Let's discuss this ... What makes a simmer "hardcore"?

[Bearcat]

Over the years I have seen a lot of varied opinions on what makes a good sim, just what a bonafide "simmer" is and what separates the gamers from the simmers. Some folks consider the moniker of "hardcore simmer" determined largely by the settings that one uses and many turn up their noses at anyone who uses any kind of visual aid at all like icons or some form of HUD. Others still use a person's sim of choice as an indicator and for many anyone who flies in say, War Thunder, is automatically considered more gamer than simmer while the study sims like Falcon & DCS are considered the creme dele creme of flight sims.  As IL2, once considered the WWII sim of choice is slowly becoming less and less cutting edge as it gets more dated and other products loom on the horizon, the notion of what is the difference between a sim and a game becomes even more heated.

 

So what makes a "hardcore" simmer? Is it the settings he prefers? The sim he flies? Is it the amount of time and money he devotes to the hobby? Is it a combination of all that? I consider myself a hardcore simmer.. but I like flying with external views enabled. I like flying with icons.. tight icons but icons none the less. Do those facts make me any less hardcore?  Is being hardcore a matter of FM settings, or is it a matter of other settings... like icons? Is a person who has invested thousands of hours and dollars in this chosen hobby any less hardcore because he prefers to fly in any way other than all aids turned off?

 

There are no right or wrong answers in this.. only opinions but I think that the thing that makes a flight simmer hardcore or not is a combination of the time and money he invests in the hobby and the flight settings he prefers. Not necessarily the visual aids.. because some of us need those aids. I think that icons are a great help to teamplay.. I prefer mine set so that the icon will appear maybe .1-.3 clicks before you can make out the shape of the plane to determine what it is. I think it is the degree of aids that determine how hardcore you are. Icons set at greater distances than 1K are .. for me more gamish than simish. I think that using settings where you do not have to do the basic things to survive in the virtual world like scan the skies and keep your SA heightened removes the hardcore from your simming. So in other words.. if you do not have to scan the skies or keep track of your opponents with a hatswitch/TIR/mouse then you may not be considered "hardcore". If all you have to do is look on a map and see the icons 10k away... or look for the arrows over your screen as opposed to having to keep track of where your opponent is .. that is not "hardcore" to me. I think that if you prefer anything but the full scope of scalability that the sim offers.. whatever sim it is as far as the actual flying of the aircraft goes  the "hardcore" moniker comes into question again. In other words... if you use auto rudder or you do not use CEM.. or limited fuel/ammo settings (although unlimited ammo is a great tool for gunnery practice) I don't think that you can call yourself "hardcore" or anything like that that does not require you to fly the sim to it's fullest then you are not hard core. I do not believe that harder is more realistic but within each sim even going back to the early sims of the 90s there has been a level of scalability associated with flying the plane that were more challenging.

 

So what do you guys think?

[MineFewer]

hardcore is when you crash in the sim, you kick the PC hard and break it (hard landing) or throw it out a 2nd floor window (auger in).

[J2_Trupobaw]

To me, treating flight simming as Serious Business makes you  "Hardcore". 
 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeriousBusiness

 

The line is drawn at the point where you conciously spoil your pleasure / flying experience to avoid lesser than "hardcore" level of realism. 

 

Myself, I prefere to think of myself as "dedicated" simmer and would took offense if called hardcore. If my mood, exhaustion, eyes exhaustion or available time makes flying without icons impractical, I have no problems with turning them on. Same with navigational icons - if at any given moment I may have to pause and attend my wife / crying child, I'll fly with navigational icons rather than try to remember where over the map were I supposed to be 30 minutes ago. Having an hour to fly a mission with no outside interference, with no icons or time compression, is a luxury to   enjoy rather than a standard to uphold.

 "Hardcore" to me is a player who, when exhausted and weary, given options of 1) straining his eyes into a headache by flying with no aids 2) giving up flying for today because he's to exhausted 3) and turning icons on to salvage best available experience and try to relax by flying - never uses option 3. 

Edited July 13, 2013 by Trupobaw

[theOden]

To me, "hardcore" is only an illusional mindset.

Closely related to the "sim/game" definition-wars (to me all are simulator-games just for the record as a simulator is what you find at an airbase etc.).

 

will be interesting to read other answers though.

[Bearcat]

Trup I like your "dedicated" vs "hardcore". In the example you gave at the end I would always choose option 3 because for me this should not be work. If I am exhausted I will either hit a QM and go to bed or not fly at all. For me if it isn't fun then I a doing something wrong regardless to the mood I may be in (time ti kill up for a long one vs on the run/beat/ill/other duties) or the time of day. Thanks for chiming in guys .. Keep it coming.

[Mastermariner]

This is Easy! When you worry about points earned and don't feel the satisfaction of thoroughly understanding the construction and function of your aircraft you're a gamer.

And vice versa of course.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Mastermariner

[gavagai]

I also do not like the "hard core" label.  It just sounds too confrontational to me.

 

What flight sims are capable of has changed over the years.  These days the cutting edge of flight simulation models every switch and aircraft system available in the real thing. I enjoy that kind of depth and wish that it were possible to have a survey-sim with that kind of detail for each aircraft.

[Novotny]

What's hardcore to one chap might be gamer-lite to another.  I think it extremely unlikely we'll get any posts in complete agreement with eachother.

 

Why not look at it like this: we're all gamers.  We play games.  I know that some take their flight sims very seriously indeed; I think that's great, people getting deep levels of satisfaction and immersion.  I also think it's great that some people play with all the aids on for like 20 minutes once a week.  I'm very grateful that they're buying flight sims.

 

It might not be useful to split communities into 'who does it properly' and 'who's just a gamer'.  Indeed, if any community needs to be more inclusive it is the flight sim one.  We all know that flight sims sell very few copies, yet we all want more detail than ever before, pushing development costs ever upwards.  We must put aside petty snobberies and welcome each and every person who wants to play a flight sim, regardless of how 'hardcore' they may be.  They're funding your hobby.

[Skoshi_Tiger]

Back in the days of B17 II "the Mighty Eighth" it was possible to fly a 12 hour mission from Britain to Eastern Germany in real time. Hours of boredom, punctuated by seconds of terror as your plane is intercepted by fighters, and then minutes of sheer hell running the gauntlet of flak on the bomb run.  Praying that you have dialed enough drift into the Norden Bomb sight and you've got your altitude and airspeed correct, as you wait for the counter to tick down to release. Then the long lonely trip back to base

 

I remember a couple of guys on the old bombs-away forum saying that they had done it. Now that's "hardcore" or is "obsessive" a more appropriate term?

 

Even if I did have the time I doubt I would have done a mission like that. Though I did do a couple of near by missions in real time (and generally screwed up on correcting my bomb site!)  but still felt a great deal of satisfaction landing back at base!

Edited July 13, 2013 by Skoshi_Tiger

[Bearcat]

What's hardcore to one chap might be gamer-lite to another.  I think it extremely unlikely we'll get any posts in complete agreement with eachother.

 

Why not look at it like this: we're all gamers.  We play games.  I know that some take their flight sims very seriously indeed; I think that's great, people getting deep levels of satisfaction and immersion.  I also think it's great that some people play with all the aids on for like 20 minutes once a week.  I'm very grateful that they're buying flight sims.

 

It might not be useful to split communities into 'who does it properly' and 'who's just a gamer'.  Indeed, if any community needs to be more inclusive it is the flight sim one.  We all know that flight sims sell very few copies, yet we all want more detail than ever before, pushing development costs ever upwards.  We must put aside petty snobberies and welcome each and every person who wants to play a flight sim, regardless of how 'hardcore' they may be.  They're funding your hobby.

We don't have to agree... we are discussing.. not debating.. there is no right or wrong here.. I was just curious as to how other folks thought..

[Rjel]

I don't consider myself a hardcore simmer. I've never been able to so completely immerse myself in any game that I've ever forgotten it was just a game. This has always been a fun Walter Middy type exercise to me. A chance to "experience" some of the history I've read. Hardcore to me means more than just flipping switches or full CEM. It's more flying a mission realistically, beginning to end.

 

One flight that still sticks with me goes back to my EAW days flying online with No.105 squadron. We were a Mosquito squad. Anyone who flew the Mossie in EAW back then must remember what a pig it was in the air. Very underpowered as I remember it. Losing an engine almost always resulted in going down. That was very unrealistic. At any rate, we had a long range ground attack mission bombing an airfield. As luck would have it when we launched, all our planes made it into the game. Major accomplishment that was back in those dial up days of The Zone. We flew the mission in formation, bombed successfully and turned for home. As I remember it, I was tail end Charlie. Watching the other guys land I felt myself getting more and more nervous. I didn't want to smear myself all over the tarmac with the rest of the squad watching. My turn came, dropping the flaps and gears, I swung in line with the runway. Silly as it sounds, it was white knuckle all the way down. Thankfully I got down without a prang. It was perhaps the most exciting online experience I've ever had.

 

Like I said earlier, to me hardcore really just means doing a mission as it would be done in real life. It doesn't matter if it's online or single player. Not taking unrealistic chances or making moves a real life pilot or airplane couldn't seems hardcore to me.  

[Zmaj76]

...to me hardcore really just means doing a mission as it would be done in real life.

This.

Which is impossible if the dev team is not hardcore and if the FMs and DMs didnt get the importance and attention it deserves. And if MP component of the game becomes somehow of less importance. Usually dudes with the great knowledge (both in avionics and history of aviation) are within the community (customer base).

Then again, on example, in ROF with TS chatter, unfixed FMs and missing planes one cant expect to see a good realistic mission in MP.

Requiem's attempt with COOPs in ROF MP is at least on that track....a  glimpose of how it could be....

 

There is a fact that most players are SP dudes, the fact that 60% of MP dudes are "fast fun" types....your left with 40% of MP ppl who are been called lunatics which demands some unrealistic realism....

Edited July 15, 2013 by Tvrdi

[6S.Manu]

IMO playing "hardcore" is more a matter of difficulty than realism where most of the time "realism == high difficulty". Sadly, this is always true to some people, in both flight sims and racing sims.

 

I think I'm not an hardcore simmer, but a simmer who search for a rate of realism compatible with my freetime. See my opinion on ID labels.

 

Spending 10 minutes for the engine startup or flying 3 hours to reach the target with no dangers are not in my preferences; let me fly at full realism only when it really counts and I'm an happy simmer.

Edited July 23, 2013 by 6S.Manu

[bolox]

 

To me, "hardcore" is only an illusional mindset.

This to me sums it up best,

 It's another way to justify to the person concerned why their way of playing a game is better/more important than how someone else chooses to play in a different manner.

[SYN_Vander]

I think several things get mixed up when talking about 'realism" or 'immersion". When trying to define the different servers and the missions they are hosting (in RoF, but this goes for IL2 as well) I once came up with this:

 

No quadrant in this diagram is better than the other, it's just a different style of gaming. 'World of Warplanes" for instance would fall in quadrant III.

Edited July 28, 2013 by SYN_Vander

[II./JG27_Rich]

DID was great. I loved that. Back in 2001-2002  with old IL-2 witch had no front markers. We flew missions and we had to send actual typed logs into the admins so they could tally up each sides score then a map was put up on the website with the front lines drawn on it. Also if you got killed you were done for the day you had to wait for your new persona to get to the front. 

Edited July 28, 2013 by Richie

[SOLIDKREATE]

Personally if you have to use a 'padlock' feauture, visual aids or any outside views as a crutch, you're just a gamer. If your worried about achievements and un-locks then you're just a gamer. If you use anything other than a stick & throttle you're just a gamer. I consider myself dedicated because All I use is a HOTAS X-52 Pro. Now a hardcore perosn would have rudder pedals, Occulus Rift, MFD boards, trim wheels, RADIO panels, home built cockpit ect. I'm getting there though, LOL

Edited August 2, 2013 by SPEKTRE76

[Revvin]

If there is one thing I've learnt over many years in many different flit sim communities is that the term 'hardcore' is very subjective. To some it would be owning an expensive HOTAS or maybe building a cockpit, to others it's the level of pilot aids used in a sim. A few years ago a well known very argumentative guy who held an irrational hatred of IL-2 would argue black was white over the validity of icons in a sim making up for the lack of resolution and LOD in early sims we played, he would argue that you're not 'hardcore' enough if you play with icons yet denounced those who wanted to see early sims develop beyond stick and throttle and include prop pitch, fuel mixture and radiator settings as just being buttons pushers. We all hold different views on what's hardcore.

[Novotny]

Personally if you have to use a 'padlock' feauture, visual aids or any outside views as a crutch, you're just a gamer. If your worried about achievements and un-locks then you're just a gamer. If you use anything other than a stick & throttle you're just a gamer. I consider myself dedicated because All I use is a HOTAS X-52 Pro. Now a hardcore perosn would have rudder pedals, Occulus Rift, MFD boards, trim wheels, RADIO panels, home built cockpit ect. I'm getting there though, LOL

 

 

We're all just gamers mate.  Including you.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Novotny

[Rjel]

If there is one thing I've learnt over many years in many different flit sim communities is that the term 'hardcore' is very subjective. To some it would be owning an expensive HOTAS or maybe building a cockpit, to others it's the level of pilot aids used in a sim. A few years ago a well known very argumentative guy who held an irrational hatred of IL-2 would argue black was white over the validity of icons in a sim making up for the lack of resolution and LOD in early sims we played, he would argue that you're not 'hardcore' enough if you play with icons yet denounced those who wanted to see early sims develop beyond stick and throttle and include prop pitch, fuel mixture and radiator settings as just being buttons pushers. We all hold different views on what's hardcore.

 

He was a "Stiglr" about icons, wasn't he?

[SOLIDKREATE]

 

We're all just gamers mate.  Including you.

 

 

 

True but I'm not an arcade flight gamer =o)

[=LD=Hethwill]

Getting on your seat. Fastening the TrackIR and headset, make sure stick profile is ok, connect to TS, and hear the skipper say - "Mission for today...blah blah blah"

 

Get into the birds, warm up, check everything, go up there, try to do the mission the best we can. Get back with the least casualties. If we fail the mission so be it, the war will go on the next day.

 

You can be as hardcore as you want with the hardware but the software, in the future the BoS package, will be the same for all. What makes the whole difference is how the squadron copes with the mission.

 

I don't think anyone interested by a simulator lacks any background knowledge. It is a cultural thing and comes hand in hand with having knowledge in History or technical aspects of the planes.

 

__

"hardcore"

 

It can be defined by the time spent on a perfect mission, but most of us did that ( B17 Flying Fortress, Aces of the Deep ). Could be the intricate startup systems like the modern DCS setup or the construction of a dedicated "cockpit".

 

It is the mix of these last three mentioned. Someone who builds the command module, wants the most realistic simulator to the definite last command button and still spends the full time no matter what to make that certain mission.

[Talisman]

Ask your friends, family, partner, spouse, kids or work mates and maybe they will tell you whether you are "hardcore" LOL.

[I/JG27_Rollo]

Ask your friends, family, partner, spouse, kids or work mates and maybe they will tell you whether you are "hardcore" LOL.

...and make sure you have your TrackIR hat on when you ask them.

[kestrel79]

When people come over and give me a funny look when they see my Triple screen Obutto sim cockpit. That's when I know I'm hardcore

[Bearcat]

...and make sure you have your TrackIR hat on when you ask them.

 

I went out of the house with that hat on quite a few times..

 

After reading the posts in here and reassessing.. I would have to call myself a "serious" simmer.. not hardcore..

[StarLightSong]

Time gunslingers, it always comes back to that, time.

 

Sometimes I want to start at altitude diving onto a bomber formation - guns, guns, guns!

Or just before contact in a CAP yelling "Bring it"!

 

Adrenaline is a beautiful thing-

 

Then there's realism which I've been considering below- $30K plus $50 an hour, $18k license here, $4k in the USA- but plenty of pucker!

[Sternjaeger]

I know that my view will be unpopular, and call me cynical, but to me hardcore = anorak*

 

there is nothing "hardcore" about sitting on a chair fidgeting away with your controls peripherals and yelling on a mic. Even the most realistic simulator we have is an extremely sensorially dumbed down version of the real thing, and it should be taken as such. 

 

Having said that, you can still do things properly, but in my humble experience "hardcore" simmers often spoil the experience: very few people fly sims like you'd see in real life, they often disregard the basics of flight physics and physiology (conservation of energy/momentum, coordinated flight, sustained high-G manoeuvring etc..), yet they feel they're cool because they turn each dogfight into an aerobatics dance.. as a real life pilot I find the whole thing quite laughable, especially when they want to show off the "hardcoreness" and then they can't even navigate or keep into formation. 

 

And again, I don't mean to piss in other people's garden, but there's really something sad and morbid about the whole concept of "hardcore" in gaming..

 

Sorry fellas, rant over..

 

*Brit. informal, derogatory a studious or obsessive person with unfashionable and largely solitary interests. "with his thick specs, shabby shoes, and grey suit, he looks a bit of an anorak." 

Edited May 30, 2014 by Sternjaeger

[Dakpilot]

I guess hardcore means something different to everyone,...to me hardcore (in appositive sense) is about history in a flight sim, I agree pretty much with all of the above. Flying the aircraft in the way they were really operated..that is hardcore.

 

exploiting game mechanics, pushing an engine to within a second of destruction in every flight, snap views to check every direction/instruments 3 times a second, etc... ad nauseam = GAMING

 

But that is the beauty of things, everyone can chose to fly how they want

 

It is only when people feel the need to force "their " way of flying down other peoples throats does a problem occur

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Phant0m]

I look at it the same way as I look at the difference between a chef and a cook or a barista and a coffee maker.

 

It has to do with how passionate you are. If you are passionate it shows in they way you approach playing, the number of hours you play, the squadrons you fly with and the hardware you use.

 

Simple enough definition for a simple guy.