Cantr only 'a few minutes a day' really?

[formerly known as hf]

Cantr II is a slow-paced game. Many players only play for a few minutes per character each day and one meeting can take a week to play. The game is designed for players who have more on their agenda then just gaming.

This is getting less and less true. I started playing about half an hour a day a few days a week and got along fine. Then, I started to play a lot more, and now, play somewhat less.

It is really difficult to get anywhere in Cantr if you don't keep your characters active daily - especially in busy places. If you are content with being little more than a farmer or virtual slave labour, than maybe it's possible, otherwise it takes far too much time to sift through the events in a busy town. Then again, in quiet areas, it's perfectly possible to have a great (but slow) time.

But, now, with the new skills for fighting, Cantr takes the kind of dedication to mindlessly hit things in order to 'raise a skill' that those people with little time on their hands can't, and wouldn't want to, do. Now, if you want a character that can fight well, you have to spend time training them, which takes more time than just starting a project and leaving it.

Bleurghh... I don't like these new fighting skills...

[Snake_byte]

But, now, with the new skills for fighting, Cantr takes the kind of dedication to mindlessly hit things in order to 'raise a skill' that those people with little time on their hands can't, and wouldn't want to, do. Now, if you want a character that can fight well, you have to spend time training them, which takes more time than just starting a project and leaving it.

Not everyones characters should be good at everything they do.
If your character is living a certain life, then they will advance in a way that is unique to their lifestyle.
If you want to be a hunter for example, some have the nack for others have to train.
If you don't want to train then keep experimenting with all kinds of other projects to find out what it is that you ARE good at.
IF you don't like what you are good at then that brings us back to training...

Though this change may have given the few newspawns the upper hand and the few veteran ones a slip, I think it was a good addition.
These skills allow someone to actually be BETTER than someone else.
This way you can be the BEST.

[ephiroll]

It is possible to keep up with by playing just a few mins a day, about 20 is a good number. The secret is to pay attention only to what is important to the char and ignore everything else, while using online time wisely rather then just hanging around staring at the screen. Of course, it wouldn't be nessacary to ignore everyone else in town if chars knew what a private conversation was. Is it that so many think others care about their food for wood (or equally mundane) trade, or is it just that people are too lazy to speak to the char instead of to everyone?

[wichita]

I hate whisper towns, but I also hate the complete absence of private conversation too. There is a happy medium that keeps you from being so bored from not being sopken to, yet not overwhelmed by pointless chit chat I think.

I have many days where I only check for a total of 20-30 minutes and my characters are doing just fine. Efficiency is indeed the key to success here.

[The Industriallist]

But, now, with the new skills for fighting, Cantr takes the kind of dedication to mindlessly hit things in order to 'raise a skill' that those people with little time on their hands can't, and wouldn't want to, do. Now, if you want a character that can fight well, you have to spend time training them, which takes more time than just starting a project and leaving it.

Not everyones characters should be good at everything they do.
If your character is living a certain life, then they will advance in a way that is unique to their lifestyle.
If you want to be a hunter for example, some have the nack for others have to train.
If you don't want to train then keep experimenting with all kinds of other projects to find out what it is that you ARE good at.
IF you don't like what you are good at then that brings us back to training...

Well, his point was more to the effect that if your character wants to become better at any fighting/hunting skills, you have to invest a stunning amount of time (for cantr productive activities) in clicking and waiting for links to load. I've had a character make...not sure, but more than 40...attacks on animals, at full strength, with a longbow. She's gained 1 point max damage, maybe. And that was right when she started, so most of that hasn't added up to a second point yet.

This is hunting on heavily populated roads, where there can be 12+ distinct stacks to hit at a time. To make as many attacks, in most towns, even for a comitted hunter would take half a year or more...

[Snake_byte]

I also think the Skills still need some tweaking but that's ok, they will.
As it's been mentioned, Cantr is always in the works. That's part of the fun. Never know what can happen in the world of Cantr...

Well about the amount of time I spend on Cantr... I watch a 3 yr old all day so that his mother can continue to excel in her carrer which she is in love with.
David likes watching tv (same room as comp) or playing with his toys (also same room). So you can imagine how often I check my account. Maybe 30-40 mins with 10-15 minute breaks in between, unless David is eating or tugging at me for somthing.

[PRUT]

Now, I know why english cities are such sleepy

Comparing to polish locations, it quite different. Polish cities are really in big BOOM. Everything is changing day by day, and if you want to keep in touch things, You should be online everyday

What's more, we have too less time to manage all characters (200 min is not enough), so many players discovered multiple complicated ways of managing time. If you off for two day, you have to read even 4-5 pages of conversation, actions and whatever. I can't imagine how many changes would be after a week

So, for polish players, Cantr becomes really fast paced game.

But we can agree with rising our playing time, if you have too much of yours

[rklenseth]

If it matters to anyone I only use a few minutes a day. And knowing some of the players I play and the depth of their characters it is possible to play this game in a few minutes a day.

[formerly known as hf]

I get by with using only a few minutes a day, 20-30 usually.

What I'm pointing out is that with the new skills systam, those with more time to spare will have a better deal - they will have the time to work out what their character is good at, and practice doing the things they aren't.
It's not happening just yet, but it will. Unless it's tweaked so that, say, only five hits a day count towards 'practice' and bttering the skill - those who have the time to practice more will have an advantage.

[BadMonkey]

I find it varies. More than a few times I've been fighting to save my last few minutes. But some days I only play 10 or 20 minutes. Depends what is happening where my characters are.

[Sarah]

I usually only use 60-80 minutes a day when I have school and get by fine, and many / most of those minutes are wasted because I have several windows open doing several things at a time, not just Cantr. That's worked for me for 3+ years. My characters (which I keep limited in number now due to time issues) have things to do other than potato farming.

Why does training a character take so much time? You can only hit once a day anyway, so you don't have to be logged in often, and it only takes a few seconds to click the buttons, even if there are several things you want to hit. Especially if you make use of the back button. It's not like Cantr is really, really slow like it used to be.

And if you can't read an events page, put your characters in buildings, as has been suggested before. If you need to know the events, someone start a newspaper. If a location has enough active people that there's a lot of events, I'm sure some player(s) there has the time to write a newspaper, which I don't think would be really that difficult to do.

[Schme]

Usually only twenty minutes or so, although I usually use up all my time as I watch television at the same time and leave the other thing running.