Is there no medium difficulty content or am I just too stupid?

Getting title of Lord/Lady of Verminion :)

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Originally Posted by Seger

Extreme Trials are medium content.

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I do agree with this. I personally see Extreme Trials as the point where you do need some coordination to go through the content, but nothing too major/savage-like. But when I said this to my friends who do play Savage and clear Ultimates, they tell me Extremes for them is on par with playing through Alliance Raids. They're too easy and they don't consider them medium at all.

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Originally Posted by Seger

Extreme Trials are medium content.

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That is how the devs see it as well, but when people ask for midcore they are asking for something between extreme and savage.
Which I think is what a lot of people here are failing to understand—the gap between extreme and savage is what people want addressed, talking about anything lower than that is irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by Knot_D

Getting title of Lord/Lady of Verminion :)

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That's straight up hardcore. Necromancer is casual in comparison.

I feel like the bosses in places like Eureka/Bozja are probably the closest to "midcore" we have as far as difficulty goes because they're a fair bit spicier then what you typically run into in normal modes, but they're still not as elaborate or punishing as extreme/savage and you're permitted to limp through them via rez spamming.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Those mechanics are all still there today, they have just progressively become easier to skip with each expansion because of potency increases, increased power from food and other changes. I've still wiped in Pharos Sirius to all the mechanics you listed in every expansion except the ones from the last boss. The last boss can get everyone if the adds climb up to them and stun them what seems like forever, but the adds are so easy to kill that you can just kill them or the boss fast and it's not a problem.

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You know how hard the last dungeon of 6.0 was at launch? Pharos Sirius hit that hard with the mechanics before they effectively nerfed the entire dungeon in 2.2, just because people were STILL leaving the place. Yes, the gear had upgraded at that time too. Straight from the 2.2 patch notes:

Overall difficulty has been adjusted to match that of Copperbell Mines (Hard) and Haukke Manor (Hard).

The number of enemies has been reduced.
The attack power, HP, and behavior of enemies, as well as certain dungeon mechanics have been adjusted.
Symond the Unsinkable's HP has been increased, while the number of zombie war hounds has been decreased.
The attack power and HP of zu cockerels and zu pullets that spawn during the battle with the Zu has been decreased.
The attack power and HP of zombie storm privates that spawn during the battle with Siren has been decreased.
The potency of Siren's abilities, and the duration of their effects have been decreased.

All of that...during a patch when the gear upgraded.

TBH there is no "medium" difficulty content because ppl whined non stop about things in the past that approached "medium" difficulty resulting in them getting nerfed and/or homogenized into easy mode.

You know... those threads of ppl claiming to be gated out of content. Or the whole "My sister's, husband's, uncle's, grandfather's, blind, deaf, quad amputee college room mate can't do the mechanic, nerf plz"

FFXIV has become an MMORPG that caters primarily to ppl that don't play RPGs. Unfortunately one of the groups catered to was the ppl base their social "status" on what they have on popular video games. Those ppl just want all the stuff to brag to ppl about having all the stuff but refuse to actually learn how to play the game to earn all the stuff... So they cry everywhere asking for nerfs while funding the RMT's that annoy the hell out of everyone else...

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Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

That is how the devs see it as well, but when people ask for midcore they are asking for something between extreme and savage.
Which I think is what a lot of people here are failing to understand—the gap between extreme and savage is what people want addressed, talking about anything lower than that is irrelevant.

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I don't believe such a gap exists that can be filled. Maybe people feel like there's a gap because you go from something you can PF to something you ideally want to static to progress and secure your loot.

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Originally Posted by AlexanderOrnitier

Hm, thats disappointing. Im not gonna do it then. Everything that involves spreadsheets and requiring you to watch a 30 min guide(for example p7s has a 30 min guide on yt) multiple times im out of. Anyway thanks for the feeback :)

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Spreadsheets?

Man, I've done every Ultimate out to date and the only time spreadsheets have been needed is the last two minutes of the final phase, and even then that's just cuz it's easier to do that than experiment with 16+ minute pulls what mitigation would work.

Then again I'm a sheltered static player who runs content blind. I dunno how bad guides are these days, and shudder to think what spreadsheets pugs use lol

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Originally Posted by vanaii

That's straight up hardcore. Necromancer is casual in comparison.

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lol na getting Lord/Lady of Verminion is actually pretty easy.
You just spam wind up Hildebrand through literally everything.

As for medium stuff. My only gripe with literally ANY of it is that none of it has a scaling system so you can try it solo or with 2/3 people.

I refuse to play with randoms "or" with people I only know via online, at least outside of casual things.
While I love going after the hardest content there is in most games, and happy if I lose vs it once or twice, because it means I finally have something fun to do, I'm not gonna do it with randos. It's just not fun. So I'm stuck in casual world because of that.

Solo / Coop POTD is nice.
Where we are right now is trying to keep an average of 15-30 kills and 0 deaths in PVP. It's a moderate albeit, admittingly lame objective for us currently lol

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

I do agree with this. I personally see Extreme Trials as the point where you do need some coordination to go through the content, but nothing too major/savage-like. But when I said this to my friends who do play Savage and clear Ultimates, they tell me Extremes for them is on par with playing through Alliance Raids. They're too easy and they don't consider them medium at all.

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Part of the problem is that there is only one Extreme that is "Current" at any given time. Two at the start of an expansion. And that's hardly anything.

FFXIV Instance Difficulty Curve

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ffv9Xg5U...ng&name=medium

Savage is a weird case because the difficulty is insanely variable on everything leading up to the final fight with the easiest fights arguably being easier then relevant extremes.

It is all puzzles. Sometimes the community just "gets" certain mechanics faster than others.

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Originally Posted by Ayche

It is all puzzles. Sometimes the community just "gets" certain mechanics faster than others.

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Sometimes they agree on one strat faster. There's also the fact that some people just take some time to lock in one mech / strat or another, despite understanding it.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Savage is a weird case because the difficulty is insanely variable on everything leading up to the final fight with the easiest fights arguably being easier then relevant extremes.

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See: How people felt P3S was harder than P4S.

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Originally Posted by AlexanderOrnitier

Hi there WoLs o/

So I started with 6.1 and did pretty much alle the non-extreme non-savage content.

So then I asked myself, what else could I do besides professions, RP, Saucer, Housing and all the other stuff.

Next step would be to get into a static for extremes and savage raids and I did. About 3.5 Weeks I tried raiding with a static and it was honestly fun. But not because of the content, because of the people.

I have to say im overwhelmed by the difficulty spike you get, when you go from normal content to extremes and savages.

Its like, normal EW content is a 20, Extremes are a 85 and Savage is straight up to 95 to 100.

Where is the middle ground? Am I just too dumb? I need a flow chart for the current tier extreme and for P7S I need a brain transplant.

I also tried the criterion dungeon with a nice FC group, and we had fun but we couldnt get anywhere besides wiping for 90 minutes on the mouse.

I fall asleep during normal content and get a stroke from the higher content, which makes me sad because i kinda dont fit in anywhere. :(

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I completely sympathize with your position, even hardcore players sometimes don't want to raid hard content all the time and want something to destress without being bored, so medium difficulty content is good for everyone, but sadly we have so little in EW. By the way Zepla mentioned your post in her video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2-CV9cKC1s

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Originally Posted by Blood_Blossoms

but yeah, Midcore is not in the game at all

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What the heck is EX contents then?

You're not stupid nor imagining it.
There's literally no midcore content in this game. Either mindnumbingly easy to ultra-complicated fights. No inbetween.

The only thing I can think of that is close to it is soloing Variant Dungeons and the Masked Carnivale which offers a bit of difficulty harder than normal content but not as hard as Extremes+. I think this is one of the things Square should work on. Casual easy stuff don't retain players and group-forced difficult content is just what it is: group content. So if you don't have a group or you like torturing yourself with pick up groups, you pretty much miss out on the rest of that content.

Thanks for bumping this - I was actually looking for it.

What's frustrating about these type of discussions, is that we all see 'Casual' and 'Midcore' as difficult to really mull over as a group, because we all have our own experiences and definition of what those mean exactly. I think we need to look at what 'Casual' and 'Midcore' can contain, and not what they are exactly.


Ultimately I think we're missing out on a lot of natural player engagements with EW due to how all of the systems have been designed and presented. So the Casual/Midcore, although technically exist.. Have been short lived, and are very lonely experiences. Pushing every engagement to Discord where we'll need to wade through a cliquey chat isn't the same as natural player engagements.

A lot of players in the MMO space are looking at Hardcore WoW right now because they're presenting a refreshing experience that allows for at-will casual gameplay, with opportunity for difficult challenges that offer random natural player encounters. Those player encounters seem more authentic and have a higher chance of developing friendship.

We're severely missing that right now, so to me EW barely feels like an MMO. We can still do old Relics, Eureka, and Bozja - But we all know it's not even remotely the same experience as they were around their release cycle. Anything that requires I look for a Discord to engage in something, automatically removes casual friendly from my eyes. What was fun about Eureka and Bozja, is even if I might not want to do a specific challenge at that moment, I can still have fun watching them all fail mechanics, learn the fight, and help res at the end. There's just more authentic player engagement to be had there. Hunt Trains aren't that. Dungeons aren't that. Raid, FATEs, Variant, POTD, IS.. Aren't that. Those don't tick both natural and challenging. It's only strictly one or the other.

It seems like SE is almost pushing all encounter efforts to small instances and outside communications like Discord, by design. Makes me a lil sad. :(

EX and Savage is pretty much the same difficulity nowdays..
So NO there is NO midcore content!

Extreme fights would be the medium difficulty.
With Savage/Ultimate above it, and normal/hard/24 player stuff below it.

I would like to see some real midcore content. Normal/Alliance raids are face roll easy, while Savage can be tough for people to get into and maybe too difficult for many people. I'm honestly surprised there are Ultimates, but nothing harder than normal and slightly easier than Savage. I would think difficult, but not Savage level content would be way more popular than Ultimates which likely cater to less than 1% of the player base.

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Originally Posted by OliverQ

Ultimates which likely cater to less than 1% of the player base.

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It caters to a lot more as whenever a new one come out, the prog streams are one of the highest viewed pieces of content.
You don't have to be in the instance in order to enjoy it.

I’d consider most of Bozja as midcore, CE’s, DRN, and parts of dal are the core of the midcore content if you don’t view extreme as midcore

I have said it before, but i will say it again:)

The current hardcore content we have ( Ex/Savage/Ultimates)
Literally exist only to punish player(s) who have
issues with memorising/visualizing and distractions( focus).

Note:
Many neurological disabilities and neurodevelopmental disorders
have those 3 things i stated above as a common trait(s)..

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

I have said it before, but i will say it again:)

The current hardcore content we have ( Ex/Savage/Ultimates)
Literally exist only to punish player(s) who have
issues with memorising/visualizing and distractions( focus).

Note:
Many neurological disabilities and neurodevelopmental disorders
have those 3 things i stated above as a common trait(s)..

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So do many video games, and especially most strategy games.

Should we simply delete strategy games because people with dementia can't tackle them?

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Originally Posted by Noumenon

So do many video games, and especially most strategy games.

Should we simply delete strategy games because people with dementia can't tackle them?

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We should have options, like midcore content....
But we cant have that can we!
It's either braindead easy or hardcore.

Other MMO and games have options , why can't ffxiv?

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

We should have options, like midcore content....
But we cant have that can we!
It's either braindead easy or hardcore.

Other MMO and games have options , why can't ffxiv?

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I agree with that, but I disagree that hardcore content exists just to punish people who have focus issues.

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Originally Posted by Noumenon

I agree with that, but I disagree that hardcore content exists just to punish people who have focus issues.

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Those issues are generally not insurmountable either. Stickynotes and diagrams litter my monitor and desk during prog. IME Dealing with those issues is easier than wrangling and maintaining a group schedule with 7 others lmao

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Originally Posted by Blood_Blossoms

SE more less killed Midcore content years ago, I don't have much to add they tried re adding bits, but it just gets forgotten or just too dull.
current Midcore content is variant dungeons but lacks incentive outside 12 paths to re-run it.
and morsels same when they add 24 mans.

but yeah, Midcore is not in the game at all

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Personally, I would not include variant as mid, it’s more hardcore. My static, at the time, was farming panda when it came out. It was so difficult that we didn’t want to bother with it as the rewards were awful and not worth the time investment to learn it. I want a harder dungeon, sure, but not something that requires raid level prep. Wrong audience SE.

Too much of a cat to bother reading the post history to see if this was the one I said this in previously.

The issue with the lack of "midcore" content in this game is a result of the part of the player base that is lazy and entitled. These people have basically attempted to drag every piece of content down to their level rather than learn about the game and improve themselves. The content labeled "hardcore" is simply the things they failed to grab on to because another part of the player base was there to smack their fingers with a meter stick when they tried grabbing on to it.

I know this is a year old nearly, but no, you're not. A year later nothing has changed. my friends and I are doing AMR now and while it is a fun series of fights you're definitely gonna be putting more time into these than EX Trials. The midcore content was cut with Eureka/Bozja. I don't understand why we could not have casual, midcore, and hardcore content in the same expansion. It feels like the devs looked at what made SHB so successful as an expansion and just didn't want that to happen again twice in a row. I'm very much like you, I am midcore, but I lean towards EX and Savage (depending on if the rewards are worth the frustration to do while current, this tier was not imo). I saw Zepla's video featuring this content and had to find it to let you know you're not alone.

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

EX and Savage is pretty much the same difficulity nowdays..
So NO there is NO midcore content!

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What ... ? I have to ask ... do you do either of the content? That is objectively not true at all. You're either ignorant of those content because you didn't play them. Or you're just straight up lying, or you hyperbolic so much that it looks no difference then lying.



- Casual: like 24man or normal raid. You can literally AFK the whole fight, and unless half of the raid decided to AFK like you, the fight will be cleared.

- Mid-core: like EX. Requires you to put in SOME effort in learning the fight, you still have a soft enrage that may requires you not to be EXTREMELY incompetent. But frankly, you don't even need to understand the fight fully, neither you need a mastery of you class. As long as you don't die every 30 seconds, and know how to press more than 1 button in your rotation ... you probably can clear. People regularly clear these fight despite 7/8 not knowing where to go and just follow a Doritos, or clear with deaths in the 2 digits. Most EX only have 1, or at most 2 mechanic that "your" mistake can result in someone else dying beside yourself, or raid wipe.

- None of that applied to savage fights, especially with the design philosophy of recent raids. Savage these days are designed a way that you pretty much have to learn every mechanic because RNG can assign you different parts of the same mechanic. You need to be decent with your rotation to have any hope to clear (unless you overgear the content). Like, the first floor can be forgiving (but Carbuncle shat on a lot of group), the seconds floor you can afford maybe a handful of deaths ... but usually by the third floor, up until the end of the first month, most PF groups can't afford having more than 2 deaths or they face enrage. And like the majority of the mechanics are set in a way if one person mess up, the chance of it wiping the entire raid is pretty high.



So if you think EX is as difficult as savage ... then yeah, no.

I think if they try to split the MSQ trials to normal, hard and EX mode again, and lower the max ilvl than what they currently did (in hard mode) could be helpful, but sadly there's not much of them it seems

Eureka and Bozja could be quite midcore and interesting to those player who enjoy it, yet if you're not these type of player, it will not be interesting to you,
its independent leveling system is both blessing and curse (depend if it sound enjoyable to you), those who don't have private party will also affect their experiences
(it's not like "you MUST have a discord, FC, friends or belike, but there's fair chance you would find no one care about you or even raise you when you dead,
not to mention people who aren't very good at asking people for such.)

shadowbringers I was too broodish to realize the content was good due to MCH getting decimated so missed out on the ladder half of
The Bozja content like dalriada. But EW has literally none rn your not stupid the content is just lacking

Y'know, I recently started noticing the lack of midcore content in this game as well when I picked it up again a couple of weeks ago.

I really want to start Savage one day (even started leveling up Savage-friendly jobs like GNB), but I'm too busy in my everyday life for the schedule that Savage requires.

Extreme trials and Bozja seem like decent challenges for midcore players, but are there anymore options?

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Originally Posted by ronibosch

Y'know, I recently started noticing the lack of midcore content in this game as well when I picked it up again a couple of weeks ago.

I really want to start Savage one day (even started leveling up Savage-friendly jobs like GNB), but I'm too busy in my everyday life for the schedule that Savage requires.

Extreme trials and Bozja seem like decent challenges for midcore players, but are there anymore options?

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Outside of potentially Eureka fitting that bill, there's unreal (which is just old ex's scaled up to current level cap currently), and..that's it.

We were hoping that criterion would around EX difficulty and then Criterion Savage would be savage content for the people who dig it going even further, but instead it's Variant(easy/normal mode) Criterion (savage) Criterion Savage (just savage again but even harder). So it didn't really perform what we were asking for difficulty-wise and doesn't have good rewards to back it up.

Not all the EX fights are the same "high end", and it's even a bit silly to call them "high end" when that contains savage and ultimate.

If you want something harder to work with, to bridge the gap, start with older EX fights. Not ANCIENT ones mind you, but earlier ones in the same expansion. Ones where your ilvl is capped out and you'll be a bit more powerful. More power gives you more room to make mistakes.

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

EX and Savage is pretty much the same difficulity nowdays..
So NO there is NO midcore content!

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I'd say midcore content is not only about difficulty but also accessibility for the greater number of players. And the fact everyone consider you can't do extreme in pick up, I'd argue Extremes were never midcore content.

Their difficulty might be midtier, that doesn't make them midcore content. The whole argument of midcore content has nothing to do with the subject. Mid difficulty is what the game lacks. Midcore content is about content with high longevity for players that play more than the casuals, while not asking the lvl of commitment the hardcore content asks. Even if the difficulty is midtier, asking a player to have a static or making premade to progress in the content is not midcore content.