Are casuals active in the Forums?

I'm curious if casuals are active in the forums?

I read a lot of threads in the past month/ year and i mostly were confronted with to me hardcore gaming facts.
what i want to say is, that to most posters here things like highlevel Mob killing, using highlevel food, having highlevel gear and such seems "normal".
I wonder if there is a "market" for lowlevel gear, food, mobs/areas and what people say, who just began playing and maybe only play a couple of hours a week and not a couple of hours a day.

Why asking that? Please dont accuse me for again asking casual friendly things or assume i accuse hardcore players or whatever - that it is not what it is about?

But i seriously ask me what casuals feel, if they recognize what the measures are.
+10 gear or better, Obsidian food or better, GM normal, lets talk about 120+ etc.

or is that only what i see and others see it different.

I have no Problem with that. I just play beneath all that. ok - i have some obsidian suprises, but i also often use just mutton potpie to fill my stomach

 

I'm casual. Also most of my play is more surrounding the social bits since I have a player-estate (POT) which require some attention.
I'm nowhere near any GMs, I don't have any artifact gear, etc.


But there are very few casuals in the forums, which is natural since casuals shouldn't put too much effort and the forums take effort.

 

I think our current demographics are out of balance because so many of our current forums posting players are of the old guard ~TL~

 

I am casual and most of the time in game is bug hunting

 

No, "casuals" that post when they are concerned about something are then beat down by the "old guard" by the use of Troll baiting, derailing and subsequent Thread locking.
So they don't bother again.

 

@Spoon casual and casual is a wide description @2112Starman used to say he's also a "hardcore" casual

I'm just interested what people feel about some discussions or what they think about several topics we have, if they lets say use standard gear, mediocre food, maybe are used to fight in T2-4 Scenes and all that and stuck there, like i once were stucked more or less.

Maybe thats the cause, but i slightly disagree - SotA is, if you manage to be not annoyed by balance issues or want to PVP - a very good game for casuals.
There's plenty to do and to explore. Lets hope we get more Scene polishes also for T1-4 scenes like North drachvald Spur or Upper Fortus and hopefully get more scenes like Sequanna, Grannus, Boreas or Oracle Colossus also for lower levels.
I really like these scenes and have things to explore and riddles to solve.

edit: Exploring a mine like Serpent Spine Mine or Verdantis Mine is something casuals can spent 2 days with. At least it's an evening full of challenge and exploration and not just a farm spot for ores if you know what i mean.

The Scenes all need to be that interactive, and there are a lot of things what can be done, same for encounters, what we had a thread with ideas for.

I think such gaming experiences need to be made on the way to higher levels, to keep players interested, challenged etc...
And i don't doubt that we will see things like that in the future.

Sometimes i think if casuals voices would be more loud and asking for "casual" things to be more viable and midgame were more important, we maybe won't have that much bad reviews about neccessaritie to grind and all that.

Casuals are a large group of players in the most games. We lack to have them, to fill PoTs, buy mediocre things, measure things down or ask for more polishes of mediocre content etc...

 

Well I think I’m quite casual as my avatar adv. level is lower than yours, Stun.

And I’m even more casual as I thought...as I do not use +10 gear. I think I just have one or maybe two improved items...but just +4 or something alike.
Thinking about it I’m still using a quite basic gear but as I see no need to change and “good” gear would cost more money than I can raise I stay with my "cheap and simple" gear.

I currently do not see a market for low level gear and also do not think there will be much demand in the future but that is of course just a guess based on the current game.
It is simply too easy to craft all simple gear you need by yourself and even if you are not into crafting you can easily get some basic gear (sometimes even for free).
If gear would be e.g. level based and maybe your avatar can just equip +X items if he has reached adv. Level X0 (e.g. you can equip an +8 item if you reached adv. Level 80) or if items would wearout much faster there might be a market for low level gear....but this is of course just a guess too.

Food I hardly never use and if I do just the ones I find during adventuring. Aside of the bonuses there is from my standpoint currently no need to eat or drink and the low level bonuses are nice to have but no big deal while the expensive food is too expensive for my playing style. It might be different if our avatars had to eat/drink from time to time or else would get hungry (debuff) but I do not think such a mechanic would be liked by many.

No GM so far even if some skills are slowly getting close.
Honestly I would change the wording as I still think a GM should be something special and nothing you should be able to be collect by the dozen.
Changing the wording for level 100 to journeyman, level 125 to master and level 150 to grandmaster might be an option. (just example numbers)
The bonus of the current level 100 (teaching) could remain for the journeyman.
At level 125 you might be able to learn a master skill enhancement. (Maybe a quest needed to get it)
At level 150 you might be able to learn a grandmaster skill enhancement. (Maybe a quest needed to get it)
Skill enhancements might be e.g. for “Ignite Weapon” blue flames doing more damage or group cast…something that is changing the skill a little while still keeping its original effect.
For crafting skills there could be additional effects too or reaching these levels enables the ability to learn and use rarely found master/grandmaster recipes.
Maybe level 150 for a skill would be too high for GM but at least it would mean that people would concentrate on just one or two skills.

Not sure if that is (always) true. Being a casual ingame doesn’t mean missing effort…maybe it is just a lack of time. E.g. reading the forum is easier realizable than playing the game.

 

I play very casually, but I also do a lot of work on the wiki so I'm not a typical casual player. I have two skills in the 80s, but none in the 100s yet. The best equipment I have is +5, and typically I just use pledge gear so I don't have to worry about it breaking.

My play time is fairly limited. Generally only an hour or two when I get the kids in bed, and possibly a lazy weekend once a month or so. I agree that this game has a lot of potential for exploration, however most of the scenes in the same tier are not very close together. I feel disinclined to travel the map to find a new scene, then take time to learn the navigation and spawns within it, just to up and head to the next one. I understand not gating content by level, but scenes are fairly spread out as it is. Currently, I feel more rewarded by wandering encounters (bandit chest, mining gold) than I do by slaughtering Serpents Spine fighters. I wish there were more places with treasure chests, just so I could feel like fighting through hordes of rusty weapon wielding enemies was worthwhile. XP is a reward, but its a hollow one when you get zero usable items in a night. If I wasn't working on crafting, I'd have written off loot in this game entirely, its so bad.

I really only hit the forum to check dev posts, but I'll look through the new list occasionally. This is nice since I can get to the forums from work, but I dont have access to the game or Twitch.

 

If you define "casual" as someone who:

• can't kill high level mobs.
• don't have high level gear.
• only plays a few hours a week.

Then I am such a person.

There's definitely a market for low-level items. Heck, I have a hard time finding leather armour and daggers. Then there's the fact that I avoid buying 2hour+ foods because I usually get bored and log off long before the timer runs out (hopefully that'll change when everything is better tuned).

 

If casual means that you like to play casually rather than do powergaming, then I'm a casual. Currently, I am logging in a lot just because I need to earn off some things in game, so have a high level in game because of this, but I don't find the grinding it takes to be fun and normally I wouldn't do it. I'm still not playing in power gear, because I see no point.

 

Wow - Does that say something about how you were treated when you asked for a solution to something that bothered you in game?

My avatar is in the mid 70's on the skill trees, but I have not actually looked at my level in some time.
I consider myself casual - I spend time doing deco, agriculture, and helping other players on Discord who have questions.
Heck, I have spent more time in one day being a guide with newcomers than I usually will work on leveling or grinding.
I have made some friends in game, and happily chat with them - far longer than I play. I am lucky to even have met a few IRL.

I agree, the foods that offer more than 2 hours of benefits are lost on me, sometimes even the 1 hour is longer than I want to grind.

 

I spend a lot of time in mines, and less on quests and fighting the mega-bosses. When I am in a group fighting large bosses I'm often on close-support. Is that casual or hardcore?

My build is definitely weaker, but I've considered "chasing the meta," if only because it gets frustrating sometimes knowing just how much of the game is reserved for those who do.

If you want lower-level daggers and leather, I'll be happy to make you some. Just catch me ingame.

Normally I use the 2hr food, it's almost the exact amount of time I want to spend, 4hr is what gets wasted on me.

 

I consider myself casual as I often dont play for a month at times. Though, sometimes I do play every day. I also consider myself casual as I dont have a big interest in becoming GM anything with any sense of immediacy, have no aspirations to become recognized as rich and/or powerful, and havent been into pvp in about 18-20 releases. I like the scenic route.

I consider myself active in the forums, cuz I check them a few times a week, am logged in and reading while I play SotA, and usually always check the "What's New?" link. I respond to things. I dont read nearly as much as most, when threads get > 6 pages I usually read the first and last and thats it. I skim most things that have multiple pages. After the whole land rush thread and set of related threads, I realized I could never keep up, so I do miss out on the majority of change that happens in the forums. You can judge if that counts as "active" or not .

 

I consider myself very casual. But I would like to add that playing the game is a lot more fun than following the forums.

 

I'm level 53... Does that count?

 

I dont know my adv level, i dont grind for XP, i go out and make gold when i need to, and im not building my char to be all powerful.

But i do play alot compared to others.

When i buy food, i buy mid-level food because i find many things are very expensive compared to how easy it is to make gold.

I also buy mid level potions and use lower end poison saving the good stuff for challenging situations.

My gear is generally +4 and +5 and i do fairly well in most situations.

 

Glad someone brought this up. Full disclosure I am lvl 86.

Seems to me that casuals and lower level avatars are getting most of their direction, training, knowledge, equipables, and consumables from joining guilds with very active players. This is a really good sign for the game. It shows that there are many players that spend a lot of effort on giving help to new players to build the player base leading up to launch. Such a stark contrast to the machiavellian existence of the early UO days.

That may be a reason why we don't see so many active threads about finding information or clarification regarding the game. Logic suggests that the most active forum participants are on the forum to help shape the look, feel, and mechanics of the game. The biggest stakeholders in regards to these topics are people who have dedicated immense time or money or both.

 

so true. IMO this forum is very much an echo chamber. If you do not fall in lock step you are run out on a rail.

 

Not at all in lock step, yet no rail anywhere near me, nor raging crowds with torches.

 

Occasional casual player...maybe lv 40. Yeah, 2 hour food is basically a waste of time for me. My armor is all basic. Swords are maybe slightly improved.
I rush through the forums maybe once a week. I have been laying low waiting for the complete quest line. Guess I need to log in sometime soon