Hardcore, easy mode and the XI veteran

[Kiroh]

Since when does "hard" have to be a timesink or have a punishment associated with it?

A boss fight can't simply be difficult?
A quest can't simply require some strategy?

It's the ridiculous assumptions of what "hardcore" means, that is causing this debate to be stereotyped into the freekin ground.

Content doesn't have to punish players or be a timesink to provide the difficulty we want.

Drop your mental illusion that a challenging encounter requires 200 hours of farming and a team of 400.

It doesn't.

Check any of the threads on this and the majority of self-identified hardcores will disagree with you. Many seem to think long spawn times, forced grouping, and artificially high learning curves are the definitions of hardcore