Definitions of midcore / hardcore / casual a bit warped here...

[TheMightyMollusk]

It's not that the definitions are warped, it's that there are no agreed-upon definitions. It doesn't help that most people seem to use casual as a pejorative.

[Nedkel]

Hardcore players are elitists who drink mountaindew and eat red doritos because they are so hardcore with everything and think they are better than us casual coca cola drinkers.

[Priya]

Tbh, pretty much everything is warped here.

[SoleilAlphi]

Hardcore players are elitists who drink mountaindew and eat red doritos because they are so hardcore with everything and think they are better than us casual coca cola drinkers.

Hardcores drink scotch. Casuals, soda pop. (kudos if you get the reference)

[Melichoir]

While there arent many, there are 'soft statics' (I guess thats what Id call them). It's mainly a loose conglomeration of players in a linkshell that raid a few times a week to clear the tier eventually. The difference? There's no set raid schedule. It's literally "We'll raid when we feel like it and take whoever is around to go and pug the rest". The model works so long as you have a small dedicated core group (3-5 players) who go fairly consistently in the week AND that they dont take it so seriously. If people clear ahead of other people, thats fine. Might mean people get less loot or might mean they pug different people. But it's a lot less stressful than youre typical '9 to 5, 5 days a week' static.

[LauraAdalena]

Before I begin, I think Kitfox's explanation is 10/10 and perfect way of saying it.

So I'm looking to get into some group stuff in this game...

And I'm looking at assorted recruiting ads on places like the Balance and getting way baffled...

You're baffled because it's a different game with way different people. This is understandable. But you have to understand we have far different playstyles than say a WOW group and the way raids work are much different as well, from my understanding (Sorry, I've never set foot for one second in WoW. I don't like Blizz's games personally, nothing against them as a company). So people tackle them differently. I think a lot of people might point to the Japanese community and how a lot of players started seeing what they were doing and echoing it.

Midcore doesn't exist.

Hardcore exists only if you're on the bleeding edge of content, are willing and able to put in the hours and time, and can a server "medal" clear (so first 3 clears on server). You don't have a schedule, the group merely collectively decides when to sleep.

Casual is everyone else that enters Savage.

If you don't enter Savage, you're not even on the list.

This is a very toxic mindset. midcore does exist and those that say stuff like this just say it to disqualify anyone who isn't hardcore as "just a casual". The problem is that that's absolutely not true. A casual static is there to have fun and doesn't care if they clear, but it's cool if they do and don't really feel invested in savage but the people they play with. Hardcore spends hours, if not days, from the beginning of the patch taking time off from work and as long as their team works good together they will race to see who gets first, not only that but they dedicate hours into the Ultimate raids. Midcore is somewhere inbetween. It's like the difficulty selection in games like Bayonetta or other games by Platinum or studios similar. They have the one where it's super easy and relaxed for people who aren't too invested in games of the genre, those who want to be challenged somewhat but don't find fun in bashing their head against a wall for hours on end, and those that find the fun in the challenge alone and don't care about anything else. Saying the ones in the middle don't exist is a toxic mentality.

[DubiousDisk]

To me it's:

Casual: We don't care about savage content/we dont mind clearing savage content eventually

Midcore: We care about savage content, we will try periodically to clear it, atleast before the next set of savage content

Hardcore: We care a lot about savage content, it must be cleared and put on farm ASAP, with consistency.

[VenKitsune]

It is a bit of a vague catagorisation, and there isn't one dictionary definition for any of them. They way i see it is...

Casual - Low to mid skill players, usually 1-2 days a week for 1-3 hours a day.
Midcore - Mid to mid-high skill players, usually 2-3 days a week, 2-4 hours a day.
Semi-Hardcore - High skilled players that do not have the time for full on hardcore raiding. Usually 3-5 days a week, 3-6 hours a day.
Hardcore - Pretty much 12+ hours a day, every day, and then usually goes on hiatus right after cleared the current content a few times over.

Obviously, not every group comes under that umbrella of definitions, and some fit it to a T but don't fit. At the end of the day, when looking for a group, its best to talk to the recruiter and get a general idea of the groups attitude towards content and vice versa - If you join them, they're going to be people you play with regularly, so don't just look at the ad and immediately assume it is or isn't for you, talk to them first, it can't hurt if you have questions or if they have some for you.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Hardcore and Casual just refer to the amount of time per week someone plays the game. It doesn't have any real bearing on player skill or the content they do. You're going to find casual players that put in a low amount of time in game per week that have a skill level that makes a noticeable amount of your "hardcore" players look noobish by comparison. These are usually the people with the ability to actively think and adapt quickly and easily to new things and unexpected situations and as such aren't really reliant on repetition into muscle memory in order to clear upper tier content. I've seen numerous times where a wipe occurred simply because the tank turned or positioned in a different area than usual and watched as over half the party appeared to be on brain auto pilot standing in the AoE because they didn't adjust their position based on the tank.

[Fawkes]

Hardcore players use light tubes and exploding barbed wire.

I'm a softcore player, no nudity but still fairly obscene.