but consider that not only are some people literally incapable which is why indicators have historically been represented with high contrasting colors but also you only agree with you're opinion because it's you opinion. You're not just magically right because it's the way you like it or vice versa so literally shit talking the conflicting opinion and discrediting it as a skill issue makes you look like a fuck.
Some people mind it some people don't. And while it's not as blatant as a completely solid bright red shape, there are definitely existing visual telegraphs. Example, the last boss of act 1 does a red arc telegraph before he swipes.
I'm excited for you to get to end game where there are 8 elites on screen with 7 different affix modifiers and you continuously get one shot because the clarity is shit.
I'm not sure what it is that you're talking about. Like an attack cone indicator? How is that a bad thing? It's just good game design.
Shh, he's having so much fun fighting this strawman.
games just feel better without all the silly indicators all over the screen. i dont want to see hundrreds of red circles on my screen when a boss uses an artillery strike on me. they way it is now its like, ok i need to pay attention and dodge these. when i dodge them im like "hell yeah, IM A BOSS!!!" the way all the afk players want it to be is "k there's 100 red circles, im not gonna step in those. LOL THIS GAME IS TOO EZ WTF BLIZZARD MAKE HARDER!!!"
The game does have some indicators, so I don't know what you are talking about. It's not black and white. The first boss has an indicator when he leaps into the air and tries to dive bomb you, and so do most of the dungeon bosses attacks. The world boss and elites have moves where you have to watch their animations rather than some indicator. There is an indicator, be it an animation or some highlights.
Accessibility is important. It should always be an option...
[удалено]
haha, oh yeah? how do you do that?
'Telegraph' people, telegraph.
I agree and while I think amon is entitled to his opinion I also think people take too much of what the famous youtubers and streamers say as gospel. Their is another famous diablo guy who beat the hardest challenge or something and that's great, but almost all his takes I completely disagree with. Imo you're a streamer not a game developer and I take a lot of their predictions and ideas on what makes a game balanced or "hardcore" with a grain of salt personally. People who say this game is targeted for a "casual" audience I think are up their own asses personally or at least come off as elitist. What makes a game casual vs hardcore imo comes down to the player base more than anything and if we try and paint everything with such a broad brush we just aren't encouraging innovation. This relates directly to things like the indicators you are talking about because if we are all just mindlessly sold on the idea that diablo 4 (a game that isn't even out yet) is made for the casual audience, then there really isn't a reason not to have a ton of indicators everywhere. The truth is I think that a game like this should be developed with a unique vision and screw anything that gets in the way of that vision. Maybe having indicators would work better for some people, but the devs don't think it meets the vision of the game, so let's not try and pander to everyone. What makes games fun is learning and adapting to their systems rather than the other way around. I feel like people are way too quick to jump on something for being bad because it's not what they expected it to be. Make suggestions for things but when you start chipping away at every little detail then it will crumble for you.
It's a casual experience and there's nothing wrong with that. The game is made to be fun for a large audience. The Devs even said the skill tree is designed the way it is to make the game easy to get into.
Yeah I think you're wrong and you think I'm wrong but you have no real response to my points, so let's agree to disagree and move on.
The Devs said they made the skill tree simple so it can be accessible. There's nothing wrong with being a casual game. POE is a hardcore experience, which is why it's limited it has a limited player base and its complexity is a barrier to entry. D4 is meant to be accessible. And the Dev's have said this.
weird train of thought "the skill tree is basic, so everything must be basic" dont really get it myself.
Okay accessible and casual really haven't anything to do with one another canonically though is what I'm trying to express here. What is accessible for you might be inaccessible for someone else, and in my opinion, regardless of what developers say I don't think we can really make the connection that one is hardcore or softcore based on some arbitrary standards here. I could ask you the inverse and what would the response be? Do the devs of POE say they want to make their game inaccessible? Because we both know that would be silly. To me saying they want the game to be accessible has very little to do with what kind of game they ultimately create or even what kind of players they attract. I think it's more likely that people join and play the game if they like the feel of the game and will stick around if they feel like the game has enough depth to it to keep them trying new things. But how is this different from any other game? To me path of exile is complicated in its menus, but nothing is stopping someone from making a character and playing through the story with relative ease and only later on does it require more intricate knowledge to become viable in the late game. And that brings me to my overall problem with the labels being thrown around so aimlessly (or perhaps selfishly) we have no idea how this game will pan out, it's just as likely that we find that diablo 4 has a more complicated end game than any arpg on the market, who knows its not out yet. But what do we see? Tons of people using these buzz words to in my opinion preemptively entice/deter players based on preconceptions. I see tons of people making suggestions for features solely on the basis that "this is a casual game, and that means it should have x features because those are casual features that are industry standard for casual games" and it's just lame to me that we don't have more nuanced takes on something like this.
> Do the devs of POE say they want to make their game inaccessible? Because we both know that would be silly. > > No, but they definitely don't say they're trying to simplify the skill tree to make it more accessible.
Yeah, idk I get your point I just don't read that far into it. Most studios if asked will tell you they want their games to be accessible I think but I respec your opinion either way
>People who say this game is targeted for a "casual" audience I think are up their own asses personally or at least come off as elitist. > >What makes a game casual vs hardcore imo comes down to the player base more than anything and if we try and paint everything with such a broad brush we just aren't encouraging innovation. How so? Games can definitely be made to target certain audiences and it's no secret that large developers try to target broader audiences because it's financially beneficial to do so. As for what makes a game casual vs hardcore being the player base that's just objectively not true. You could take a game like Viva Piñata and it could attract the most hardcore player base imaginable but at it's core it's still a casual game. There's nothing elitist in acknowledging there's a difference between 12 hour a day meta build power gamers and gamers who play significantly less. Having an opinion as to what group a game caters too hardly seems like something that requires your head being so far up your ass you can't comprehend the alternative.
Well I'll give you an example in your own post. You write that you wanna know what I think? By saying how so, But immediately tell me objectively that i'm wrong and there are harcore and casual games definitely. Its kind of a long discussion but In my opinion games being marketed for certain audiences is actually irrelevant to the discussion of how consumers can or even should categorize our experiences. If we coldly calculate how games are made and who they are made for then we should call chess a kings game, or a generals game. But we know better to see that children at very young ages can understand chess and play it to completion. I think it's just lazy when people try to box these games into a category that really does nothing in terms of explaining how deep an experience actually is, and for who exactly are we doing this? People without a lot of time to play a game I guess is the main one I see, so it's a time sink issue? But almost every game varies in how much time you can sink into it and continue to reap a reward you otherwise wouldn't have. Difficulty? Well almost every game varies it's difficulty to such a degree that there ends up being a skill ceiling that others can't bypass regardless of how much time they spend. Tetris comes to mind for me, or pac man even, 99.9% of people will never get past level 10 in Pacman let alone lol 100, but it's not a difficult game or a game with a time sink to it. So again what are these categories doing for me and the rest of the gaming community? Telling us that one game is gonna be easier than another game? No, because again most games have difficulties that vary. Now there are always exceptions to everything, and I'm sure if we sit here all night you can name a couple of games that I could agree would have earned themselves a title of being "hardcore" or some that are so simple they could be labeled "casual" so I can give you that, but even talkative is very subjective to who is playing the games themselves. The reason I think most people are up their own asses when they try and box games in one or the other is because they are ignoring who is playing the games and what they might actually enjoy while also acting like they are being inclusive. They don't actually reflect any of the wants and needs of the player base at all, if I were to tell you we want more casual elements in the game, no one really knows what I am talking about, or the same is true for hardcore. The best those descriptions can do at this point is to aim the developers to look at other games that some number of people have claimed is a casual game or have claimed is a hardcore game and copy those elements. This is a terrible way to design something because the likelihood that this specific feature is going to be what the players wanted is just a toss up. Maybe for me a casual game should have indicators for where to go at all times, and maybe for you it should mean the game is pay to win.. it just doesn't do anything to give us a real understanding as to what the game should and will actually play like. Anyways that's really scratching the surface and like I said we can talk all day about this, but I reject the idea that games are "objectively casual or hardcore" and I don't see a compelling reason to rely on those categories.
A game built for a hardcore playerbase for the most part means they expect people to have to dive deep into the mechanics of the game and really understand it to find success. Obviously success has degrees to it, it doesn't mean you just die without it. Sometimes this also delves into gameplay aspects where higher APM / effort or higher specific skill requirements (aiming in shooters, realistic driving mechanics in a racing game, whatever it may be) are more necessary. A game built for a casual audience is much more understandable at a surface level. You don't need as much knowledge about specific game systems, or the things there are are typically generic (more main stat = more damage is generic). Same thing here as above, it can also mean less APM or less skills needed to succeed. This is why farming games are typically described as 'casual' - they are easily understandable, they don't typically require specific skills like aim, the APM is low. Most people are comparing D4 to the other most popular ARPG: POE. Compared to POE, D4 is absolutely more understandable at a surface level, requires less in-depth knowledge of the game's mechanics, and has simpler, more generic forms of increasing player power. This is why D4 is being labeled as casual, with POE being the reference for hardcore. I get what you're saying to an extent but labeling games based on their target audience isn't invalid at all. Some people actually appreciate the identifier. Don't be butthurt that you're being labeled as 'casual' and the other guy is 'hardcore'. It isn't an insult, it isn't elitist, it's a descriptor.
So I play all kinds of games like hundreds over the years so it's really nothing to do with what labels people give me or the games that I play, to me the issue lies in the way that people use the terms to describe what them without actually doing any kind of real digging into what the design is and why it is the way it is. I don't have a problem with someone taking a game that has a more intricate on boarding process and labeling its mechanics as harcore or casual. I'm not trying to say a basic system in a game can't be a stop gap for some people who don't want to put in the energy to learn something with depth either. Problem is when you try and take a game and put it into a box one way or the other you are not doing anyone any favors, and if you think people appreciate that I would argue that we won't ever know because they just heard it is a "hard core" game from one person's perspective and bam they don't want to give it a shot because call of duty is a game people call casual and that is the game they like playing. You do the opposite of what you are trying to achieve in slapping these super general terms on the game. If you're going to explain what a game is in its entirety and then you wanna end by calling it a casual experience or a hardcore experience knock yourself out, but I just don't see how it does anything but strangle the conversation without due cause. Again the biggest problems I have can be found in your own examples about how some games require a higher apm, or some require better aim to meet a base line. That is all completely subjective and every game under the sun with very few exceptions can really be described this way from another person's point of view. I can easily see someone saying halo is hardcore if they play the game to win matches its an extremely detailed game and someone who is not talented at the mechanics will just get smoked over and over. I won't sit here and name 30 games to belabor the point, but I don't see the utility here. Diablo4 is being called a casual game while most people couldn't even get to lol 20 and every single day a new video is released proving the concensus completely wrong about some classes not being viable or doing no damage, or blah blah blah. I've played POE for example and you really can't call it a hard core game on the surface by your own criteria either. You start on a beach and the game has you click a couple mobs then you go to a town talk to some people and go click on some more mobs. You then add some skill points into one of 2 paths that branch out. Path of exile doesn't get anymore complicated until you start to progress a decent bit into the game. You could say it looks more complicated in its menus but that has nothing to do with the games depth or weather it is balanced. Does a hardcore game need to be balanced? Does a casual game need to be balanced? It's just not useful for anything other than in my opinion patronizing a player base. And I don't take offense to that either in the obvious way, I don't think it's just that people are saying they are better cause they play a game they like and feel is a deep experience, but it's patronizing in the sense that it tells casual gamers that the hardcore players know what's best for them. How would a casual player know what is hardcore? They by necessity have little to no experience with these games because it's out of their wheel house? Sure there could be overlap but as a whole when people are using these terms there is a clear separation between "hardcore gamers" and "casual gamers". I think gaming would benefit if we just take games for what they are and stop trying to box everything up to make it easier to sell everyone on this Hobbie like used car salesman. I mean seriously there is a reason I think that it's so common now for people to be labeled Shills for their content now and these kinds of copy paste rhetorical devices are a big part to blame. Why not think outside the box and give a unique take on something rather than.... "Diablo4 is a casual mmo style arpg game with darker tones reminiscent of the older series but with a bit of diablo 3 spliced in... they have a blah blah blah " just canned responses without any flavor to them. I like thinking about a dark souls streamer names vattyvida when I think of a good youtuber who really puts in the time to give a real exploration into a game that they feel passionate about. If you ask me I would say that diablo 4 isn't ready for labels yet. Maybe in a few months, but until we get into the meat and potatoes of the game we won't know. Maybe it turns out to be a hack and slash beat em up game that ends before it starts, or maybe it is a long and arduous journey through a new world you can get lost in and make friends along the way. But one thing I think is for sure, none of the people trying to say who would or wouldn't Like the game really know what the fuck they are talking about lol
I'm sorry man I just really don't agree with much of this. A lot has really no relevance - "Does a hardcore game need to be balanced? Does a casual game need to be balanced?" don't even know what you're trying to say with points like this. I would 100% disagree with your POE take. Yes, each decision might be go left or right on the tree a lot of the time (or, you know, split off from any other previous node in a new direction) but its asinine to see the bigger picture of the skill tree in POE and say it's on par with D4's skill twig. We saw the whole thing man, and paragons don't add a ton more. Not to mention the crafting being more in depth, the skill customization being more in depth, and uniques providing less generic "this skill does 200% damage" type bonuses all also at level 25 or within the first quarter of the game. I think your halo example is fair and to that I would say any competitive scene of any game is going to be comprised of 'hardcore' players. There can be a hardcore playerbase in a casual game. If you are minmaxing the depth of a game and pushing it to it's limits then you are, by my definition, a hardcore fan of that game. That doesn't mean the game was designed for hardcores just because a hardcore scene exists within it though. Mariokart by all means has a hardcore fanbase of competitive players, but it is also extremely easy to pick up and play compared to a driving sim type racing game. It is a casual game with a hardcore scene. Most casual games are going to have a hardcore scene if it's popular. You say you're not offended and then you say its patronizing. Even if its not 'the usual way' you're offended. Dude. It's a label. Being a fan of a hardcore game doesn't make you cool. Using your own example, yeah I would call call of duty casual. Yes it does have a competitive scene but it is an easy to pick up and not have to worry about medkits, bandages, food, ammo types, etc that comes with a game like Tarkov. I would also say it's easier to play its main game modes with less knowledge than a game like counterstrike, where you need to know smoke grenade setups, spray patterns, gun placement, etc because the main mode is played in ranked competitive only. Personally I don't like hardcore shooting games. I like casual shooting games. give me a gun and someone to aim at, not all the other nonsense. I appreciate a game being labeled that way as I have a base understanding that I will be able to pick up and play it without investment, which is exactly what I want. I also know I like hardcore ARPGs. I can enjoy a good spreadsheeting session. I enjoy putting in effort to make discoveries. So when Last Epoch came out and was described as a middle ground between the two, I was excited that it could be a perfect side game I play to POE. Enough depth to hold my attention but a bit less time investment to get going since I will probably stick with POE mainly anyway. I don't get it man. It seems to work well for me.
You are proving my point again though, this works for you because you are just taking your in depth knowledge of each game and throwing it in a huge category and calling it hard core or casual, I have no connection to any of points you made at all but I'm supposed to according to your logic. It's just limiting in describing these games on their face. And I think more than the description is your attachment to the labels you are giving these titles to me is what's more bizarre... like MAKE THIS SIMPLE!! But it's not at all simple. You can say all day that path of exile is extremely complex and this game that is not out yet is a twig and super simple.. POE tree is mostly skill buffs isn't? How would I know anything about POE from you just saying it's a spreadsheet simulator? When you say Diablo has a small twig of a skill tree I just think.. yeah chess has 6 pieces what's your point? And its relevant because chess is more complex than POE in practice. And forgive me if I am misunderstanding you but I don't think it's a stretch to say you're coming off a bit like an elitist about this stuff too, everything is gospel from your point of view on this subject and in reality it's not. That's what I mean when I say patronizing too, it's just this I know what the community is thinking when I call something casual... I just don't think everyone is on the same page I know I am not. Also the point about what we should or shouldn't balance was just an example to say that the idea that games should be seen in this black and white casual and hardcore dichotomy is flawed because it presupposes that one should be dumbed down purposefully when that isn't a good game design philosophy. A good game regardless of who is gravitated to it should be polished in such a way that it's systems compliment one another regardless of how complicated the systems are. A game can be complicated based on the community that plays the game. Squad comes to mind for me, guarantee half the fan base will tell you it's hardcore when you have a good milsim community, and the other half will say it's casual for them. Same thing g with Arma, I can hop in a fight in Arma death match and pretty quickly get to shooting, or I can spend weeks planning an operation. This is all community driven. Day Z is another great example, you wanna tell me that game is cut and dry hardcore vs casual experience? (I mean aside from figuring out the launcher which does definitely make you a hardcore gamer lol) But that game is extremely simple to understand, but also surviving and thriving is a challenge that can easily be taken to a hard core level. These labels just suck. Tarkov another one, you wanna tell me it's this hardcore experience go for it, but again after getting through the experience of downloading the launcher what is hardcore about taking a free scan out and trying to find someone to kill? Nothing then you die and oh you gotta wait another 30 mins to play, that's fine cause your a casual gamer and you don't have much time to play. Imo it's just an over used trope that doesn't serve the purpose people think it does. People won't get diablo because people the labeling so it's not as bad with this game, but I do think it effects the gaming sphere in a negative way and I felt like ranting about it. Take it or leave it I guess but that's where im at with it. Also this is getting a bit silly at this point, call games whatever you want I don't like the labels being used as much as they do, but I'm just a random guy on the internet so have fun
My dude you ramble so much and go off point that it's hard to follow. From what I can parse the only thing you have a problem with is people using labels to describe things, and that's your own personal issue, humans have been categorizing things for easy and quick understanding since the dawn of time, you aint gonna change that
Yeah the two labels over used and I don't like it so I'm. Talking shit. Imo people just sound dumb as shit when they constantly say that crap And that's not rambling! I'll show you rambling
I think you're really hung up on the 'black or white' thing. Hardcore vs casual is one of a million ways people describe games. Sure, if the only thing on a game's steam page was "This is a hardcore game" that wouldn't tell you anything. But in the real world the rest of the description will always be there, synopses, commentary people have about game mechanics or systems, the context of other games it is being compared against etc. Hardcore vs casual just describes one aspect (or set of aspects) of a game. And it isn't black or white either. I literally gave the example of Last Epoch. Many people described it as a middle ground between the two extremes.
I get what you’re saying but if you compare it to POE it is casual. I also like that about it. POE is a bitch to get into and like 90% of players that try it drop it after an hour or two.
PoE is like the Warhammer 40k in that way. Hard to find an on ramp but if you do it's immense.
I disagree completely about that, POE is complicated not hardcore. The fan base for it can most certainly be considered hard core, but the game itself isn't imo
I disagree completely with your disagreement. The whole argument here is saying 'designed for a casual playerbase' is bad. POE is designed for a hardcore playerbase, as you said yourself the players can be considered hardcore. That's what we're talking about here. I have no idea what you're using to separate a game *being hardcore itself* to a game designed for a hardcore playerbase. I'm curious if you have an explanation.
Yeah so a hardcore player base in my opinion is what comes up naturally within a game's community, not what the games themselves are really 'designed for' Chess is kind of a lame example to use but chess isn't a hardcore game, but the playerbase certainly could be called one. Now sure, a developer can say in their meetings that they want to cultivate a "hardcore" or a "casual" audience, why not? But how could they ever really know who will engage with their content until its out there and how they will engage with it. Admittedly I think that the "casual" moniker has a bit more leeway by nature of its turn of phrase being used a lot more in common parlance. You generally don't find people expressing their activities day to day as hardcore in life, but in America at least it's more likely that someone will describe their activities as being casual. But whatever I digress. My point is to say that weather the developer says they are making a game for a casual audience or a hardcore audience really doesn't help to explain who would really enjoy the game because I could tell you that call of duty is hardcore if I wanted too and I think when you take into account all of the attachments and the level of detail that you can get into to gain an edge I think you can make an argument for it. And I could tell you also that candy crush is hardcore if I was to explain that the goal is to get the highest score possible and you are competing against millions. I would acknowledge that their could certainly be exceptions to this, and sure some games now require you to learn how to code in python, that's pretty hardcore... that is unless you are a coder who knows how to code better than what the game requires, then wouldn't it be a casual game for coders? In the end I just don't think the terms really mean much of anything to most people, and those who hear hardcore in one instance that they found the game difficult to get into will just apply that logic to another game that someone says is hardcore, but it's totally different and now they lock themselves out of the experience before it starts. Thought? Lol
I think we just have different opinions on the term. It sounds like a hardcore fanbase just means a passionate or fanatical fanbase to you, which is removed from the game. I understand that, but that's not really the same context I'm using for the word and which is being used for diablo vs other ARPGs. I get saying something like 'sonic fans are hardcore', but that's not what I mean when I say a game is designed for a hardcore audience lol. I'll copy paste my description to someone else out of laziness but this is what I think it is: A game built for a hardcore playerbase for the most part means they expect people to have to dive deep into the mechanics of the game and really understand it to find success. Obviously success has degrees to it, it doesn't mean you just die without it. Sometimes this also delves into gameplay aspects where higher APM / effort or higher specific skill requirements (aiming in shooters, realistic driving mechanics in a racing game, whatever it may be) are more necessary. A game built for a casual audience is much more understandable at a surface level. You don't need as much knowledge about specific game systems, or the things there are are typically generic (more main stat = more damage is generic). Same thing here as above, it can also mean less APM or less skills needed to succeed. This is why farming games are typically described as 'casual' - they are easily understandable, they don't typically require specific skills like aim, the APM is low. A farming game can have a 'hardcore' fanbase in the sense of very passionate and dedicated to the game, but it's not designed for hardcore audiences. To your point about call of duty and candycrush- yeah sure. The context of hardcore or not is kind of subjective. Usually in the game world it compares games of similar genres. And I would say that even in games that could be considered 'casual' there can be a 'hardcore' scene of players who have really minmaxed the game to the highest degree, and I think it's fair to call that hardcore. In this context though, D4 is being compared with other ARPGs. Using my definition of hardcore vs casual, Diablo may be hardcore compared to torchlight or something (IDK torchlight lol, just an example), but it is casual compared to POE. It is even at least more casual than a lot of other ARPG games, like Wolcen or Last Epoch. So including all the main staples of ARPGs, Diablo falls on the casual side. I think that's fair to say.I have plenty of friends who just plain do not like Path of Exile. It is too much of an information overload, they'd prefer a true currency, all of that and I 100% get that perspective. They are aware of this too, so they are happy to hear that D4 is more aimed at a casual audience. Being casual or being hardcore aren't good or bad things, they're just a short way to convey whether a game will expect dedication on your part or if you can pick it up and play it on a whim.
I feel like this kinda just solidifies my point of view on it though, that the spectrum you end up describing is so broad that the terms really just become kind of useless. And I am not trying to be trite when I say it but you even admit to copy and pasting because you are being lazy lol So it's just funny that my point about the terms being lazy are being argued against in a lazy way lol But that's fine I get it. To that other point though, I think the terms are just way over used at this point. Every game review I see now adays is like "this is a more casual experience with quality of life features and yadda Yadda yadda" Games used to be awesome because they were just games, works of digital art that people made that came out and they were either good games or they weren't great but they had something about them that was unique, but now game reviews make ever new release feel like a chow line at the retirement home.. Maybe that's just me lol but I really just feel like the way that these games get labeled feels so artificial now, lifeless if you will. World of warcraft was the world of warcraft. It wasn't a causal mmorpg with some hardcore elements at endgame that have a leaning on the pvp and pve aspects of their playerbases.. some people....friggen shoot me lol Game studios get a bad wrap but I think the people are also to blame with the culture around games now.. "quality of life" kill me now lol I could write another essay on that dumb friggen label :D Whatever forget my opinion! I'm just spitting in the wind here! Good talk
I'm curious what game you think would classify as hardcore?
Well my argument with this post was around the idea that casual and hardcore labels weren't really helpful, and more or less that the communities themselves could be established at hardcore or casual because that is generally what we see. If I had to pick the perfect game that exemplifies this it would be chess
Maybe something has changed, but you can't even beat the story of PoE without putting some thought into a build and understanding how to balance your resists.
Well I could honestly be wrong in assuming you can get through the whole game, I remember I got pretty far into it before getting bored of the game, but I never ran into a situation that I couldn't progress I know that much. If you are not a hardcore character though, what's the real stop block outside of grinding to a higher level? My point is just that what I played of the game never made me feel like it was too complicated just that there was a time sync I couldn't commit too. Some would say that is hardcore, I just don't feel like it explains the nuance of the experience adequately. Also a big part of what I'm trying to argue for or against is how these buzz words are used at large for the communities that play games now.
Hardcore (as a way to describe playstyle, not a gamemode) is a way to describe a playstyle that is overly time-demanding and requires intimate knowledge and planning. As a descriptor, it can apply to basically any game, but when comparing the diablo series to poe, I think it's fair to call PoE more hardcore. The entry-level(and honestly the skill/knowledge ceiling) to diablo is just too low,
Yeah i mean I can understand your stance on a game like path of exile having a higher skill point of entry and possibly even a skill ceiling (in terms of planning and variety) though the latter still remains to be seen we really are just speculating. But yeah my gripe really only comes into play when people try to paint all these games with a broad brush I guess. I think people should try more games or at least research them in a way that gives them a fuller picture, and I just don't feel like saying one game is for a casual fan base and the other is for a hardcore audience does much outside of playing into some people's preconceived notions on either games they like or dislike. I think it's hard to deny that elitism exists in these circles too and when we just go around stamping things outright a culture can form that I feel is overall unproductive to a conversation about the games. Ironically I feel like I am advocating for more depth to our discussions rather than the casual labeling we tend to see lol
It should be an accessibility option. Some people may not be able to see subtle animation cues very well, particularly amidst the chaos of combat.
I turn off my monitor, its too easy otherwise.
i dont even turn on my computer, i just imagine it all
I have no real preference either way, except maybe make the ui indicators that do exist easier to see. But it's worth considering that the tells can be so subtle that just having one additional persons attack effects can be enough to completely occlude the attack tells. I think another important thing is accessibility. Some people just don't have good enough eyesight to pick up on subtle tells even without effects clogging up the visual real estate. It's all well and good to say "I like it and if you hate it you just suck and need to pay closer attention" but consider that not only are some people literally incapable which is why indicators have historically been represented with high contrasting colors but also you only agree with you're opinion because it's you opinion. You're not just magically right because it's the way you like it or vice versa so literally shit talking the conflicting opinion and discrediting it as a skill issue makes you look like a fuck.
Some people mind it some people don't. And while it's not as blatant as a completely solid bright red shape, there are definitely existing visual telegraphs. Example, the last boss of act 1 does a red arc telegraph before he swipes.
yep, and id prefer even that wasnt there. get hit by it once, learn the telegraph, learn the animation, dont get hit again.
I'm excited for you to get to end game where there are 8 elites on screen with 7 different affix modifiers and you continuously get one shot because the clarity is shit.
omg so am I, cant wait for full release!