Player Classification

Hello, I recently came back after almost 2 years off and its nice to be back but I've been seeing so many comments and videos by content creators putting people I'm categories or talking about casual, mid core, hard core and I'm a little confused what all this means. People would ask "why do you care?". Well I'm just curious because there's a lot of people arguing about the state of the game being tailored to group X and I just don't get what classifies people in certain groups and who determines that.

I'm a solo player who doesn't really engage in things like the island expedition or side activities much. I play everyday, do my roulettes and run my 8s and 24 man's every week for the current badge gear/augment twine etc. I don't run savage or extremes as I kind of have a bit of a tough time seeing certain mechanics. I'm on a ps5 with a very crisp resolution and colour but it's just tough sometimes to see overlaping mechanics and it is what it is. I always strive to be good enough for savage but I'm just not. I spend most of my time in battle content or getting my mgp or Gil. Like I said I don't really spend time on side things unless I'm chasing a glam piece. So does this make me a casual? If so then what is a mid core player or hard-core player?

Unfortunately these terms involve a lot of vague gesturing and hoping the person you talk to has an intuitive understanding of them that doesnt conflict too much with your own. It's very difficult to pin down.

None of thes are well defined, and particularly Midcore is an amorphous blob of a term that everyone just massages to mean what they think it should mean.

Even in content, streamers claim anything short of Ultimates are casual content, and some people claim Extremes are hardcore content. You can't properly define these until SE does, and SE has no interest in doing that.

The player is only categorized by association with the content they prefer to do. The content itself is what is categorized as 'casual' 'midcore' or 'hardcore' as determined by the amount of skill, effort, and time required to complete it.

If you primarily enjoy 'casual' content, then people will describe you as a 'casual player.'

Of course there are some people that use the term 'casual' as a derogative term which is just unilaterally shitty of them. Determining the difference between calling someone a 'casual' and them being a 'casual player' gets kind of screwy though just because of how people use the language.

If I call someone a 'midcore player.' I mean that they do most content in the game, maybe do a bit of EX or Savage lightly, but generally stick to what's majorly accessible to the largest chunk of the player base.

If I call someone a 'hardcore player.' I am typically referring to someone that engages in the most difficult content of the game and sinks quite a bit of time and effort into their completion.

If I call someone a 'casual player' they mostly enjoy low-effort content that doesn't require them to invest a lot of time into the game. Things like roulettes, fishing, gold saucer, etc.

I definitely want to stress that calling someone a 'casual player' is very different than calling them 'a casual.' Just like there's a difference between a 'hardcore player' and someone that's 'sweaty.' The latter in both examples is a demeaning people for what they enjoy to do, which, again, is just unilaterally wrong.

Doing only Normal = Casual.
Doing EX and Savage = Midcore BUT leans more towards hardcore on the scale.
Ultimates = Hardcore...

- Infact there is no true midcore in this game...
Its either very easy or very hard.. no inbetween..

Note: Some EX can be very easy and just 1 step above normal,
while others are harder than some savage fights.. so EX fights have very wide range.

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

Doing only Normal = Casual.
Doing EX and Savage = Midcore BUT leans more towards hardcore on the scale.
Ultimates = Hardcore...

- Infact there is no true midcore in this game...
Its either very easy or very hard.. no inbetween..

Note: Some EX can be very easy and just 1 step above normal,
while others are harder than some savage fights.. so EX fights have very wide range.

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Difficulty is largely subjective but I would disagree. I would think that it only really enters hardcore when players set a hard time limit, effectively manufacturing their own difficulty.

i.e. 'Week 1 Savage' is hardcore where as 'Savage' without any kind of time limit is midcore, as evidenced by the fact that there are still, to this day, still people progging the current savage tier. I honestly think the only truly hardcore content is current-tier ultimates.

Savage used to be hardcore content but has been watered down to midcore content to address the major lack of it.

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

Doing only Normal = Casual.
Doing EX and Savage = Midcore BUT leans more towards hardcore on the scale.
Ultimates = Hardcore...

- Infact there is no true midcore in this game...
Its either very easy or very hard.. no inbetween..

Note: Some EX can be very easy and just 1 step above normal,
while others are harder than some savage fights.. so EX fights have very wide range.

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Egh, this isn't entirely accurate either. There's also time commitment factors, progession speed expectations... I've done all ultimates in whats normally considered a midcore setting ~9 hours per week (3hrs/3daysprwk) and clear savage tiers in 4-7 weeks. That would not me be considered hardcore relative to people who do ults 4-5 days a week and clear savage week 1.

I would define hardcore as= "good player, ready to no life it, this is my main priority outside of essential IRL stuff, plenty of time to do it"

Midcore ="I'm a decent player that wants to do this stuff, has some time, but also has other activities I do in my free time"

Casual="I dont have time or desire to organize anything will occasionally join other peoples activities for fun and just do what the game lets me easily do"

Bozja was midcore, that's why it was so damn good. It's not midcore anymore, but when it was fresh it was common to die to critical events and specially in Castrum, Reginae, and the Zadnor content.
I found it incredible that they finally found the perfect midcore difficulty and didn't bring that back in endwalker.

Let's hope danwtrail's exploratory content isn't variant dungeon level of "walk in the park"

I have met self-identifying casual players who from my opinion were way more hardcore than some self-identifying hard-core players. Everyone has different definitions of what these things mean.

Basically a lot of it is to make people who do things like ultimates or always having a perfect rotation as "being better at the game" but the thing is, they kinda aren't. Rotations are rarely important in most of the game and even messing up isn't really losing much DPS, add in rarely is there a time limit in stuff in this game that is needed because well that's just really boring.

FFXIV isn't really about skill, most boss fight mechanics are basically just a big puzzle game. It's all about memorization and knowing where to be, which isn't entirely hard. The word 'casual' has always just been used as an insult towards anyone who doesn't meet a specific standard and the word 'hardcore' is just toxic players who think they're entitled to being recognized as superior because they know how to do one content. Imo a hardcore player is someone who invests in a game, for instance I would consider myself hardcore because I've put over 2K hours into the game, I'm omni-90 in almost everything but a few crafting jobs, calling this dedication to the game 'casual' because I'm not dedicating myself to doing coils of bahamut ultimate or I'm not running savages every day is quite frankly silly and ridiculous.

Like this isn't even a problem with FFXIV, this has generally been a problem with video game community for decades now, it used to be even if you were a girl you were a 'casual', I've seen pro-fighting game players called 'casuals' for playing a game they usually don't play like a Guilty Gear player playing Smash. Hell, used to be if you didn't always play on ultra max ball-breaking hard difficulty or wanted QoL changes you were labeled 'casual'

It's a silly classificiation and always has been.

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Originally Posted by Rekh

Bozja was midcore, that's why it was so damn good. It's not midcore anymore, but when it was fresh it was common to die to critical events and specially in Castrum, Reginae, and the Zadnor content.
I found it incredible that they finally found the perfect midcore difficulty and didn't bring that back in endwalker.

Let's hope danwtrail's exploratory content isn't variant dungeon level of "walk in the park"

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Bozja was casual content. People being bad doesn't make it midcore.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Bozja was casual content. People being bad doesn't make it midcore.

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Incorrect, in mmo context it was midcore when it was fresh content.

They all shift unfortunately lol. For myself I get most use out of referring to them as:

Casual: Desires low stress, high certainty of success, time consumption may lead to stress and after a certain threshold of time likely would (for example you can make something easy but insanely grindy, this wouldn't be ideal for a casual).
Mid-core: Desires some stress, reasonable certainty of success, time consumption is unlikely to be a sole reason for stress (grinds are more likely to be fine, and the evaluation of whether the content is good or not will only use time as a multiplier to the other opinions).
Hardcore: Desires a lot of stress, sliver of success is okay, "what is time? I will probably schedule my life according to activities in the game".

On exploratory I feel at release it was mid-core, and then temporarily casual, and then to a weird limbo of "what"-core. Because expecting a casual to organize themselves outside of the game (via discords) is pretty unlikely and therefore quite a bit of the content is unachievable. Yet if you did happen to get a lot of people, it's going to be a quick and smooth ride lol.

I prefer the rolling mountain approach to things so it starts at the peak, where logical, and rolls down as new things are added. So, after some time, a new group can take part in the content. There should be a stop at some point, I don't really want to see 1 shot bosses, but for example I believe there should be a moment where you can reasonably solo savage content (starts out hard group focused, mistakes allowed group focus, smaller group, duo, then solo). Criterion (savage) should be duo and then solo-able, etc.

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Originally Posted by RinaB

So does this make me a casual? If so then what is a mid core player or hard-core player?

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A casual player prefers relatively easy content with low commitment.

A hardcore player prefers challenging content.

A midcore player is a casual player in denial.

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Originally Posted by Bonoki

I have met self-identifying casual players who from my opinion were way more hardcore than some self-identifying hard-core players. Everyone has different definitions of what these things mean.

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Yes, this is because, like I said, people tend to confuse content with mentality. It is still possible to approach casual content with fervor, passion, and dedication. It's not necessarily required, but a person's mentality has very little to do with whether or not the content is designed to be casual, midcore, or hardcore.

The answer is that, what it means, depends on what you are talking about. Context is everything.

"Casual players" is often used to refer to the fact the majority of people return to the game, complete the MSQ, then stop playing for months (you can identify this by their flower icon). Alternatively, they do play fairly regularly, but they don't engage with the game in a significant way ie. they login occasionally, do some quests, a roulette or seasonal event, but don't stick around for extensive grinds or raids and don't learn much about the game.

Sometimes, by casual, people mean "casual-mindedness". They login, but they don't engage with the game enough to learn significant nuances about the game such as snapshotting, how to gear properly, using food and damage pots, or pressing their actions and abilities in an optimal way. Their lack of knowledge means they ignore a lot of important things and content that hardcore players would know about.

Usually, the amount you play does translate to knowledge about the game. So, in a lot of cases, it is correct to say that someone with thousands of days of playtime understands the game better than someone with 100 days of playtime.

So, when they say "casual player", they do mean people who "lack basic knowledge" (not being insulting, they just didn't learn stuff yet, there's a lot to learn because it's an MMORPG).

Casual content is, thus, content you can do and then be finished with in 1 day to a week at most. If they talk about casual content, that is what they mean.

Most content is, generally, designed for casual players. It can be done relatively quick. So what they do is attach optional rewards to it that you can grind (such as mounts, minions, Triple Triad cards, glamours), which gives players a reason to play for extensive periods of time. Of course, some people find social reasons to play a lot, such as roleplaying or doing venues at housing estates.

It is the latter group (repeating content to chase rewards) that are the "hardcore" players.

Now, SE release high-end raids a lot. These can be progressed both hardcore and casually. Both of these things are common.

Can a casual player who raids be pretty knowledgeable about the game? Sure, and it's very common actually. But either they do their research, or they used to play more frequently in the past. For the ones who did their research but never played very frequently except for raids, it does show if all they did was get their information from The Balance, because all their knowledge is verbatim from there and there are significant gaps or misconceptions if you ask them about any other subject in the game. Moreover, players who only do raiding and don't play the game except that, for example, can still get completely destroyed by normal content because they don't even remember their mechanics or develop muscle memory for them.

So, yes, sometimes even someone doing content that involves understanding the game like raiding, can be included in what the person is discussing. Other times, they do just mean people who stick to MSQ content.

The arguments you've been seeing have pertained to content in this expansion, which have involved a particularly easy example. Island Sanctuary was solved by a discord server who just calculate everything so you only have to spend 2 minutes a day on it. If it's only taking 2 minutes, the argument is it is extremely casual content.

The argument is all the other content has been on the opposite end of the spectrum by requiring you to do high-end raiding, even if that's not what you're interested in. There's been more high-end raid content than in any other expansion.

So what content creators are often saying is previous expansions had middle-ground content that brought raiders and normal content players together, known as Eureka and Bozja. It bridged the gap, and definitely took more than 2 minutes of their time. It could be done hardcore, but it could also be done very casually. You could leave whenever you wanted. It made their respective expansions feel alive and social.

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Originally Posted by RinaB

So does this make me a casual? If so then what is a mid core player or hard-core player?

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See, if you play every single day and do a variety of content, it is that variety and repetition that ultimately builds your knowledge and experience, thus eroding the concept of being casual. Being social does help, because other people teach you things, but you will most likely encounter some of that in roulettes over time.

You also said you were farming MGP. If you're doing that in a serious way ie. chasing all the rewards, that is what a lot of hardcore players do who achievement hunt or mount hunt. Through chasing all these rewards, they go through a wide variety of content and repeat it hundreds of times, resulting in a lot of experience and knowledge.

isnt it easier and more obvious if we just look at what the game has and divide it into three parts?

casual: dungeons, a-raids
mid-core: normal trials, normal raids, bozja, extrem trials
hardcore: savage raid and ultimate

you could say midcore ranges from trial to trial.

think about it: in single player games there are often different difficulties. you may play master difficulty but still think its easy. or you can play in easy mode and still think its difficult. why is it in ff14 so difficult for some people to accept that something people think is easy may not necessarily mean its casual content?

and yes i do think normal trials are easy, but there are also people who have difficulties with it

thats the content, but that doesnt completely define what we are as players. i do savage content but in a very casual way, so i dobt think i am an hardcore player.... content and player are two different things on two different scales... and we just use the same/similar words on both scales

Nobody knows.
People I know who raid a lot think EX/Savage are both midcore and think Ultimates are hardcore. Then I know people who just do EX but won't do savage, and they see EX as being midcore. Then I know people who only think you're hardcore if you do the Savage/Ultimates week1 and see people who follow guides months later as mid. Then I know people who do Ultimates but think if you do the early ultimates then you're midcore because it was harder on release. I could go on. Everyone's got their own idea in their head. Personally I think it's easiest to just classify normal as casual, ex as mid, and savage+ as hardcore. But think about what this means, lmao. It means for a "midcore" player, they only get relevant content in the form of 1 EX trial every 4 months. That's so bad, lmao.

anyway, yeah, there's no consensus. we will argue in this thread for 20 pages and still not figure it out. welcome back.

https://i.imgur.com/wHmADvo.gif

Lot of replies here which is nice to see. So what I'm getting is its all subjective to each person....I do feel the devs have listened to all these complaints though because I've also seen a lot of posts saying this xpacs content is easier then ever and I have to disagree. All the mechanics in dungeons and raids this xpac are far more difficult then yorha and shb content but again...subjective. I'm seeing a lot talking about it being content related but like I said I feel the content this xpac is the hardest I've ever done (I started in SB) and I hope they don't get pressured to keep making it harder so players like myself don't become gated out of normal content. I don't care what category I fall in but because of how much of this complaining I see about all of this I don't want to see a wow cataclysm model to take over the game.

the biggest thing to know is midcore isn't real. there is no such thing.

the second thing is casual/hardcore is a label you give yourself not something you get from others, as they are subjective terms.

people may argue or protest it but in the end you will never see them ever again basically so why argue with someone who just wants to prove their own thoughts right in an opinionated matter?

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Originally Posted by RinaB

I've also seen a lot of posts saying this xpacs content is easier then ever

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It's definitely not easier, at least on a technical level. In ARR, they telegraph dungeons with red circles always (and they are simple attacks) and that is clearly absent in, say, Endwalker dungeons, to where you do have to just be more observant of your surroundings in order to do the mechanics, or try to follow someone else.

They have responded in many cases by making the mechanics faster-paced in dungeons such as The Dead Ends (second boss), Storm's Crown and many of the leveling dungeons.

What primarily makes people think they are easier is that these harder mechanics are better telegraphed than they were in the past (ie. environmental clues instead of status effects), outgearing the mechanics too easily, simpler rotations that make it easier for them to focus on mechanics and repetition ie. however hard they make the latest dungeon, people will become an expert at it from farming it.

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wow cataclysm model to take over the game.

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Don't worry about that. They slowly ramp up the difficulty of dungeons, in the sense they made the earliest dungeons just running out of red circles and then allow them to get more intense later on after they've taught you what stack markers, tank busters and other indicators are.

And although they ramp it up, they telegraph it in a way that is meant to make it fairly obvious and guessable if you look around. You can often survive at least 1 hit as well.

They aren't really in the business of making it impossibly hard. You can die as much as you want and usually someone can rez you (often even if you're the healer, if someone is on red mage or summoner). They save "impossibly hard" stuff for extreme, savage and ultimate and that's the only content you realistically hear of "there is this thing that always wipes my parties that I can't progress past".

I look at it as three tiers:

Ultimate: I have no life outside of gaming/streaming on twitch

Savage: Hardcore. Still knows that the sun exists.

Everything else: The casuals

I have tended to find that one's definitions of hardcore/midcore/casual depends to a large extent on what one thinks of themself as, and what level of content they see as their "ideal content". It's basically the MMO version of the "everyone driving slower than my is an idiot, everyone driving faster than me is crazy" effect you see in many people on the road. That's why definitions in just this thread have ranged from midcore starting at normal trials up through midcore even including all of savage raiding. Most people think of themselves as being in one of those groups, and define the primary content they enjoy as being that level of content, and define the other groups in relations to that.

Personally, I tend to define the difference based on how people allocate time for the game. A person for which this game dominates all other leisure activities, for which they schedule any other leisure activities, if any, around the game, is closer to the hardcore end of that spectrum. A person that plays the game when they happen to have the time and are in the mood is towards the casual end. Midcore is somewhere in the middle, where the game is a noteworthy leisure activity for them, but not to the point of their other leisure activities being oriented and scheduled around the game.

There's also the "how much work are you willing to put in" bit. The more time and effort you're willing to put in to get better at the game, to achieve goals that are difficult rather than merely time-consuming, the more likely you're on the more hardcore end of that spectrum. One of the relatively defining traits of a casual player is that they tend to approach the game with a "good enough" mentality when it comes to optimization, gameplay skill, and similar. And as before, midcore is an amorphous blob somewhere between the two.

Honestly,

They are meaningless terms because there is no real settling on what constitutes as casual, midcore, or hardcore.

Like, you have some people who think EX is casual, you have some people that think EX is midcore, you have some people that think Bozja and Eureka are midcore, just as you have some people that think savage is midcore, and some people that think it is hardcore, and just as you have some people that think Bozja and Eureka are casual.

There are some people who think it comes down to what content you consume, there are people that put it down to how much time you spend doing the content you consume, regardless of what that content is.

I would say don't get too caught up in very loose, or open-to-interpretation definitions.

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Originally Posted by Rekh

Incorrect, in mmo context it was midcore when it was fresh content.

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In what way? It was around the same difficulty as alliance raids lol. I've wiped more in normal raids than I have in Bozja.

[QUOTE=RinaB;6405870 So does this make me a casual? If so then what is a mid core player or hard-core player?[/QUOTE]

idk this game the community is still super weird coming from WoW and WAY overly sensitive especially casual community but i normally break it down like this

Try hards - RWF, have to minmax EVERYTHING in hopes of getting just a .1% better parse to beat stuff usually, though misconception of Neckbeards is they are rude and elitest honestly few i have met been around in my previous game are pretty chill

Elites - not RWF but clear fairly early, these players can come with Egos when generally they are good but not as often as you think

HC - people that might not have as much skill as 2 previous but can invest a TON of time into their endgame (usually gear related oriented). These are the most ego inflated players, they are good but because they invest so many hours into getting gear 1st then working on their parses they like to think they are above all others when really they aren't even in realm of best but don't tell them that or they will flame you for everything they have that you don't.

Semi-HC - like to do harder content but not too much, has time investments that prevent no life the game whether it be a career, family, There are some tho that for some reason call themselves "Semi-HC" cuz they don't expect Success as fast but raid on a HC lvl of 7 days a week which generally are just deluding themselves by lieing about how much they commit to gearing

MC - Just like Semi but like to commit less to end game gearing and just want to progress but doesnt have to a be at blistering paste, they want to enjoy the story, the scenery, relax a bit and overall chill. They usually run like 1 addon to check their dps because they don't want to be dead weight and want to improve but don't want to push themselves to extreme levels

Casual raider- this is just time investment people, families, careers, basically have full lives and want to do a lot in the game so only devote a few hours a week towards getting BiS. They understand that this means the groups they run with will not be amazing players but they enjoy more the laughs and each boss kill feels more like a accomplishment to down than the others.

solo/casual - imo people who love other aspects not involving gearing or getting gear or even finishing the MSQ story for some, they take their time doing other aspects and have no cares about dungeons or anything crafted gear is enough and they just like everything else about the game.

idk my opinion.