What is Midcore? Why does it matter?

[Lyth]

If you know the mechanics and are clear ready, then it's not really a fight difficulty issue. You won't clear if you're consistently playing with people behind your progression point. Either get a group of friends together and clear it, or be upfront and strict about your goals in PF and make revisions to your group as needed.

All PF content is paradoxically easier the earlier that you do it (i.e. the first couple of days will generally have you be done in a couple of lockouts.) If you want to be time efficient, it's always easier to invest your time in upfront than later on, especially when there's no 'gearing' to be had. Try this with the 6.5 Extreme when it gets released. You'll be amazed at how much easier it is.

[Fawkes]

You can have casual players who have ultimate clears because they are that skilled. You can have hardcore players that struggle in the story.

[SophiaDL]

The problem is "Casual" doesn't mean bad. it just means "doesn't play as much".


You can have casual players who have ultimate clears because they are that skilled. You can have hardcore players that struggle in the story.


This has always been a problem in XIV for some reason. People use casual for "easy" and not time invested.

[GaiaBell]

Personally any content below Ultimates for me is midcore, and even some of the legacy ults like uwu/ucob are still midcore.

[Zeastria]

When you have limmited time to play games:
it's your available play time that decides what you can do or cant do..

[Renathras]

If you know the mechanics and are clear ready, then it's not really a fight difficulty issue. You won't clear if you're consistently playing with people behind your progression point. Either get a group of friends together and clear it, or be upfront and strict about your goals in PF and make revisions to your group as needed.

And that's the dividing line between midcore and hardcore: Group formation.

Hardcore content requires coordinated groups of highly skilled players. Midcore content does not.

That's why GolbEx is hardcore content, not midcore content.

.

EDIT:

golbez is midcore content because it's just a slight step up from normal content

Good god...

Well, this is a great example of what out of touch looks like, I suppose.

A lot of Coil was easier than a lot of normal fights today. It was easy to get started in Coil. I think people have been sleeping on how much more difficult the game has become. Groups and Link Shells just fell on your lap if you could press buttons and commit to a schedule, even if it's 2 hours on saturday and sunday... but even Coil had its own gatekeeping, Ceruleum Processing Plant was super lonely and sad compared to Wineport.

In HW, fflogs became a thing, cross world PF became a thing and killed the desire to form FCs and Link Shells, people didn't stay on groups that showed promise, people starting asking for logs and shit, getting statics was way harder, groups just didn't form organically like in ARR. Navigating the current hardcore community is quite exhausting.

Yeah, people forget how much things have changed. It's like people in WoW forgetting that "Molten Snore" was called that for a reason. Boss mechanics are FAR more complex and punishing now than they used to be. There's no rational argument that 1st Turn of Coils 1 was harder than even P1S, with P1S being called "easy" by current Savage standards.

And, as you say, parsers didn't even exist in ARR/Coils, and weren't demanded for entering a Static to fight.

[Ririta]

I think this may be influenced by when you first started playing. In ARR, everyone did everything. If you wanted to experience the Coil storyline, you did the Coil fights. So everyone and their chocobo did them, regardless of whether they were 'casual' or 'hardcore'. If you struggled with a fight, your friends helped you out at the end of the tier. The distinctions in playstyle came from how quickly you progressed through content, not based off whether you even tried them in the first place.

While Gordias may have put some people off of raiding, every tier released from Creator on has been very clearable on release for the average player, if you're willing to spend some time learning. It might take you a couple of days or six months, but you can get through it if you stick with it. I just think that rebranding the content as 'Savage' probably put some of the newer iterations of players off even trying at all, though, despite it being incredibly accessible. You do have to get over your fear of wiping groups though. Absolutely everyone will cause wipes. Just learn something new from each one.

I don't think that the statement that 'Extreme/Savage are aimed at the midcore playerbase' is intended to give offense. It's a statement of fact - pretty much anyone can work through it, given enough time. If you're not even getting your feet wet, how do you know how difficult it is to swim? What's being described is not even 'casual', it's just flat out non-participatory.

A lot of Coil was easier than a lot of normal fights today. It was easy to get started in Coil. I think people have been sleeping on how much more difficult the game has become. Groups and Link Shells just fell on your lap if you could press buttons and commit to a schedule, even if it's 2 hours on saturday and sunday... but even Coil had its own gatekeeping, Ceruleum Processing Plant was super lonely and sad compared to Wineport.

In HW, fflogs became a thing, cross world PF became a thing and killed the desire to form FCs and Link Shells, people didn't stay on groups that showed promise, people starting asking for logs and shit, getting statics was way harder, groups just didn't form organically like in ARR. Navigating the current hardcore community is quite exhausting.

[GaiaBell]

golbez is midcore content because it's just a slight step up from normal content

[Supersnow845]

A lot of Coil was easier than a lot of normal fights today. It was easy to get started in Coil. I think people have been sleeping on how much more difficult the game has become. Groups and Link Shells just fell on your lap if you could press buttons and commit to a schedule, even if it's 2 hours on saturday and sunday... but even Coil had its own gatekeeping, Ceruleum Processing Plant was super lonely and sad compared to Wineport.

In HW, fflogs became a thing, cross world PF became a thing and killed the desire to form FCs and Link Shells, people didn't stay on groups that showed promise, people starting asking for logs and shit, getting statics was way harder, groups just didn't form organically like in ARR. Navigating the current hardcore community is quite exhausting.

Which coil fights were easier than current normals (T3 doesn’t count)

1 was around an easy extreme, 2 got gear cheesed but used to be around a mid extreme it only for allagen Rot and it’s tight enrage, 4 was kinda a joke, 5 was a full savage fight, 6 besides leaf storm being cheesed was a regular savage, 7 was evil, 8 was a normal savage, 9 was a difficult savage, 10 was very hard for a first turn savage, 11 was a normal savage, 12 was a control fight so something incredibly rare these days, 13 was a regular savage

[Cyanamists]

And that's the dividing line between midcore and hardcore: Group formation.

Hardcore content requires coordinated groups of highly skilled players. Midcore content does not.

That's why GolbEx is hardcore content, not midcore content.

So this is the problem that a lot of people on this thread are trying to hash out, because everyone will have a biased outlook on what their hard/mid "core" content looks like. If I were to take 7 of my friends and set a schedule to do hunts every, say 16 hours and we do all of them together, does that make us a hardcore static? Hunts are notably just casual content because they're zerged down within 60 seconds by large groups, but if it's only a full party doing it, does it then become hardcore content? I'm not sure if I'm explaining my analogy correctly so sorry about that but I guess the main point is the midcore content does not and has never required highly skilled players, it requires a player or players who have a general grasp of their jobs and the game and asks them to put in the effort for a reward.

Golbez, while arguably one of the harder EX trials this expansion, still falls in line with midcore content, I believe. Most mechanics happen faster than normal or paired together(it actually feels like they got rid of a mechanic or adds phase at the first 2 minutes because he just sits there and does nothing for so long), and the main body checks for the fight are towers + knockback and room wide dodges into enumeration pairs, which has been drilled plenty into people by now, or something very similar.

Compared to HW, pf has been abundant and the general player base has gotten better at the game(take with a grain of salt), that can be seen by generally increased clear rates on savage fights across each expansion. If anything, party finder has made raiding more accessible to bordering midcore content just because it is "jump in and out", point being is that there still needs to be a "jump in" portion.