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

[Yeol]

Investment doesn't mean time. A casual group will be more invested in the group than the content regardless of how much total time they spend progging the content. A hardcore group will be more invested in clearing the content than the players and may kick players for poor performance if it helps them clear faster, etc.

Players can refer to themselves as "hardcore raiders" which doesn't only refer to how much they're willing to invest into raiding, but their skill level too.

When a static labels itself as "hardcore" they're looking for "hardcore raiders". So the term refers to more than just investment. They're filtering out players based on skill level too.

Which is the whole point I'm trying to make. Words like casual, midcore, hardcore can refer to multiple things depending on the context.