I am one of those casual players who was *desperate* for midcore content in Endwalker. And it never came. Just more visually stunning, but mechanically empty dungeons and trials and normal/alliance raids, that were too easy for me, and not tough enough to help me improve enough for Extreme.

It's true that hardcore content is gated. But not by raiders, it's gated by the design of the game. the jump from normal content to Extreme in ShB and EW was *insane.* You went from faceroll easy to "die a hundred times because nothing makes sense and everything kills you."

Dungeons and Normal Trials and Normal Raids and Alliance Raids are not just there for you to walk through and mutter about how pretty they are. they are supposed to be a linear progression that challenges you gradually and sets you up for endgame content. The devs WANT people to do extremes and raids, that's why they put so much time and effort into them.

Dawntrail, so far, seems to be doing that. Based on what we've got, there's a clear progression in difficulty. The Dungeons are tougher than fate bosses or hunts, the trials tougher than the dungeon bosses, and the normal raids tougher than the trials, with the first 2 extremes being beyond the normal raids, but not totally out of reach. This is how the game SHOULD feel.