Going to the same route as WoW. The game is TOO easy

[Barraind]

I feel like "midcore" was created as a term specifically for people like myself, but I actually don't hear it in conversation much these days.

Because its a nebulous term created to be a bridge of two nebulous terms which mean different things to different people.

you use "midcore" to describe people who arent casual but dont do endgame stuff. But from my time in EQ and WoW, midcore to me means the people who raid 5 days a week, but do it horrifically inefficiently and can never catch up to the hardcore guilds clearing stuff in 2 or 3, because they lack either the leadership or the grasp of strategy, or, like every EQ TLP guild I've seen, they spend 3 hours of a 6 hour raid sitting around with people afk and not paying attention and derdling about.

Theres a lot of factors that go into mindsets of MMO's, and taking concepts that applied specifically to the raid and competitive scene and trying to apply them across a broad spectrum has huge problems.

Like, you arent "hardcore" regardless of the time you spend, if you arent optimizing everything you do, with proper preparation; or if you arent continually trying to refine and improve your process.

I've never personally seen a player leave a game because it was "too easy".

It happens all the time. Or, generally, people move to games that provide a challenge, but keep the "too easy" game as something they can jump into and dick around in when they have downtime. I havent raided with someone in EQ or WoW in 20 years that didnt have another MMO or single player game to use as stress relief. "Raids drained me, lets go dick around in D2 for a while". "Raids are done for the week, lets go dick around in D3". "bored in 14, lets do some seasonal stuff in Overwatch / Destiny2 / D3".

I have a library of games that are "easy" and free to play when I'm not crafting in 14 or raiding in EQ that I could NEVER even consider playing full time at this point.

[Edax]

It happens all the time. Or, generally, people move to games that provide a challenge, but keep the "too easy" game as something they can jump into and dick around in when they have downtime. I havent raided with someone in EQ or WoW in 20 years that didnt have another MMO or single player game to use as stress relief. "Raids drained me, lets go dick around in D2 for a while". "Raids are done for the week, lets go dick around in D3". "bored in 14, lets do some seasonal stuff in Overwatch / Destiny2 / D3".

I have a library of games that are "easy" and free to play when I'm not crafting in 14 or raiding in EQ that I could NEVER even consider playing full time at this point.

I think you've confused "challenge" for difficulty. One of the reasons I played Minecraft is that building is a challenge of resources, planning and logistics but not difficulty. Decorating my Shirogane Mansion was a challenge, but it wasn't difficult. Earning the gil to buy my Shirogane Mansion was a challenge, but not difficult. I love certain kinds of challenges and those challenges are most certainly not found inside a Raid.