Midcore is NOT a Difficulty setting - It's an Investment!

**Nadda** · 01-11-2025 05:03 PM

I’ve noticed discussions surrounding the latest interview with Lead Battle Designer Nakagawa. It seems like the developers may be misunderstanding what players want from Midcore content, assuming it should sit between Extreme and Savage difficulties. I believe that’s not the case.

Midcore isn’t about a specific difficulty tier. It’s about investment.

Casual content focuses on non-committal activities like story, crafting, treasure maps, and hunts.

Hardcore content includes Savage and Ultimates, which require significant planning and commitment.

Midcore is the middle ground—content that offers degrees of challenge, allowing players to invest time without requiring a rigid commitment. Examples include Deep Dungeons, Eureka/Bozja, and Variant Dungeons. These activities can be tackled solo or with friends, offering varied challenges and rewarding players’ time, not just their skill level.

Eureka and Bozja illustrate Midcore well. While I've barely scratched the surface of this content I know They place players in hostile environments where collaboration with others is more efficient. While you don’t need to form static groups, many players create Discord communities to loosely organize, guide others, and navigate challenging encounters like a rite of passage. These systems allow players to set their own pace and build toward high-stakes content over time, creating a sense of progression.

There is that large-scale difficult Raid content - but it doesn't toss you into Absolute Virtue off the cuff. You build to that.

On the other hand, newer content like Chaotic Raids doesn’t quite capture this essence. It lacks the "set your own terms" approach that defines Midcore. Chaotic Raids ask a lot from players immediately and don’t foster the same community engagement seen in Field Operations. While challenging, their design—being 24-man content—doesn’t prepare players for 8-man raid environments or offer the flexibility Midcore demands.

Where Extremes as an example is what I describe as "Onboarding" Content prepares you for what a Hardcore raid 8-man environment is like.
Chaotic Raids on the other hand to my understanding as I've yet to do it myself, even if your group does everything right one other group could screw up their section. You did nothing wrong you're already in this punishing environment but oop someone tripped on a banana peel in Group C - back to the drawing board. One person quits, then another... now we're back waiting outside the raid. That's not fun. (part of the reason I'm not touching it even though the fight looks fun the experience isn't.

Midcore content should balance approachability and challenge. Criterion Dungeons, for instance, provide a more intimate group experience with elements of high difficulty, making it easier to tackle with friends without needing Party Finder. However, Criterion lacks the strong reward structures seen in Field Operations. Still, it offers replayability through its Variant Dungeons, which present approachable challenges with meaningful rewards. It also gives you an equally engaging piece of content that teaches you what you might see in the Criterion version.

Deep Dungeons, another great example, offer ultimate solo challenges but remain accessible with friends, providing varied layouts, traps, and treasures. Similarly, Field Operations like Eureka/Bozja combine storylines, PvE engagement, and large-scale community efforts, rewarding players’ time investment and collaboration.

Ultimately, Midcore content should be a balance—offering variety, flexibility, and rewards. It needs to engage both casual and hardcore players by rewarding time and effort, not through sheer difficulty.
It’s the center of the Venn diagram, bridging these communities while keeping the game fresh and enjoyable.

-----------------------------------

TL;DR version

Midcore content is the balance point between casual and hardcore gameplay, where players can engage at their own pace. It offers scalable challenges that don’t lock players into strict commitments, rewarding time and effort instead of raw difficulty. This type of content appeals to both casual and hardcore players, providing stimulating, varied experiences that keep people playing. Examples like Bozja, Eureka, Deep Dungeons, and Variant/Criterion Dungeons allow players to explore, challenge themselves, and enjoy rewarding gameplay without feeling overwhelmed or excluded.

TL;DR,DR

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra his Arms wide.

**Mawlzy** · 01-11-2025 05:16 PM

You're probably going to now receive a string of replies on why your wrong, but your demarcation above strikes me as the clearest and most accurate one to date for NA, and I assume EU.

**Shurrikhan** · 01-11-2025 05:46 PM

I feel like I want to agree a lot of with this... but I can't help but feel that the examples chosen conflate --accidentally/incidentally or not-- mere "grind" with "difficulty"... or even the openness or longevity of "expression" (skill-wise or otherwise) I personally think might be most pivotal to something being "midcore".

Or, I would agree that developing "midcore" content will require some additional, deliberate investment on the part of the devs --though not necessarily in terms of separate content-- but think that being "midcore" is separate from and agnostic to the amount of time something requires to progress --especially in terms of getting to the meat of its gameplay, of all things. To my mind, "midcore" content should not necessarily require substantial "investment" from the player just to access the bulk of that content's span/depth of potential engagement.

Simply put, the kind of "midcore" content I'd most want doesn't require altogether different content types. It really does just require more scalability out of the core content... and perhaps a bit greater breadth of optionality in surrounding systems -- say, within matchmaking options, as to better curate one's experience without necessarily running through the hoops, mutual exclusions, and reduced relevant player pools of PF, etc..

For instance, I would much rather have option to do slightly reconfigured "Savage" dungeons themselves --perhaps even with a low-ish max ilvl and weekly-cap drops/chances-at-drops shared with Savage raids-- than a wholly separate (and imo, visually-degraded) form of dungeon a la Criterium. I would rather see Relic grinds or reinvigorated Wonderous Tails analogs introduced earlier complete with rotating bonuses to shorten queue times and simple toggles for taking the given content more seriously, not, or either one, etc.

Personally, the most enjoyable examples of what might broadly be considered "midcore" content that I've experienced in this game has had is rapid-queues late-night Extreme PuGs during Light bonus rotations where one would end up seeing many a familiar face, with many people playing quite well for the fun and speed of it despite not being wholly forced to play at that level, without any run feeling outright threat-less. Oddly enough, original Diadem also came closer to that for me than Bozja, if only because of the far more immediate optionality it gave compared to Bozja or Eureka before it. Elsewhere, it'd be the likes of M+ if matchmaker-capable and allowing one to pick which combinations or spans of dungeon, level, and affix alike they want to queue for (with only some soft incentive to vary things up rather than being locked to this or that) with whatever chosen constraints in matchmade party and more functional content-specific commendation and a handy "Stay as group" feature for after a given run for those who want to keep up the fun momentum.

Such not only provides things that reward dedicated play at whatever level of performance with a sense of progression but also further leverages things that reward personally high levels of play and progression in terms of one's own skills/performance/etc. by reducing barriers to entry/engagement in time and hassle while allowing for more interesting chained experiences. And that has at least as much to do with quality of surrounding systems as it does content type.

______________

That said, to give a rather different example, despite liking the ability to take content piecemeal to better fit in with my hectic schedule, I like when raids in (at least their original and designed-for form) feel like cohesive and complete experiences. Here, Alliance Raids, imo, do that far better than the actual so-called "Raids". But why does it even have to be all one or the other? Why can't one queue into the whole Normal Raid "series"/"tier"/"wing", if they so please, complete with (interesting, for a change) trash with strong tome rewards or the like (perhaps increasingly degraded after the first clear of each segment for each week) and flavorful, immersive environments for that more cohesive and "raid"-like experience? Allow people to queue specifically into the fight they want to farm for their weekly loot as well, of course, but why not start from the whole and then offer QoL via divisibility rather than just treating any content capable of more difficulty as locked in stone to mere boss arena series?

Given that, perhaps if the likes of Bozja didn't lock their more entertaining portions so deep behind grind that is typically varied only in shallow visuals (and is therefore all too often mindnumbing due to the impossibility to create interesting and choiceful tuning points against the provided progression systems), I'd hold fewer reservations in agreeing.

But, I do think more immediate breadth of choice is key, too, not just the fact that something will ramp up over time. Else, "midcore" is a transient personal sweet spot over which the player has agency by which to keep themselves in as long as they desire.

**Nero-Voidstails** · 01-11-2025 05:58 PM

I will also say this midcore is something that you can go in have a good time and able to learn without a guide and still do well then leave without really any downside. For me midcore is the same way but I could add maybe variant if they were slightly hard but I aren't sure we're they really belong not gonna lie! But ya I think midcore is more into something you can enter grind and leave whenever when life it I am one of those player myself I disliked Endwalker because of that not gonna lie with all of you.

After all I cannot join a static due to the time I work and go to bed unless I go EU there I could haha due to the timezone x) but my RP is in NA and I honestly don't wanna study a fight to be able to do it for me it's annoying and not fun at all but it is me haha but I know other might feel that way too but savage are things i cannot do to often because I often play 2-3 hours a day when I work and on my days off I don't want to do 3 to 5 hours a day because day off haha xx)

**MoofiaBossVal** · 01-11-2025 06:13 PM

I just want more engaging content, but without the frustration of raiding where it feels like a second job pugging in party finder or showing up to a scheduled static time only to die over and over and over on one boss. So Extremes and savages and criterions do nothing for me. I want to kill (or fail a CE) and just move on to the next thing. I liked Eureka and the Critical Engagements and Castrum in Bozja, and I liked having to anticipate what Dawntrail dungeon bosses will do next but they are still comprehensible and beatable in 1 or 2 attempts unlike Criterion dungeons which you have to prog like a raid. I guess deep dungeon also exists, but I do not like the cramped corridors and a 4 man party isn't as cool. Zones with lots of players and lots of harder (but not frustratingly hard) bosses in them is more fun. I also liked the progression, not just in the relics but in reaching a new zone, though Bozja was disappointing in that regard in that there were inly two zones and the second one also looked like a grey wasteland.

Chaotic is neat in that you can just buy auction house gear and port straight onto a platform, is grandiose with 24 players and you still feel like you are important when phase 2 splits everyone into smaller groups, but it just takes one player making one mistake to wipe the raid, and 60 attempts later of fighting and dying to the same boss with nothing to show for it is not fun.

**Shougun** · 01-11-2025 06:23 PM

Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

60 attempts later of fighting and dying to the same boss with nothing to show for it is not fun.

I've not found that kind of combat content interesting solely due to that. I used to have a static in like FFXI or early WoW, I can see this type of content being fun in that setting- but outside of it, the whole experience is terrible (PUG / DF when DF isn't ready for it). Wait to party, get someone lying about their ability, or worse a drama queen / king on top of it, kick them, wait for party, Steve wont learn their content specific role, Onebuttonbob is below parse, waste time both actively and passively (using food, potions, etc), have nothing to show for it, try again later, win, don't get the item you want / need, go again. Consume a lot of time that you had to carve out from things that could be more interesting. Slot a schedule in that restricts your 'real' life. Just, *gag* lol

**Voryn** · 01-11-2025 06:52 PM

Your definition doesn’t seem understandable to me because you’re often saying “THIS is what content needs to be midcore” yet you’re mostly listing things that also apply to someone doing Extreme or Savage in party finder and going at their own pace.