Guild Wars 2

With work and school, I’m becoming a casual player for this game. I’m wondering what other fellow casual players do in this game for fun.

For my self, since the last feature patch, I’ve spent hours just mixing and matching new looks for my characters! It’s pretty fun. Also, I’ve noticed that I would spend hours in one “game mode” then would get sick of it and spend more hours in a different one. I do get bored after playing a few days in a row.

I don’t feel motivated to dailies as much as before since I’ve got all the ascended stuff I need. So, there have been days where I would not log on to guild wars 2 at all. That being said, I enjoy this game a lot when there are ample breaks in between playing sessions. So for anyone who feels bored and frustrated, I would advise you to take a few days worth of break. The game is always worth coming back to!

How do I “casual?” Let’s see, first I put on my WW1 era pilot goggles, grab a bottle of rum, log in, select my warrior, and run dungeons and fractals half drunk while screaming into teamspeak. Somehow my guild doesn’t hate me yet.

I’ve played while drunk once. It was rather fun. I might try it again haha.

I don’t recommend it as a daily thing though.

Roughly two hours a night.

I just explore, and talk with/humorously troll (Not maliciously) whatever chat channel I end up in with goofiness. Or go to a random zone and try the events that pop up, again and again and again. I once tried to see how many barrels of booze I could get in that one place in Shiverpeak, then see how fast I could deplete them all again in a game of catch.

Sartharina.3542:

I just explore, and talk with/humorously troll (Not maliciously) whatever chat channel I end up in with goofiness. Or go to a random zone and try the events that pop up, again and again and again. I once tried to see how many barrels of booze I could get in that one place in Shiverpeak, then see how fast I could deplete them all again in a game of catch.

I still have not tried any of those booze!! I. Must. Look. Into. This!

How to casual:

First, equip gear with either toughness, vitality, healing power, or multiples of each and go pug dungeons. Be sure never to use nourishment unless it boosts magic find.

If you’re on a warrior, be sure to rifle things as much as possible with a dolyak signet.

If you’re on a guardian, camp the living daylights out of that staff and equip 3 shouts at all times no exceptions.

If you’re on a mesmer, GS all day with no feedback, temporal curtain or time warp under any condition.

If you’re on a ranger, bear + bow. Always.

If you’re on an elementalist, ensure that you’re in celestial and camp staff for everything. Stacking might is for zerk noobs; camp dat water attunement and spam dem water fields. Spider queen is simply too dangerous and your allies require it.

If you’re on a necromancer, you’re already doing a good job.

If you’re on a thief, p/p without ever taking initiative to SR or blast smokescreen to save time by skipping past mobs.

Purple Miku.7032:

How to casual:

First, equip gear with either toughness, vitality, healing power, or multiples of each and go pug dungeons. Be sure never to use nourishment unless it boosts magic find.

If you’re on a warrior, be sure to rifle things as much as possible with a dolyak signet.

If you’re on a guardian, camp the living daylights out of that staff and equip 3 shouts at all times no exceptions.

If you’re on a mesmer, GS all day with no feedback, temporal curtain or time warp under any condition.

If you’re on a ranger, bear + bow. Always.

If you’re on an elementalist, ensure that you’re in celestial and camp staff for everything. Stacking might is for zerk noobs; camp dat water attunement and spam dem water fields. Spider queen is simply too dangerous and your allies require it.

If you’re on a necromancer, you’re already doing a good job.

If you’re on a thief, p/p without ever taking initiative to SR or blast smokescreen to save time by skipping past mobs.

^i see engineers are too hardcore to be casuals. I approve of this message

@lakdav – They are pretty hardcore, yeah. By far the least understood class and probably one of, if not the most difficult of classes to play well with.

Engineers can and often are pretty awesome, but they sadly aren’t able to outperform other classes in optimal conditions to make a place in a speedclear. For pugging they’re actually pretty awesome from what I gather (and am told), and I admit that I don’t know enough about them yet to come up with instructions on how to be a casual engi

1, Book an appointment to your favorite doctor.
2, login to GW2, select your engineer.
3, camp in Grenade Kit.
4, get carpal tunnel
5, go to the appointment
6, optional: never use grenade kit again.

Purple Miku.7032:

How to casual:
If you’re on a necromancer, you’re already doing a good job.

This line cracked me up!

How to casual as engi. Use flamethrower, don’t use Juggernaught.

How to casual:

Buy endless quaggan tonic, bug a flamethrower, go to Tequatl, coo at him while burning him to death

I chase newbies in starting areas without saying a word to players (trying to make sure I to keep good grammar and spelling), only to NPCs, and killing whatever they attack. To communicate with players I only use emotes like “/point @” and “/beckon @”.

You get quite some fun reactions.

For example:

• Some think you are stealing their kills and drops. Some of these do not realize they can just waypoint away and try to run away from me.
• Some end up thinking you are an NPC, something like GW1’s heroes. Some of these even try to give me orders. I don’t like so I change targets then.
• Some think you are roleplaying and go along with it – these are the most boring ones.
• Some think you are doing something of importance and will try to mimic you or invite you to a party and do what you do. Some even follow you all over the place. I’ve completed maps with a bunch of guys following me around this way.

I think about 1/4th of my Follower list in the Contacts panel are guys like these.

I once saw a guy with 300 APs running around, so I mailed him few gold, he never replied.

Azrael.4960:

How to casual:

Buy endless quaggan tonic, bug a flamethrower, go to Tequatl, coo at him while burning him to death

Necromancer can do this with plague form and lich form at Jormag, interacting with the flamethrower barrel allows you to pick it up.

Probably works with other transforms like the ele tornado but I’ve not tried.

I used to just have fun with low level characters, getting my daily. But ANet managed to destroy even that as it’s becoming very difficult to get the daily as a casual (meaning, having less than an hour each day to play). Unless I join a champ train, which I loathe.

Iluzija.1798:

How to casual as engi. Use flamethrower, don’t use Juggernaught.

Use flamethrower elixirgun and bomb kit. P/p weapons. Use all the bombs on cooldown, elixir gun 3 and auto flamethrower to kill party’s fps. Roll face on the keyboard occasionally.

Jinn Kazuma.2163:

How do I “casual?” Let’s see, first I put on my WW1 era pilot goggles, grab a bottle of rum, log in, select my warrior, and run dungeons and fractals half drunk while screaming into teamspeak. Somehow my guild doesn’t hate me yet.

One does not simply hate drunk guildies!! I’d like to be invited to hear you freaking out in TS hahah

I’m a casual player in terms of the amount of time I can play, but my goals within the game are more hardcore. I’m currently working on my 1st legendary (I’m planning to get at least 2, maybe more) and contemplating whether to start on making ascended armor alongside that or wait until I’m done.

I’m also working on the dungeon master title and eventually aiming to have done pretty much everything in the game.

I just accept that it’s going to take me a lot longer than it does for hardcore players. I started doing dungeons a year ago and I’ve done about 1/2 the paths. I decided which legendary I wanted last August and seriously started working on it at christmas and I’m about 1/4 of the way there now. But taking a long time to get things done doesn’t bother me, it just means I don’t have to worry about getting bored.

How to casual successfully? Simple, never play, just post on the forums. :P

Danikat.8537:

I’m a casual player in terms of the amount of time I can play, but my goals within the game are more hardcore. I’m currently working on my 1st legendary (I’m planning to get at least 2, maybe more) and contemplating whether to start on making ascended armor alongside that or wait until I’m done.

I’m also working on the dungeon master title and eventually aiming to have done pretty much everything in the game.

I just accept that it’s going to take me a lot longer than it does for hardcore players. I started doing dungeons a year ago and I’ve done about 1/2 the paths. I decided which legendary I wanted last August and seriously started working on it at christmas and I’m about 1/4 of the way there now. But taking a long time to get things done doesn’t bother me, it just means I don’t have to worry about getting bored.

The time you play does not make you hardcore/casual.

RP’ers are casual players, but can play for hours on end.

Hardcore means you want a challenge and you’ll work for it til you succeed at that challenge.(challenge as define by you or the majority I guess. Solo’ing a dungeon would be considered hardcore. And does not mean you spend 5 hours a day practising it, but you’d probably spend your full hour or whatever you have per day practising it. Fractals would be considered ‘hardcore’-well level 40+, even if you only have time to play it once a week.)
______

I casual by joining the queens train ……………………………..>.>

_ _ _ _
Nah, mostly go gathering nodes in a random maps, sometimes useful stuff like ori. more often copper as I can one shot mobs now and its strangely relaxing.

I port people to jp’s while chatting to whoever.

Lawl… apparently, by other peoples’ definitions I’m not ‘casual’. Although, but my own definition, I am a very casual player. I play an hour or so a day, if I have time.

Sometimes I do the champ train (wonderful for dailies and monthlies).
Sometimes I clear maps (still working on 100% world completion).
Sometimes I build a lower level character.
I’m working towards making my first set of ascended (oh the pain).
Sometimes I run some dungeons (for fun, or do a path to work towards dungeon master).
Sometimes I karma train in EotM (doubly useful for leveling a char too )
Sometimes I pop into regular WvW and help cap objectives.
Occasionally I wander into SoloQ, get stomped 3 or 4 times, and wander back out…
Sometimes I just pick an achievement from the achievement panel that I don’t have done and work towards it.

shrug

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Lawl… apparently, by other peoples’ definitions I’m not ‘casual’. Although, but my own definition, I am a very casual player. I play an hour or so a day, if I have time.

Sometimes I do the champ train (wonderful for dailies and monthlies).
Sometimes I clear maps (still working on 100% world completion).
Sometimes I build a lower level character.
I’m working towards making my first set of ascended (oh the pain).
Sometimes I run some dungeons (for fun, or do a path to work towards dungeon master).
Sometimes I karma train in EotM (doubly useful for leveling a char too )
Sometimes I pop into regular WvW and help cap objectives.
Occasionally I wander into SoloQ, get stomped 3 or 4 times, and wander back out…
Sometimes I just pick an achievement from the achievement panel that I don’t have done and work towards it.

shrug

I’m not sure who wouldn’t consider that “casual play”. I think this is the kind of mentality/play anet set out for in GW2.

Well, your casual seems to be more about time than style, whereas mine is more about style than time, but at any rate…

There are 6 world events I like to try to do every day: Shatterer, Jungle Wurm, SB, Maw, Fire Elemental and Claw. While doing that, I usually get nearly all of the 6 dailies available to me done, so I’ll spend a little time finishing that up, and try to do it in the context of doing something else fun I might want to do.

If I feel like playing much beyond that, I might try out a new build with a character to see if I like it (and I’ve saved up enough money to outfit myself with new exotic weapons, armor, sigils and runes).

I started a 7th character recently, Engineer, just starting to level. I think I’m 3.

I’ll be sure to get the 2 rocks/trees materials in Frostgorge. I don’t like to farm Orr, because I hate Orr, mostly because it’s ugly. If it looked like Queensdale, and had more Queensdale-esque themed events and such, I’d spend a lot of time there.

I might try to farm for some T6 materials for a little bit, maybe with a character I’m trying a new build out on, but usually get discouraged after a half hour. :\

That’s about it. Usually just log out at that point and run each of my 5 60s in MH to get some Odin marks to save up for Legendaries. Nothing is as much fun as Squirrel Girl these days.

Then I watch some TV I need to catch up on, and fall asleep, and then wake up and then maybe try to think of something else to do in GW2.

I really need to go to Arah, because I’m actually relatively close to being able to make Bifrost, but I’m a bit timid about going. I’d even be willing to do one of the pay groups, but not really sure how that works or who to trust.

Made a new healing set for my Elementalist, which was fun. Just trying it out today.

Oh, and I always try to do the Queensdale, Frostgorge and super-easy Southsun jumping puzzle (plus little ship chest) every day to keep in those materials. I still have 4/6 crafting to take to 500, with the remaining sitting anywhere between 425 and 475.

You don’t ask how to casual. You are casual. You owe no one nothing. You are like a ghost. No one can touch you. You do what you want when you want exactly how long you want. You have no needs and no fears, you simply are.

Rouven.7409:

You don’t ask how to casual. You are casual. You owe no one nothing. You are like a ghost. No one can touch you. You do what you want when you want exactly how long you want. You have no needs and no fears, you simply are.

Pretty sure you just described Batman….

Purple Miku.7032:

I admit that I don’t know enough about them yet to come up with instructions on how to be a casual engi

Flame thrower juggernaut. There’s your casual. :P Or maybe turrets. I could see turrets being casual.

Granted, with so little condition mitigation, even flamethrower more hardcore than bearbow. To which, I at least use SHORTbow. It requires/rewards me for paying attention to position, but sadly, it’s a condition build, which the devs obviously hate for PvE. :\

Purple Miku.7032:

How to casual:

First, equip gear with either toughness, vitality, healing power, or multiples of each and go pug dungeons. Be sure never to use nourishment unless it boosts magic find.

If you’re on a warrior, be sure to rifle things as much as possible with a dolyak signet.

If you’re on a guardian, camp the living daylights out of that staff and equip 3 shouts at all times no exceptions.

If you’re on a mesmer, GS all day with no feedback, temporal curtain or time warp under any condition.

If you’re on a ranger, bear + bow. Always.

If you’re on an elementalist, ensure that you’re in celestial and camp staff for everything. Stacking might is for zerk noobs; camp dat water attunement and spam dem water fields. Spider queen is simply too dangerous and your allies require it.

If you’re on a necromancer, you’re already doing a good job.

If you’re on a thief, p/p without ever taking initiative to SR or blast smokescreen to save time by skipping past mobs.

I think I seriously disagree on your definition of casual. To me it does not necessarily mean “not capable to do speedclears”, not even “clueless”. To me it means more like “unconstrained”, so it’s rather “not willing to cram his/her little available playing time under a rigid regiment to reach a specific (competitive) goal”.

If I didn’t have a lot of time to play GW2, I’d prioritize playing with my guild: guild missions, guild wvw, etc…

How do I “casual?”

I play guild wars 2.

Jinn Kazuma.2163:

How do I “casual?” Let’s see, first I put on my WW1 era pilot goggles, grab a bottle of rum, log in, select my warrior, and run dungeons and fractals half drunk while screaming into teamspeak. Somehow my guild doesn’t hate me yet.

+1 to you for making me laugh at work.

Halvorn.9831:

Purple Miku.7032:

How to casual:

First, equip gear with either toughness, vitality, healing power, or multiples of each and go pug dungeons. Be sure never to use nourishment unless it boosts magic find.

If you’re on a warrior, be sure to rifle things as much as possible with a dolyak signet.

If you’re on a guardian, camp the living daylights out of that staff and equip 3 shouts at all times no exceptions.

If you’re on a mesmer, GS all day with no feedback, temporal curtain or time warp under any condition.

If you’re on a ranger, bear + bow. Always.

If you’re on an elementalist, ensure that you’re in celestial and camp staff for everything. Stacking might is for zerk noobs; camp dat water attunement and spam dem water fields. Spider queen is simply too dangerous and your allies require it.

If you’re on a necromancer, you’re already doing a good job.

If you’re on a thief, p/p without ever taking initiative to SR or blast smokescreen to save time by skipping past mobs.

I think I seriously disagree on your definition of casual. To me it does not necessarily mean “not capable to do speedclears”, not even “clueless”. To me it means more like “unconstrained”, so it’s rather “not willing to cram his/her little available playing time under a rigid regiment to reach a specific (competitive) goal”.

Well I’ll have you know that for a lot of people, being “hardcore” means repeating the same instances/dungeons/raids over and over and over again until they know them by heart and can run them without any defenses or need to keep their eyes open, good Sir. You’d be wise not to shatter their delusions of grandeur.

Currently, while waiting for the LS to start up again and playing a different MMO more seriously, I log in on each of my 80s, each next to a different JP chest to collect goodies and fragments, a lowbie character next to the personal zone to collect crystals, candy corn and gears, and to make rare crystals, then finally another character to collect the 25 luck picture from the girl in the refugee camp.

play when you want, what you want.
take it from a super casual, the prof doesn’t matter at all, it’s you attitude on how forced you feel like doing something.
if you don’t care as long as you like it then you’re doing casual the right way, when you constantly chase others and feel the need to impress others you’re way to busy to be a casual.

Lydell.8713:

Well I’ll have you know that for a lot of people, being “hardcore” means repeating the same instances/dungeons/raids over and over and over again until they know them by heart and can run them without any defenses or need to keep their eyes open, good Sir. You’d be wise not to shatter their delusions of grandeur.

Aside from Arah, which dungeons do I run over and over again to be able to solo?

I still have the videos of my first times soloing CM p1 and p3 pre-patch with my warrior, and I even admitted in stream chat I wasn’t sure where to go or what to do at one or some of the parts, so that kind of means your wise-alec comment towards me and anyone that loves to set arbitrary challenges for themselves is false. It took me longer the first time to solo it than the second, sure. What reason does that give you to try to demean my choice of activity with this uncalled for sarcasm? Considering I don’t even have the option to flame you or kick you from my party during a solo, makes no sense to me.

There’s nothing wrong with having fun in challenge.

How I casual?

Spend time in the 90% of the game that ArenaNet thinks isn’t worth rewarding with level 80 rewards.

I loved “Play how you want” as one of the design philosophies of this game. It was so true at launch. I could follow my bliss through the game, doing whatever facet caught my attention, completely without goal, and still get rewarded.

Over time, ArenaNet abandoned “Play how you want” in favor of "Rewards should pull people into certain parts of the game. I slowly became less casual. I started farming for the first time in my gaming life. I did the crafting grind to 500. I TP flipped since that was the most efficient way to get cash, even though I find it tedious an dull.

I finally realized I wasn’t enjoying the game any more. I took a several month break.

Now I’m back to playing casual again. The trick is to ignore what ArenaNet wants you to do in game, and do what you want to do.

Purple Miku.7032:

How to casual:
If you’re on a guardian, camp the living daylights out of that staff and equip 3 shouts at all times no exceptions.

Is that really casual play? Guardians staff-spam to maximize tagging, which is for farmers, not casual players.

How to casual:

Do your daily and then level a character or two, or do some world bosses.

I’d say I spend 50% of my time logged on playing dress-up with my character as a casual player c:

To me, casual isn’t really dependent on how much you play, but on your attitude. Hardcore players will carefully plan out their play, and goal-seek a hefty focus in the game (creating legendaries, getting full ascended, becoming x rank in sPvP etc), whilst a casual player just does whatever they feel like doing, even if (like me) that’s hanging around town chatting to guildies and other players.

Well, I’m surprised not many people mention PvP as part of casual play. For me, I would seek out some new builds from “intothemist” and try it out in PvP for various professions. It’s one the best ways to enjoy different professions since everything is free in PvP: no cost for armor, runes, sigils, weapons

It’s nice to see D/D Eles are making a come back!

Mac.3872:

How do I “casual?”

I play guild wars 2.

Couldn’t have said it better. Best reply.

veasna.3675:

Well, I’m surprised not many people mention PvP as part of casual play. For me, I would seek out some new builds from “intothemist” and try it out in PvP for various professions. It’s one the best ways to enjoy different professions since everything is free in PvP: no cost for armor, runes, sigils, weapons

It’s nice to see D/D Eles are making a come back!

competitive play isnt really casual, even if you’re casually trying out builds/classes there,

Taygus.4571:

veasna.3675:

Well, I’m surprised not many people mention PvP as part of casual play. For me, I would seek out some new builds from “intothemist” and try it out in PvP for various professions. It’s one the best ways to enjoy different professions since everything is free in PvP: no cost for armor, runes, sigils, weapons

It’s nice to see D/D Eles are making a come back!

competitive play isnt really casual, even if you’re casually trying out builds/classes there,

LOL really? PVP is never casual I hate to tell him that. sheesh.

Okay let’s make things clear here. Casual is any non-combat function a game provides in between the ALL combat ALL the time system that most mmo’s use today as entertainment themepark or not.

It includes but is not limited to, exploration, discovery, minigames (like fishing, housing), crafting (especially crafting items that can but used outside of combat or for fun items), RP elements like getting a character drunk and waking up somewhere or high (if you have smoking like some games do), doing things like Dance parties, working on guild halls or guild buildings/decorations, outfitting (we’re talking multiple outfits to switch from here), gathering, farming, collecting minipets, completing non-combat achievements, and some people platform.

I take my previous statements back I do craft, and I do gather ALOT so I guess I am a farmer, and I try to finish non-combat achievements.

So out of all those things listed there are barely discovery, barely any minigames, crafting but solely combat items with stats, gathering, minor outfitting (more like transmog), and some minor (I count 6 on my list on my toons) non-combat achievements, and platforming.

There’s hardly anything casual to do compared to most other titles. I really really wish they spent more time in this area because this whole industry seems to think their entire audience is bloodthirsty for some reason and that’s all we want to do is combat.

To me, “casual” means playing a game primarily for fun, with a relatively low tolerance for non-fun BS. Just what is “fun” or “non-fun” varies depending on the player, of course, but common examples of the latter include heavy grinding, adhering to a strict schedule, or copying whatever the flavor of the month min-maxed “meta” is. It has nothing to do with skill, time investment, preferred game modes, whether or not one is a roleplayer, or whether or not one likes a challenge.

Basically, it means treating a game as a game, not a job or an ego-crutch or something that one mainly just suffers through in order to get to one tiny enjoyable bit. Some inconvenient or non-fun bits are to be expected and might be alleviated through other factors like good company, but all in all something that is not enjoyable in and of itself is not worth sticking with.

My personal flavor of “casual” includes a fierce hatred for gear-grinding, gear-gated content and other gear-obsessed idiocies that only exist to hide a game’s lack of enjoyable content and reduce my character from “hero” to “ambulatory armor stand and weapon rack”. Aside from outfitting a character in something that matches her “theme” and the mental image I have of her, I do not see gear as a reward or as a fun goal, but as a completely worthless PITA that I wish MMOs would move away from.

I was semi-hardcore until a couple of weeks ago and have since made a successful transition back to “casual”.

Most days I just don’t even log in. When I do, it’s mostly to check whether my friends are online (most days they aren’t, I think they’re playing minecraft right now).
It’s freed up a LOT of time in my daily schedule for other things.

Question: “How do you casual?”

Answer: “You play a game for some hours, you get bored by the repetative content, you log out. You never log back into the game. You just move on, for something new and exciting.
Casuals play what they like, not what some may think they might like in the future.”

I have a casual approach to this game, but I have a lot of free time, so… I pretty much log on every other day, play like 8-something hours and if my bf tells me has sushi I’m off. :P

I casually afk-poke things in wvw, collect gold for stuff (got my legendary last summer so atm it’s just ascendeds/skins), play dungeons and when lacking on people/too lazy to lfg I usually end up trio’ing/duo’ing w/e (coe, ac, cof). Sometimes I roll with randoms and stick around to see how they do things or just show them tactics/tips if they’re new and curious. I usually do the LS content when it comes kinda lazily but get it done mostly anyways. Lately I’ve been starting Arah in solo out of boredom, but it’s been ending up as trio/full party since I got pals now that are interested of arah too… XD I can’t solo lupi yet, so I’m kinda having my fun in learning that now. If I’m feeling lazy I’ll just do some champ train and zone off to nice music.

aaand since it’s fun, I sport full zerkers and learn game mechanics/tactics. :v Most of the time I don’t care much what others wear or do as long as they don’t start going all elitist and dramaqueen in the chat (this includes casuals who start ranting about zerker gears being scrub).

small edit;
@for people who consider the description above to be of an elitist… You may consider me as Elite if you wish to upkeep the ideals of your elitism and that’s your thing, but elitist I am not. ;)

veasna.3675:

For my self, since the last feature patch, I’ve spent hours just mixing and matching new looks for my characters! It’s pretty fun.

Yes, it is pretty fun. Now you understand why so many of us hate the way our Town Clothes were ripped away from us. It took a lot of time, effort, and creativity, and by golly it was fun!

Then ANet decided to give us a little “gift”. An occasional thread in the forums asked to be able to wear Town Clothes into combat. So they used the introduction of the Wardrobe as a chance to do just that. Unfortunately, the only Town Clothing that actually made the transition into armor skins were hats. Nothing but hats. Everything else was no longer mix and matchable. Much was even undyable.

I have been working hard at recreating “town” looks for my characters again. Not and easy task with apparel initially intended for combat, and it’s been very expensive. The forums have quieted down since the initial furor… how could they not after a month and a half of non-responsiveness? But I hope now that you see how fun creating a unique look can be, that you’ll understand when I pick up my keyboard and continue the good fight if and when they decide to interact with us again.

I like to just run around and gather materials. I’m a hoarder so I don’t sell any of my mats therefore I’m poor. My ultimate goal is to stockpile 500 of each item. I don’t mind being poor since I’m just playing the game how I like. I rarely touch dungeons and I don’t go near fractals with a 100 foot pole. so I’m “mega casual!” Right now i’m trying to figure out a good look for my warrior. Welcome to Cafe Casual.