An idea for coveted "Mid-Core" content

[RaideDuku]

So there's a lot of talk of Final Fantasy needing more "mid-core" content. At a base level, I would agree. Problem is...what is "Mid-Core" to everyone? Easy and hard content are easier to design. Make something pants-on-head easy, it's easy for everyone. Make something ball-busting hard, it'll probably be hard for everyone. Mid-core, though? You ask 10 people what that is, and you'd get 10 different answers. What's fairly easy to one person might be fairly hard for another.

So here's my idea. Adjustable difficulty dungeons. Actually remember this being in ye olde Anarchy Online. Wouldn't have to be a free slider like it was in that game, just something that has a 1-10 setting. You give the dungeon a currency, like Criterion. Higher the difficulty, more currency you get. Like 10 for level one, up to 100 for level 10. Maybe have chests in the dungeon that usually give a junk item (firework type item), but a small chance for a cool item (house item, glamour, minions ect ect). Hard difficulty, better odds of getting a cool item.

So what would change with higher difficulty? Well, upping the stats of monsters is, of course, a start. You can also give enemies buffs that adds things to their attacks. For instance, maybe at mid levels, they get a "venomous" buff, that applies a poison debuff to their attacks. Just an example, you could get super crazy with this. Enemies could get more harder to resolve attacks. You could take away telegraphs for some special attacks. Have environmental hazards. Hey, that mountain you're on? Harder difficulties, it becomes a volcano. Now you get to avoid random fireball AoEs. Harder still, now they leave a DoT area for a small time. Harder still, enemies in that area have a buff that allows them to heal if hit with the AoE, or if they're in the DoT area effect. You could put debuffs on the players. This is the stuff just off of my head.

Having this system would allow people to get better at the dungeon (and game) at their own pace. Let's say you think you're pants-on-head bad, so you start at level 1. You get through it, find it's not too bad. So you do 2. Also not bad. You get to 3, and you get some pushback. You play a few times, and you get used to it, and you go to 4. Again, some pushback, but you figure it out. Go to 5. Ok, now it's getting a bit spicy. You do 6, and it's comfortably hard. Not so much that it's annoying, but enough to keep you on your feet. You try 7, and get your teeth kicked in. You keep trying, and maaaybe you eventually get through it, but you decide that 6 is about what you feel comfortable with. Fair enough! You run 6 to get your coins, meaning you get 60 coins per run. That's 50 more then you're getting back on level 1! Encourages people to get better, but still respecting that people do have a maximum cap on how good they can get. Even if your maximum cap IS one, you can still get the stuff, it'll just take you bit longer.

Anyway, it's just an idea, and just a rough one at that.

[Iscah]

I just want slightly harder versions of dungeons and alliance raids where the bosses go straight into doing the more complicated versions of their attacks instead of having to go through the "skill A; skill B; simplified A+B" before we get to the fun part.

Bozja's critical encounters had a bit of that when they started from existing bosses but went straight into a harder version of the skills than the original fight had. No warm-ups, just straight in, learn the mechanic or better luck next time.

[strawberrycake]

If Casual Content is Rouls Alliance Raids and Island Sacutaries, and Hard Core Content is Early Savage clears Savage Critireon and Ultimates, Midcore is everything else. Let me explain.

Midcore, is when you do a bit of everything, you raid but parsing and clearing week 3 isn;t your goal, clearing in 2-3 months is fine and if you get some blues and purples, cool. You like rouls and the side content is p neat, so you don't skip cutscene, and don't mind getting Crystal Tower a lot. You'll possibly do an ult if ur group feels up to it, you do hunts and grind old relics, thats midcore currently.

I think what people are looking for is more gear progression, dungeons not being so braindead and Alliance raids having the difficulty they used to have back. Critireon is a great content type that can easily fit into what Midcore is, and if it offered rewards and they affected your gear prog along with EX and Savage and tome grinding, it'd be dope.

[IHOJ]

I believe Ex raids with patch day gear should be able to serve as mid core ?
It is like "difficult content 101", an introductory to the more difficult savage raids series.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Bring back exploratory zones.

Eureka/Bozja hit this niche fairly well as they weren't too difficult (outside the specific savage duty contained in each). However they weren't designed for ppl that only had 1 functioning braincell either.

[CamuiKushi]

Midcore, is when you do a bit of everything, you raid but parsing and clearing week 3 isn;t your goal, clearing in 2-3 months is fine and if you get some blues and purples, cool. You like rouls and the side content is p neat, so you don't skip cutscene, and don't mind getting Crystal Tower a lot. You'll possibly do an ult if ur group feels up to it, you do hunts and grind old relics, thats midcore currently.

I feel this. I think the issue I take with labels like casual and hardcore is that they're so broad and could involve different TYPES of engagement in addition to different AMOUNTS of engagement. You could have someone who puts a lot of hours into the game, but only engages in lifestyle content. You could have someone who plays once a week, but that time is spent grinding themselves against savage raids for 8-12 hours on that one day. I don't think these two people belong in the same category. So yeah, midcore is a helpful description.

I think what people are looking for is more gear progression, dungeons not being so braindead and Alliance raids having the difficulty they used to have back. Critireon is a great content type that can easily fit into what Midcore is, and if it offered rewards and they affected your gear prog along with EX and Savage and tome grinding, it'd be dope.

Fr. Someone can be fully engaged with the game and want to gear up, but also get crappy RNG and take months to work toward that. That's where I was at until I threw my hands in the air and gave up on the savage grind. It feels bad to have nothing to show for the time you CAN spend doing high-end content that way.

[Silverquick]

I will say one thing,

One of the things that made alliance raids so fun at least back in the day is that they were completely unpredictable. You really just couldn't control what happened. You knew it was coming, but the way it was designed was completely random as to which choice the Boss Mob would do.

Example here:
Yazmat in the Rhidoranna Lighthouse. You can have him doing his charge attack which randomly decides which direction he's going to turn, while the Magnetic Electrolysis is going on so you have to watch your plus or minus which shrinks the field, then at the end of his prance whereever he stops, he does White Breath when he stops which could be on either side of the + or - meaning to dodge the mechanic you might be screwing yourself if he does a Cyclone next. It's totally unpredictable, crazy, and you have no idea where its coming or why.

Or the Construct 7 fight where you have no idea what you are going to get on computational mode, or when the cogs come down which lane he will take, followed immediately by Lithobrake and Dispose.

Or in Orbonne with Seraph segment where you have all 3 of the earlier bosses special moves going at once. I can still die to this day on that because there's no way to predict what is going to happen.

It's something that is different, and fresh each time you do it.

EDIT: BUT if we're talking pure midcore content, usually it is Expert Dungeons which are generally made up of the previous mechanics of the prior expansions 8-man raids and sometimes previous Alliance raids. Usually too the Normal 8-mans of the current expansion along with Alliance Raids.

[Iscah]

Or in Orbonne with Seraph segment where you have all 3 of the earlier bosses special moves going at once. I can still die to this day on that because there's no way to predict what is going to happen.

That segment is extremely rigid once you map it out. There are variables like which tiles will be dangerous and who gets targeted for the fire circles, but the sequence is 100% predictable.

[Malakii]

I think the idea could be interesting and I would be interested. I don't know too much about wow but it kind of sounds like mythic dungeons from what I have seen.

Personally, I think the game needs more content that can teach players how to play at a high level without the stress of jumping into high-end scenarios with a group of people. I know this is an MMO and some people hate the idea of solo content inside their MMO, but I would like some solo duties that range from easy to ultimate-level encounters. Also think it would be cool if they had a scenario where you could practice certain mechanics. I think this would be beneficial to the community as it would allow people who have anxiety, feel like they are slow learners, don't want to be judged, have confidence issues, or maybe they are just new players, etc. a place where they could improve and get confidence in their abilities as well as learn. There could be a parser in this place only for the sake of improvement. Although they don't have one in the sky, temple, sea, or w/e it is called so maybe not.

I was a big fan of the Bozjan duels and yet also wish they were harder. Yet these are another type of events where people would be passed up on or they passed on because either they could not do the critical engagement well enough to get an attempt or they didn't want to be judged by everyone watching and shit on when they failed the event. These at first were completely randomly selected, then they made them a queue-like system. This was much better, but still not something you could just go do whenever you wanted. Like a solo queued instance would be able to accomplish.

The great thing imo about this is it is not just for one group of players, it would be for all. Ofc if a player doesn't want to improve or challenge themselves then they won't but I think this would help break down some barriers that might be external to just "skill issues" that get thrown around a lot. While also working on "skill issues" and possibly encouraging more people into harder group content.

[Mayhemmer]

What is mic-core to me...

I have enough time to play this game to have easily exhausted the easier content (MSQ, dungeons, Variant, etc.) in no time at all. There's nothing else outside of the occasional glam or marketable item that I have left to get from them.

When I look at content on the opposite side of the scale, I'm left nervous. I may have the time, and at many points, the desire to engage in Savage raids, Criterion Savage, (Ultimates are beyond me right now), and even things like Extreme trials. I have the time to do them, but due to a mixture of not having a group to play with, and varying degrees of social anxiety, I stay away from them.

So where does that leave me standing? Mostly on 8/24-man content, beast tribe dailies, Criterion, exploratory content like Eureka and Bozja (including BA and Bozja's raids), and recently even crafter/gatherer relics. Things I can dedicate far more time into for their rewards, and/or that offer higher degrees of difficulty while being more lax on pressure. Outside of 8/24-man normal raids, I have yet to complete or exhaust these of their rewards entirely. By design, there's still a ton of time I could spend towards them. I guess, to me, that's 'mid-core.'

Also, I'm a huge advocate for the idea of dungeons with adjustable scaling that can be tackled alone or in a group. 100% on board with that in the future.