Ultimate hiatus feedback

Ultimate is good and fun, please give us more.

Minah Sojin - Odin

I think Ultimate is a great addition to the game and I wouldn't like a hiatus especially considering that pre-expansion is usually the worst content drought ever.

I will probably not be doing ultimate for a while, and I quite enjoy Savage.

But I loved watching the race! Watching the streams and cheering the ultimate raiders on! I think it's a wonderful thing for the midcore raider community because it gives us something to aspire to, and obviously it's good for the ultimate raider community because they get their challenge AND the admiration of their fans. It's a big win-win.

So even if it wasn't 4.5..if they had to take a bit extra and maybe do a special 4.6, it would be nice to not have to wait for the next expansion for that amazing experience to return.

I am a Legacy player and have beaten a handful of Savage runs, all EX content, and stay fairly abreast of what FFXIV has to offer the community at-large. I have publicly commented for years about the sliding scale of difficulty in content and have been vocal about changes to the relic process from 2.0 on, the "dumb-ing down" of content beginning in Heavensward, and the hope that more difficult content would be entertained while striking a balance for players with less time/resources ("casual" in a non-derogatory sense) and also for players that many would call "mid-core".

I believe that Ultimate provides FFXIV with the benefit of positive publicity especially to players of other MMO titles, provides challenging and engaging content for high-end raiders who continually give back to the XIV community by way of guides and helping other players clear said content, by providing inequity in the game which in turn builds a desire for players to challenge themselves and enhance a player's skill and self-esteem, and providing something for "mid-core" to hard-core players to do during in what is known as the "vast wasteland" or the drought of content that happens after the final patch in an expansion's life cycle.

By limiting the amount of Ultimate content to patch 4.1 and 4.3, the development team creates a vacuum that could be detrimental to the community at-large and, frankly, to the amount of money Square Enix would profit during this gap in content. Please reconsider adding back a third and final Ultimate fight to the Stormblood expansion patch cycle.

Thank you.

It's limiting my reply to 1000 characters, I guess, because I'm not subed. I would like to say more, but I can't in one post.

This issue is relevant to why I quit FFXIV.

These issues stem from a larger problem FFXIV has had for a while. FFXIV doesn't have enough variety of challenging content at end game along with having only two levels with an incredibly steep jump between the two. First off, "mediumcore" and "hardcore" does not accurately cover the wide range of time and skill of players in this game. Savage and Ultimate is not enough to cater to all of these players. This is why you see games like WoW have 4 difficulties for each tier. WoW has also created the Mythic+ system that turned dungeons into content that can range from very easy to incredibly challenging while remaining casual in terms of time investment.

My static before I quit was clearing Savage content in 1-2 weeks. This is the same group that gave up on UCoB. I had changes happening in real life at the time and wasn't going to be able to allot the time needed to clear future Ultimates, so I quit because the next best thing was clearing Savage in 1-2 weeks.

I'll try to add on before someone else comments.

Players need content that challenges them, but also remains reasonably achievable relative to their skill level. This is why WoW does a better job by providing a much wider array of difficulties. This allows players to find a sweet spot relative to their ability. They're able to be find something challenging, yet remains reasonably achievable for their level. This is why the incredibly steep jump going from Savage to Ultimate is a problem. These mediumcore players are hitting a wall again similar to how they were hitting walls on A3/4/8S that lead to the difficulty drop of the Creator tier. The curve of difficulty is way too steep in FFXIV simply because there's only 2 levels. SE is not going to be able to offer this same variety in difficulty over 5-6 fights a tier that WoW does over 20ish fights a tier.

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Originally Posted by Gongan

It's limiting my reply to 1000 characters, I guess, because I'm not subed. I would like to say more, but I can't in one post.

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You can edit your original post to add more. It’s an arbitrary character limit that doesn’t have anything to do with active subscription or inactive subscription.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

You can edit your original post to add more. It’s an arbitrary character limit that doesn’t have anything to do with active subscription or inactive subscription.

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Oh, thanks. I may come back and edit it with one of my earlier drafts, but I think I got my point across for the most part.

I more or less get their point, but at the same time... why would you go on hiatus when it's most important period, at 4.5 it's gonna be so empty. had they made it Ultimate Baha and UwU at 4.3 and 4.5 I would've not posted anything.
but we've seen how was 3.5. It was freaking boring, don't skip the content when it is more than needed

For the past 2 expasion the biggest content drought has been, 2.5 and 3.5 where there is almost 8+ months of nothing to do to the point where that their's tombstones are even doubled in cap, and that current raid tier is way passed farm. I for one LOVE the Ultimate series, and feel like in that time span of waiting for the next expansion people will have the time to work on previous ultimate to either hone their skills, or work as a team and get it done. And it would give me something interesting to do as like sub for people, so i can get better at playing different classes at a high skill level. Sign me up for 4.5 Ultimate!

- Knumi Kwok of Lamia

To Dev Team:
Please don't listen to them, they may be famous for being top raid group but they don't represent for all of FFXIV community.
Dev team should put all resource in developing next expansion's contents.
Only less than 1% of players can clear a new ultimate content in 4.5, and it will be dead as soon as 5.0 arrives.
Please don't waste any cost on this kind of content.

開発チームへ：
この人たちの意見を参考しないでください。彼らはファーストレイドチームとして有名ですが、すべてのFFXIVプレイヤーを代表できるわけではありません。
開発チームは資源を次の拡張に集中すべきです。
4.5で絶を出しても１％未満のプレイヤーしかクリアできません、そして5.0が出たらこの絶はすぐ死にコンテンツになります。
こんなコンテンツにコストをかけないでください。

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Originally Posted by lovelylion

To Dev Team:
Please don't listen to them, they may be famous for being top raid group but they don't represent for all of FFXIV community.
Dev team should put all resource in developing next expansion's contents.
Only less than 1% of players can clear a new ultimate content in 4.5, and it will be dead as soon as 5.0 arrives.
Please don't waste any cost on this kind of content.

開発チームへ：
この人たちの意見を参考しないでください。彼らはファーストレイドチームとして有名ですが、すべてのFFXIVプレイヤーを代表できるわけではありません。
開発チームは資源を次の拡張に集中すべきです。
4.5で絶を出しても１％未満のプレイヤーしかクリアできません、そして5.0が出たらこの絶はすぐ死にコンテンツになります。
こんなコンテンツにコストをかけないでください。

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To devs:
Please dont listen to lovelylion, he is not even the 1%, but 1 person.

ad:
it should be considered whats the amount of players actually entering the ultimate, not the % of succesful clears. Just by entering means they are playing the content. And that is the purpose so far. I dont need another wasted resources on Diadem or diadem 2.0. Also, just a follow up idea: If a major patch hits, why dont they just rework and adjust the old ultimates for the new ilvl/lvl. Its im sure way cheaper to rework old ultimates for new players then unsyncing the old ones and creating new ones...

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Originally Posted by lovelylion

Only less than 1% of players can clear a new ultimate content in 4.5, and it will be dead as soon as 5.0 arrives.
Please don't waste any cost on this kind of content.

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If I might be so bold as to ask:

What about the very significant portion of midcore statics and PFs that spend considerable amounts of time working on Ultimate even if they aren't particularly likely to clear it? Do they factor into your opinion?

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Originally Posted by lovelylion

To Dev Team:
Please don't listen to them, they may be famous for being top raid group but they don't represent for all of FFXIV community.

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Forums will never represents all of FFXIV community anyway, not matter what is asked.
Besides, there are not only hardcore raider who are raising their voice to keep a 3rd ultimate in game, but also other players who loved the perspective of this fight.
So maybe a few people can actually clear it, but that content is definitly something that gather more people that what you imagine.

They aren't even wasting ressource and time on it.
This isn't because there won't be a 3rd ultimate that they'll developp something else in exchange.

3 fight in 2 years every 6 month.
Come on. They didn't even complained about having so few.
Let's try to not being selfish.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

If I might be so bold as to ask:

What about the very significant portion of midcore statics and PFs that spend considerable amounts of time working on Ultimate even if they aren't particularly likely to clear it? Do they factor into your opinion?

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It is also worth noting, that this thread proves that it’s more than just the 1% that care about Ultimate as a piece of content. Look at the people coming in saying they don’t even raid, but enjoy watching it. Sure the OF is a small portion of the community, but it’s not just the 1% that enjoy this content.

I’m certain more than just the 1% don’t want another 5- to 8-month content drought a la 3.5 and Creator.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

If I might be so bold as to ask:

What about the very significant portion of midcore statics and PFs that spend considerable amounts of time working on Ultimate even if they aren't particularly likely to clear it? Do they factor into your opinion?

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Do they need a new one though as they'll still be clearing the old ones, it seems like SE are jsut making very flashy content for a very small number of players with a very short lifespan

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

Do they need a new one though as they'll still be clearing the old ones, it seems like SE are jsut making very flashy content for a very small number of players with a very short lifespan

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I don’t agree with that being a very good reasoning. You could apply it to just about any other content in the game: why make new types of this content when there are still people out there that haven’t done the older content? New Savage tiers? Why put them in when people haven’t cleared the current one? Extremes? Same thing. It sort of falls flat as a reasoning to me, regardless of the targeted audience or its size.

This is all aside from the very high possibility that they probably won’t implement anything to really take Ultimate’s place, and 4.5 will be relatively barren in terms of content if 2.5 and 3.5 are any indicators. And none of the content in this game has any real longevity, in my opinion. It’s why they have to constantly make things like Relic steps that require players to go and run older content, or why they make things like 8-man Raid Roulette or shove large EXP rewards in Alliance Roulette. The best piece of content for this was PotD only because people could use it as an alternative to leveling DPS jobs, but even it started to die down after 4.0 came out.

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

Do they need a new one though as they'll still be clearing the old ones, it seems like SE are jsut making very flashy content for a very small number of players with a very short lifespan

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I know of multiple midcore groups that cleared UCoB 3-4 months in and started waiting for UWU. With UWU being much easier than UCoB those groups that do prog the ultimate fights are going to be left to dry far before the next expansion comes out.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I don’t agree with that being a very good reasoning. You could apply it to just about any other content in the game: why make new types of this content when there are still people out there that haven’t done the older content? New Savage tiers? Why put them in when people haven’t cleared the current one? Extremes? Same thing. It sort of falls flat as a reasoning to me, regardless of the targeted audience or its size.

This is all aside from the very high possibility that they probably won’t implement anything to really take Ultimate’s place, and 4.5 will be relatively barren in terms of content if 2.5 and 3.5 are any indicators. .

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If 4.5 is going to be a bit barren (which is likely) why make a bespoke bit of content for such a tiny part of the player base and will only ever be for them.

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

If 4.5 is going to be a bit barren (which is likely) why make a bespoke bit of content for such a tiny part of the player base and will only ever be for them.

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Because the final tier is going to last much longer (like Creator lasted 8 months), which means more groups are clearing the tier in its entirety, getting their BiS, and opening up even more opportunity for more players to step into something like Ultimate—you only need to clear the final floor to step in there after all (though BiS is, obviously, recommended). Ultimate isn’t designed by the main battle content team, so I fail to see how them implementing an Ultimate in 4.5 is a loss. Not implementing Ultimate is.

People are more than able to up the number of Ultimate participants and clears. But it is all reliant on them pushing themselves to improve enough for the content, which everyone is capable of doing. Not to mention, how many people have came to this thread saying they enjoy just watching it and cheering on teams and their friends? Ultimate affects more than just the 1% its designed for.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Ultimate isn’t designed by the main battle content team, so I fail to see how them implementing an Ultimate in 4.5 is a loss. Not implementing Ultimate is.

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Only for a tiny fraction of the player base, in my opinion they should have left Ultima weapon to 4.5 and have tried to implement a second expert fight in 4.4 to better scale into savage.

You do understand that 4.5 will likely bring a good amount of casual content right?

Going by 3.5 and previous trends we will see something like the following:

Eureka update
PotD/HoH update
Multiple additional relic steps over the subsequent mini patches that follow
Several staggered MSQ updates
Additions to crafting side content via deliveries, scrips etc
Potentially another significant side quest chain or beast tribe.
Aquapolis/Canal thinger additions
1 additional expert dungeon
A number of additional squadron dungeons

You'll also get the following content that falls somewhere in the middle:

24 man raid
8 man primal

Meanwhile, you'll also get the following high end content:

.


k

*edit*

I do actually agree that if SE really were set on only doing 2 Ultimate fights per expansion, then UWU should indeed have been held back until 4.5. As is, progression FCs are going to turn into ghost towns again.

According to SoTR they even said they had plans already for 4.5 (this is before 4.2) probably they run on dry after finishing Ultima.
I can make a wild guess that they realized that they need to shake up the formula for ultimates since in a way Ultima is very much the same as UCOB in executiuon (minibosses to main boss with combinations attack with some with the boss beign not targetable) the uniqueness of Ultima has been the woken status and the transition which mho probably the best thing ever to happen in the pve content.
That said I wonder if another boss in this section would be fun and if that impacted their decision. That said this is just a supposition

Also according to some there's nothing stated for a release for FFXIV till late autumn of 2019 so let's that sink in for a moment

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Originally Posted by lovelylion

To Dev Team:
Please don't listen to them, they may be famous for being top raid group but they don't represent for all of FFXIV community.
Dev team should put all resource in developing next expansion's contents.
Only less than 1% of players can clear a new ultimate content in 4.5, and it will be dead as soon as 5.0 arrives.
Please don't waste any cost on this kind of content

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What about the numerous casual players, even in this very thread, who say that even though they don't attempt ultimate, they still want more of it in the game because of the benefits it provides to the playerbase as a whole. You can't just make up nonsense and pretend it's only a small percentage of the playerbase that wants this kind of content to continue.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

What about the very significant portion of midcore statics and PFs that spend considerable amounts of time working on Ultimate even if they aren't particularly likely to clear it? Do they factor into your opinion?

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uh..midcore do not work on ultimate. Midcore generally means people who do ex trials and the first two turns of savage, but can't progress beyond the two harder tiers. If you attempt ultimate at all, you are hardcore.

As for the problem, look. They only reason they could stop this is that not enough people are clearing or attempting it. There just aren't enough people clearing both turns to make them think they need a 3rd fight. If you want one, you kind of need to get more people finishing savage and trying ultimate, and more people need to clear it. More or less as simple as that.

As a casual player who is allergic even to savage raiding, I think it would be sad to not get more ultimate. I don't know what it is, but the general mood around those fights just seems really positive? I've had a lot of negative experience with savage raiders being rude or condescending, doing a "look at me, I'm so much better than you" kind of thing (not all savage raiders by any means), but the folks who clear the ultimate fights just seem to be really happy they did it. Maybe it's because the obnoxious salty people can't execute the requisite teamwork? Who knows.

Anyway, Ultimate doesn't benefit many, but it certainly hurts nobody and there's no reason it shouldn't become part of the standard content rollout formula.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

uh..midcore do not work on ultimate.

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Actually many do.

What are you basing your opinion of this on? I'm basing mine on first hand experience FYI.

My prior group (that I still help out from time to time) was the very definition of midcore, capable players, laid back schedule, no big rush to clear the progression content. Most of the group worked together with a few extras and got pretty close to Golden Bahamut from memory and once again, they've recently gotten going properly in UWU as well.

I'd also consider my current group rather midcore even if we do clear within the first couple of weeks, mostly down our extremely lazy running hours and almost complete lack of interest in speed runs. Again, 3/8 of the group's seen up to Titan with various pugs and PFs, the rest entered for the first time with us as a full team yesterday. We're working on it (tm)

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

Midcore generally means people who do ex trials and the first two turns of savage

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Then yeah, we are working on a different definition of the term.

My group most certainly isn't hardcore.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

As for the problem, look. They only reason they could stop this is that not enough people are clearing or attempting it

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Personally I think they don't have the manpower within the team to keep creating it, but that's a discussion for a different thread.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Actually many do.

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The definition of midcore came up on reddit about the time of HW. The problem was the difficulty of alexander fights got very high at the gatekeeping tiers, and they were comparable to the ultimate fights in the time it took world firsters to clear them. Most people got stuck; they were good enough to do early savage, but they couldn't beat it. Thordan EX launch difficulty I think is the upper end of midcore, because the weapon drops were there as gentle help to try and get the midcore to beat savage. It didn't work.

Generally midcore is at that halfway point where they are good enough for some but not all content. When people ask for midcore content, they don't want more ultimates. You're being a bit too modest about your skills.

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Then yeah, we are working on a different definition of the term.

My group most certainly isn't hardcore.

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You are working on content that 1% of players are intended to beat. The fact that you beat savage to be able to try it puts you at the top 10% of 70s. I think you are assuming midcore means "I don't spend much time doing it" but think about it this way; if you are midcore, who on earth is hardcore? Again you are really being too modest.

As for why, eh, I mean if they are that suffering for manpower the game itself is in trouble.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

The definition of midcore came up on reddit about the time of HW. The problem was the difficulty of alexander fights got very high at the gatekeeping tiers, and they were comparable to the ultimate fights in the time it took world firsters to clear them. Most people got stuck; they were good enough to do early savage, but they couldn't beat it.

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And that wasn't the definition. Midcore typically refers to statics with a shorter schedule or ones less interested in speed runs. There may be some leeway on interpretation but the term has never meant as you inferred. After all, Savage, in its entirely, is now midcore content now.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

And that wasn't the definition. Midcore typically refers to statics with a shorter schedule or ones less interested in speed runs. There may be some leeway on interpretation but the term has never meant as you inferred. After all, Savage, in its entirely, is now midcore content now.

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To be fair I think the whole Midcore/hardcore thing has gotten pretty meaningless but I'd say if you progressing Ultimate in any kinda of semi serious way then midcore seems the wrong definition

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

Generally midcore is at that halfway point where they are good enough for some but not all content. When people ask for midcore content, they don't want more ultimates. You're being a bit too modest about your skills.

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Gotta say, I don't agree with that.

Whenever I've seen midcore teams, it's been more about the time schedule than the skill of the players.

I've been part of and helped plenty of highly skilled teams with laid back schedules that described themselves as Midcore. The first example I was part of was Team Squirtle in Solitude back in FCOB/2.4. It's interesting to note on my logs that there's a gap of 71 days from my last 'hardcore group' kill of A3S to my 'midcore group's' first kill. We likely did a very approximate ~50 hours of progression in that time. That's not very hardcore in my book =s

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

To be fair I think the whole Midcore/hardcore thing has gotten pretty meaningless

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And yeah, it's gotten pretty wishy-washy as this tangent demonstrates, it's pretty fair to say that an Entropy Gaming's 'Midcore' is still likely rather 'Hardcore' in some people's eyes. It's all rather dependent on your own perspective really.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

And that wasn't the definition. Midcore typically refers to statics with a shorter schedule or ones less interested in speed runs. There may be some leeway on interpretation but the term has never meant as you inferred. After all, Savage, in its entirely, is now midcore content now.

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then when you ask for midcore content, what do you ask for? That was the whole point of the reddit threads, realizing there was this group of people called midcore that weren't getting content released to them. Suggestions were to flatten out savage by adding more fights and smooth out the difficulty more. It doesn't really mean time spent, because its possible to spend a lot of time on a fight and not beat it, it usually was raw skill.

You can argue savage is old midcore, but I don't think you can argue ultimate is midcore.

anyways, tangent. My point is still that you need to get more people completing savage and ultimate to show the devs that yes, there is an audience for three fights per tier. THat's the only fixable reason that can be addressed; if its like Sebazy says, then it doesn't matter if you ask for more if they don't have any man power to make it.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

You can argue savage is old midcore, but I don't think you can argue ultimate is midcore.

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I think we're seeing this in a slightly different perspective to each other.

If we're talking purely from the perspective of getting a clear, then yes. Killing Ultimate Coil was 100% hardcore territory, it takes a lot of dedication and consistency within a team to clear that. UWU hasn't turned out quite as bad, but it's still a good way beyond the likes of A3S, A4S or A8S.

However, simply stepping foot in and seeing how far you can go before you hit the wall? Don't need to be hardcore to have a go sir <3

Instead of going over terms of what's midcore vs hardcore (difficulty) and casual vs noncasual (frequency), let's just go with this anecdote.

A bunch of people I know where watching someone stream a UwU prog, and among them were:

A person who hasn't beaten UwU but did try it a few times. Said person doesn't think he will ever clear, he simply wanted to see how far he'd get and experience at least some of the fight for himself.
Another person who has beaten O5S-O8S, but has already decided not to try Ultimate
Another person who has beaten O5S-O7S, still working on O8S
Another person who has beaten O5S and O6S, and tried O7S but stopped and is unsure of whether to try again because wiping to O7S so many times was demoralizing
Another person who has no intention to seriously do Savage, but did do Current Trial EX
Another person who hasn't done Current Trial Ex and whose most difficult content done is expert roulette and Hunts and has no interest in going to harder content

Ultimate can be an enjoyment for a lot of people even if they never clear, nor attempt, it.

And when that streamer finally beat it, they were super thrilled!

And while they were watching, they were pretty much doing nothing on their own characters except simple things like marketboard, chatting and emoting, so as not to get distracted in case the streamer got further or had an awesome clip. So in a way Watching ultimate slightly extends the longevity of other content because it's not actively being worked on.

There's plenty of midcore raiders I know that went in just to see if they can kill Garuda, and similarly these same people went into Bahamut seeing if they could at least kill Twintania.

They were thrilled when they beat Twintania, lol. Everyone enjoys this content. You'd have to be the most spiteful, salty, player in the world to be **against** ultimate's existence.

They're similarly disappointed with the lack of 4.5 ultimate.

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Originally Posted by KShrike

There's plenty of midcore raiders I know that went in just to see if they can kill Garuda, and similarly these same people went into Bahamut seeing if they could at least kill Twintania.

They were thrilled when they beat Twintania, lol. Everyone enjoys this content. You'd have to be the most spiteful, salty, player in the world to be **against** ultimate's existence.

They're similarly disappointed with the lack of 4.5 ultimate.

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'Everyone' seems like a bit of an exaggeration, the last clear rates for O8S I saw where pretty miserable so only a very small part of the player base can even get in there.

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

'Everyone' seems like a bit of an exaggeration, the last clear rates for O8S I saw where pretty miserable so only a very small part of the player base can even get in there.

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To be fair, of you're referring to LuckyBancho's census, he even states that the clear rates are based off of having the mount present on the Lodestone since so many people keep achievements private. When his last census had came out, I had cleared God Kefka, but I had no mount. So I wasn't counted in that census. Something to keep in mind.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

To be fair, of you're referring to LuckyBancho's census, he even states that the clear rates are based off of having the mount present on the Lodestone since so many people keep achievements private. When his last census had came out, I had cleared God Kefka, but I had no mount. So I wasn't counted in that census. Something to keep in mind.

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Perhaps but I actually don't see that much higher savage gear in game so I don't think that the clear rate can be very impressive

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

then when you ask for midcore content, what do you ask for? That was the whole point of the reddit threads, realizing there was this group of people called midcore that weren't getting content released to them. Suggestions were to flatten out savage by adding more fights and smooth out the difficulty more. It doesn't really mean time spent, because its possible to spend a lot of time on a fight and not beat it, it usually was raw skill.

You can argue savage is old midcore, but I don't think you can argue ultimate is midcore.

anyways, tangent. My point is still that you need to get more people completing savage and ultimate to show the devs that yes, there is an audience for three fights per tier. THat's the only fixable reason that can be addressed; if its like Sebazy says, then it doesn't matter if you ask for more if they don't have any man power to make it.

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When people ask for midcore content, they generally mean something that poses a challenge. This ranges from EX Primals and current Savage, though it could even include dungeons if a Mythic+ equivalent were ever implemented. Adding more fights to Savage would, indeed, being increasing the midcore content. And would alleviate complaints people have over how easy the initial two encounters have become.

No one is arguing Ultimate is midcore. Sebazy merely stated midcore statics can still attempt it. They may perceive themselves midcore throughout because of a lax schedule. In terms of skill, I'd classify completing Ultimate hardcore. Even pushing into Ultima phase means you're a step above the rest imo.

If that were the criteria, PvP should be deleted from the game immediately. I once again reiterate, you cannot compare Savage to the whole of FFXIV. Every piece of content is essentially one slice of a larger pie. The game has numerous niche activities that make up its core. In fact, Lucky Bancho's census has shown not even 50% of players bother to finish up to the most recent MSQ. The whole purpose behind a Theme Park MMO is something for everyone. Ultimate is something for the hardcore raiders when Savage became watered down.

Would this be a fair categorization of content difficulty?

Easy mode: Deltascape (Normal), Sigmascape (Normal), any story mode primal, and arguably Lakshmi EX?
Normal mode: Deltascape (Savage), Sigmascape (Savage), Final Coil of Bahamut, Shinryu EX, Tsukiyomi EX, Thordan EX
Hard mode: Second Coil of Bahamut (Savage), Alexander Gordias (Savage), Alexander Midas (Savage)
Ultra mode: Bahamut Ultimate, Ultima Ultimate

Hardcore raiders will usually advocate Hard or Ultra mode difficulty. The game really lacks content in the Normal mode difficulty that so-called midcore players want, I presume.