Player Classification

[RinaB]

Hello, I recently came back after almost 2 years off and its nice to be back but I've been seeing so many comments and videos by content creators putting people I'm categories or talking about casual, mid core, hard core and I'm a little confused what all this means. People would ask "why do you care?". Well I'm just curious because there's a lot of people arguing about the state of the game being tailored to group X and I just don't get what classifies people in certain groups and who determines that.

I'm a solo player who doesn't really engage in things like the island expedition or side activities much. I play everyday, do my roulettes and run my 8s and 24 man's every week for the current badge gear/augment twine etc. I don't run savage or extremes as I kind of have a bit of a tough time seeing certain mechanics. I'm on a ps5 with a very crisp resolution and colour but it's just tough sometimes to see overlaping mechanics and it is what it is. I always strive to be good enough for savage but I'm just not. I spend most of my time in battle content or getting my mgp or Gil. Like I said I don't really spend time on side things unless I'm chasing a glam piece. So does this make me a casual? If so then what is a mid core player or hard-core player?

[Saraide]

Unfortunately these terms involve a lot of vague gesturing and hoping the person you talk to has an intuitive understanding of them that doesnt conflict too much with your own. It's very difficult to pin down.

[VerdeLuck]

None of thes are well defined, and particularly Midcore is an amorphous blob of a term that everyone just massages to mean what they think it should mean.

Even in content, streamers claim anything short of Ultimates are casual content, and some people claim Extremes are hardcore content. You can't properly define these until SE does, and SE has no interest in doing that.

[yoshinoharu]

The player is only categorized by association with the content they prefer to do. The content itself is what is categorized as 'casual' 'midcore' or 'hardcore' as determined by the amount of skill, effort, and time required to complete it.

If you primarily enjoy 'casual' content, then people will describe you as a 'casual player.'

Of course there are some people that use the term 'casual' as a derogative term which is just unilaterally shitty of them. Determining the difference between calling someone a 'casual' and them being a 'casual player' gets kind of screwy though just because of how people use the language.

If I call someone a 'midcore player.' I mean that they do most content in the game, maybe do a bit of EX or Savage lightly, but generally stick to what's majorly accessible to the largest chunk of the player base.

If I call someone a 'hardcore player.' I am typically referring to someone that engages in the most difficult content of the game and sinks quite a bit of time and effort into their completion.

If I call someone a 'casual player' they mostly enjoy low-effort content that doesn't require them to invest a lot of time into the game. Things like roulettes, fishing, gold saucer, etc.

I definitely want to stress that calling someone a 'casual player' is very different than calling them 'a casual.' Just like there's a difference between a 'hardcore player' and someone that's 'sweaty.' The latter in both examples is a demeaning people for what they enjoy to do, which, again, is just unilaterally wrong.

[Zeastria]

Doing only Normal = Casual.
Doing EX and Savage = Midcore BUT leans more towards hardcore on the scale.
Ultimates = Hardcore...

- Infact there is no true midcore in this game...
Its either very easy or very hard.. no inbetween..

Note: Some EX can be very easy and just 1 step above normal,
while others are harder than some savage fights.. so EX fights have very wide range.

[yoshinoharu]

Doing only Normal = Casual.
Doing EX and Savage = Midcore BUT leans more towards hardcore on the scale.
Ultimates = Hardcore...

- Infact there is no true midcore in this game...
Its either very easy or very hard.. no inbetween..

Note: Some EX can be very easy and just 1 step above normal,
while others are harder than some savage fights.. so EX fights have very wide range.

Difficulty is largely subjective but I would disagree. I would think that it only really enters hardcore when players set a hard time limit, effectively manufacturing their own difficulty.

i.e. 'Week 1 Savage' is hardcore where as 'Savage' without any kind of time limit is midcore, as evidenced by the fact that there are still, to this day, still people progging the current savage tier. I honestly think the only truly hardcore content is current-tier ultimates.

Savage used to be hardcore content but has been watered down to midcore content to address the major lack of it.

[Ath192]

Doing only Normal = Casual.
Doing EX and Savage = Midcore BUT leans more towards hardcore on the scale.
Ultimates = Hardcore...

- Infact there is no true midcore in this game...
Its either very easy or very hard.. no inbetween..

Note: Some EX can be very easy and just 1 step above normal,
while others are harder than some savage fights.. so EX fights have very wide range.

Egh, this isn't entirely accurate either. There's also time commitment factors, progession speed expectations... I've done all ultimates in whats normally considered a midcore setting ~9 hours per week (3hrs/3daysprwk) and clear savage tiers in 4-7 weeks. That would not me be considered hardcore relative to people who do ults 4-5 days a week and clear savage week 1.

I would define hardcore as= "good player, ready to no life it, this is my main priority outside of essential IRL stuff, plenty of time to do it"

Midcore ="I'm a decent player that wants to do this stuff, has some time, but also has other activities I do in my free time"

Casual="I dont have time or desire to organize anything will occasionally join other peoples activities for fun and just do what the game lets me easily do"

[Rekh]

Bozja was midcore, that's why it was so damn good. It's not midcore anymore, but when it was fresh it was common to die to critical events and specially in Castrum, Reginae, and the Zadnor content.
I found it incredible that they finally found the perfect midcore difficulty and didn't bring that back in endwalker.

Let's hope danwtrail's exploratory content isn't variant dungeon level of "walk in the park"

[Bonoki]

I have met self-identifying casual players who from my opinion were way more hardcore than some self-identifying hard-core players. Everyone has different definitions of what these things mean.

[DisasterGayofCrisis]

Basically a lot of it is to make people who do things like ultimates or always having a perfect rotation as "being better at the game" but the thing is, they kinda aren't. Rotations are rarely important in most of the game and even messing up isn't really losing much DPS, add in rarely is there a time limit in stuff in this game that is needed because well that's just really boring.

FFXIV isn't really about skill, most boss fight mechanics are basically just a big puzzle game. It's all about memorization and knowing where to be, which isn't entirely hard. The word 'casual' has always just been used as an insult towards anyone who doesn't meet a specific standard and the word 'hardcore' is just toxic players who think they're entitled to being recognized as superior because they know how to do one content. Imo a hardcore player is someone who invests in a game, for instance I would consider myself hardcore because I've put over 2K hours into the game, I'm omni-90 in almost everything but a few crafting jobs, calling this dedication to the game 'casual' because I'm not dedicating myself to doing coils of bahamut ultimate or I'm not running savages every day is quite frankly silly and ridiculous.

Like this isn't even a problem with FFXIV, this has generally been a problem with video game community for decades now, it used to be even if you were a girl you were a 'casual', I've seen pro-fighting game players called 'casuals' for playing a game they usually don't play like a Guilty Gear player playing Smash. Hell, used to be if you didn't always play on ultra max ball-breaking hard difficulty or wanted QoL changes you were labeled 'casual'

It's a silly classificiation and always has been.