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

[Mikey_R]

What would someone class as 'medium' difficulty? NM raids, especially more recently, throw mechanics out that only show AoE markers at the last second and/or rely on you looking for boss clues, they can also kill you if you aren't careful. Go to EX fights, and it is fairly similar to NM, in that you don't always see AoE markers, however, things do more damage, are a bit more complex and require the party to work together to not wipe, plus an actual DPS check.

So, forgive the ignorance, but what would be expected of a fight to fill in that gap? What would make it a 'middle ground' that isn't too easy or too hard?

[Jeeqbit]

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

You don't need to watch a guide necessarily. You will eventually learn it just from joining [Practice] parties and wiping. People just recommend guides so that it wastes their time less.

If you really struggle with a specific mechanic, and there are a few mechanics that are hard to understand without a visual diagram such as Devour in P5S or Harvests in P7S, then you can skip to that specific mechanic in the video and just look at the information for that.

A lot of people make strategy pictures that just show a still image of what to do for mechanics like that, so you can get away without a video at all even for mechanics like those.

[AnotherPerson]

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

Bozja is basically the content that has midcore difficulty. Slightly harder than your average runs, easier than your "EX" fights mechanically, but a lot more people in the instance and a lot more leniency. Though, it's not that once people start using the right lost actions and essences. It simplifies the difficulty very easily.

[Equitable_Remedy]

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

You are definitely correct that there's not much content if you don't want to do any of the content. I'm trying to figure out what "medium" means for you since you don't want something that's easy enough to do blind but you also don't want anything that's hard enough to benefit from watching a guide.

I hope that the next game that you buy works out better for you—good luck.

[TomsYoungerBro]

snip

There is actually an indirect "medium" level difficulty content in the game that wasn't built there intentionally, but does work your way into current extremes savages if you don't just want to jump into those. Again, there isn't anything wrong with going straight into current Unreal, extreme, or savages .

Unsyncing old extremes/savages is the best way to slowly progress yourself into high end content. They reward mounts which is a nice incentive to learn those fights. (4th turn of every savage guarentee drops a mount except for A8S). Start at the level 50 extremes which are very easily soloable quickly and work your way up. 60 Exs -> 60 savages -> 70 Exs -> 70 Savages etc. etc. As you progress, you will need more and more players to help you tackle the fights, as they will become more and more punishing. Since they have a mount tied to them, you should be able to find friends, fc mates, or at least people in the party finder to help farm!

Eventually you will get to the level 90 content like the 6.0 EXs, 6.1 EXs, and P4S! Once those are complete, congratulations, you are now the current high-end content!

Obviously you can skip and move your way through what you want to do, but that content will always be there and growing! Savages always eventually add echo and then can be unsynced once the next expansion is out.

[Zaniel]

Bozja raids & maybe 1-2 of the Eden and Omega raids (at a stretch) are probably the closest thing to mid-core content the game has at the moment, a bit above the rest of the 8 & 24 man content but not up to Extreme levels just yet. Problem with Bozja is it is currently tough as hell to get the raids going.

after week 1? I did it on release day and we only wiped twice (once to Rhalgr fisting the metoer, once to the scale mechanic), not a single wipe since then (granted I've only done it 10 times at most), I heard a lot about the Nier raids being wipefests in week 1 and I was really hoping to experience that with Myths of the Realm

Neir and Aglaia are very similar, they rely on an extremely large number of mechanics with very clear visual signals that are easy to learn with very generous amounts of time to move in response to the signals. So the fights are complex but they are also super easy to learn, this means disaster and carnage in the first week then everyone does it with their eyes closed every week thereafter. You could argue in some respects this is actually good encounter design > teach players > becomes easy. Does have issues with replayability though.

[SassyAssassin]

Unreal trials? Not very easy or very hard, but limited to the same trial for ages.
They are old content with more powerful boss slaps.

[RyuDragnier]

We had midcore content back during ARR. It was called Pharos Sirius. But people declared it too hard due to it challenging what the players were used to, and people ran from it every time they got it in a roulette. It led to the place being downgraded into what it is now.

1st boss you needed to just kill the adds before going back to damage the boss, it wasn't hard.
2nd boss you needed to balance breaking eggs so the boss takes more damage with avoiding it reaching "engrage" stack amount so it wouldn't kill the party (this was easier than you'd think).
3rd boss...I forget exactly what it was, but I believe the party just needed to keep adds under control while killing the boss?
Final boss, healer check. I believe the "song" that berserked a player hit the entire party so the healer had to get everybody topped off.

None of that was particularly hard, but again, the playerbase just refused to run it so they were forced to nerf it.

The Chrysalis was somewhat of a midcore trial that was mandatory to complete the instance. The playerbase has always hated that one. Then there was the legendary Steps of Faith, a fight that was easy to perform if everybody did mechanics...but as we all know, the playerbase is allergic to mechanics, leading to it getting heavily nerfed. Truthfully, the playerbase is why we can't have midcore content.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

We had midcore content back during ARR. It was called Pharos Sirius. But people declared it too hard due to it challenging what the players were used to, and people ran from it every time they got it in a roulette. It led to the place being downgraded into what it is now.

1st boss you needed to just kill the adds before going back to damage the boss, it wasn't hard.
2nd boss you needed to balance breaking eggs so the boss takes more damage with avoiding it reaching "engrage" stack amount so it wouldn't kill the party (this was easier than you'd think).
3rd boss...I forget exactly what it was, but I believe the party just needed to keep adds under control while killing the boss?
Final boss, healer check. I believe the "song" that berserked a player hit the entire party so the healer had to get everybody topped off.

None of that was particularly hard, but again, the playerbase just refused to run it so they were forced to nerf it.

The Chrysalis was somewhat of a midcore trial that was mandatory to complete the instance. The playerbase has always hated that one. Then there was the legendary Steps of Faith, a fight that was easy to perform if everybody did mechanics...but as we all know, the playerbase is allergic to mechanics, leading to it getting heavily nerfed. Truthfully, the playerbase is why we can't have midcore content.

I believe there is definitely some bit of truth to the player base itself being responsible. Reminds of World of Warcraft Cataclysm expansion, where 5 person content was considerably buffed at the start of the expansion compared to players were used to. The WoW forums and Internet went ablaze with complaints. Any praise for the harder content was staunchly drowned out by outcries that it was too hard and people quitting the game. Their lead developer at the time, Greg Street, stated they had hoped players would rise to the occasion, with the harder content, but what they found was in fact, the complete opposite. That is to say, they just quit.

[Jeeqbit]

We had midcore content back during ARR. It was called Pharos Sirius. But people declared it too hard due to it challenging what the players were used to, and people ran from it every time they got it in a roulette. It led to the place being downgraded into what it is now.

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.