I think people simply want some kind of casual battle content outside of the expected things like dungeons, trials, and normal raids Field content like bozja and eureka is what's needed imo. It's not super demanding, but there's long term goals within that content, similar to how savage also has the long term goal of getting BiS.
I cannot deny their popularity, but I find it hard to understand why. Isn't like 90% of Field Content 'join party, roll around the map as a ball of death that spams AoE with little chance of failure'?
@vincentbeton kindna, i know it sounds weird on paper, but interacting with other players, asking for info instead of searching in a wiki, some of the field bosses( wich apear when you kill enough monsters of their related type) being really fun wich helps break the monotony of the normal mob farm added to being able to do small but tangible progress with just a few hours a week make them greater than the sum of its parts Also the exploration zones add on the later parts of eureka and on bozja as a whole unique mechanics, from new skills like protect, to having to be sneaky around some monsters wich if they notice you they will destroy you easily. The normal mobs in eureka change with weather and time, can be dangerous in small groups if understinatedas well as sometimes mutate into stronger forms with diferent afinities wich varies the gameplay a bit Maybe its a bit too long of an explanation, sorry if it is, i wanted to share why i like them so much
Yeah, pretty much my take as well. As someone who basically considers myself a wanter of "midcore" content it really feels like all of these recent "But what IS midcore?" discussions are kind of missing the point by trying to over analyze the concept. In many ways, it's a "you'll know it when you see it" sort of thing, and I do feel that if you're the sort of player that has already been clearing the harder content in the game you might be beyond the place where you really can "see it." Also, I think it's a fallacy to simply have one continuum of "casual to hardcore" because there really are two definitions in play. One is the difficulty of the content, but the other is time commitment and they don't always line up in easy ways. You can be a person tackling hardcore content but maybe only raid a couple nights a week (aka a "hardcore" player who plays "casual" time). You can be a person who never even does EX but plays every single day (aka a "casual" player who puts in "hardcore" hours). So, again, trying to specifically nail down "what IS midcore" is a bit of a fools errand.
@@vincentbeton Why were games like FF11 popular? People often want to chill and relax, and that's relaxing. It's like if you have a mundane task at work or school or chore at home, but you are good at it, and once you start going into it, you can kind of zen/zone out and just vibe with it, almost like meditation. People can find that relaxing, and that's why a lot of people game, to just unwind after work.
This doesn't have much to do with difficulty, casual and hardcore are expressions of players' investment. The premise should be that casual players are probably straight up not in the discussion, if you're in youtube comment sections or reddit you're already invested enough to not be a casual player. The only other valuable distinction is for players invested enough to schedule a regular weekly activity with 7 other people online, that's what most would consider hardcore, raiders. Basically "midcore" would be the general non raiding population of the game, granted from an external perspective these people invest enough time in the game to be considered hardcore players but it's just semantics really. "midcore" content is indeed grindy content if you want to put it that way, people just want stuff to do in the game at their own pace, they want goals to work towards that will occupy their time, not one and done stuff, not dungeon and trials that are only worth running on roulette until you're max level, things that will actually keep them occupied until the next expansion.
this! to give an example, i play all the time and i just don't raid or even do expert, but ive cleared out every piece of loot in the mgs and i'm there all the time. I'm a hardcore saucer main. i know people who are hardcore about the fall guys collab. it's not all raid or dungeon content lol
Absolutely, one thing I also see coming from wow is how the lack of the „adventure guide“ contributed to me as a hurdle of introduction to more difficult content. In wow, your adventure guide will tell you during leveling what is the approximately according content, and later on expands their tabs to dungeons, raids and world bosses, all content doable with a premade group without too much preplanning and including descriptions about the bosses abilities. When going into EX1 in ff, we wiped five times to an explosion we did not know how to work around. Luckily, the person who joined already knew and told us it was a -pair- mechanic where a -support- needs to pair with a -dps-. I think if I had gone into this with an entire group of newcomers and tried to wrap our head around it, it would have needed to be extremely lucky to have support overlap with dps while the dps do not overlap with each other while still overlapping themselves with supports. I liked the fight for everything else, but where they fail to put their helpful (even though also pretty clunky) markers for soaking, spreading etc. it can create quite the step up from having to invest time in the game bashing your head against a boss to optimize your rotation and eventually killing the boss that way, or having to look up the mechanics to a boss fight, and while you‘re there better look if there is anything else untelegraphed in the fight, and whoops, spoiled the whole fight for yourself, no longer a game of trying to find out how to beat a mechanic and how much uptime you can squeeze in but a checklist of movements for you to go through.
I understand midcore content as something mechanically complex but recoverable, or without bodychecks. Bozja was midcore for me bc there were mechanics I needed to learn, but failing it didn’t exactly meant a wipe. Idk, but I can say that bozja was what taught me most general mechanics, that often happen in extremes and savage. So I consider it a mid step to extreme and savage, therefore, midcore.
I agree. IMO hardcore is when one person can wipe the fight for everyone. Midcore is still hard but one person being dead during a mechanic won't end it.
funny enough, Mr Ozma(encounter designer) himself defined midcore content in the recent interview - between extremes and first/second floor of savage in the terms of difficulty and it was his intention to land difficulty of chaotic raid there. I think this means we(western players) should be asking for more casual content if encounter designer understands "midcore" this way, lol
The jump from "normal" to extreme is already jarring. I guess the current difficulty helps a bit to bridge the gap, but still people are getting smashed hard once they stray from MSQ content. I wish we had something in between these two extremes.
@@TardustheToasty there is nothing that can be done about that. you can pull a horse to the water, but you can't force it to drink. in my msq journey i saw many wipes even in msq content (trials), and msq adjacent (normal raids). there is many people that even bothered to do old raids, because they are optional. no wonder they get smashed, if they dont put time to practice
Man, the whole "If I beat it it is easy" drove me up the wall in the past with how often I hear people with ultimate weapons say that ultimates are "easy". They just couldn't wrap their head around the fact that I do not think they are. If they truly were we could have an ultimate roulette and we could beat it with complete strangers
the thing is, you also got more "easy" and "harder" nobody is gonna say for a long time that TOP is "easy" even experienced players. but nearly everyone that does ultimates will say UCOB and UWU are easy, at this point people even say it's more alike to between extreme and savage. (non existing DPS checks, mechanics are generally much more basic with a set in stone solution) so I think in this case it's that you're not likely a part of the ultimate raiding scene, so you think that every ultimate is as hard as TOP, but it simply isn't, UWU is called "babies first ultimate" for a reason, literally 3/4th of the fight (the primals) is more an extreme fight than ultimate. and ultima itself is more savage than ultimate. UCOB also muuuch easier than TEA, DSR, TOP or FRU.
@DarkDyllon but uwu being easy relative to the other ultimates doesn't necessarily mean that uwu is easy, which is actually something a significant amount of players suggest 🤔😅
@@DarkDyllon I wasn't exactly trying to imply that UWU is the same kind of difficulty as TEA, or DSR or TOP. Iknow that there is a fair amount of difference in them if you compare them today. However in my opinion when I want to judge how difficult something is. Outside of my own personal success or defeats. Is how many people can beat a specific piece of content in a reasonable amount of time. Cause anyone with enough determination and as long as you have the ability to learn. Can beat any content. The whole have a million monkeys can put something together if you wait long enough. Anyways, even UWU the easiest along the ultimates, isn't just going to be cleared by most people in a reasonable amount of time. Which is why I am saying Ultimates aren't easy, easy for you? Sure. But easy? I personally disagree
@@CaetsuChaijiCh The reason people think that stuff like UWU is easy is because quite often when people screw up, you can just res them and keep going. You can carry a lost player through UWU to a large extent, you can't do that for TOP.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Exactly this. Calculus may be easy (or, at least, not hard) for a PhD physicist, but that doesn't mean calculus is easy for the vast majority of the population that struggles mastering even algebra. "Oh, ordinary, well behaved differential equations? Child's play!" isn't what most people are thinking when they see y''(x) + 2y'(x) - 4y(x) = x. It's always wild to me how people who are really good at a thing seem unaware of how good they are at the thing (or on the other end, you get the people that are TOO prideful and aren't as good as their ego thinks they are).
"Difficulty is subjective" is a fantastic take. So many people say that EX2 is the easiest of the current three Dawntrail Extreme Trials, but I have difficulty with misleading mechanics, so it's the hardest for me. Meanwhile, although a lot of people struggle most on EX3, because it's all choreography and DPS/Heal/Body checks (with admittedly tight timings), I actually find it very easy.
The fact difficulty is subjective is something a lot of people never consider, and usually when they bump into someone that feels different than them, it's more likely the conclusion is "oh that's because you're bad" or "ah you just don't understand what I mean" rather than the observation that different people find different things hard! Case in point, I certainly find ex2 easier than ex3, but there can be many different reasons for that, and I can say this while not saying either one is "easy" 😊
Another good example is the cups in Strayborough. Some people can track them like they have Ultra Instinct, and some people can maybe track them if they stop attacking and focus only on the cups. I am the latter, and I make that known to the party as soon as I see that’s where we’ve loaded into. Half the time I have a party member who is good at it who will put a marker on themselves. The other half, the healer throws me a super strong shield before the hit, or we LEROY JENKINS the boss down before more than 2 of the cup mechanics can be used 😂
Almost everyone ive met says ex3 is the easiest but its the one ive had the longest prog on. Its also the one ive had the worst pf exp on. Difficulty is very much subjective as what a majority would say vocally does not seem to reflect the people actually playing
@@raarasunai4896 Same. If I'm a DPS or maybe a tank, I can't track them. As a healer (SGE mostly) I can track them easier as I can throw a shield or a top up heal before hand and just spam one attack move.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh The other issue is that some players who are clearly very skilled assume that others who find any combat more difficult than them are just not trying hard enough. This strikes me as strange. It supposes that there are no intrinsic skill differences between players, or that all content in 14 sits below below a difficulty threshold achievable by anyone. This is simply not the case.
Oof, this was a pretty good discussion, but you didn't include the most reasonable definition for midcore: as a descrption of players, not the content. If you look for statics to join, which are all doing the same content, you will find groups self-labeled as casual, midcore, or hardcore. These describe the group approach and expectations, not the content itself.
Right, but the people complaining about this are the self-proclaimed mid-core players complaining about the absence of such content, not other such players. People who say that MSQ/normal-mode content is too easy, but Savage is too hard.
@@NatiiixLP 100% correct. Savage is where the toxicity rears its head. Extreme is probably the closest that would fit Midcore. If you have done all the reputations, all the professions, most classes leveled to level cap, you will have less and less to do.
@NatiiixLP I'll take your word for it. I only ever hear (in-game and on youtube) people complaining about the complaining, not the lack of midcore content. Maybe that happens more on the forums, where I don't hang out, idk.
@@aethon0563 I only know about the complaining from content creators reacting to forum/Reddit posts as well. What I hear is endgame players complaining about general lack of content, but that's just born from unreasonable expectations that SE will release a new duty every week or idk. I don't think content releases are unbearably far apart. Then again, I'm a casual player, barely putting it 2-6 hours a day, so what do I know.
@@d0k0night I always viewed Extremes as a difficulty SE should aim for when making most of their content that isn't Savage or Ultimate, it's a decent challenge but doesn't have the same checks that the harder tiers do. Also just finding a static I would say makes you a hardcore player, casuals I would identify as only using Duty Finder to get groups whereas 'midcore' players PUG in Party Finder but don't commit to a static raid schedule or anything.
I see midcore as medium difficulty. We currently have: Content so easy you can repeatedly ignore mechanics and, so long as one healer and tank is alive, the fight can go on indefinitely. Extremes that require mechanics knowledge memorization, and trial and error Savage and ultimate being steps up from extreme with the need for all players to be coordinated. The leap from regular content to extreme is rather extreme for lack of better word. I feel like chaotic was intended to bridge this gap with a lot of mechanics that were overall forgiving to the group. But then phase 2 happens and it's actually a 24 man savage. Maybe we can see variant and criterion updates fill this midcore role with the new field zone when they arrive. Also I completely agree with your thoughts on rewards in savage and criterion.
My understanding was that midcore was a description of a playstyle rather than a type of content. I've never thought of it as a way to describe the difficulty of content (especially since we have those handy parentheticals for describing how hard content is). That said, I'd still be hard pressed to provide a solid definition of what midcore is.
Difficulty is so incredibly subjective, you really can't separate a players' level of skill from how hard they find content! So many people I know don't notice how their expectations adjust as they get more skilled at the game. I've watched people go from only msq to savage raiding, and also people who tried out extremes and determined 'nah, not for me', and the people who've gone on to savage will call the new alliance raid 'interesting but easy' whilst those who haven't found it 'hellishly hard' - and granted, some of that is the groups they were in, but it's also the expectation you come with - I find savage/extreme players are used to 'get hit by things, wipe, try again' whereas dying (or even getting hit by) mechanics in the normal mode is often considered a point of failure. So for my friends who've reached savage, that we could figure out the fights without wiping completely meant they were 'easy' - for those who haven't, that they died in the fight meant it was 'hard'. When I'm foggy-brained or distracted, I want the 'easy' versions where I can just clear - other times, I'll be happy (and satisfied) to truly flex my skills. I have to spend a lot of time when inducting new players into extremes reassuring them that causing a wipe or merely dying or even missing a gcd isn't a fatal flaw, it's a completely normal part of the process at that level of content. I also remind myself of how frustrated and hurt I was by struggling with 'In from the cold' I was completely taken out of the story by how punishing it was, *even after* moving to 'super easy' mode. For context, I'd played white mage and red mage up until that point and only gone through story and job quests, no real side content (like deep dungeons). I later (after levelling most jobs to 90 and doing some extremes) went back to try to understand *why* I had such a hellish time with it, and realised - it was that I had no intuitive grasp of facing direction when I first tried. I don't recall if I was doing it before or after they added the circles for the enemies, but I had no clue about *walking* or *avoiding sight lines*, so when trying to stay equally far from all enemies... I just ended up aggroing all of them. I understood after that they'd clearly *tried* to train me for this with all the 'sneak after someone' duties, but I stayed so far away in those that I didn't make the link until after I'd visited eureka as to how to avoid aggroing the enemies. So when I went back to re-try it, on normal difficulty, and it was... pretty easy, I very much internalised how *dramatically* experience affects the difficulty you perceive. I don't mentally consider myself 'hardcore' even though I probably should - it's my main hobby, I cleared savage (and reclear each week...) and the chaotic but haven't been brave enough to take the step to ultimate. I still do island sanctuary each day too (which is a different kind of hardcore :P )! My partner on the other hand would definitely be casual. He re-subs to the game for a month when new story comes out, does each duty once, and then moves on to other things. If 'normal' content was much harder, he'd probably give up on the game as 'not designed for his level of play' anymore. Honestly, I think ffxiv does a really good job of having a good range of difficulty - I loved Mr. Ozma's interviews highlighting how Ex1 is designed as a toe-dip into harder content (whilst still being allowed to be a bit interesting), and what I've learnt from friends is that Ex3 is where it starts to jump in difficulty a bit (ie body check time!) I started Arcadion savage at release with a static, and am now taking a new set of people through it. It's *definitely* easier to prog at this point, but I still wouldn't do it if it wasn't a set of people I'd trained up on extremes first! I also observed how much 'slower' the fights feel as you get used to them. mechanics which are unbelievably fast when learning gradually become more and more rhythmic and doable as you learn it, and this makes the fight itself feel 'easier' just because it's familiar now. I do think maybe the 'midcore' cravings are mostly craving 'variety' - one of my friends specifically wants non-linear dungeons, or gimmic variants of dungeons (sastasha, but no healing! or something). People are hyped for more field operations. I'd personally like to see more usage of the 'temporary bonus' they have with chaotic/light farming - perhaps in combination with gimmic runs (eg 'levelling roulette without a tank for X clusters' (not sure what a good reward *would* be but it feels doable)) - I love the mogtome events precisely because they make us go to a variety of content and often end up in different ways (7-dps P1n was so much fun)
As someone who used to play on elemental for 2 years (for context from Australia) even the english speaking part of the jp dcs queued for current extreme. It felt so good calling spot and everyone using the agreed upon macro. That was how the culture worked Edit: usually the df extremes had a mix of English and jp players. Auto translate "hello" and "let's do it" as well as "doma castle" and "good game" was mostly what you needed
It is the thing i miss the most about playing with my friends on the NA datacenters, I can't really just queue into things over here like I did when i was on the JP datacenters with my old guild.
I'm my opinion, "midcore" is less a description of the content and more a description of the player - someone who plays a lot but doesn't want to engage with the top-end challenges (usually meaning they don't want to do anything that expects a premade party). "Midcore content" is just anything that appeals to that kind of player. Bozja and Eureka are great examples of this. I think "grindable content" is probably a more accurate descriptor for the type of content they're actually asking for.
If you ask me the jump from MSQ/Normal to EX/Savage content is one of the biggest spikes of difficulty I’ve seen in a game. Every new player I’ve seen is like a headless chicken in EX/Savage because the game doesn’t do anything to prepare them for it. “Midcore” in my definition would be things like Bozja where there are complex mechanics at play with MUCH higher margin for error. That way players can understand more difficult mechanics without the fear of potentially ruining a run for others because of less personal responsibility and interconnected mechanics like body checks or tight DPS checks. So looking at the bigger picture “Midcore” content is a VERY important thing for FFXIV’s long term health because of how jarring it is to transition into the more “hardcore” content at offer due to there being nothing to teach players 90% of the things they’ll see there.
Like a few others say in the comments here, I subscribe to the idea that it works much better as a descriptor for players, not content. It's still not perfect, but it's easier to come to a consensus on what "a medium amount of player investment" means. Speaking from personal experience, it is incredibly easy to have a skewed view of how hard content is for other people. I've put in a lot of time into FF14 since Dawntrail came out, but everyone else I know IRL has not. The first time we did a regular dungeon roulette it shocked me the kinds of mechanics they struggled with, even though they've overall played the game MUCH more than me (I started playing in Endwalker, while some of my friends were there for the original 2.0 release). But because of real-world circumstances (like raising children), most content is harder for them than it is for me.
I always thought of "midcore" as the mindset, precisely because of what you outlined in this video. Though I'm sure people could argue about how they define the mindset for "midcore" too. It's the only one of the three that feels like it's a mindset more than a game determined difficulty though... For me a midcore player is anyone that is interested in doing well, and being challenged, but can't or don't play on the bleeding edge. I consider myself to be midcore even though I'm gradually trying to do more savage and even ultimate content, though it remains to be seen if I have the skill for any of it lol. Being grindy alone does not count to me if there isn't some sort of challenge beyond "have time to dump into this task". Though I know games have considered this to be "midcore" or even in the case of the JP version of the NES final fantasies hardcore.
The challenge decreasing over time with gear is a great point further complicating this. Especially in fights that put the hard mechanics at the end, like raining cats in m1s. That fight is much easier even at 730 vs 710, so even though it is still a current high end duty, it’s an easier one now. I think this is a nice design to add additional challenge for serious week one raiders while offering a sliding scale of difficulty over time facilitating clears by less dedicated raiders without completely trivializing the fight.
That is indeed true! Being able to skip some of the harder mechanics as you get better is certainly something that I feel is very reassuring when progging a fight in the first place. And it also helps to make it more approachable as it ages. It does however feel like a bit of a shame if a mechanic is completely skipped before you even get a chance to meet it in the first place!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh That is also a good point and on that note in 7 clears I still have yet to see even the enrage cast bar on m4s. My slowest clear was after the first hit on sword quiver. I know my first clear was around two months ago, so relatively late in the tier, but that still seems a little off to me as I did see enrage in every other fight in the tier before clearing.
Excellent vid, especially Reason 3 and the Conclusion. I would argue that with recent experiments by the design team, we are _approaching_ a discrete limit in the difficulty space. Take the recent Chaotic Phase 1 (ignore tiles phase completely for sake of argument) and place it on a line graph of difficulty. Add the Alliance raids, with Crystal Tower way down on the easy end, things like Nier on the harder end. Now, pretend you're a game designer, and you get the feedback of "Nier raid is casual, but COD Phase 1 is hardcore. Make something midcore, dammit!" Can you mentally envision what an entire NEW category of fights between those two difficulties looks like? Speaking for myself, I cannot; I can only envision a somewhat harder Alliance raid, or a somewhat easier COD Phase 1. Similarly in the 4man space, we have Story dungeons, Deep dungeons, and Criterion dungeons. Can you envision a difficulty between Story and Deep? Can you envision a difficulty between Deep and Criterion? 8man is ironically the least explored space. We do have Story trials, EX trials, Savage raids, and Ultimate raids, but most dissatisfied people seem to immediately push EX trials into hardcore. There isnt really a difficutly between Story and EX 8man, whether that warrants dev time or not is another discussion. People asking for midcore without defining midcore, is not helpful. Say that you want content for a group of X players, that is easier than Y but harder than Z. Because, a discrete space needs to exist between Y and X, for the designers to be able to make it!
Midcore isn't about a set of difficulty I actually think for example some things in Bozja are quite difficult for example. That's a piece of content people call Midcore. Midcore means to me investment. Casual content is the story, crafting, treasure maps, hunts. Non-commital. Hardcore content is Savage and Ultimates which require a lot of commitment. Midcore is content you can do that has degrees of challenge which you can invest time into but you don't HAVE to go hard or make plans to achieve it. Deep dungeons, Eureka/Bozja, Variant dungeons are midcore. Things you can grind solo or with friends that vary in how difficult they can become but let you play the game and spend time in it.
I think someone somewhere started throwing the term around and then people who couldn't figure out or couldn't articulate why they were feeling unsatisfied latched onto it. I conjecture what people actually want to say is that they don't like how updates are currently scheduled. A lot of people want things that are slated to be released, but are still a long time off. Meanwhile many things that for better or worse most people either don't stick to for long or don't interact with at all are being released now. This can be especially frustrating if what you want is something specifically made to be done over a long period of time, but seems to be slated for the latter half of the expansion. I can't say how the things we haven't got yet will be received, but I think there's many people eager to receive them, maybe even most, so I don't think it's a "no satisfying things to do for me" so much as a "no(t enough) satisfying things to do for me yet". It's hard to say exactly how they should structure their releases, in no small part because not everyone wants the same thing, and this isn't even getting into the logistics of X feature and Y feature needing Z developer(s) and they can only do one thing at a time. I'm inclined to say most people would be receptive to a shake up in how things come out, but how that might impact the people doing it and their process is a mystery to me; Not working at Square Enix yet!
Usually the people I hear the term 'Midcore' from are asking for more field content. Which is kinda funny since people used to hate Eureaka when it came out, I guess Bozja changed minds
Hard to say. I specifically recall players also hated bozja when that came out. I believe it's more that some players enjoyed this content, and now that endwalker didn't add to it, it's missing for them. The players that hated it has no reason to care now that it doesn't affect progression anymore 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Eureka was hated at first because it was too obtuse and that dying was easy and made you lost hours of progress, bozja was a lot better explained and it was loved. With endwalker the patches became longer than ever with less content added, add that to a boring relic farm and it made the lack of an optional exploration zone a lot more noticeable
For me personally, I consider anything as part of the regular casual content to be... well, casual. Things done without much time or effort required. This is dungeons, normal trials, normal raids, normal alliance raids, Variant dungeons, the MSQ, etc. As far as other games go, like World of Warcraft, this would be your normal and heroic dungeons, LFR dungeons, and lower to mid tier delves. Hardcore for me would be something that takes a considerable amount of time and effort, usually with a static group of people. Savage and Criterion and on the extreme end of that spectrum, Ultimates and Criterion Savage. Using World of Warcraft as an example, this would be your late Heroic to Mythic raids, deep Mythic+ (such as Gilded Crest mythic+ levels), and the like. So what would be Midcore? I'd reckon something around EX difficulty, that requires knowledge of how the game kinda works, but it's also not THAT strict and can be done handily in PUGs. Not something you can sleep through, but not something that will destroy you either; and something easily put together. EX trials, Unreal trials, the deeper floors of Deep Dungeon, maybe some Field Exploration content (even if not exactly difficult, it does take a bit of a grind). As far as other games like World of Warcraft go, this would be your higher difficulty Delves, normal raids, and mid-tier Mythic+ (currently at around the +0 to +6 range perhaps). If Chaotic was meant to land on this 'Midcore' level, around EX and Unreal but with just more players, I definitely think they failed. At about 10 clears now, it's definitely more of a Savage difficulty fight (maybe M2S or M3S) but it's way more of a pain in the ass to wrangle 24 people rather than 8. The frustration in those 'farm' PFs is palpable, as well. For what it's worth I also think Criterion (normal difficulty) failed too, as a LOT of people I know who did EXes tried Criterion and just quit after being walled by the Sil'dih rat, and very few people subsequently ran the other Criterions, and Aloalo specifically I found to be on the same level of execution/punishment as Anabaseios Savage, just with less people. Ideally, as someone who reliably clears Savage (and Criterion, and everything below that ofc), I think Chaotic and normal Criterion should definitely be taken down a peg in difficulty. There's enough 'hardcore' content between Savage, Ultimate, and Criterion Savage. We don't really need Chaotic to add to that IMO.
To be fair for the 24man chaotic, they mentioned they were trying to aim for an EX like difficulty, however it ended up as a 2nd floor/tier savage instead as mentioned in the live letter where 24man chaotic was discussed.
I think "content for me" being midcore sounds accurate. When I tell people I want midcore content, I just mean I want content that is not stupid easy, but not too hard that I have to use a meta or playstyle I don't enjoy because it's optimal.
the only thing that might lack in this is the situation which bruoght up the "midcore" conversation originally in FF XIV aka a bunch of streamers whining about why there isn't more Bozjan. Great video and very good that you adress the inherent conflict between the term itself and it's relationship to how much effort a player needs to bring.
This has also been a long running topic in World of Warcraft circles, and a focus of its developers in its recent expansion. One of the things that game has done to correct this issue is instead of content having a set difficulty level, they have tried to ensure a lot of content has player selectable difficulty scaling. (Mythic dungeons and Delves in particular). I am not advocating for FFXIV to copy directly, because games need to design for their playerbases and not someone elses. But some kind of scale on content difficulty could really help the game solve content issues with the understanding that player skill levels don't always fit into one of the casual/midcore/hardcore buckets, and often a player might partake of all three at different times. And I have to agree that some kind of open world content is probably what a lot of people want, even if it ends up being "casual" content, they want something to break the loop of just doing daily roulettes, and would like some kind of slow burn content to feel they are progressing towards something.
I define difficulty in games as the amount of effort one must put forth in order to complete, or over-come the challenge of the game. So if minimal effort and time is required, then it is casual. I a person is researching, or hunting for the right gear/build, and putting forth a good deal of time to prepare for the challenge, then I would describe that as hardcore. Mid-core falls between these definitions. So the person must put forth some effort, but a large amount of preparation is not required. Example: The player learns and understand the game mechanics, and uses this knowledge to over-come the challenges. With these definitions, most games are on a sliding scale of difficulty, and is a unique experience to the perspective of the player, and can even change for this same player over time.
I generally see the Casual, Midcore and Hardcore groupings of players as a Time Investment scale/metric. Because, "casual" content like Role Playing, absolutely has it's own hardcore audience, meanwhile, you can absolutely approach "hardcore" content like Ultimates, with a casual mindset. So like, no hard labels, but it's a gradient
this is such a good way to put the whole thing, my personal way of thinking of it is stuff like bozja, eureka, and everything in the "High End Content" section easier than savage is what i consider midcore content, but yeah there really is no real definition
Dalriada and CLL are what i consider the best midcore content imo and they are also extremely fun and just a really nice change from the monotony of regular duties. I would like to include BA in here too, but i feel BA is way more demanding of the player then the other 2.
My personal challenge in the game is varying up which jobs I play on any given day. I don’t become a “specialist” in all of them, so I have to at least reach a good enough level with things that aren’t my main. My main in and of itself is a bit of a challenge. Taking Black Mage into content you don’t know well can end badly when you don’t know where you need to save your instant casts to avoid getting yeeted to New Jersey or dropped into the Grand Canyon
I remember a lot of deep dungeon people being so upset at me whenever I complained about Eureka Orthos being too difficult. I then explained how Heaven-On-High balanced its party/solo difficulty by having most mobs have an "enrage", which parties would likely never see, while solo players would have to deal with it. I proclaimed that as a better way to balance content to where the climb can be "midcore", while a solo run can remain as a very hard challenge. All those angry players that I've encountered, upon me giving this explaination, did change their tune and agreed that that might have been a better way to balance things. I feel like midcore can exist, its not purely a subjective concept, and even hardcore players can see it.
the issue is that HoH is in general much harder solo vs EO Solo, simply because in HoH you can legit be screwed over by RNG quite easily, get too many debuffs? good luck, some mobs are outright impossible on some jobs without steel. meanwhile in EO, there is not a single mob that impossible, EO is just overtuned, the thing that makes EO "harder" is that it's mechanically based, mess up the mechanic and you outright die (past floor 30) but once you remember what each mob does, it's much easier, time can sometimes be a struggle sure, but that's where your usage of poms come in. (also that you want to use a lot more resources on 71-80 since 81-98 will give you a lot of demiclones from silver chests, while the mobs don't hit much harder)
@@DarkDyllon Perhaps you're right, but I keep thinking of how HoH was 4/5 for me, as in I had 5 attempts and only failed once, while with EO, I was 1/5 for a while. 5 Attempts and only cleared once (at that time). Although who knows, maybe it was just bad luck.... in terms of people I mean "No, I don't want to use voicechat... No, I won't wait for you guys, I'm the tank, I'll pull what I want, and if the enemy does an insta back-cleave killing you all, then its your fault. Oh and if I die after, being unable to solo what I pulled, its your fault for me dying too!"
@@Nodnarb59 yeah... All of my friends said the same. I'm the only guy who has one. Ignoring everything that ended before Floor 50, I had 10 attempts and it's genuinely frustrating.
As a newer player, the closest to what I'd consider midcore among the content I've experienced would be the Ultima Weapon Extreme (especially when run with mil). It's harder than any standard story content, but doesn't really have any tricky mechanics (apart from maybe the orbs) that you'd need to be aware of before the fight, so you can clear the fight without any advance preparation or particular strategy being mandatory simply by playing well and not doing too many mistakes.
I definitely think to me midcore is less about difficulty and more about the type of content. You could say that things like relic and exploration zone are casual but the time needed to progress is potentially more than something a casual player would be interested in. I would say for my idea of a “midcore difficulty” I would say they did a good job with DRN the twice come ruin was a fun mechanic and something I’d kinda want to see in something like the chaotic alliance raid.
3:00 Me: "Funny to speak about hardcore and then take footage of e11, making it look like FRU" *squints at the Duty name* Wait.. you dipped at least 2 hours into FRU? Gonna have to look for that stream! Hope it was fun and went okay
My definitions for content difficulty would be like this: Casual: A single player can stop wipes. Medium: Healers/raisers dying or DPS checks not being met causes a wipe. Hard: One player can cause a wipe.
16:15 For me, when I heard them say they were doing something with savage style mechanics in an alliance raid I assumed that would mean "oh, more healers to recover from mistakes". Not "more bodies to potentially fail body checks" lol
Welcome to my reply that turned into an essay, it took hours to write (and I probably made a ton of errors): I generally find that terms like Midcore and Hardcore are fairly arbitrary unless they are dealing with a specific mechanic that fundamentally changes the way the systems are interacted with (like perma-death), and as was said, what one person finds casual, another might find hardcore. Something hard can become easy over time, so Hardcore might become Midcore or Casual, When I think about terms like Casual, Midcore, and Hardcore, I tend to think about the expectation from the player in terms of amount to learn, and the amount of the mistakes that can be made in an activity while still accomplishing it. So to me, I define the terms thus: - Casual content is very forgiving and recoverable. Going back to the discussion about "Needing to be Perfect", it's the level where you don't need a super in-depth knowledge. Where major mistakes like using Manafont into Despair isn't the end of the world (something that totally never happened to me). You don't need food or pots, don't need any prior understanding of how a mechanic may work, and it's easy to sight read. Little co-ordination or reaction is needed, and things are very obviously telegraphed. Most dungeons and normal trials/raids can be fit into this. - Midcore is the step up, where you have to think about things like positioning and having a firm grasp of your toolset, and be expected to utilize it. Mistakes are permitted, but excessive mistakes will result in failure. You may get a "Vuln stack" or "Twice Come Ruin", but nothing that makes meeting any DPS checks immediately harder. Prior understanding of some mechanics may be useful, and you will likely need a plan or co-ordination. The ability to comprehend more abstract things like transposition mechanics will be expected. EX trials, Deep Dungeon, Criterion, and some early tier Savage can be fit into this. - Hardcore is when mistakes lead to failure immediately (or prevents another mechanic from being able to be done, resulting in failure then). It requires you to have a very solid plan and understanding of the task, use of outside tools, and the ability to use those kit with minimal (if any) mistakes. Co-ordination is essential and a plan must be established. You will likely have to deal with several mechanics at the same time, and failure either results in immediate death, the inability to do another mechanic (body check) or a debuff that makes meeting the DPS check harder. Savage and Ultimate fit into this description. But there is something that a lot of people forget about. Crafting and Gathering is generally seen as pretty casual, but it can also be hardcore. Things like Custom Deliveries are very casual (very easy to do with basic gear), but the relic stages and higher master items may be considered hardcore. Much like combat, I would say it is Hardcore if you can't rely on macros, need optimised melded gear, a firm understanding of how all your abilities work, and use of items and food. One mistake in your crafting rotation or a failure to utilise your skills correctly may result in your craft failing. As for the amount of time involved, I don't feel that having something that takes a long time to complete as Hardcore. I would classify as "Grindcore". It's the difference between speedrunning and an idle game. Speedrunning is 100% Hardcore to me, but the goal is spend the least amount of time doing the content, often by playing in a way that so optimal that it can only be reached by constantly learning and pushing, and making a mistake can often result in a reset of the run. Compare this to something like Cookie Clicker, which is super casual, but it takes a massive amount of time, so much that it far eclipses most other....anything. You are never penalised for making the "wrong" action, there is no pressure to optimise, there is no failure state for making the "wrong" (or sub-optimal) action. I also have an issue with measuring by rewards as well. If something gave the best gear in the game or a massive power boost, but only required a simple action, I wouldn't classify that as Hardcore. Similarly, if would a perfect execution of an extremely complicated action only gave a fire shard, I wouldn't classify it as Casual. i also think that measuring by rewards is only going to lead to a feeling of never being satisfied. To me, it would be like chatting with friends, then asking them for $50 because you completed the task of "spending time with them". This isn't even touching upon things like challenge runs that turn Casual games into Hardcore games (GeoGuesser comes to mind). TL;DR, Terms only have as meaning as we give them as they exist in a spectrum in flux, and can ultimately boil down to "Do you feel fulfilled with your experience?" Experiences will vary, and I definitely did not Manafont into Despair.
my personal opinion of what i would consider midcore in FF is more stuff like bozja and eureka, mostly as a focal point that brings the mmo feel back into the mmorpg, a mass zone of various difficulty content but where everyone is sat at that feels involved across the majority of both the casual side and hardcore side. having more content that focuses on keeping the community as a whole incentivized to party up and work together in zones as well as it being a time sink for various reasons, such as gamba with the lockboxes, mount farming, minions, aesthetic unlockables, etc, all the core bits of the mmo in the overworld put into a mass activity zone would scratch more itches of those yearning for something to do thats always got that sprinkle of progress, while also giving some hardcore players some room to show off like duels allowed. i believe the midcore gap would be easily filled best if the dev team sat and worked on making more activities like this. especially if the devs are in the experimental phases they would have more sandbox room to see whats hit or miss for the overall playerbase with less chance of content feeling niche or like it'll torpedo into 'dead content' if it doesn't land right. overall i believe the missing midcore is how segmented the game is between casual and hardcore players in their own areas of playstyle and not enough areas or reasons for the both sides to merge into a specific area meant for the mmo part of the game to thrive. but this is just one nerds opinion. lol
I think a lot of the confusion is around people conflating casual/midcore/hardcore PLAYERS with casual/midcore/hardcore RAIDERS. If you raid at all you are probably already in the hardcore PLAYERS bucket. I would say the definition that makes the most sense to me is: Casual = Easy difficulty, done once and not needed to be grinded. Midcore = Easy moment to moment difficulty but expected to grind. Hardcore = Hard difficulty and expected to grind.
I think midcore as a descriptor of content is honestly worthless, since it's a descriptor of player investment. Anything that "midcore players" do is "midcore content." Hot take: an Ultimate could be midcore content depending on the way you approach it. People keep asking for "midcore content" when often what they mean is "normal difficulty content that has a compelling reason to engage with it." You hit the nail on the head when you say that this appears to mostly just be people asking for some kind of grindable content. When someone starts out in FFXIV, all the content is so new that simply experiencing it for the first time is a compelling enough reason. But as people become more familiar with the game, sink more hours into it, consume more information about it, they become so numb as to require an incentive to engage with the content, something this game is notoriously poor in regards to. Extremes in JP are considered "midcore content," but here in the English speaking playerbase, we consider anything that requires "outside studying" to be "hardcore" content. I find this is more a mentality problem than anything else. If we were to assume that the average "midcore" player is reasonably familiar with the way the game telegraphs mechanics (ie: can do most "casual" content in the game with few to no vulnerability stacks or deaths) and has some amount of familiarity with their job and rotation, then they have all the tools they need to be able to do Extreme level content without watching a guide. The longer I play the more I realize that the gap between "normal" and "extreme" was never actually as large as I thought it was. If we're being technical, we might consider anything with a DPS check or Hard Enrage as definitively falling out of the "casual" category... but, then again, the normal mode versions of A3, A12, O1, and O3 all have DPS checks. Any phase that is "fight adds while boss bar charges" is, technically, a DPS check. They're not HARD DPS checks, but they are DPS checks. FFXIV is home to many a casual static that meets once or twice a week to do whatever the current high-end content is at their own pace. I'd consider such players to be just as midcore as the fishing enthusiasts, marketboard warriors, and daily roulette checklisters. Which makes everything from crafting to duty finder to savage valid "midcore content" in my eyes. In which case, there's plenty of "midcore content" in the game. But people warp the definition of a nebulous term around their own perspectives and I think what you say at the end about players "outgrowing" content that once satisfied them is very insightful. It's a very "big fish in a little pond" kind of vibe. (sorry for yapping. I'm a yapper)
I think a lot of people are missing in the discussion is that people want more than just battle content to drop around the same time as Battle content. Something more than just PvE to beat monotony
part of the problem we have is something that has been addressed by yoshi-p, in that they have removed too many stressors from the game which made the game more accessible, but a lot of the content is far more easy than many players would like. We currently have the issue where the normal modes are very easy, and the extreme/savage is a giant leap in difficulty and we basically don't have a middle ground, so we have easy and hard but no medium, that is the spot where i think of midcore, they are "too good" for the easy mode, but not "good enough" for the hard option. I fully agree that midcore is very hard to define exactly, but to me it comes to the gap in difficulty of content, the wider the gap the more a midcore will need to exist, the smaller the gap the less a midcore will exist. Grindable content sounds worse but it is more of a midcore thing, where it isn't necessarily easy but the difficulty can be mitigated or overcome by grinding, that is where the midcore dedication comes in over casual, but doesn't quite hit the hardcore mindset. I feel that midcore is currently more of just a missing stepping stone in difficulty that most games tend to have that ff14 doesn't, and it is fully understandable why ff14 doesn't as that takes resources and dedication to making that difficulty.
Midcore players themselves is combination of a lot of things: 1- fast learner, good at role, unstable irl sched = cant raid consistently. 2- good at role, kinda slow learner, have all the time in the world to prog all day. Etch… Dedication also counts, how far can they go and study out of raid sched. Knowing your own capability: how long can you raid? 2h? 4h? 6h? Before you loose focus and start to mess every pull. Do you know how fast can you learn and do take that consideration when progging?
I think another issue also lies in basing any of it on "clears" and "wipes" because the content goes past that. The main thing they all differ with is the penalty for failing or not knowing how to resolve a mechanic or a fight. From vuln stacks up to just straight up wiping, they exist in all types of content. It's hard to think of a lot of examples but Baldesion Arsenal is one that I feel is a hardcore type of thing to do. This goes beyond the gear issue and the subjective difficulty, because something having more requirements already makes it more complex and therefore requires more attention
Concerning my thoughts on what makes something midcore: a required sync/distinct leveling system separate from FATEs and what is available via roulettes is more than likely at least midcore content. I would say the party finder that I joined a few weeks ago where we entered Euphrosyne unsynced yet undergeared to around ilvl 400 (weapon and accessories only, level 1 body gear or naked) would fit the umbrella of midcore. It's definitely doable, and there's a chance for wiping (2nd boss definitely got us), but we cleared it. I think a lot about game difficulty and how knowledge of the game's systems/mechanics/content is an underlooked factor. People who have less knowledge about a game have the potential to be unwittingly doing a challenge run or playing their own harder version of the game. For instance, my friend played with a whole party of Warriors in the original FF1 when he was a child: he wasn't trying to do anything that was of a particular challenge, but his play style and knowledge of the game at the time made the game more difficult. Another example: when I was playing SGE on an alt, I was severely below item level (I forgot to equip accessories) when I did one of the combat-related quests, accidentally thinking that they ramped up the difficulty somehow. Instead, I accidentally created my own challenge. Oppositely, If somebody runs a more challenging fight armed with prior knowledge (using a guide, watching a video, knowing of a cheese method), that may dramatically lessen the difficulty.
I think midcore and hardcore share the same content; the difference between them is how these groups TREAT the content. For example a static doing Savage for a lockout or two on weekends would be midcore. Hardcore raid 4 days,log into their raid alts to do it again and gear faster,and try to optimize their logs and rotation to parse higher others clearing as well.
To me the Eureka, and Bozja were midcore. Content which was not mandatory for general progression, hence why it did not do that much hand-holding. It required teamwork a lot of the times, coordination, and things were not guaranteed to work out if people played like headless chickens. Sure, one can argue with me on this, or insist that its more a difference in style of content, rather than difficulty, but it did feel different to me, and not having anything like that during Endwalker was what I missed.
The general understanding of what makes a Static Casual/Midcore/Hardcore seems to me to accurately map onto content as well. It's all about the expected time investment, not just inside the content, but also in preparation for the content. Dungeons, Normal/Alliance Raids, really you just need to meet the minimum IL requirements and just show up. No need for Party Finder or forming a Static, you don't have to grind out your weekly cap or even meld a single materia. Practically zero time needed ahead of the content, including earning gil for food/pots/crafted sets or watching guides/learning how to optimize your rotation. Very much a Casual time investment. With Hardcore sitting on the polar opposite of the time investment scale, what could a Midcore time investment look like? - Learning your job's rotation well enough, but maybe not the pot opener and definitely not doing regular practice drills on training dummies. (I don't know if people even do that last part, but I'd be surprised if no-one did) - Weekly capping on tomes to gear your job(s) with, but maybe not going out of your way to do hunt trains for hours to buy twines & shines (if you don't run savage). Saving up a little materia here and there to meld, but not dumping days (or even weeks/months, depending) worth of hard-earned gil (or countless trains worth of nuts) on pentamelding. - Prog takes a decent couple of hours, rather than several days. (Scaling the actual time with your group's skill. So if Hardcore veterans can prog an entire Savage tier in a day or two, that "couple of hours" would scale down to 1, maybe 2) - The amount of time the content/game/devs expect you to be online to do it is higher than just "30min to ~an hour a day on roulettes", but not so high that you would have to organize your weekly or even daily schedules around it. (And yes, this means Big Fishing would be somewhere between Midcore and Hardcore) - Needing to use Party Finder and thus wait longer than an average Duty Finder queue to fill, but NOT needing to find/form a Static of 7+ other dedicated people with relatively matching free time, in order to reasonably clear. (Assuming the content is accessible via the Duty Finder) ...as a few examples. Extreme Trials & Adventuring Forays/Field Operations both fit this to a tee, after you account for the sliding scale of 'how much preparation outside the content affects the content'. (So I would argue that clearing the final floor of a Deep Dungeon even in a group leans towards Hardcore, considering how many hours a run takes and that one wipe resets the whole clock, plus Aetherpool levels and potions)
i often categorize them more based on their dedication level and amount of time spent in raid/ultimates weekly. the casual audience are those that don't bother with savages. there's semi casual, these are the types that are kind of curious or are a bit more open to running the savage content maybe try the pf once or twice a week so realistically maybe 1 to 3 hours at the most a week in raid, midcore is a player that will run savages and the like for about 4 to 6 hours weekly. semi hardcore is someone that will go an extra hour or two beyond that so like 7 or 8 hours. hardcore is someone that'll dedicate about 9 or more hours weekly. ultra hardcore is what we call "no lifers" they will live in the content every waking hour of the weeks until they clear the content.
I actually have a definition of midcore that doesn't really fall into any definition that you really described (or at least, didn't seem to). "Content that is flexible enough to accommodate multiple skill levels". That said, while I mention that it's about skill levels in execution, the reason why it's so often requested is really about experience in the game. People already put in a lot of time into FFXIV just to get to max level. Asking people to invest more time into the game is a tall order. At the same time, because these people already put in so much time into the game, they have enough experience that you can't just give them braindead content. So while we often can point out smaller definitions like "Clearable in a single night" or "Grindable content", these miss the actual main issue, which is that there's just not enough choice in terms of finding difficulty that makes sense for the player at hand, especially with FFXIV where the gameplay style tends to be "do it right or suffer". Which returns to my definition of "content that is flexible enough for multiple skill levels". This is usually the easiest way to solve the issue. (Sidenote: The experience thing I mentioned above is also why you don't really see it talked about in a lot of circles outside of FFXIV and WoW. MMOs are in a unique position where there's so much investment involved just to get to end-game that it strains people's abilities to invest more. The same phenomena of more flexible content in other games just gets filtered out as "git good scrub" or "This game's just not for me" type of discussions instead)
I think one of the issues with the idea of Midcore is that it is not easy to find people to actually do it. Like I joined in late Shadowbringers and would love to play old Extremes synced (not necessarily min i level) to experience them but it's not easy to find people that would want to do that, especially when you're looking for a specific Trial, let alone in a limited timeframe. Same with old Savages
I've always thought of Extremes as the "main" midcore content. It's in the middle of normal and savage in terms of difficulty, after all, at least in theory. I just wish there was a culture of queueing for it in duty finder and not throwing a tantrum like a 4-year-old if you wipe at all or don't skip some random mechanic you don't like. Some other midcore-type things my friend and I like to do are 2-man Deep Dungeons (right now we're doing a dual-AST run of PotD), or two-manning old hardcore content unsynced (we're working through all the Eden savage raids right now, it's quite fun to find unique solutions to some mechanics the fights still _really_ want you to do, like E4's gaols).
8:12 I'm sure you, me, and plenty of others can attest. Even though it's very rare in occurrence. That even the most casual of content can, and will be wiped to. Or fail outright. Every time you queue for dungeons, you roll the dice, and sometimes you roll a natural 1 and the people in your party, whether it be in a low level dungeon or an expert roulette. Somehow manage to claim the trophy of being the worst players you've ever seen. I had the unfortunate experience of being witness to what might be the worst dungeon run of all time. It was the Amaruot dungeon, before the Hades fight. And I'm fairly certain I saw the worst level 80 Drk of all time. This was during ShB so he had played the story to get to this point, he didn't skip. He had no clue about what any of his buttons did. His reaction time was the slowest I've ever seen. Literally couldn't get out of aoes. And almost no amount of coaching seemed to help. He simply couldn't stay alive, or keep aggro. This is the one and only time I have ever seen a dungeon fail because the time ran out. YES THE TIME RAN OUT IN A DUNGEON. And when I mean I was really trying to help, I mean really trying. He was in discord with us, sharing his screen so we could better see what to give him pointers on. Nothing really seemed to help. I have no idea how he made it as far as he had in the game. So next time you think you aren't good at the game, just remember that there is always someone worse. What the vast majority of us would consider the most casual of content. There are the few out there that somehow manage to turn the casual content, into savage content.
All I know is that Dawntrail was a barren wasteland if you're a casual player when nothing but hardcore raids keep getting pushed out *for 6 months straight*, and that a lot of players would have been better off not buying the expansion at all until April 2025 at the earliest, and that's still a "big if" because they might decide the new Field Operation has to be Savage too like they did with Chaotic. I know I certainly felt ripped off buying Dawntrail, doubly so when none of the new 90-100 skills did anything noteworthy for most of the jobs, VPR & PCT weren't really great for me, and female Hrothgar somehow got released in a LESS finished state than the male ones. This was the first expansion I was around to pre-order, and I feel scammed.
It's like playing the same game for years with online-optimized rotations can't meaningfully challenge you outside of intentionally brutal content... Y'all need a nap
The sweat addiction / tolerance thing is quite interesting. But Indeed, I agree that a big part is probably that this optimization means people basically have to challenge themselves to find some true challenge 😅
the ending bit reminds me of when i started playing the game in ARR back when it felt like garuda(normal) on level felt hard as hell and somehow the scale tip back in those days was using tank LB at some point that i don't remember anymore but it's comical these days that it was ever a struggle. (with the healers doing damage now)
People who use midcore to mean wanting field operations should just ask for that, honestly. I've seen like fifteen different people say with their whole ass totally different definitions of midcore, some of which *did not include field operations*. We have terms for this that aren't vague, we should use them. Because honestly I would not define bozja as midcore, I'd define it as a casual-difficulty grinding slog that takes me back to the worst parts of leveling in mid-aughts MapleStory. I agree with the people who think people are mostly just upset at the current speed of patches and are lashing out at whatever they have in front of them. I can't say whether this is solvable (I don't work at S-E), but at least it would communicate the correct message to the devs. E: like, what I'd want is honestly just more optional dungeons again. Strayborough (outside of the first boss) and Tender Valley are both great, but given trends they're likely to stay the only optional dungeons in DT, which is a shame.
While I understand the importance of subjectivity, the community is riding a VERY fine line with just outright blaming players for thinking the content we get isn't tuned correctly. A lot of CCs are saying things that are very closely getting to "it's your fault for not doing X." I've found my own challenges but I can tell you I'm running out and the novelty of doing the same thing dies pretty fast. The biggest thing for me is that it does not matter how much people tell me to "get over it and do ultimates" or "do savage more." It doesn't matter that Chaotic is "less difficult than savage." I cannot. And will not. Waste my time forming a static just to clear things or going in PF for 6 hours of failure a week. It doesn't matter how good the content it, it doesn't matter that it is content that exists, that is more commitment to a game than is fair to expect from players. It doesn't even matter that I *want* to do it, I do not have the time for it, especially with a job with a variable schedule. The argument that we should make our own content by gimping the party composition or doing min IL is also completely unfair. Players should not be forced to make their own content or make their own difficulty, it should be integrated into the game system (with rewards, preferably). Even Deep Dungeon solo is pushing it. To quote 14:08 "The problem with that approach is that the reward is unchanged and so a lot of *players* do not care for this." This phrasing is entirely pinning the responsibility on the players. A more correct phrasing would be "There is existing content that could be tuned and reused to provide repeatable content of varying difficulty but the developers choose not to." It's the developers responsibility to integrate a varying scaling difficulty with appropriate incentive into the games, not the players' responsibilities to make up content. Faux Hollows is excellent in this regard, but the raid style of gameplay again results in just PF or bust. Meaning it actually ends up being hardcore content that is easy. The point about the definition of Hardcore/Casual falls short because the ambiguity is easily dismissible when you account for player skill and probability into your definition. Just because a highly skilled player can possibility complete a savage in one sitting doesn't devalue the definition of Midcore. The *player* is skilled, it has no bearing on the definition of the content. The content itself is defined by the level of skill of the player and THEN the probability/speed of completion relative to it. I want to be able to log in and find something to do that isn't brain dead. Something that I can just hop on without a pre-made. I'm tired of logging in and having to browse PF and sift through them like I'm in HR, only to find nothing I'm interested in and go run in circles in Limsa for 1000th time. But despite wanting something easily accessible, I want something that pushes me and allows me to showcase and gain benefit from the myriad skills I've learned over the years. None of the content released for years has been in that zone. None. For YEARS. Not even relic grind. HW/ShB relic grind was great because I could use all the spells I've hard learned on Blu and my skills to nuke FATEs and get through it quickly. EW? Nothing. For a blessing I enjoy doing dungeons and care about my performance in them regardless of it not mattering whatsoever. I can't imagine how awful this game must feel right now for other people. See, the point was never "I need midcore content for me, the midcore player." It was that EVERYONE needs midcore content because it *brings people together* and provides a stable flow of player retention compared to the constant spiking of Hardcore and the mind-numbing repetitiveness of Casual content. It doesn't matter if Midcore is too hard for a Casual, they will push themselves anyways to reap the rewards with the help of their friends. It doesn't matter if Midcore is too easy for Hardcore players, they will reach out to help people and enjoy reaping additional rewards for their skills.
to me, 'Midcore' seems like a WoW colloquialism for 'Add a heroic style difficuilty between normal and extreme/savage.' with respective adjustments to gear ilvls as well. Using the current tier as an example, Crafted and Normal mode would remain 710, A mid-core difficulty and base tome would be 725, Savage and augmented tome would bump up to 735 across all items with the weapon being bumped to 740, with .5 Extreme weapon being bumped to 730. As a former WoW player, something that has really Intimidated me and put me off considering Savage for the most part is that typically savage raiders have said 'oh savage is even harder than mythic in WoW.' And from the few i have actually done that were older content, i would say that Normal mode is arguably easier than normal mode in WoW (Significantly in part due to the player count), but savage and even some extremes are certainly comparable to Mythic in terms of difficulty. This is certainly in part due to the extreme jump in personal responsibility in Savage. Comparing to heroic in wow, while yes, there is certainly a jump in responsibility, it's not something that couldn't be fixed by another player if you mess up catastrophically. Recovering a mechanic might be as simple as someone else sacrificing themselves, rather than the whole raid exploding Adding a new difficuilty between normal and savage would also allow them to do away with one of the biggest complaints i hear about more recent Savage fights in that the first half of the fight is teaching new mechanics, a mid-difficuilty would allow them to introduce these combinations in like a 1-2 combo instead of all at once that when executed correctly would still feel like the savage fight, but would allow more mid-core groups a bit more flexibility. Then this would allow Savage to go straight into mechanics rather than teaching them to the players.
For me? Bozja is a good example, but content with mechanics that feel closer to an EX level in difficulty than normal, has reasons to repeat it, and most importantly, you can hop into it quickly. I think grindable is a reasonable way to put it. I can do this content with friends of varying skill levels. Someone dies? Not a huge deal. Harder content, little commitment if you don't want there to be.
Difficulty is strange to talk about in this game as there are so many forms it takes place, I'll use older content like Eden normal to explain, Iconoclasm is a particularly rough fight if you don't have the spatial awareness to keep track of the portals, Eternity has a few tricky memory mechanics that don't go off for up to a minute after they have been shown, and just kinda have to keep that mechanic in your mind, tough for those who aren't good at keeping track of every mechanic. Fulmination is just hard on a mechanical level, not much memory or spatial issues to it, it's just thst the mechanics themselves are a good bit more tricky than the fights around it, tough for people on a more execution basis Bonus: Considering JP Duty Finders Extremes, I'm not surprised they think that Midcore is between Extreme and Savage 1/2
I think the problem stems from all content above casual will require a premade group who either already know the fight or are otherwise willing to stick around long enough to learn it. FF14 has a very binary state to its mechanics. You pass or fail. If you fail and don't die, then you generally ignore them and they fall into the casual bucket. Or you die and then your team as a whole i usually punished or unable to continue. This is a problem for not only FF14 but most MMOs in general. Compare this to a single player experience where the player doesn't worry about others. They can slowly but surely push through more challenging content. Some may use overpowered builds to make it easier, grind more levels (classic rpgs), or just practice until they slowly but surely overcome the content. Think Elden Ring where at your own pace overcome each boss. FF14 in contrast you need others to tackle the hard stuff. As a result your time is limited and your gameplay is impacted by others performance, schedules, etc. I think then the cry for "midcore" is more a desire for something that doesn't depend significantly on others, but offers a challenge. Currently most MMOs lack this kind of content. Basically right now you don't need to use your kit or do proper rotations outside of savage content. So for most it feels like there's a big jump from a normal dungeon/raid to the Ex/Savage level of content. This is more a problem where SE didn't want to progressively make MSQ and such require more from the player the way most single player games would. So it leaves the feeling there's casual and hardcore (true endgame) modes only.
If anything midcore for me is something to help you grow to hardcore content to help improve your skill level to be able to reach hardcore content with out being throw directly into hardcore content a example would be having the extremes without the dps check but no reward but have it mark your play with a completion marker for that content so if you go into party finder it would allow you to show that you do know this fight and these mechanics now another proposal is that these midcore stuff releases happen 3 to 4 weeks after the hardcore version so that people still have the fun of figuring out the content of hardcore without impeding the process of figuring out the mechanics in the fight but at that point people can then test others to see if they are ready for the hardcore content
I have usually thought these casual, normal and hardcore more of a player types. Casual just logs in a game, plays whatever looks nicest to them and doesnt really consume much game related content outside of game. Hardcore players think much more of what is meta and spend hours upon hours learning their rotations to a second and watch guides or theorycraft outside of game. Normal player just somewhere there between, plays what class they like and might watch occasional guide to get some basic idea how to play their job.
I thought midcore was just most of the extra endgame content. Casual is anything that both doesn't take much effort and encounters you come across through story progression. I see midcore as the extra dungeons, trials, and raids that you get post msq. Then hard-core is all of the savage, chaotic, and ultimate stuff that you usually use pf for
I think it should be defined in terms of player populations and averages if anything I got extremely into sekiro and got through NG+++++ in that game. In my personal compass, a base run of that game is baby stuff I can do while relaxing, but nobody should take me seriously if I call that game "easy" or casual I think that content like bozja is the perfect for players to find their own personal type of commitment. You can play 1 hour solo once a week and do only what you're certain you can already do, you can go with friends into CEs and castrum lactose and dal while calling who does what but without pressure, or you can do into duels and DRS discord servers Somewhere in there there's likely to be your own personal "I want a challenge but this won't make me want to bash my head"
Yea, exactly. Something like Eureka or EX trials are mid-core, until you've done them for a few hundred hours, and they become trivial. But that's just a shift in your perception, and it means that you need to adjust. The game cannot adjust to every single individual at the same time.
In the loosest of terms, I viewed it in the lenses of general difficulty, or expected difficulty. Anything that is very old content is irrelevant, most people look at it in terms of current on content when discussing. First me, casual is just MSQ, or things like variants where you can get through without knowing your kit, easily. Harcore is fights that take genuine preparation for and learning/progging, such as Savage and Ultimate. Ex, I consider closer to 'midcore'. Still takes a bit more than casual to complete, you somewhat have to have an idea of your job you are playing, and have to learn mechanics with less grace for mistakes, but doable with mistakes. Yes there is variance in all these, but it is a broad starting point. Why Chaotic just doesn't feel good to me initially? I was not expecting proper savage difficulty in terms of grace for mistakes. Individually, and even at an 8 man level, the mechanics are nothing too crazy, but with everything happening at once it can get overwhelming. I went in expecting something around lower EX difficulty, and got more. Based on where in the patch cycle, I expected 'catch up fight for people who are less inclined for proper savage's and it was 'savage players get another savage fight' instead. While I clear Savage purely in PF normally on two characters each tier. I was just not that interested in another fight I had to push myself quite that much. I like fights where I have to at least apply myself, but I did not want another full on savage fight with a 24 man debuff.
To me, and probably most people, midcore is anything that "keeps me engaged in the activity" like extremes, and any "casual" is for when you just want to play but not actually pay too much attention. One could say that XIV has a little something for everyone but the target for them isn't super big. Picture gathering and crafting, not everyone is real interested in it, people even see it as a "checklist' when leveling up characters while others see it as a way to actually make a bank and they genuinely enjoy it. Midcore is extremely subjective because both difficulty and enjoyment are both the main factors for it. I tried criterion once and got bored because of how hard it was, while i enjoyed doing EX1 and EX2 the first week they came out even tho i kept failing
I disagree about people wanting "grindable" content. They want content they can drop in and out of with actual consequence and danger. Bozja comes up because the critical engagement bosses had a big spread of difficulty from really intuitive to having to learn extreme/savage-style dances. And being good at the fights helps you help everyone else in the zone succeed. There's nothing else like this anywhere else in the game. Eureka is popular because you have to work together to help each other succeed but you're not forced to 10 hour weekly prog sessions where one mistake causes a complete restart. FFXIV design seems stuck on either the game lets you get with away with a lot of mistakes, or no mistakes. Midcore simply asks to tune it somewhere in the middle. Delubrum for example, twice come ruin, is an excellent mechanic. You can make mistakes, just not over and over and over again without consequence.
I would like Square to make more max level scaling instance content like develes and mythic plus to play during content releases. The scaling instance content is what keeps casuals busy in WoW during patch releases; especially, at the beginning of a expansion releases. As someone who likes both game, if they both come out with an expansion at the same time, i rather play WoW first because it has more replayable max level content to do; where as, FF14 start is just story first with little combat while leveling. Once at max level, the casual player only has 3 expect dungeons to do while waiting for more max level for the next 2 years.
If only we got Jeuno extreme or something instead of chaotic cod. Take Jeuno the first walk, but make it tougher with more team based mechs (the healer check, towers, spread, and stuff was great more stuff like that). Simple mechs to pull off, but does require some cooperation and some body checks. CoD p1 is basically high end midcore.
No, midcore content doesn't exist, it's just the age we live in where we think there's a category for every specific thing. Instead, "midcore" groups are just the ones that aren't going to commit 5~7 days a week, 4+ hours a day to doing the hardest content available with the best jobs as soon as it comes out, but don't fall under the casual time frame/mindset that will run double rDPS/PLD and if they beat it within 4 months, well that's ok.
I think they need to make more harder Solo or smaller group content than what they currently have, like I have a small group of friends who want to try things but want to do them with just the small group.
For me midcore means you have the skills to clear a savage or ultimate fight, but you don't have the time to join a group progging multiple times a week, so you can't really commit to any content which has limited / weekly rewards. You still want to clear such content, preferably with the same people in a group, but don't really care how long it takes to clear that content. Ideally (and maybe this is how it is in JP) PF would be for such people. Because you can do any fight in it, setting any goal, right? But people in PF in the West are EXTREMELY inpatient or unprepared. So that limited time you have to do content a week would be either sitting in a PF group not getting anywhere because people can't do basic mechanics, or making one mistake and getting kicked from a group or the group getting disbanded after one wipe. At least with Ultimates you have the shiny weapons and the title making it evergreen content, but progging savage in PF is very frustrating and by the time you are done your gear is not worth anything as new BiS is out. This is why we need more open-world content like Bozja and Eureka, where you can spend as much time as you have, progressing a story, collecting things which won't lose their value once they are not BiS (Eureka armour is still hands down the most beautiful piece of gear ever made in the game) and you can have harder challenges like the duels, CEs or NMs, BA or DR and DRS. Mind you JP is capable of doing all these with people joining on the spot, while the West needs Discord servers to organise the runs or it will be chaos. So kind of we always end up with my partner doing old EX trials or Savage just the 2 of us if it's doable that way or trying Deep dungeons the two of us... because we can't even find 2 other people reliably who have the skills to clear Criterion and Criterion savage but have the patience until we learn it. Tried it once with taking one person who never did savage before and barely did extremes.... I had to push my buttons harder than I had to in an Ultimate to make up for their lack of dps and meet the dps check.... So that content in my eyes requires the same preparation as a savage: a static. And there is no static who is willing to do stuff only for a few hours on Sunday each week because for them that's not committed enough. Well that's the time I have beside my full-time job....
I think EX is a currently a good difficulty for midcore, but only one fight per patch makes it feel like there is a lack of variety. Imagine if we got 4 EX fights per patch! I'd never feel like I was at a loss for things to do. I was hoping CAR would be good, but it takes too long to form groups.
What is easy and what is hard? It all comes down to how an individual player see it. I myself consider the new Chaotic Alliance to be quite easy once you learn the fight, but often there are players there, who are struggling. Those players may think it is hard content. Just an example.
I don't know, I'm playing in JP region and Extreme is pretty midcore to me. Queue in with random players and expect to clear in 1-3 pull if we stuck and it get to 15 minutes there is a vote abbandon avaliable and most of the time it get voted and people just carry on requeue it again. I think the midcore or not is more on the mindset of community around the player about that content than the difficualty itself and it will shape player opinion on it even before they try it. For example, I played GuildWars 2 regularly before FFXIV and the first time I played FFXIV, I actually avoided Crystal Tower Raid (it wasn't mandatory back then) becuase it has "raid" in the name and the mind set from GW2 community back then treat raid like a "hardcore only club" (slightly better now). So when I saw "raid" I just went with "oh it's for hardcore" and didn't even tried it until fc mate brought me to do T1 with them and I think it's synced but due to it's a max ilv synced and power creep in level 50 skill, we cleared it with no problem. And they also brought me to many ARR extreme synced. So fast forward to today Extreme Trial become the most normal thing ever to do after we complete MSQ. How normal is it? well, most people I've met in my server did Extreme synced at some point in their journey. And I also get pulled by FC my mate multiple time to do EX that I haven't prepared anything or only prepare partially. Like in EW I took my time to clear MSQ and took me like a week and half or so and then my FC mate just pulled me to do EW EX1, even though I have lower than minimum ilv gear and they just said "Don't worry about it" and that wasn't the first time or last time that happened. So, Extreme is pretty midcore to me. It's something that serious enough that we need to prepare and practice for it, but not so serious that we only want to do with highly competent group. Just a somewhat functional group and it's fine. And it wasn't just my FC, After my first FC fall apart I was in the scouting for FC period and I visit their house and found them gather together for something and when I said hi they just asked me if I want to join e5s practice run with them since they lack one slot and then we cleared it. Such a wild experince (I didn't join this FC though since friends from first FC create new FC and asked me to join them)
I actually do really wish we could just use DF for harder content. Even if people come unprepared and stuff it would still be a preferable challenge for me than having to interact with people in PF lol
Loved the video and expresses exactly what I have been saying about all this discussion and debate and drama on social media and youtube surrounding the game. It isnt that there isnt enough content, it is that the players need to understand that if you are bored with current content that we have in an ocean-sized game, they should find new and fun ways to replay old content. This is similar mindset to how us oldschool retro gamers found ways to keep the same old games from.our childhood still engaging. Speedrunners set playthrough requirements to make things harder or more challenging to meet time quotas, etc. This isnt exactly a new concept. Its just new to gamers who never grew up in that generation of gaming.
I feel like especially the reward system of ff does not incentivize much of putting in a little more effort and getting rewarded for it, you very much either take the time to read guides or you could just get through with just hitting your shiny buttons. Content where you should plan for stuff like that is not really the kind where you would get along without knowing your every button is also the content where you need to know what the boss does beforehand, and ultimately there rarely is a good reward for it. Mounts are at an incredibly low drop chance on the newly released tiers, and if I offered you to play some content, and after 100 times you did it you earned the prestige from it, if you are not good at it immediately you might not be interested in taking on a challenge that the game devs intend for you to beat up to 100 times. Or you need to beat 4 tiers of a raid that have meticulous guides online that these feel pretty much impossible to beat without, and that throw you right in with the wolves (and for some reason feel pretty disconnected from their normal versions). And the reward, as nice as a mount is, is not something you can show off *especially* in main cities, where mounts are not allowed, but people hang all the time. And if you intend to show off some cool weapon you got from clearing ultimates or grinding a relic, you cannot change that on the fly like a mount or minion choice, you either are showing off constantly, every time you draw your weapon, or you leave it in your dresser unused. Minions strike a fair balance in the game, using them to show off achievements would fit perfectly I feel, and with them already being in the category of „very grindy“ in treasure maps and dungeon drops, I think they would fit neatly in that category of showing off that mounts simply cannot do with the limitations the city hubs of ff impose.
I think people simply want some kind of casual battle content outside of the expected things like dungeons, trials, and normal raids
Field content like bozja and eureka is what's needed imo. It's not super demanding, but there's long term goals within that content, similar to how savage also has the long term goal of getting BiS.
Exactly that, and if it could be mixed into a comunity wide project like a restoration it would be cool.
I cannot deny their popularity, but I find it hard to understand why. Isn't like 90% of Field Content 'join party, roll around the map as a ball of death that spams AoE with little chance of failure'?
@vincentbeton kindna, i know it sounds weird on paper, but interacting with other players, asking for info instead of searching in a wiki, some of the field bosses( wich apear when you kill enough monsters of their related type) being really fun wich helps break the monotony of the normal mob farm added to being able to do small but tangible progress with just a few hours a week make them greater than the sum of its parts
Also the exploration zones add on the later parts of eureka and on bozja as a whole unique mechanics, from new skills like protect, to having to be sneaky around some monsters wich if they notice you they will destroy you easily.
The normal mobs in eureka change with weather and time, can be dangerous in small groups if understinatedas well as sometimes mutate into stronger forms with diferent afinities wich varies the gameplay a bit
Maybe its a bit too long of an explanation, sorry if it is, i wanted to share why i like them so much
Yeah, pretty much my take as well. As someone who basically considers myself a wanter of "midcore" content it really feels like all of these recent "But what IS midcore?" discussions are kind of missing the point by trying to over analyze the concept. In many ways, it's a "you'll know it when you see it" sort of thing, and I do feel that if you're the sort of player that has already been clearing the harder content in the game you might be beyond the place where you really can "see it."
Also, I think it's a fallacy to simply have one continuum of "casual to hardcore" because there really are two definitions in play. One is the difficulty of the content, but the other is time commitment and they don't always line up in easy ways. You can be a person tackling hardcore content but maybe only raid a couple nights a week (aka a "hardcore" player who plays "casual" time). You can be a person who never even does EX but plays every single day (aka a "casual" player who puts in "hardcore" hours). So, again, trying to specifically nail down "what IS midcore" is a bit of a fools errand.
@@vincentbeton Why were games like FF11 popular? People often want to chill and relax, and that's relaxing. It's like if you have a mundane task at work or school or chore at home, but you are good at it, and once you start going into it, you can kind of zen/zone out and just vibe with it, almost like meditation. People can find that relaxing, and that's why a lot of people game, to just unwind after work.
The only Midcore content in the game is Urth's Fount. I won't expand on that.
Lmao, you know, that is actually a pretty interesting example!
Finally a good take
Maybe the real midcore was the friends we made along the way
Yeah my friends can't do raids for shit 😎
I don’t make any there was never a reason to
This doesn't have much to do with difficulty, casual and hardcore are expressions of players' investment.
The premise should be that casual players are probably straight up not in the discussion, if you're in youtube comment sections or reddit you're already invested enough to not be a casual player.
The only other valuable distinction is for players invested enough to schedule a regular weekly activity with 7 other people online, that's what most would consider hardcore, raiders.
Basically "midcore" would be the general non raiding population of the game, granted from an external perspective these people invest enough time in the game to be considered hardcore players but it's just semantics really.
"midcore" content is indeed grindy content if you want to put it that way, people just want stuff to do in the game at their own pace, they want goals to work towards that will occupy their time, not one and done stuff, not dungeon and trials that are only worth running on roulette until you're max level, things that will actually keep them occupied until the next expansion.
this! to give an example, i play all the time and i just don't raid or even do expert, but ive cleared out every piece of loot in the mgs and i'm there all the time. I'm a hardcore saucer main. i know people who are hardcore about the fall guys collab. it's not all raid or dungeon content lol
Absolutely, one thing I also see coming from wow is how the lack of the „adventure guide“ contributed to me as a hurdle of introduction to more difficult content. In wow, your adventure guide will tell you during leveling what is the approximately according content, and later on expands their tabs to dungeons, raids and world bosses, all content doable with a premade group without too much preplanning and including descriptions about the bosses abilities. When going into EX1 in ff, we wiped five times to an explosion we did not know how to work around. Luckily, the person who joined already knew and told us it was a -pair- mechanic where a -support- needs to pair with a -dps-. I think if I had gone into this with an entire group of newcomers and tried to wrap our head around it, it would have needed to be extremely lucky to have support overlap with dps while the dps do not overlap with each other while still overlapping themselves with supports. I liked the fight for everything else, but where they fail to put their helpful (even though also pretty clunky) markers for soaking, spreading etc. it can create quite the step up from having to invest time in the game bashing your head against a boss to optimize your rotation and eventually killing the boss that way, or having to look up the mechanics to a boss fight, and while you‘re there better look if there is anything else untelegraphed in the fight, and whoops, spoiled the whole fight for yourself, no longer a game of trying to find out how to beat a mechanic and how much uptime you can squeeze in but a checklist of movements for you to go through.
I understand midcore content as something mechanically complex but recoverable, or without bodychecks. Bozja was midcore for me bc there were mechanics I needed to learn, but failing it didn’t exactly meant a wipe. Idk, but I can say that bozja was what taught me most general mechanics, that often happen in extremes and savage. So I consider it a mid step to extreme and savage, therefore, midcore.
I agree. IMO hardcore is when one person can wipe the fight for everyone. Midcore is still hard but one person being dead during a mechanic won't end it.
funny enough, Mr Ozma(encounter designer) himself defined midcore content in the recent interview - between extremes and first/second floor of savage in the terms of difficulty and it was his intention to land difficulty of chaotic raid there. I think this means we(western players) should be asking for more casual content if encounter designer understands "midcore" this way, lol
Yeah if Mr. Ozma defined it this way then that further adds to the confusion! 😂
The jump from "normal" to extreme is already jarring. I guess the current difficulty helps a bit to bridge the gap, but still people are getting smashed hard once they stray from MSQ content. I wish we had something in between these two extremes.
@@TardustheToasty there is nothing that can be done about that.
you can pull a horse to the water, but you can't force it to drink.
in my msq journey i saw many wipes even in msq content (trials), and msq adjacent (normal raids).
there is many people that even bothered to do old raids, because they are optional.
no wonder they get smashed, if they dont put time to practice
Man, the whole "If I beat it it is easy" drove me up the wall in the past with how often I hear people with ultimate weapons say that ultimates are "easy". They just couldn't wrap their head around the fact that I do not think they are.
If they truly were we could have an ultimate roulette and we could beat it with complete strangers
the thing is, you also got more "easy" and "harder"
nobody is gonna say for a long time that TOP is "easy" even experienced players.
but nearly everyone that does ultimates will say UCOB and UWU are easy, at this point people even say it's more alike to between extreme and savage. (non existing DPS checks, mechanics are generally much more basic with a set in stone solution)
so I think in this case it's that you're not likely a part of the ultimate raiding scene, so you think that every ultimate is as hard as TOP, but it simply isn't, UWU is called "babies first ultimate" for a reason, literally 3/4th of the fight (the primals) is more an extreme fight than ultimate.
and ultima itself is more savage than ultimate.
UCOB also muuuch easier than TEA, DSR, TOP or FRU.
@DarkDyllon but uwu being easy relative to the other ultimates doesn't necessarily mean that uwu is easy, which is actually something a significant amount of players suggest 🤔😅
@@DarkDyllon I wasn't exactly trying to imply that UWU is the same kind of difficulty as TEA, or DSR or TOP.
Iknow that there is a fair amount of difference in them if you compare them today. However in my opinion when I want to judge how difficult something is. Outside of my own personal success or defeats. Is how many people can beat a specific piece of content in a reasonable amount of time.
Cause anyone with enough determination and as long as you have the ability to learn. Can beat any content. The whole have a million monkeys can put something together if you wait long enough.
Anyways, even UWU the easiest along the ultimates, isn't just going to be cleared by most people in a reasonable amount of time. Which is why I am saying Ultimates aren't easy, easy for you? Sure. But easy? I personally disagree
@@CaetsuChaijiCh The reason people think that stuff like UWU is easy is because quite often when people screw up, you can just res them and keep going. You can carry a lost player through UWU to a large extent, you can't do that for TOP.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Exactly this. Calculus may be easy (or, at least, not hard) for a PhD physicist, but that doesn't mean calculus is easy for the vast majority of the population that struggles mastering even algebra. "Oh, ordinary, well behaved differential equations? Child's play!" isn't what most people are thinking when they see y''(x) + 2y'(x) - 4y(x) = x. It's always wild to me how people who are really good at a thing seem unaware of how good they are at the thing (or on the other end, you get the people that are TOO prideful and aren't as good as their ego thinks they are).
"Difficulty is subjective" is a fantastic take. So many people say that EX2 is the easiest of the current three Dawntrail Extreme Trials, but I have difficulty with misleading mechanics, so it's the hardest for me. Meanwhile, although a lot of people struggle most on EX3, because it's all choreography and DPS/Heal/Body checks (with admittedly tight timings), I actually find it very easy.
The fact difficulty is subjective is something a lot of people never consider, and usually when they bump into someone that feels different than them, it's more likely the conclusion is "oh that's because you're bad" or "ah you just don't understand what I mean" rather than the observation that different people find different things hard!
Case in point, I certainly find ex2 easier than ex3, but there can be many different reasons for that, and I can say this while not saying either one is "easy" 😊
Another good example is the cups in Strayborough. Some people can track them like they have Ultra Instinct, and some people can maybe track them if they stop attacking and focus only on the cups. I am the latter, and I make that known to the party as soon as I see that’s where we’ve loaded into. Half the time I have a party member who is good at it who will put a marker on themselves. The other half, the healer throws me a super strong shield before the hit, or we LEROY JENKINS the boss down before more than 2 of the cup mechanics can be used 😂
Almost everyone ive met says ex3 is the easiest but its the one ive had the longest prog on. Its also the one ive had the worst pf exp on. Difficulty is very much subjective as what a majority would say vocally does not seem to reflect the people actually playing
@@raarasunai4896 Same. If I'm a DPS or maybe a tank, I can't track them. As a healer (SGE mostly) I can track them easier as I can throw a shield or a top up heal before hand and just spam one attack move.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh The other issue is that some players who are clearly very skilled assume that others who find any combat more difficult than them are just not trying hard enough. This strikes me as strange. It supposes that there are no intrinsic skill differences between players, or that all content in 14 sits below below a difficulty threshold achievable by anyone. This is simply not the case.
Oof, this was a pretty good discussion, but you didn't include the most reasonable definition for midcore: as a descrption of players, not the content. If you look for statics to join, which are all doing the same content, you will find groups self-labeled as casual, midcore, or hardcore. These describe the group approach and expectations, not the content itself.
Right, but the people complaining about this are the self-proclaimed mid-core players complaining about the absence of such content, not other such players. People who say that MSQ/normal-mode content is too easy, but Savage is too hard.
@@NatiiixLP 100% correct. Savage is where the toxicity rears its head. Extreme is probably the closest that would fit Midcore. If you have done all the reputations, all the professions, most classes leveled to level cap, you will have less and less to do.
@NatiiixLP I'll take your word for it. I only ever hear (in-game and on youtube) people complaining about the complaining, not the lack of midcore content. Maybe that happens more on the forums, where I don't hang out, idk.
@@aethon0563 I only know about the complaining from content creators reacting to forum/Reddit posts as well. What I hear is endgame players complaining about general lack of content, but that's just born from unreasonable expectations that SE will release a new duty every week or idk. I don't think content releases are unbearably far apart. Then again, I'm a casual player, barely putting it 2-6 hours a day, so what do I know.
@@d0k0night I always viewed Extremes as a difficulty SE should aim for when making most of their content that isn't Savage or Ultimate, it's a decent challenge but doesn't have the same checks that the harder tiers do. Also just finding a static I would say makes you a hardcore player, casuals I would identify as only using Duty Finder to get groups whereas 'midcore' players PUG in Party Finder but don't commit to a static raid schedule or anything.
I see midcore as medium difficulty. We currently have:
Content so easy you can repeatedly ignore mechanics and, so long as one healer and tank is alive, the fight can go on indefinitely.
Extremes that require mechanics knowledge memorization, and trial and error
Savage and ultimate being steps up from extreme with the need for all players to be coordinated.
The leap from regular content to extreme is rather extreme for lack of better word. I feel like chaotic was intended to bridge this gap with a lot of mechanics that were overall forgiving to the group. But then phase 2 happens and it's actually a 24 man savage.
Maybe we can see variant and criterion updates fill this midcore role with the new field zone when they arrive.
Also I completely agree with your thoughts on rewards in savage and criterion.
My understanding was that midcore was a description of a playstyle rather than a type of content. I've never thought of it as a way to describe the difficulty of content (especially since we have those handy parentheticals for describing how hard content is).
That said, I'd still be hard pressed to provide a solid definition of what midcore is.
Came for the hot take, stayed for the applied set theory.
I'm glad to hear it was appreciated! 😂
Difficulty is so incredibly subjective, you really can't separate a players' level of skill from how hard they find content!
So many people I know don't notice how their expectations adjust as they get more skilled at the game. I've watched people go from only msq to savage raiding, and also people who tried out extremes and determined 'nah, not for me', and the people who've gone on to savage will call the new alliance raid 'interesting but easy' whilst those who haven't found it 'hellishly hard' - and granted, some of that is the groups they were in, but it's also the expectation you come with - I find savage/extreme players are used to 'get hit by things, wipe, try again' whereas dying (or even getting hit by) mechanics in the normal mode is often considered a point of failure. So for my friends who've reached savage, that we could figure out the fights without wiping completely meant they were 'easy' - for those who haven't, that they died in the fight meant it was 'hard'.
When I'm foggy-brained or distracted, I want the 'easy' versions where I can just clear - other times, I'll be happy (and satisfied) to truly flex my skills.
I have to spend a lot of time when inducting new players into extremes reassuring them that causing a wipe or merely dying or even missing a gcd isn't a fatal flaw, it's a completely normal part of the process at that level of content.
I also remind myself of how frustrated and hurt I was by struggling with 'In from the cold' I was completely taken out of the story by how punishing it was, *even after* moving to 'super easy' mode. For context, I'd played white mage and red mage up until that point and only gone through story and job quests, no real side content (like deep dungeons). I later (after levelling most jobs to 90 and doing some extremes) went back to try to understand *why* I had such a hellish time with it, and realised - it was that I had no intuitive grasp of facing direction when I first tried. I don't recall if I was doing it before or after they added the circles for the enemies, but I had no clue about *walking* or *avoiding sight lines*, so when trying to stay equally far from all enemies... I just ended up aggroing all of them. I understood after that they'd clearly *tried* to train me for this with all the 'sneak after someone' duties, but I stayed so far away in those that I didn't make the link until after I'd visited eureka as to how to avoid aggroing the enemies. So when I went back to re-try it, on normal difficulty, and it was... pretty easy, I very much internalised how *dramatically* experience affects the difficulty you perceive.
I don't mentally consider myself 'hardcore' even though I probably should - it's my main hobby, I cleared savage (and reclear each week...) and the chaotic but haven't been brave enough to take the step to ultimate. I still do island sanctuary each day too (which is a different kind of hardcore :P )!
My partner on the other hand would definitely be casual. He re-subs to the game for a month when new story comes out, does each duty once, and then moves on to other things. If 'normal' content was much harder, he'd probably give up on the game as 'not designed for his level of play' anymore.
Honestly, I think ffxiv does a really good job of having a good range of difficulty - I loved Mr. Ozma's interviews highlighting how Ex1 is designed as a toe-dip into harder content (whilst still being allowed to be a bit interesting), and what I've learnt from friends is that Ex3 is where it starts to jump in difficulty a bit (ie body check time!)
I started Arcadion savage at release with a static, and am now taking a new set of people through it. It's *definitely* easier to prog at this point, but I still wouldn't do it if it wasn't a set of people I'd trained up on extremes first!
I also observed how much 'slower' the fights feel as you get used to them. mechanics which are unbelievably fast when learning gradually become more and more rhythmic and doable as you learn it, and this makes the fight itself feel 'easier' just because it's familiar now.
I do think maybe the 'midcore' cravings are mostly craving 'variety' - one of my friends specifically wants non-linear dungeons, or gimmic variants of dungeons (sastasha, but no healing! or something). People are hyped for more field operations. I'd personally like to see more usage of the 'temporary bonus' they have with chaotic/light farming - perhaps in combination with gimmic runs (eg 'levelling roulette without a tank for X clusters' (not sure what a good reward *would* be but it feels doable)) - I love the mogtome events precisely because they make us go to a variety of content and often end up in different ways (7-dps P1n was so much fun)
As someone who used to play on elemental for 2 years (for context from Australia) even the english speaking part of the jp dcs queued for current extreme. It felt so good calling spot and everyone using the agreed upon macro. That was how the culture worked
Edit: usually the df extremes had a mix of English and jp players. Auto translate "hello" and "let's do it" as well as "doma castle" and "good game" was mostly what you needed
It is the thing i miss the most about playing with my friends on the NA datacenters, I can't really just queue into things over here like I did when i was on the JP datacenters with my old guild.
I'm my opinion, "midcore" is less a description of the content and more a description of the player - someone who plays a lot but doesn't want to engage with the top-end challenges (usually meaning they don't want to do anything that expects a premade party). "Midcore content" is just anything that appeals to that kind of player. Bozja and Eureka are great examples of this. I think "grindable content" is probably a more accurate descriptor for the type of content they're actually asking for.
If you ask me the jump from MSQ/Normal to EX/Savage content is one of the biggest spikes of difficulty I’ve seen in a game.
Every new player I’ve seen is like a headless chicken in EX/Savage because the game doesn’t do anything to prepare them for it. “Midcore” in my definition would be things like Bozja where there are complex mechanics at play with MUCH higher margin for error. That way players can understand more difficult mechanics without the fear of potentially ruining a run for others because of less personal responsibility and interconnected mechanics like body checks or tight DPS checks.
So looking at the bigger picture “Midcore” content is a VERY important thing for FFXIV’s long term health because of how jarring it is to transition into the more “hardcore” content at offer due to there being nothing to teach players 90% of the things they’ll see there.
Like a few others say in the comments here, I subscribe to the idea that it works much better as a descriptor for players, not content. It's still not perfect, but it's easier to come to a consensus on what "a medium amount of player investment" means.
Speaking from personal experience, it is incredibly easy to have a skewed view of how hard content is for other people. I've put in a lot of time into FF14 since Dawntrail came out, but everyone else I know IRL has not. The first time we did a regular dungeon roulette it shocked me the kinds of mechanics they struggled with, even though they've overall played the game MUCH more than me (I started playing in Endwalker, while some of my friends were there for the original 2.0 release). But because of real-world circumstances (like raising children), most content is harder for them than it is for me.
I always thought of "midcore" as the mindset, precisely because of what you outlined in this video. Though I'm sure people could argue about how they define the mindset for "midcore" too. It's the only one of the three that feels like it's a mindset more than a game determined difficulty though...
For me a midcore player is anyone that is interested in doing well, and being challenged, but can't or don't play on the bleeding edge. I consider myself to be midcore even though I'm gradually trying to do more savage and even ultimate content, though it remains to be seen if I have the skill for any of it lol.
Being grindy alone does not count to me if there isn't some sort of challenge beyond "have time to dump into this task". Though I know games have considered this to be "midcore" or even in the case of the JP version of the NES final fantasies hardcore.
The challenge decreasing over time with gear is a great point further complicating this. Especially in fights that put the hard mechanics at the end, like raining cats in m1s. That fight is much easier even at 730 vs 710, so even though it is still a current high end duty, it’s an easier one now. I think this is a nice design to add additional challenge for serious week one raiders while offering a sliding scale of difficulty over time facilitating clears by less dedicated raiders without completely trivializing the fight.
That is indeed true! Being able to skip some of the harder mechanics as you get better is certainly something that I feel is very reassuring when progging a fight in the first place. And it also helps to make it more approachable as it ages. It does however feel like a bit of a shame if a mechanic is completely skipped before you even get a chance to meet it in the first place!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh That is also a good point and on that note in 7 clears I still have yet to see even the enrage cast bar on m4s. My slowest clear was after the first hit on sword quiver. I know my first clear was around two months ago, so relatively late in the tier, but that still seems a little off to me as I did see enrage in every other fight in the tier before clearing.
Excellent vid, especially Reason 3 and the Conclusion.
I would argue that with recent experiments by the design team, we are _approaching_ a discrete limit in the difficulty space. Take the recent Chaotic Phase 1 (ignore tiles phase completely for sake of argument) and place it on a line graph of difficulty. Add the Alliance raids, with Crystal Tower way down on the easy end, things like Nier on the harder end. Now, pretend you're a game designer, and you get the feedback of "Nier raid is casual, but COD Phase 1 is hardcore. Make something midcore, dammit!" Can you mentally envision what an entire NEW category of fights between those two difficulties looks like? Speaking for myself, I cannot; I can only envision a somewhat harder Alliance raid, or a somewhat easier COD Phase 1.
Similarly in the 4man space, we have Story dungeons, Deep dungeons, and Criterion dungeons. Can you envision a difficulty between Story and Deep? Can you envision a difficulty between Deep and Criterion?
8man is ironically the least explored space. We do have Story trials, EX trials, Savage raids, and Ultimate raids, but most dissatisfied people seem to immediately push EX trials into hardcore. There isnt really a difficutly between Story and EX 8man, whether that warrants dev time or not is another discussion.
People asking for midcore without defining midcore, is not helpful. Say that you want content for a group of X players, that is easier than Y but harder than Z. Because, a discrete space needs to exist between Y and X, for the designers to be able to make it!
Midcore isn't about a set of difficulty I actually think for example some things in Bozja are quite difficult for example. That's a piece of content people call Midcore.
Midcore means to me investment.
Casual content is the story, crafting, treasure maps, hunts. Non-commital.
Hardcore content is Savage and Ultimates which require a lot of commitment.
Midcore is content you can do that has degrees of challenge which you can invest time into but you don't HAVE to go hard or make plans to achieve it. Deep dungeons, Eureka/Bozja, Variant dungeons are midcore. Things you can grind solo or with friends that vary in how difficult they can become but let you play the game and spend time in it.
I think someone somewhere started throwing the term around and then people who couldn't figure out or couldn't articulate why they were feeling unsatisfied latched onto it. I conjecture what people actually want to say is that they don't like how updates are currently scheduled. A lot of people want things that are slated to be released, but are still a long time off. Meanwhile many things that for better or worse most people either don't stick to for long or don't interact with at all are being released now. This can be especially frustrating if what you want is something specifically made to be done over a long period of time, but seems to be slated for the latter half of the expansion. I can't say how the things we haven't got yet will be received, but I think there's many people eager to receive them, maybe even most, so I don't think it's a "no satisfying things to do for me" so much as a "no(t enough) satisfying things to do for me yet".
It's hard to say exactly how they should structure their releases, in no small part because not everyone wants the same thing, and this isn't even getting into the logistics of X feature and Y feature needing Z developer(s) and they can only do one thing at a time. I'm inclined to say most people would be receptive to a shake up in how things come out, but how that might impact the people doing it and their process is a mystery to me; Not working at Square Enix yet!
Usually the people I hear the term 'Midcore' from are asking for more field content. Which is kinda funny since people used to hate Eureaka when it came out, I guess Bozja changed minds
I’d hazard it’s because there’s no midcore content so that stuff is the closest people will get that 14 can deliver
Hard to say. I specifically recall players also hated bozja when that came out. I believe it's more that some players enjoyed this content, and now that endwalker didn't add to it, it's missing for them. The players that hated it has no reason to care now that it doesn't affect progression anymore 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Eureka was hated at first because it was too obtuse and that dying was easy and made you lost hours of progress, bozja was a lot better explained and it was loved.
With endwalker the patches became longer than ever with less content added, add that to a boring relic farm and it made the lack of an optional exploration zone a lot more noticeable
Nah I loved Eureka hated Borezja
For me personally, I consider anything as part of the regular casual content to be... well, casual. Things done without much time or effort required. This is dungeons, normal trials, normal raids, normal alliance raids, Variant dungeons, the MSQ, etc. As far as other games go, like World of Warcraft, this would be your normal and heroic dungeons, LFR dungeons, and lower to mid tier delves.
Hardcore for me would be something that takes a considerable amount of time and effort, usually with a static group of people. Savage and Criterion and on the extreme end of that spectrum, Ultimates and Criterion Savage. Using World of Warcraft as an example, this would be your late Heroic to Mythic raids, deep Mythic+ (such as Gilded Crest mythic+ levels), and the like.
So what would be Midcore? I'd reckon something around EX difficulty, that requires knowledge of how the game kinda works, but it's also not THAT strict and can be done handily in PUGs. Not something you can sleep through, but not something that will destroy you either; and something easily put together. EX trials, Unreal trials, the deeper floors of Deep Dungeon, maybe some Field Exploration content (even if not exactly difficult, it does take a bit of a grind). As far as other games like World of Warcraft go, this would be your higher difficulty Delves, normal raids, and mid-tier Mythic+ (currently at around the +0 to +6 range perhaps).
If Chaotic was meant to land on this 'Midcore' level, around EX and Unreal but with just more players, I definitely think they failed. At about 10 clears now, it's definitely more of a Savage difficulty fight (maybe M2S or M3S) but it's way more of a pain in the ass to wrangle 24 people rather than 8. The frustration in those 'farm' PFs is palpable, as well. For what it's worth I also think Criterion (normal difficulty) failed too, as a LOT of people I know who did EXes tried Criterion and just quit after being walled by the Sil'dih rat, and very few people subsequently ran the other Criterions, and Aloalo specifically I found to be on the same level of execution/punishment as Anabaseios Savage, just with less people.
Ideally, as someone who reliably clears Savage (and Criterion, and everything below that ofc), I think Chaotic and normal Criterion should definitely be taken down a peg in difficulty. There's enough 'hardcore' content between Savage, Ultimate, and Criterion Savage. We don't really need Chaotic to add to that IMO.
To be fair for the 24man chaotic, they mentioned they were trying to aim for an EX like difficulty, however it ended up as a 2nd floor/tier savage instead as mentioned in the live letter where 24man chaotic was discussed.
I think "content for me" being midcore sounds accurate. When I tell people I want midcore content, I just mean I want content that is not stupid easy, but not too hard that I have to use a meta or playstyle I don't enjoy because it's optimal.
Maybe midcore is just the friends we made along the way
the only thing that might lack in this is the situation which bruoght up the "midcore" conversation originally in FF XIV aka a bunch of streamers whining about why there isn't more Bozjan. Great video and very good that you adress the inherent conflict between the term itself and it's relationship to how much effort a player needs to bring.
This has also been a long running topic in World of Warcraft circles, and a focus of its developers in its recent expansion. One of the things that game has done to correct this issue is instead of content having a set difficulty level, they have tried to ensure a lot of content has player selectable difficulty scaling. (Mythic dungeons and Delves in particular).
I am not advocating for FFXIV to copy directly, because games need to design for their playerbases and not someone elses. But some kind of scale on content difficulty could really help the game solve content issues with the understanding that player skill levels don't always fit into one of the casual/midcore/hardcore buckets, and often a player might partake of all three at different times.
And I have to agree that some kind of open world content is probably what a lot of people want, even if it ends up being "casual" content, they want something to break the loop of just doing daily roulettes, and would like some kind of slow burn content to feel they are progressing towards something.
I define difficulty in games as the amount of effort one must put forth in order to complete, or over-come the challenge of the game. So if minimal effort and time is required, then it is casual. I a person is researching, or hunting for the right gear/build, and putting forth a good deal of time to prepare for the challenge, then I would describe that as hardcore.
Mid-core falls between these definitions. So the person must put forth some effort, but a large amount of preparation is not required. Example: The player learns and understand the game mechanics, and uses this knowledge to over-come the challenges.
With these definitions, most games are on a sliding scale of difficulty, and is a unique experience to the perspective of the player, and can even change for this same player over time.
I generally see the Casual, Midcore and Hardcore groupings of players as a Time Investment scale/metric.
Because, "casual" content like Role Playing, absolutely has it's own hardcore audience, meanwhile, you can absolutely approach "hardcore" content like Ultimates, with a casual mindset.
So like, no hard labels, but it's a gradient
you wont clear ultimate with casual mindset unless you pro and most ppl arent pros.
this is such a good way to put the whole thing, my personal way of thinking of it is stuff like bozja, eureka, and everything in the "High End Content" section easier than savage is what i consider midcore content, but yeah there really is no real definition
Dalriada and CLL are what i consider the best midcore content imo and they are also extremely fun and just a really nice change from the monotony of regular duties. I would like to include BA in here too, but i feel BA is way more demanding of the player then the other 2.
My personal challenge in the game is varying up which jobs I play on any given day. I don’t become a “specialist” in all of them, so I have to at least reach a good enough level with things that aren’t my main. My main in and of itself is a bit of a challenge. Taking Black Mage into content you don’t know well can end badly when you don’t know where you need to save your instant casts to avoid getting yeeted to New Jersey or dropped into the Grand Canyon
I remember a lot of deep dungeon people being so upset at me whenever I complained about Eureka Orthos being too difficult. I then explained how Heaven-On-High balanced its party/solo difficulty by having most mobs have an "enrage", which parties would likely never see, while solo players would have to deal with it. I proclaimed that as a better way to balance content to where the climb can be "midcore", while a solo run can remain as a very hard challenge. All those angry players that I've encountered, upon me giving this explaination, did change their tune and agreed that that might have been a better way to balance things.
I feel like midcore can exist, its not purely a subjective concept, and even hardcore players can see it.
the issue is that HoH is in general much harder solo vs EO Solo, simply because in HoH you can legit be screwed over by RNG quite easily, get too many debuffs? good luck, some mobs are outright impossible on some jobs without steel.
meanwhile in EO, there is not a single mob that impossible, EO is just overtuned, the thing that makes EO "harder" is that it's mechanically based, mess up the mechanic and you outright die (past floor 30)
but once you remember what each mob does, it's much easier, time can sometimes be a struggle sure, but that's where your usage of poms come in. (also that you want to use a lot more resources on 71-80 since 81-98 will give you a lot of demiclones from silver chests, while the mobs don't hit much harder)
@@DarkDyllon Perhaps you're right, but I keep thinking of how HoH was 4/5 for me, as in I had 5 attempts and only failed once, while with EO, I was 1/5 for a while. 5 Attempts and only cleared once (at that time). Although who knows, maybe it was just bad luck.... in terms of people I mean
"No, I don't want to use voicechat... No, I won't wait for you guys, I'm the tank, I'll pull what I want, and if the enemy does an insta back-cleave killing you all, then its your fault. Oh and if I die after, being unable to solo what I pulled, its your fault for me dying too!"
Having to clear EO 4times for the mount turned me tf away. Never gonna get that mount, screw whoever came up with that requirement
@@Nodnarb59 yeah... All of my friends said the same. I'm the only guy who has one. Ignoring everything that ended before Floor 50, I had 10 attempts and it's genuinely frustrating.
As a newer player, the closest to what I'd consider midcore among the content I've experienced would be the Ultima Weapon Extreme (especially when run with mil). It's harder than any standard story content, but doesn't really have any tricky mechanics (apart from maybe the orbs) that you'd need to be aware of before the fight, so you can clear the fight without any advance preparation or particular strategy being mandatory simply by playing well and not doing too many mistakes.
I definitely think to me midcore is less about difficulty and more about the type of content. You could say that things like relic and exploration zone are casual but the time needed to progress is potentially more than something a casual player would be interested in.
I would say for my idea of a “midcore difficulty” I would say they did a good job with DRN the twice come ruin was a fun mechanic and something I’d kinda want to see in something like the chaotic alliance raid.
3:00 Me: "Funny to speak about hardcore and then take footage of e11, making it look like FRU"
*squints at the Duty name*
Wait.. you dipped at least 2 hours into FRU? Gonna have to look for that stream! Hope it was fun and went okay
th-cam.com/users/liveQFOScE14kCE?si=-4ewGyGWeHU4YtAC
Should be this one, although it happens later in the stream 😊
Thanks!
My definitions for content difficulty would be like this:
Casual: A single player can stop wipes.
Medium: Healers/raisers dying or DPS checks not being met causes a wipe.
Hard: One player can cause a wipe.
16:15 For me, when I heard them say they were doing something with savage style mechanics in an alliance raid I assumed that would mean "oh, more healers to recover from mistakes". Not "more bodies to potentially fail body checks" lol
Maybe the true midcore was the Limsa AFK we had along the way
Welcome to my reply that turned into an essay, it took hours to write (and I probably made a ton of errors):
I generally find that terms like Midcore and Hardcore are fairly arbitrary unless they are dealing with a specific mechanic that fundamentally changes the way the systems are interacted with (like perma-death), and as was said, what one person finds casual, another might find hardcore. Something hard can become easy over time, so Hardcore might become Midcore or Casual, When I think about terms like Casual, Midcore, and Hardcore, I tend to think about the expectation from the player in terms of amount to learn, and the amount of the mistakes that can be made in an activity while still accomplishing it. So to me, I define the terms thus:
- Casual content is very forgiving and recoverable. Going back to the discussion about "Needing to be Perfect", it's the level where you don't need a super in-depth knowledge. Where major mistakes like using Manafont into Despair isn't the end of the world (something that totally never happened to me). You don't need food or pots, don't need any prior understanding of how a mechanic may work, and it's easy to sight read. Little co-ordination or reaction is needed, and things are very obviously telegraphed. Most dungeons and normal trials/raids can be fit into this.
- Midcore is the step up, where you have to think about things like positioning and having a firm grasp of your toolset, and be expected to utilize it. Mistakes are permitted, but excessive mistakes will result in failure. You may get a "Vuln stack" or "Twice Come Ruin", but nothing that makes meeting any DPS checks immediately harder. Prior understanding of some mechanics may be useful, and you will likely need a plan or co-ordination. The ability to comprehend more abstract things like transposition mechanics will be expected. EX trials, Deep Dungeon, Criterion, and some early tier Savage can be fit into this.
- Hardcore is when mistakes lead to failure immediately (or prevents another mechanic from being able to be done, resulting in failure then). It requires you to have a very solid plan and understanding of the task, use of outside tools, and the ability to use those kit with minimal (if any) mistakes. Co-ordination is essential and a plan must be established. You will likely have to deal with several mechanics at the same time, and failure either results in immediate death, the inability to do another mechanic (body check) or a debuff that makes meeting the DPS check harder. Savage and Ultimate fit into this description.
But there is something that a lot of people forget about. Crafting and Gathering is generally seen as pretty casual, but it can also be hardcore. Things like Custom Deliveries are very casual (very easy to do with basic gear), but the relic stages and higher master items may be considered hardcore. Much like combat, I would say it is Hardcore if you can't rely on macros, need optimised melded gear, a firm understanding of how all your abilities work, and use of items and food. One mistake in your crafting rotation or a failure to utilise your skills correctly may result in your craft failing.
As for the amount of time involved, I don't feel that having something that takes a long time to complete as Hardcore. I would classify as "Grindcore". It's the difference between speedrunning and an idle game.
Speedrunning is 100% Hardcore to me, but the goal is spend the least amount of time doing the content, often by playing in a way that so optimal that it can only be reached by constantly learning and pushing, and making a mistake can often result in a reset of the run. Compare this to something like Cookie Clicker, which is super casual, but it takes a massive amount of time, so much that it far eclipses most other....anything. You are never penalised for making the "wrong" action, there is no pressure to optimise, there is no failure state for making the "wrong" (or sub-optimal) action.
I also have an issue with measuring by rewards as well. If something gave the best gear in the game or a massive power boost, but only required a simple action, I wouldn't classify that as Hardcore. Similarly, if would a perfect execution of an extremely complicated action only gave a fire shard, I wouldn't classify it as Casual. i also think that measuring by rewards is only going to lead to a feeling of never being satisfied. To me, it would be like chatting with friends, then asking them for $50 because you completed the task of "spending time with them".
This isn't even touching upon things like challenge runs that turn Casual games into Hardcore games (GeoGuesser comes to mind).
TL;DR, Terms only have as meaning as we give them as they exist in a spectrum in flux, and can ultimately boil down to "Do you feel fulfilled with your experience?"
Experiences will vary, and I definitely did not Manafont into Despair.
my personal opinion of what i would consider midcore in FF is more stuff like bozja and eureka, mostly as a focal point that brings the mmo feel back into the mmorpg, a mass zone of various difficulty content but where everyone is sat at that feels involved across the majority of both the casual side and hardcore side. having more content that focuses on keeping the community as a whole incentivized to party up and work together in zones as well as it being a time sink for various reasons, such as gamba with the lockboxes, mount farming, minions, aesthetic unlockables, etc, all the core bits of the mmo in the overworld put into a mass activity zone would scratch more itches of those yearning for something to do thats always got that sprinkle of progress, while also giving some hardcore players some room to show off like duels allowed. i believe the midcore gap would be easily filled best if the dev team sat and worked on making more activities like this. especially if the devs are in the experimental phases they would have more sandbox room to see whats hit or miss for the overall playerbase with less chance of content feeling niche or like it'll torpedo into 'dead content' if it doesn't land right. overall i believe the missing midcore is how segmented the game is between casual and hardcore players in their own areas of playstyle and not enough areas or reasons for the both sides to merge into a specific area meant for the mmo part of the game to thrive. but this is just one nerds opinion. lol
I think a lot of the confusion is around people conflating casual/midcore/hardcore PLAYERS with casual/midcore/hardcore RAIDERS. If you raid at all you are probably already in the hardcore PLAYERS bucket. I would say the definition that makes the most sense to me is: Casual = Easy difficulty, done once and not needed to be grinded. Midcore = Easy moment to moment difficulty but expected to grind. Hardcore = Hard difficulty and expected to grind.
I think midcore as a descriptor of content is honestly worthless, since it's a descriptor of player investment. Anything that "midcore players" do is "midcore content." Hot take: an Ultimate could be midcore content depending on the way you approach it. People keep asking for "midcore content" when often what they mean is "normal difficulty content that has a compelling reason to engage with it." You hit the nail on the head when you say that this appears to mostly just be people asking for some kind of grindable content. When someone starts out in FFXIV, all the content is so new that simply experiencing it for the first time is a compelling enough reason. But as people become more familiar with the game, sink more hours into it, consume more information about it, they become so numb as to require an incentive to engage with the content, something this game is notoriously poor in regards to.
Extremes in JP are considered "midcore content," but here in the English speaking playerbase, we consider anything that requires "outside studying" to be "hardcore" content. I find this is more a mentality problem than anything else. If we were to assume that the average "midcore" player is reasonably familiar with the way the game telegraphs mechanics (ie: can do most "casual" content in the game with few to no vulnerability stacks or deaths) and has some amount of familiarity with their job and rotation, then they have all the tools they need to be able to do Extreme level content without watching a guide. The longer I play the more I realize that the gap between "normal" and "extreme" was never actually as large as I thought it was.
If we're being technical, we might consider anything with a DPS check or Hard Enrage as definitively falling out of the "casual" category... but, then again, the normal mode versions of A3, A12, O1, and O3 all have DPS checks. Any phase that is "fight adds while boss bar charges" is, technically, a DPS check. They're not HARD DPS checks, but they are DPS checks.
FFXIV is home to many a casual static that meets once or twice a week to do whatever the current high-end content is at their own pace. I'd consider such players to be just as midcore as the fishing enthusiasts, marketboard warriors, and daily roulette checklisters. Which makes everything from crafting to duty finder to savage valid "midcore content" in my eyes. In which case, there's plenty of "midcore content" in the game. But people warp the definition of a nebulous term around their own perspectives and I think what you say at the end about players "outgrowing" content that once satisfied them is very insightful. It's a very "big fish in a little pond" kind of vibe. (sorry for yapping. I'm a yapper)
I think a lot of people are missing in the discussion is that people want more than just battle content to drop around the same time as Battle content. Something more than just PvE to beat monotony
part of the problem we have is something that has been addressed by yoshi-p, in that they have removed too many stressors from the game which made the game more accessible, but a lot of the content is far more easy than many players would like. We currently have the issue where the normal modes are very easy, and the extreme/savage is a giant leap in difficulty and we basically don't have a middle ground, so we have easy and hard but no medium, that is the spot where i think of midcore, they are "too good" for the easy mode, but not "good enough" for the hard option. I fully agree that midcore is very hard to define exactly, but to me it comes to the gap in difficulty of content, the wider the gap the more a midcore will need to exist, the smaller the gap the less a midcore will exist. Grindable content sounds worse but it is more of a midcore thing, where it isn't necessarily easy but the difficulty can be mitigated or overcome by grinding, that is where the midcore dedication comes in over casual, but doesn't quite hit the hardcore mindset.
I feel that midcore is currently more of just a missing stepping stone in difficulty that most games tend to have that ff14 doesn't, and it is fully understandable why ff14 doesn't as that takes resources and dedication to making that difficulty.
Midcore players themselves is combination of a lot of things:
1- fast learner, good at role, unstable irl sched = cant raid consistently.
2- good at role, kinda slow learner, have all the time in the world to prog all day.
Etch…
Dedication also counts, how far can they go and study out of raid sched.
Knowing your own capability:
how long can you raid? 2h? 4h? 6h? Before you loose focus and start to mess every pull.
Do you know how fast can you learn and do take that consideration when progging?
Thats me! I am as mid as midcore can get. I love doing all the side/oddball items in the game.
Very good topic for discussion, I enjoyed it.
Midcore content is playing casual content as a healer with a team that eats every mechanic, of course
I think another issue also lies in basing any of it on "clears" and "wipes" because the content goes past that. The main thing they all differ with is the penalty for failing or not knowing how to resolve a mechanic or a fight. From vuln stacks up to just straight up wiping, they exist in all types of content. It's hard to think of a lot of examples but Baldesion Arsenal is one that I feel is a hardcore type of thing to do. This goes beyond the gear issue and the subjective difficulty, because something having more requirements already makes it more complex and therefore requires more attention
Concerning my thoughts on what makes something midcore: a required sync/distinct leveling system separate from FATEs and what is available via roulettes is more than likely at least midcore content.
I would say the party finder that I joined a few weeks ago where we entered Euphrosyne unsynced yet undergeared to around ilvl 400 (weapon and accessories only, level 1 body gear or naked) would fit the umbrella of midcore. It's definitely doable, and there's a chance for wiping (2nd boss definitely got us), but we cleared it.
I think a lot about game difficulty and how knowledge of the game's systems/mechanics/content is an underlooked factor. People who have less knowledge about a game have the potential to be unwittingly doing a challenge run or playing their own harder version of the game. For instance, my friend played with a whole party of Warriors in the original FF1 when he was a child: he wasn't trying to do anything that was of a particular challenge, but his play style and knowledge of the game at the time made the game more difficult. Another example: when I was playing SGE on an alt, I was severely below item level (I forgot to equip accessories) when I did one of the combat-related quests, accidentally thinking that they ramped up the difficulty somehow. Instead, I accidentally created my own challenge. Oppositely, If somebody runs a more challenging fight armed with prior knowledge (using a guide, watching a video, knowing of a cheese method), that may dramatically lessen the difficulty.
I think midcore and hardcore share the same content; the difference between them is how these groups TREAT the content. For example a static doing Savage for a lockout or two on weekends would be midcore. Hardcore raid 4 days,log into their raid alts to do it again and gear faster,and try to optimize their logs and rotation to parse higher others clearing as well.
To me the Eureka, and Bozja were midcore. Content which was not mandatory for general progression, hence why it did not do that much hand-holding. It required teamwork a lot of the times, coordination, and things were not guaranteed to work out if people played like headless chickens.
Sure, one can argue with me on this, or insist that its more a difference in style of content, rather than difficulty, but it did feel different to me, and not having anything like that during Endwalker was what I missed.
The general understanding of what makes a Static Casual/Midcore/Hardcore seems to me to accurately map onto content as well. It's all about the expected time investment, not just inside the content, but also in preparation for the content.
Dungeons, Normal/Alliance Raids, really you just need to meet the minimum IL requirements and just show up. No need for Party Finder or forming a Static, you don't have to grind out your weekly cap or even meld a single materia. Practically zero time needed ahead of the content, including earning gil for food/pots/crafted sets or watching guides/learning how to optimize your rotation. Very much a Casual time investment.
With Hardcore sitting on the polar opposite of the time investment scale, what could a Midcore time investment look like?
- Learning your job's rotation well enough, but maybe not the pot opener and definitely not doing regular practice drills on training dummies. (I don't know if people even do that last part, but I'd be surprised if no-one did)
- Weekly capping on tomes to gear your job(s) with, but maybe not going out of your way to do hunt trains for hours to buy twines & shines (if you don't run savage). Saving up a little materia here and there to meld, but not dumping days (or even weeks/months, depending) worth of hard-earned gil (or countless trains worth of nuts) on pentamelding.
- Prog takes a decent couple of hours, rather than several days. (Scaling the actual time with your group's skill. So if Hardcore veterans can prog an entire Savage tier in a day or two, that "couple of hours" would scale down to 1, maybe 2)
- The amount of time the content/game/devs expect you to be online to do it is higher than just "30min to ~an hour a day on roulettes", but not so high that you would have to organize your weekly or even daily schedules around it. (And yes, this means Big Fishing would be somewhere between Midcore and Hardcore)
- Needing to use Party Finder and thus wait longer than an average Duty Finder queue to fill, but NOT needing to find/form a Static of 7+ other dedicated people with relatively matching free time, in order to reasonably clear. (Assuming the content is accessible via the Duty Finder)
...as a few examples.
Extreme Trials & Adventuring Forays/Field Operations both fit this to a tee, after you account for the sliding scale of 'how much preparation outside the content affects the content'.
(So I would argue that clearing the final floor of a Deep Dungeon even in a group leans towards Hardcore, considering how many hours a run takes and that one wipe resets the whole clock, plus Aetherpool levels and potions)
i often categorize them more based on their dedication level and amount of time spent in raid/ultimates weekly. the casual audience are those that don't bother with savages. there's semi casual, these are the types that are kind of curious or are a bit more open to running the savage content maybe try the pf once or twice a week so realistically maybe 1 to 3 hours at the most a week in raid, midcore is a player that will run savages and the like for about 4 to 6 hours weekly. semi hardcore is someone that will go an extra hour or two beyond that so like 7 or 8 hours. hardcore is someone that'll dedicate about 9 or more hours weekly. ultra hardcore is what we call "no lifers" they will live in the content every waking hour of the weeks until they clear the content.
I actually have a definition of midcore that doesn't really fall into any definition that you really described (or at least, didn't seem to). "Content that is flexible enough to accommodate multiple skill levels".
That said, while I mention that it's about skill levels in execution, the reason why it's so often requested is really about experience in the game. People already put in a lot of time into FFXIV just to get to max level. Asking people to invest more time into the game is a tall order. At the same time, because these people already put in so much time into the game, they have enough experience that you can't just give them braindead content. So while we often can point out smaller definitions like "Clearable in a single night" or "Grindable content", these miss the actual main issue, which is that there's just not enough choice in terms of finding difficulty that makes sense for the player at hand, especially with FFXIV where the gameplay style tends to be "do it right or suffer".
Which returns to my definition of "content that is flexible enough for multiple skill levels". This is usually the easiest way to solve the issue.
(Sidenote: The experience thing I mentioned above is also why you don't really see it talked about in a lot of circles outside of FFXIV and WoW. MMOs are in a unique position where there's so much investment involved just to get to end-game that it strains people's abilities to invest more. The same phenomena of more flexible content in other games just gets filtered out as "git good scrub" or "This game's just not for me" type of discussions instead)
I think one of the issues with the idea of Midcore is that it is not easy to find people to actually do it. Like I joined in late Shadowbringers and would love to play old Extremes synced (not necessarily min i level) to experience them but it's not easy to find people that would want to do that, especially when you're looking for a specific Trial, let alone in a limited timeframe. Same with old Savages
I've always thought of Extremes as the "main" midcore content. It's in the middle of normal and savage in terms of difficulty, after all, at least in theory. I just wish there was a culture of queueing for it in duty finder and not throwing a tantrum like a 4-year-old if you wipe at all or don't skip some random mechanic you don't like. Some other midcore-type things my friend and I like to do are 2-man Deep Dungeons (right now we're doing a dual-AST run of PotD), or two-manning old hardcore content unsynced (we're working through all the Eden savage raids right now, it's quite fun to find unique solutions to some mechanics the fights still _really_ want you to do, like E4's gaols).
this video gave me a hardcore headache 🤣 talking about difficulty is really tough. probably the most hardcore discussion there is...
Haha! 😂
8:12 I'm sure you, me, and plenty of others can attest. Even though it's very rare in occurrence. That even the most casual of content can, and will be wiped to. Or fail outright. Every time you queue for dungeons, you roll the dice, and sometimes you roll a natural 1 and the people in your party, whether it be in a low level dungeon or an expert roulette. Somehow manage to claim the trophy of being the worst players you've ever seen.
I had the unfortunate experience of being witness to what might be the worst dungeon run of all time. It was the Amaruot dungeon, before the Hades fight. And I'm fairly certain I saw the worst level 80 Drk of all time. This was during ShB so he had played the story to get to this point, he didn't skip. He had no clue about what any of his buttons did. His reaction time was the slowest I've ever seen. Literally couldn't get out of aoes. And almost no amount of coaching seemed to help. He simply couldn't stay alive, or keep aggro. This is the one and only time I have ever seen a dungeon fail because the time ran out. YES THE TIME RAN OUT IN A DUNGEON. And when I mean I was really trying to help, I mean really trying. He was in discord with us, sharing his screen so we could better see what to give him pointers on. Nothing really seemed to help. I have no idea how he made it as far as he had in the game.
So next time you think you aren't good at the game, just remember that there is always someone worse. What the vast majority of us would consider the most casual of content. There are the few out there that somehow manage to turn the casual content, into savage content.
All I know is that Dawntrail was a barren wasteland if you're a casual player when nothing but hardcore raids keep getting pushed out *for 6 months straight*, and that a lot of players would have been better off not buying the expansion at all until April 2025 at the earliest, and that's still a "big if" because they might decide the new Field Operation has to be Savage too like they did with Chaotic.
I know I certainly felt ripped off buying Dawntrail, doubly so when none of the new 90-100 skills did anything noteworthy for most of the jobs, VPR & PCT weren't really great for me, and female Hrothgar somehow got released in a LESS finished state than the male ones. This was the first expansion I was around to pre-order, and I feel scammed.
Timely given the firestorm on the forums
It's like playing the same game for years with online-optimized rotations can't meaningfully challenge you outside of intentionally brutal content... Y'all need a nap
I've also heard this referred to as "Sweat tolerance" or "Sweat addiction".
The sweat addiction / tolerance thing is quite interesting. But Indeed, I agree that a big part is probably that this optimization means people basically have to challenge themselves to find some true challenge 😅
the ending bit reminds me of when i started playing the game in ARR back when it felt like garuda(normal) on level felt hard as hell and somehow the scale tip back in those days was using tank LB at some point that i don't remember anymore but it's comical these days that it was ever a struggle. (with the healers doing damage now)
I learned a new symbol for math notation today :)
Yeah, I'm a hardcore gamer, I grind guildheists all day for commendations 💪😎
People who use midcore to mean wanting field operations should just ask for that, honestly. I've seen like fifteen different people say with their whole ass totally different definitions of midcore, some of which *did not include field operations*. We have terms for this that aren't vague, we should use them. Because honestly I would not define bozja as midcore, I'd define it as a casual-difficulty grinding slog that takes me back to the worst parts of leveling in mid-aughts MapleStory.
I agree with the people who think people are mostly just upset at the current speed of patches and are lashing out at whatever they have in front of them. I can't say whether this is solvable (I don't work at S-E), but at least it would communicate the correct message to the devs. E: like, what I'd want is honestly just more optional dungeons again. Strayborough (outside of the first boss) and Tender Valley are both great, but given trends they're likely to stay the only optional dungeons in DT, which is a shame.
While I understand the importance of subjectivity, the community is riding a VERY fine line with just outright blaming players for thinking the content we get isn't tuned correctly. A lot of CCs are saying things that are very closely getting to "it's your fault for not doing X."
I've found my own challenges but I can tell you I'm running out and the novelty of doing the same thing dies pretty fast.
The biggest thing for me is that it does not matter how much people tell me to "get over it and do ultimates" or "do savage more." It doesn't matter that Chaotic is "less difficult than savage." I cannot. And will not. Waste my time forming a static just to clear things or going in PF for 6 hours of failure a week. It doesn't matter how good the content it, it doesn't matter that it is content that exists, that is more commitment to a game than is fair to expect from players. It doesn't even matter that I *want* to do it, I do not have the time for it, especially with a job with a variable schedule.
The argument that we should make our own content by gimping the party composition or doing min IL is also completely unfair. Players should not be forced to make their own content or make their own difficulty, it should be integrated into the game system (with rewards, preferably). Even Deep Dungeon solo is pushing it. To quote 14:08 "The problem with that approach is that the reward is unchanged and so a lot of *players* do not care for this." This phrasing is entirely pinning the responsibility on the players. A more correct phrasing would be "There is existing content that could be tuned and reused to provide repeatable content of varying difficulty but the developers choose not to." It's the developers responsibility to integrate a varying scaling difficulty with appropriate incentive into the games, not the players' responsibilities to make up content. Faux Hollows is excellent in this regard, but the raid style of gameplay again results in just PF or bust. Meaning it actually ends up being hardcore content that is easy.
The point about the definition of Hardcore/Casual falls short because the ambiguity is easily dismissible when you account for player skill and probability into your definition. Just because a highly skilled player can possibility complete a savage in one sitting doesn't devalue the definition of Midcore. The *player* is skilled, it has no bearing on the definition of the content. The content itself is defined by the level of skill of the player and THEN the probability/speed of completion relative to it.
I want to be able to log in and find something to do that isn't brain dead. Something that I can just hop on without a pre-made. I'm tired of logging in and having to browse PF and sift through them like I'm in HR, only to find nothing I'm interested in and go run in circles in Limsa for 1000th time. But despite wanting something easily accessible, I want something that pushes me and allows me to showcase and gain benefit from the myriad skills I've learned over the years. None of the content released for years has been in that zone. None. For YEARS. Not even relic grind. HW/ShB relic grind was great because I could use all the spells I've hard learned on Blu and my skills to nuke FATEs and get through it quickly. EW? Nothing.
For a blessing I enjoy doing dungeons and care about my performance in them regardless of it not mattering whatsoever. I can't imagine how awful this game must feel right now for other people.
See, the point was never "I need midcore content for me, the midcore player." It was that EVERYONE needs midcore content because it *brings people together* and provides a stable flow of player retention compared to the constant spiking of Hardcore and the mind-numbing repetitiveness of Casual content. It doesn't matter if Midcore is too hard for a Casual, they will push themselves anyways to reap the rewards with the help of their friends. It doesn't matter if Midcore is too easy for Hardcore players, they will reach out to help people and enjoy reaping additional rewards for their skills.
to me, 'Midcore' seems like a WoW colloquialism for 'Add a heroic style difficuilty between normal and extreme/savage.' with respective adjustments to gear ilvls as well.
Using the current tier as an example, Crafted and Normal mode would remain 710, A mid-core difficulty and base tome would be 725, Savage and augmented tome would bump up to 735 across all items with the weapon being bumped to 740, with .5 Extreme weapon being bumped to 730.
As a former WoW player, something that has really Intimidated me and put me off considering Savage for the most part is that typically savage raiders have said 'oh savage is even harder than mythic in WoW.' And from the few i have actually done that were older content, i would say that Normal mode is arguably easier than normal mode in WoW (Significantly in part due to the player count), but savage and even some extremes are certainly comparable to Mythic in terms of difficulty. This is certainly in part due to the extreme jump in personal responsibility in Savage. Comparing to heroic in wow, while yes, there is certainly a jump in responsibility, it's not something that couldn't be fixed by another player if you mess up catastrophically. Recovering a mechanic might be as simple as someone else sacrificing themselves, rather than the whole raid exploding
Adding a new difficuilty between normal and savage would also allow them to do away with one of the biggest complaints i hear about more recent Savage fights in that the first half of the fight is teaching new mechanics, a mid-difficuilty would allow them to introduce these combinations in like a 1-2 combo instead of all at once that when executed correctly would still feel like the savage fight, but would allow more mid-core groups a bit more flexibility. Then this would allow Savage to go straight into mechanics rather than teaching them to the players.
For me? Bozja is a good example, but content with mechanics that feel closer to an EX level in difficulty than normal, has reasons to repeat it, and most importantly, you can hop into it quickly. I think grindable is a reasonable way to put it. I can do this content with friends of varying skill levels. Someone dies? Not a huge deal. Harder content, little commitment if you don't want there to be.
I will say it again and say it from the rooftops Mid-core is length of content (Exploration zones) Hard-Core is difficulty (Raids).
Came to listen to difficulty talk... ended up with flashbacks of university math classes
Difficulty is strange to talk about in this game as there are so many forms it takes place, I'll use older content like Eden normal to explain, Iconoclasm is a particularly rough fight if you don't have the spatial awareness to keep track of the portals, Eternity has a few tricky memory mechanics that don't go off for up to a minute after they have been shown, and just kinda have to keep that mechanic in your mind, tough for those who aren't good at keeping track of every mechanic. Fulmination is just hard on a mechanical level, not much memory or spatial issues to it, it's just thst the mechanics themselves are a good bit more tricky than the fights around it, tough for people on a more execution basis
Bonus: Considering JP Duty Finders Extremes, I'm not surprised they think that Midcore is between Extreme and Savage 1/2
I think the problem stems from all content above casual will require a premade group who either already know the fight or are otherwise willing to stick around long enough to learn it. FF14 has a very binary state to its mechanics. You pass or fail. If you fail and don't die, then you generally ignore them and they fall into the casual bucket. Or you die and then your team as a whole i usually punished or unable to continue. This is a problem for not only FF14 but most MMOs in general. Compare this to a single player experience where the player doesn't worry about others. They can slowly but surely push through more challenging content. Some may use overpowered builds to make it easier, grind more levels (classic rpgs), or just practice until they slowly but surely overcome the content. Think Elden Ring where at your own pace overcome each boss. FF14 in contrast you need others to tackle the hard stuff. As a result your time is limited and your gameplay is impacted by others performance, schedules, etc. I think then the cry for "midcore" is more a desire for something that doesn't depend significantly on others, but offers a challenge. Currently most MMOs lack this kind of content. Basically right now you don't need to use your kit or do proper rotations outside of savage content. So for most it feels like there's a big jump from a normal dungeon/raid to the Ex/Savage level of content. This is more a problem where SE didn't want to progressively make MSQ and such require more from the player the way most single player games would. So it leaves the feeling there's casual and hardcore (true endgame) modes only.
I challenge myself by getting all the fish. Can't wait for the big fishes in Dawntrail.
If anything midcore for me is something to help you grow to hardcore content to help improve your skill level to be able to reach hardcore content with out being throw directly into hardcore content a example would be having the extremes without the dps check but no reward but have it mark your play with a completion marker for that content so if you go into party finder it would allow you to show that you do know this fight and these mechanics now another proposal is that these midcore stuff releases happen 3 to 4 weeks after the hardcore version so that people still have the fun of figuring out the content of hardcore without impeding the process of figuring out the mechanics in the fight but at that point people can then test others to see if they are ready for the hardcore content
I have usually thought these casual, normal and hardcore more of a player types. Casual just logs in a game, plays whatever looks nicest to them and doesnt really consume much game related content outside of game.
Hardcore players think much more of what is meta and spend hours upon hours learning their rotations to a second and watch guides or theorycraft outside of game. Normal player just somewhere there between, plays what class they like and might watch occasional guide to get some basic idea how to play their job.
Great video. No one can agree what midcore is and largely doesn't matter. All that matters is is there stuff in the game that you want to do?
I thought midcore was just most of the extra endgame content. Casual is anything that both doesn't take much effort and encounters you come across through story progression. I see midcore as the extra dungeons, trials, and raids that you get post msq. Then hard-core is all of the savage, chaotic, and ultimate stuff that you usually use pf for
"Is the midcore content in the room with us right now?"
I think it should be defined in terms of player populations and averages if anything
I got extremely into sekiro and got through NG+++++ in that game. In my personal compass, a base run of that game is baby stuff I can do while relaxing, but nobody should take me seriously if I call that game "easy" or casual
I think that content like bozja is the perfect for players to find their own personal type of commitment. You can play 1 hour solo once a week and do only what you're certain you can already do, you can go with friends into CEs and castrum lactose and dal while calling who does what but without pressure, or you can do into duels and DRS discord servers
Somewhere in there there's likely to be your own personal "I want a challenge but this won't make me want to bash my head"
It is me. I am midcore.
Theres a lot to be said about content being no longer midcore once its easier for YOU
Yea, exactly. Something like Eureka or EX trials are mid-core, until you've done them for a few hundred hours, and they become trivial. But that's just a shift in your perception, and it means that you need to adjust. The game cannot adjust to every single individual at the same time.
In the loosest of terms, I viewed it in the lenses of general difficulty, or expected difficulty. Anything that is very old content is irrelevant, most people look at it in terms of current on content when discussing.
First me, casual is just MSQ, or things like variants where you can get through without knowing your kit, easily. Harcore is fights that take genuine preparation for and learning/progging, such as Savage and Ultimate. Ex, I consider closer to 'midcore'. Still takes a bit more than casual to complete, you somewhat have to have an idea of your job you are playing, and have to learn mechanics with less grace for mistakes, but doable with mistakes. Yes there is variance in all these, but it is a broad starting point.
Why Chaotic just doesn't feel good to me initially? I was not expecting proper savage difficulty in terms of grace for mistakes. Individually, and even at an 8 man level, the mechanics are nothing too crazy, but with everything happening at once it can get overwhelming. I went in expecting something around lower EX difficulty, and got more. Based on where in the patch cycle, I expected 'catch up fight for people who are less inclined for proper savage's and it was 'savage players get another savage fight' instead.
While I clear Savage purely in PF normally on two characters each tier. I was just not that interested in another fight I had to push myself quite that much. I like fights where I have to at least apply myself, but I did not want another full on savage fight with a 24 man debuff.
To me, and probably most people, midcore is anything that "keeps me engaged in the activity" like extremes, and any "casual" is for when you just want to play but not actually pay too much attention. One could say that XIV has a little something for everyone but the target for them isn't super big. Picture gathering and crafting, not everyone is real interested in it, people even see it as a "checklist' when leveling up characters while others see it as a way to actually make a bank and they genuinely enjoy it.
Midcore is extremely subjective because both difficulty and enjoyment are both the main factors for it. I tried criterion once and got bored because of how hard it was, while i enjoyed doing EX1 and EX2 the first week they came out even tho i kept failing
I disagree about people wanting "grindable" content. They want content they can drop in and out of with actual consequence and danger. Bozja comes up because the critical engagement bosses had a big spread of difficulty from really intuitive to having to learn extreme/savage-style dances. And being good at the fights helps you help everyone else in the zone succeed. There's nothing else like this anywhere else in the game. Eureka is popular because you have to work together to help each other succeed but you're not forced to 10 hour weekly prog sessions where one mistake causes a complete restart. FFXIV design seems stuck on either the game lets you get with away with a lot of mistakes, or no mistakes. Midcore simply asks to tune it somewhere in the middle. Delubrum for example, twice come ruin, is an excellent mechanic. You can make mistakes, just not over and over and over again without consequence.
I call myself midcore, so midcore content is content that I do. Simple as
Just look at how many learning parties crumble at the first failure. That's my answer to why midcore isn't a thing.
I would like Square to make more max level scaling instance content like develes and mythic plus to play during content releases.
The scaling instance content is what keeps casuals busy in WoW during patch releases; especially, at the beginning of a expansion releases.
As someone who likes both game, if they both come out with an expansion at the same time, i rather play WoW first because it has more replayable max level content to do; where as, FF14 start is just story first with little combat while leveling. Once at max level, the casual player only has 3 expect dungeons to do while waiting for more max level for the next 2 years.
If only we got Jeuno extreme or something instead of chaotic cod. Take Jeuno the first walk, but make it tougher with more team based mechs (the healer check, towers, spread, and stuff was great more stuff like that). Simple mechs to pull off, but does require some cooperation and some body checks. CoD p1 is basically high end midcore.
No, midcore content doesn't exist, it's just the age we live in where we think there's a category for every specific thing.
Instead, "midcore" groups are just the ones that aren't going to commit 5~7 days a week, 4+ hours a day to doing the hardest content available with the best jobs as soon as it comes out, but don't fall under the casual time frame/mindset that will run double rDPS/PLD and if they beat it within 4 months, well that's ok.
9:30 Set Theory jumpscare
I think they need to make more harder Solo or smaller group content than what they currently have, like I have a small group of friends who want to try things but want to do them with just the small group.
For me midcore means you have the skills to clear a savage or ultimate fight, but you don't have the time to join a group progging multiple times a week, so you can't really commit to any content which has limited / weekly rewards. You still want to clear such content, preferably with the same people in a group, but don't really care how long it takes to clear that content.
Ideally (and maybe this is how it is in JP) PF would be for such people. Because you can do any fight in it, setting any goal, right? But people in PF in the West are EXTREMELY inpatient or unprepared. So that limited time you have to do content a week would be either sitting in a PF group not getting anywhere because people can't do basic mechanics, or making one mistake and getting kicked from a group or the group getting disbanded after one wipe. At least with Ultimates you have the shiny weapons and the title making it evergreen content, but progging savage in PF is very frustrating and by the time you are done your gear is not worth anything as new BiS is out.
This is why we need more open-world content like Bozja and Eureka, where you can spend as much time as you have, progressing a story, collecting things which won't lose their value once they are not BiS (Eureka armour is still hands down the most beautiful piece of gear ever made in the game) and you can have harder challenges like the duels, CEs or NMs, BA or DR and DRS. Mind you JP is capable of doing all these with people joining on the spot, while the West needs Discord servers to organise the runs or it will be chaos.
So kind of we always end up with my partner doing old EX trials or Savage just the 2 of us if it's doable that way or trying Deep dungeons the two of us... because we can't even find 2 other people reliably who have the skills to clear Criterion and Criterion savage but have the patience until we learn it. Tried it once with taking one person who never did savage before and barely did extremes.... I had to push my buttons harder than I had to in an Ultimate to make up for their lack of dps and meet the dps check.... So that content in my eyes requires the same preparation as a savage: a static. And there is no static who is willing to do stuff only for a few hours on Sunday each week because for them that's not committed enough. Well that's the time I have beside my full-time job....
I think EX is a currently a good difficulty for midcore, but only one fight per patch makes it feel like there is a lack of variety. Imagine if we got 4 EX fights per patch! I'd never feel like I was at a loss for things to do. I was hoping CAR would be good, but it takes too long to form groups.
I challenge myself by playing with every effects on for everything
What is easy and what is hard? It all comes down to how an individual player see it. I myself consider the new Chaotic Alliance to be quite easy once you learn the fight, but often there are players there, who are struggling. Those players may think it is hard content. Just an example.
I don't know, I'm playing in JP region and Extreme is pretty midcore to me. Queue in with random players and expect to clear in 1-3 pull if we stuck and it get to 15 minutes there is a vote abbandon avaliable and most of the time it get voted and people just carry on requeue it again.
I think the midcore or not is more on the mindset of community around the player about that content than the difficualty itself and it will shape player opinion on it even before they try it. For example, I played GuildWars 2 regularly before FFXIV and the first time I played FFXIV, I actually avoided Crystal Tower Raid (it wasn't mandatory back then) becuase it has "raid" in the name and the mind set from GW2 community back then treat raid like a "hardcore only club" (slightly better now). So when I saw "raid" I just went with "oh it's for hardcore" and didn't even tried it until fc mate brought me to do T1 with them and I think it's synced but due to it's a max ilv synced and power creep in level 50 skill, we cleared it with no problem. And they also brought me to many ARR extreme synced.
So fast forward to today Extreme Trial become the most normal thing ever to do after we complete MSQ. How normal is it? well, most people I've met in my server did Extreme synced at some point in their journey. And I also get pulled by FC my mate multiple time to do EX that I haven't prepared anything or only prepare partially. Like in EW I took my time to clear MSQ and took me like a week and half or so and then my FC mate just pulled me to do EW EX1, even though I have lower than minimum ilv gear and they just said "Don't worry about it" and that wasn't the first time or last time that happened. So, Extreme is pretty midcore to me. It's something that serious enough that we need to prepare and practice for it, but not so serious that we only want to do with highly competent group. Just a somewhat functional group and it's fine. And it wasn't just my FC, After my first FC fall apart I was in the scouting for FC period and I visit their house and found them gather together for something and when I said hi they just asked me if I want to join e5s practice run with them since they lack one slot and then we cleared it. Such a wild experince (I didn't join this FC though since friends from first FC create new FC and asked me to join them)
I actually do really wish we could just use DF for harder content. Even if people come unprepared and stuff it would still be a preferable challenge for me than having to interact with people in PF lol
Loved the video and expresses exactly what I have been saying about all this discussion and debate and drama on social media and youtube surrounding the game.
It isnt that there isnt enough content, it is that the players need to understand that if you are bored with current content that we have in an ocean-sized game, they should find new and fun ways to replay old content.
This is similar mindset to how us oldschool retro gamers found ways to keep the same old games from.our childhood still engaging. Speedrunners set playthrough requirements to make things harder or more challenging to meet time quotas, etc. This isnt exactly a new concept. Its just new to gamers who never grew up in that generation of gaming.
I feel like especially the reward system of ff does not incentivize much of putting in a little more effort and getting rewarded for it, you very much either take the time to read guides or you could just get through with just hitting your shiny buttons. Content where you should plan for stuff like that is not really the kind where you would get along without knowing your every button is also the content where you need to know what the boss does beforehand, and ultimately there rarely is a good reward for it. Mounts are at an incredibly low drop chance on the newly released tiers, and if I offered you to play some content, and after 100 times you did it you earned the prestige from it, if you are not good at it immediately you might not be interested in taking on a challenge that the game devs intend for you to beat up to 100 times. Or you need to beat 4 tiers of a raid that have meticulous guides online that these feel pretty much impossible to beat without, and that throw you right in with the wolves (and for some reason feel pretty disconnected from their normal versions). And the reward, as nice as a mount is, is not something you can show off *especially* in main cities, where mounts are not allowed, but people hang all the time. And if you intend to show off some cool weapon you got from clearing ultimates or grinding a relic, you cannot change that on the fly like a mount or minion choice, you either are showing off constantly, every time you draw your weapon, or you leave it in your dresser unused. Minions strike a fair balance in the game, using them to show off achievements would fit perfectly I feel, and with them already being in the category of „very grindy“ in treasure maps and dungeon drops, I think they would fit neatly in that category of showing off that mounts simply cannot do with the limitations the city hubs of ff impose.