Chaotic is midcore, in case you were wondering

[Reylap]

Ozma at 8 man without black hole/permadeath is nowhere near as easy as your average normal raid. Because normal raids have both no penalty and are mechanically simplistic. You can make a fight’s mechanics more difficult while still having zero external punishment to the rest of the group

If you want to argue that is basically an example of an easy end extreme (which going by something like innocence) it is. I’m not saying that extremes can’t be midcore content I’m saying that they need more content in this range that is organised so that NA doesn’t immediately dump it into PF and organise starts around something that doesn’t need strats (though to be fair that isn’t really the devs fault. Though they could hide content better like if they stuck innocence extreme into field content and just called it “innocence” people probably wouldn’t have PF’ed it)

Especially since they can’t actually make extremes a consistent difficulty. Innocence and SOS released basically half a year apart

And how do you give zero external punishment while making mechanics more difficult? You've been talking about Ozma as a way to put difficulty, but Ozma is literally 4 phase, with 1 or 2 short mechanics that are condensed into basically donuts/chariots, line aoes, and stack markers. The only argument of difficulty is the lack of cast bar for the attack and the speed of it. Which yeah, they have a lot of things like that in extreme without wiping the party

You seem to be forgetting the fact that FFXIV have instant raises that makes any sort of difficult mechanic without zero external consequences is basically a trivial thing. How do you solve difficult mech that doesnt punish players? Suicide it. Why do you think unsync O12S during SHB and EW is using the goodbye hello world strat? Why do you think extreme is still clearable with 5++ deaths?

Your argument of NA is a cultural thing. If you're saying the perception of NA players in PF are that they are unable to think outside of the common strats for something that doesnt need strat, then you're just saying skill issue because as data have mentioned in, JP players have no problem in clearing CAR. even in week 1 when theres no clear strats to use, most of em just wing it. And that is also a weird way of adjusting difficulty. "oh some players cant decide the strat to use, so lets make a content where strat isnt required but somehow we have to make it more difficult".

That is also not a problem of making consistent difficulty. It is HARD to make consistent difficulty precisely because difficulty is SUBJECTIVE and consistency is NOT always the goal to aim for. See how being consistent is shooting themselves in the foot now with MSQ? I rather them play around with variety and sometimes tuning it a bit skewed to the hard side rather than having the same slog consistently.

[Supersnow845]

snip

Is your only barometer for “difficulty” “I didnt affect my party”?

I think this is our fundamental difference here. Let’s take an easy extreme (just a theoretical easy extreme) and removed mechanics that required interaction with other players so at most you kill only yourself. At most you dying contributes to the enrage. Is there really “punishment”; not really because the healers are overflowing with mana. does that mean there isn’t difficulty; in my opinion there is still difficulty because I failed the mechanic and died and i myself want the joy of doing the fight flawlessly even if if I messed it up it wouldn’t affect anyone else anyway besides the enrage

If you think that anything that makes it so that the only punishment falls on yourself constitutes a lack of difficulty then that’s fine; it’s a perfectly valid stance to have. But it’s not the stance I have.

I’d like to not be put to sleep in content that sits somewhere around a ozma without group punishment (which yes ozma has 5 defined phases don’t worry I can call ozma you don’t have to explain him to me) because he is still relatively mechanically fast, doesn’t have tells and does a lot of damage if you don’t have 5/2 or are in defensive. 9 extremes out of 10 have at least one if not more body checks and at least one mechanic that is solved with a standardised start. There is a range that exists where you pretty much don’t kill the party without a defined strat but is harder than an average normal raid (if shiva was the easiest normal rather than the hardest this would be more in what I’m asking for)

You are right my argument for NA is subjective cultural differences but this entire debate about midcore is borne from exactly that cultural subjectivity

[Reylap]

Is your only barometer for “difficulty” “I didnt affect my party”?

I think this is our fundamental difference here. Let’s take an easy extreme (just a theoretical easy extreme) and removed mechanics that required interaction with other players so at most you kill only yourself. At most you dying contributes to the enrage. Is there really “punishment”; not really because the healers are overflowing with mana. does that mean there isn’t difficulty; in my opinion there is still difficulty because I failed the mechanic and died and i myself want the joy of doing the fight flawlessly even if if I messed it up it wouldn’t affect anyone else anyway besides the enrage

If you think that anything that makes it so that the only punishment falls on yourself constitutes a lack of difficulty then that’s fine; it’s a perfectly valid stance to have. But it’s not the stance I have.

I’d like to not be put to sleep in content that sits somewhere around a ozma without group punishment (which yes ozma has 5 defined phases don’t worry I can call ozma you don’t have to explain him to me) because he is still relatively mechanically fast, doesn’t have tells and does a lot of damage if you don’t have 5/2 or are in defensive. 9 extremes out of 10 have at least one if not more body checks and at least one mechanic that is solved with a standardised start. There is a range that exists where you pretty much don’t kill the party without a defined strat but is harder than an average normal raid (if shiva was the easiest normal rather than the hardest this would be more in what I’m asking for)

You are right my argument for NA is subjective cultural differences but this entire debate about midcore is borne from exactly that cultural subjectivity

Your idea of easy extreme is literally made up of a MAJORITY of the extreme trials except for a few ones. I did not say my judgement for difficulty is just external punishment, but you seem somehow fixated that having external punishment is somehow unacceptable as an additional layer of difficulty that pushes an extreme trial to be out of midcore. I should be asking you what the hell is wrong with body checks or wipes from failed mechs and then going again? One could argue precisely because you know what wiped you, you strive to fix that problem and its easier/clearer how to fix it.

Now you're arguing that standardized strat is the problem. At this point, your argument is not about midcore difficulty but the fact that FFXIV fights are dance recital and they stuck to that formula a bit too long. Fair enough but under those context, asking for a different type of fight is different than asking for a midcore content, you just had enough of the style. Cuz if you do the fights blind anyway, you mostly came up with similar strats to the "standard" strats, so this is not about strat but style of fights.

The fundamental difference in here is not my perception of difficulty about midcore compared to yours. Its the fact that I am pointing out that MAJORITY of harder ffxiv content is exactly what are you asking already to a certain degree IF you consider using all of the tools they give and that Extreme fights are exactly the playground of difficulty where you can get away with a lot of sloppy plays, doesnt snore players and still being able to clear the fight. Body checks in extreme can be saved with mitigations, sacrificing someone, invulning etc. Even in current ultimate, you have the abillity to even not use LB3 mechanics on phases that shouldve required LB3 mechanics (FRU Phase 5). You could even argue, during those shit moments, having to be able to save the run is sometimes what makes it fun.

So are NA players unable to do those kind of things? For me that's an issue of SE babying them to death with the casual content having 0 friction rather than "midcore" being too "hard". And maybe, skill issue.

[Supersnow845]

snip

Like I said I don’t think extremes aren’t midcore from the perspective of mechanical execution difficulty I’m saying I want content that is basically extremes without body checks and replacing coordinated mechanics with equivalent difficulty self mechanics (let’s use the example of chess in DRS)

You have said in multiple replies that “how do you make difficulty if there is no punishment”. Is something like chess (hell now I think about it most of DRS actually fits this bill though it’s also potentially a little too hard for what I mean) not an example of a difficulty mechanic with no punishment.

There should be room to have fights that have mechanics of a similar difficulty in pure singular mechanical execution to an easy extreme down to a hard alliance raid but functionally lacking body checks, being slightly slower and maybe less healing intensive. That’s still much harder than any normal except maybe shiva but easier than 9 extremes out of 10

Vali is really the only example we’ve had recently as I really don’t count unreal

[Reylap]

Like I said I don’t think extremes aren’t midcore from the perspective of mechanical execution difficulty I’m saying I want content that is basically extremes without body checks and replacing coordinated mechanics with equivalent difficulty self mechanics (let’s use the example of chess in DRS)

You have said in multiple replies that “how do you make difficulty if there is no punishment”. Is something like chess (hell now I think about it most of DRS actually fits this bill though it’s also potentially a little too hard for what I mean) not an example of a difficulty mechanic with no punishment.

There should be room to have fights that have mechanics of a similar difficulty in pure singular mechanical execution to an easy extreme down to a hard alliance raid but functionally lacking body checks, being slightly slower and maybe less healing intensive. That’s still much harder than any normal except maybe shiva but easier than 9 extremes out of 10

Vali is really the only example we’ve had recently as I really don’t count unreal

What you're literally asking is making the Normal and Alliance raids and MSQ for that matter HARDER. Which is a thing i've been saying that SE babied the shit out of their players. Let me ask you this, do you consider Strayborough first boss to be that? Because you just exactly asked for Strayborough difficulty. But good luck trying to convince most players "look guys, strayborough is a midcore content". And ive seen wipes to that boss where they have to reset.

If you're taking DRS as chess as a standard of difficulty, again I'm asking you. There are shittons of mechanics in extreme that are even below that level. Why would adding a body check (which most of extreme dont even use body checks but they used vuln) suddently makes it not a midcore?

This is not an argument of what consitute as midcore. Like my dude, youre asking for less healing intensive fights than extreme. Do you not understand the level of sloppyness you can get away in extreme? Sage can basically just spam shield and you would not even have any trouble mitigation or DPS wise

And let me get this straight, I dont consider midcore from just difficulty perspective as I've said. Difficulty is just part of the slider the devs can play. Extreme is a midcore content, because they slide that difficulty just a TINY bit higher, but they remove virtually any barriers to entry. You can clear it immediately after finishing story just with class gears and spend even a reasonable amount of times (1 hour to maybe 5 hours to prog at worse). I would actually even agree the argument that extreme is not midcore because the grind for the rewards is not even comparable (clearing 100 times for sometimes a shitty mount copy pasted, how fun).

But you're impliying that Extreme is already hardcore territory because of body checks are kinda indicative of why NA parties are struggling in CAR.

[Supersnow845]

What you're literally asking is making the Normal and Alliance raids and MSQ for that matter HARDER. Which is a thing i've been saying that SE babied the shit out of their players. Let me ask you this, do you consider Strayborough first boss to be that? Because you just exactly asked for Strayborough difficulty. But good luck trying to convince most players "look guys, strayborough is a midcore content". And ive seen wipes to that boss where they have to reset.

If you're taking DRS as chess as a standard of difficulty, again I'm asking you. There are shittons of mechanics in extreme that are even below that level. Why would adding a body check (which most of extreme dont even use body checks but they used vuln) suddently makes it not a midcore?

This is not an argument of what consitute as midcore. Like my dude, youre asking for less healing intensive fights than extreme. Do you not understand the level of sloppyness you can get away in extreme? Sage can basically just spam shield and you would not even have any trouble mitigation or DPS wise

And let me get this straight, I dont consider midcore from just difficulty perspective as I've said. Difficulty is just part of the slider the devs can play. Extreme is a midcore content, because they slide that difficulty just a TINY bit higher, but they remove virtually any barriers to entry. You can clear it immediately after finishing story just with class gears and spend even a reasonable amount of times (1 hour to maybe 5 hours to prog at worse). I would actually even agree the argument that extreme is not midcore because the grind for the rewards is not even comparable (clearing 100 times for sometimes a shitty mount copy pasted, how fun).

But you're impliying that Extreme is already hardcore territory because of body checks are kinda indicative of why NA parties are struggling in CAR.

I’ve said like 5 times that I don’t think extremes are hardcore, I don’t really know what else to say on that front. I’m saying that a form of content should exist that’s extremes but made easier while still being much harder than normals. That isn’t saying that extremes aren’t midcore. If you want to say I’m asking for “harder normal and alliance raids” then congrats we’ve circled back to my original point you overanalysed so far that you reached a different point

Extremes aren’t a consistent difficulty or consistent design, in a period where the extremes lean towards the more dance heavy light savages (like say golbez or eternal queen) here needs to be a consistent content that sits between that and the normal raids. This can also vary, I personally think chess is easy but I know other struggle with it, on the other hand I suck badly at TA

[Reylap]

I’ve said like 5 times that I don’t think extremes are hardcore, I don’t really know what else to say on that front. I’m saying that a form of content should exist that’s extremes but made easier while still being much harder than normals. That isn’t saying that extremes aren’t midcore. If you want to say I’m asking for “harder normal and alliance raids” then congrats we’ve circled back to my original point you overanalysed so far that you reached a different point

Extremes aren’t a consistent difficulty or consistent design, in a period where the extremes lean towards the more dance heavy light savages (like say golbez or eternal queen) here needs to be a consistent content that sits between that and the normal raids. This can also vary, I personally think chess is easy but I know other struggle with it, on the other hand I suck badly at TA

And my point is that it is Extreme is not that FAR of a jump that you make it to be from Normal raids, Trials, or even Alliance Raid, if we are just talking on difficulty alone. Extreme was made to bridge the difficulty between Savage and Normal. They literally have said that before.
Going from their track records, that has been fairly consistent in terms of difficulty, especially if you consider that each iteration of the extreme should be harder given the times, but it really isnt considering that jobs changes, simplification etc.

And asking for harder new content compared to making harder alliance raid are not the same thing. Making harder alliance and normal raids will still constitute it as Casual content. Why? Cuz you have literally no incentive to even do it consistently, you probably just get a better amount of players that DONT complain when they release slightly difficult thing like CAR. Whereas bozja or eureka are actually in the same ballpark of difficulty to normal or alliance. You just think its harder but thats skewed because of the amount of players. Difficulty of content is NOT the problem here because if its difficulty you ask, then Extreme is the content to spam (and now CAR to up one level after it).

What makes eureka or BA or even Bozja, interesting to play is not the difficulty. It's the goal behind it (ozma mount, shining armors) and the different playstyle you can do outside of the normal ffxiv combat. So asking for just "difficult" new content without the depth of even Bozja is pointless (look at criterion).

[AyumiCosplayGlam]

snip

Like you said, the underlying issue, is the lack of bridge between Extreme and Normal content, it dosn't matter where you draw the line of "midcore" as a term, its just semantics at the end of the day.
But i sincerely believe that a playerbase is not healthy if we draw the line of "midcore" before Extremes.
I am not going into details, but according to lalachievements almost anyone who did Sphene Extreme, also did Arcadion Savage. Which means 2 things, 1 is that the transition between Extreme and Savage is actually pretty seamless, and 2, is that midcore does not exist.
Anyway, like i said, semantics.

In my opinion, Extreme is too big of a jump after normal content. It does not matter how many times you complete the normal version of a trial, the boss still uses completely new mechanics that are most of the time just cheap "gotcha" mechanics that makes you wipe several times until everyone learns what exactly is happening.

Lets take Diamond Weapon as an example: There is nothing in normal mode that prepares you for the cleaves with the numbers and extreme does not really tell what is going to happen until it happens in which case its already over.
That mechanic is my perfect example of what a difficulty between Normal and Extreme should be.
What if we had a mode, where that mechanic is properly telegraphed before the cleave happens, so the players can actually prepare for it without dying pointlessly? Maybe try solve it pre-emptively even when they see it for the first time?
Unlikely that it is going to actually happen, especially for the first time but its still more fair to show us what is going to happen.
Once a mode like that exist, we can indeed take the scary step into Extreme where we dont have telegraphs but know what mechanics do exactly because the game actually teach us beforehand!

Mechanics are not difficult to do in Extremes at all, the problem is that the game tries to wipe groups for individual mistakes, bodychecks and well hidden mechanics that does not reveal themselves at all or until the last second, which is scary for a lot of people.
Not because they cant learn it, but because they dont find learning through wiping over and over fun.