Use of the term "Casual" (No inflammatory thread titles please)

This thread might be a little overly emotional (a storm in a glass of water, as we say in Norway), but ranked and unranked are neutral, entirely technical labels where casual and hardcore are much more fuzzy and opinionated, sometimes loaded with implications. Even competitive can mean many things. So there is still something to take away from this thread.

I think the problem here is semantics. A casual game is not the same thing as being a casual gamer or even playing casually. Context matters.

PA is not a casual game. But we have lots of casual gamers and people who play the game pretty casually. In all three instances, the term implies a different set of things.

And it's another case of pre-loading everyone else's definition of a word with your own is dangerous. Like discussing anything, it shows a lack of empathy (understanding) for someone else's point of view.

Basic, intermediate and advanced are good labels, but I'm not sure how well they map currently to our game labels, but I think we can get those expanded in the near future.

But is it not possible to have an unranked match be competitive?

It's not about ranked/unranked or about player attitudes (casual/competitive).

It is about SKILL pure and simple. And the way to signify skill is to use terms like Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced.

You could have a ranked/competitive match with GOOD players, but also with BAD players.

I understand your point of view perfectly. You are just not overly concerned with words because you are a videogame developer and not a critic or a theorist. It's all just "semantics" to you, whereas to me semantics is practically MY LIFE.

Garat, bend your game's terminology to this one forum member. Look, make a mod that just changes the words displayed on screen. Problem solved.

What's better, casual gamer, or n00b?

Put another way, it doesn't matter how big the ladder gets, there will still be some players AT THE BOTTOM.

Totally. With just ranked and unranked, though, there is no separate competitive label. So anything not ranked is just unranked, plain and simple.

I expect this to happen once we get a ladder, For now there are no ranked games.

I would honestly not mind the noob label. Call me worthless, loser, incompetent, scrub -- anything but casual.

These labels aren't meant to convey skill. Skill will come when ladder and matchmaking features come online. The labels Competitive and Casual are purely meant to convey player intent and attitude towards this one instance. Competitive meaning there is something on the line, whether it be a tournament/streamed game, or a formal match between two players (no matter the skill level). Casual games are for people that just want to play the game with no ego tied to it, perhaps they are just learning, perhaps they are a great player and want to teach, perhaps two friends just want to team up and play against two random others. You can have beginners play competitively, you can have experts play casually, these terms are orthogonal.

There is never any ego invested on my part when I am playing -- I just want people around my skill level, not to avoid losing, but because that is when the game is most fun and most instructive, and this applies to beginners as well as to advanced players.

If your labels are not skill-based, they aren't helping us find players at our skill level.

Of course we are!
Hell, with all the over-sensitive dimwits on the internet? I'm surprised it hasn't already been censored.

These labels aren't meant to find players in your skill level, that is what matchmaking and ladders are for. The labels are for finding games with similar player attitudes to the game. If you are looking to play a game with no ego then I would consider you to be playing casually and thus you should look for games with the casual title. Either wait for a ladder implementation or ask the people you play against what their skill level is to get even matches for now.

That is not what the labels are for. That is what the ladder will be for.

EDIT: ninja'd

"Pa is one of the most hardcore games in existance"
No. It's really not. It's throwing giant hordes of robots at each other with nukes and orbital involved. If you want a hardcore strategy then play SC2

But I don't care about attitudes! I only care about the difficulty I am facing.

Even without a ladder, allowing players to self-identify their skill levels is 1,000 times more useful than allowing them to identify their "attitudes" that no one really cares about.

SC2 isn't hardcore strategy imo- it's learning 'keyboard combos' to activate all the unit abilities in the fastest time possible. SC2 is about as strategic as Mortal Combat.

Please speak for yourself. Self reporting skill levels is about the worst implementation of matchmaking in existence. With the fact that ladders will be coming in time there is also no point in having a self reporting skill label at all. I'm much more interested in what attitude my opponents have than how good they think of themselves. If they are "advanced" and I'm "intermediate" (when do I go from being intermediate to advanced?) I can just ask them in the chat and see if they can teach me any useful strategies during a casual game. I know to avoid competitive lobbies because the people there are going to take the game more seriously and may not be as likely to chat and discuss the game while it's happening.