chaotic evil or chaotic good?
Cloud of Darkness Image: https://www.youtube.com/live/pp5OGIamHDU?si=bPJmzkAEG9f2flRz
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In today’s video, I talk about the conversation surrounding what constitutes midcore content in MMORPG’s and specifically Final Fantasy 14 with the release of chaotic Cloud of Darkness!
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Midcore content is semi-challenging content that can be reasonably PUGed or run solo. Stuff that doesn't put you to sleep but that you don't want to tear your hair out trying to run in PF. The chaotic was actually the wrong direction for "midcore" content since getting 24 people on the same page is infinitely more difficult than 4 or even 8. For people in the 14 community that have never had to deal with the logistics of larger group content that actually requires skill and not just a local RDM working overtime on the rezzes, I knew this was going to be the reaction. In vanilla WoW we had 40 man raids. And mechanics more complicated than "don't stand in the fire" were often too much to deal with for some groups. I mean, probably the hardest mechanic in Vanilla raiding was the "safety dance" in Naxx, and that was basic FF14 dungeon level of complicated. But it took weeks or months to clear because getting that many people on the same page with almost none of them making mistakes was extremely difficult. Personally I would like to see 4 man content with like a floor one savage level of difficulty (and not the Criterion or whatever they called the hard modes.)
Man I just want long-term chill content that's not playing solo or watching cutscenes for free rewards.
Chaotic doesn't look bad, but how the heck do you look at FFXIV half-way between an ultimate and a new savage tier and conclude that it needs even more high-end raids? It feels like all they can do these days is cutscenes and hard stuff.
Eureka had its problems but it's still the best chill content they've ever put in this game. It also made the game feel like an actual MMORPG for once.
I think that if Chaotic wants to be properly midcore, then it should have mechanics that can be intuited without a guide or blink-and-you-miss-it tells.
It can be difficult, but much like pre-Endwalker Extreme trials, it has to be obvious what you needed to do when it happens.
Once a piece of content needs extensive trial and error, I don't really see it as being midcore any more. Especially when players will get upset when someone doesn't get it after a few attempts. This is why using guides is seen as mandatory unless otherwise stated in the PF description.
It's not the raid itself that needs changing:
It's the playerbase.
ALL I HEAR IS PF being so toxic.
It's REALLY SCARY TO FIND OUT That i'm no longer a casual player, that because i've now cleared EX1 at least once, and attempted EX2 BEFORE 7.1 (and failed sure but we got near abotu 20% to clearing it lol) – as well as HAVING DONE SAVAGE RAIDS SYNCED with our FC before, it should be no suprise that we need to all grow up.
Not because people aren't valid for anger, or things..
But finding out that EX3 had people callign each other names, threatening SI to each other. — threatning doxxing..
This is the issue.
PF isn't an issue becuse t he raid SUCKS
Ti's that PF don't listen to patch notes.
Yoshi P WARNED YOU GUYS IT WAS GOING TO BE A SAVAGE FIRST OR SECOND FLOOR.
Read patch notes, watch live letter.
First day Alliance raid is for me peak midcore content.
Midcore is determined by time like relic grinds. Hardcore is determined by difficulty.
In my mind midcore content was the critical engagements in Bozja. It was a step above alliance raids in difficulty, and a step below the first extreme of a base expansion. It's still something welcoming for casuals to queue up for, and is a stepping stone for organized 8man content. It introduces simplified versions of mechanics from older extreme content and is a nice way to prepare casuals for stepping into party finder and forming organized groups.
As for difficulty curving, the last extreme of an expansion should be at the diffuclty level of the first savage of an expansion. The last savage of an expansion should be a good stepping stone into an ultimate.
this games has catered to the whims of toxic casual players for so long that when you put even the smallest road blocks of "please team up with other players and clear a harder fight" they crumble into dust and become an angry mob.
granted i dont fully blame them. we REALLY need to move relic style content to .0 or .1 patches. for anyone below an EX level, theres really nothing to do. i kinda get why they are upset, DT has be AMAZING on the combat side of things, and weve been EATING, 3 great EX, ,8m/24m raid, chaotic, FRU, hell even the dungeons are a lot of fun. but if you dont really engage with the combat beyond "i play dungeons with trusts" theres basically nothing for you atm outside crafting. we need something like bozja to keep people active and engaged.
either way this fight is awesome. the devs said between EX and savage, about the level of the first floor and thats pretty much exactly where it is. the fact that people fail to understand that and get mad about it is not the games fault.
To be honest, I think Chaotic IS mid-core. The difficulty from a purely mechanical point of view isn't bad, I personally think it's easier than some EX trials (Diamond Weapon back in SHB, Sphene, ECT). The amount of players + the fact that tiles phase is just a massive body check is where the real difficulty comes from I think.
A scenario like two people die to PVP tiles, they don't get raised, spreads come out, some people get double hit because those previous players weren't res'd so they get double targeted and insta die, swaps go off, people get teleported somewhere they shouldn't be because of the deaths and may not know their new job in their new positions, let alone may not have enough people alive to soak towers after the swap, these are all real things that happens A LOT. Not to mention if a person who should be on miniboss platforms is res'd onto tiles and takes it they have NO WAY BACK to their platform and must jump to kill themselves and get re-res'd by a healer on a miniboss plat to return. It's all very snowbally feeling at times which isn't really a bad thing. I just think people weren't expecting that from a piece of content marketed as "An inbetween of EX and Savage". I'm personally having fun with it, I cleared day 3 and have gotten 4 clears since, all being in PF, but to say some groups haven't felt like massive slogs would be a lie. Maybe I'm only enjoying it because it's a breath of fresh air after having just got out of UWU though lol.
What the crux of the midcore really stems from is the fact that there's a wide gaping chasm of difficulty between the normal content and the "postgame" content, so to speak. Everything pertaining the MSQ as well as the normal/alliance raids have to be made accessible to everyone because of the story whereas extreme, unreal, savage and ultimate existed to fulfill that more challenging appeal more hardcore players crave… So what's bridging these two? How will Casual Carlos be enticed into trying escalating and more challenging content when they go from baby mode dungeons and trials they have to try to lose to fights where a slight mistake causes the group to die? That's what people refer to as midcore.
chaotic is in no way medcore content if pf can't clear it and takes hrs to form a party to progress phase 2 because the 17th person keeps dying it's in no way midcore, progging towers and erage to clear is savage raid language and savage raid is far above midcore content that you can just que into and clear xD
Eureka and Bozja are always what I was told was midcore, and the things these types of content have in common are as follows:
1. Open world instances that people can enter and leave at just about any time
2. A fairly lengthy progression system that casual players can't just finish in one go
3. Unique mechanics that can drastically change how you engage with the content (Eureka had logos, Bozja had lost actions), players who don't understand this system may find themselves struggling at first but those who take the time to learn these mechanics (or at the very least look up what to do online) they can find new ways of playing that are fun and/or stupidly OP.
4. Raids that capitalize on all of the above features with punishing but doable mechanics, with multiple difficulty levels for the hardcore players who want to challenge themselves further.
5. Plenty of rewards to incentivize coming back (including Relics with a meaningful progression system)
I like the fight structure of CAR, just that when they add body checks with 24 man it's when it becomes an issue.
The diamond arena phase is fine, personal responsibility is what we need, not towers who always explode atleast 1 or 2 or 3 because someone kills an entire alliance, it becomes obnoxious, a clear/reclear party is towers prog.
Atleast you can just cheese the 2nd set of towers with tank lb3
I haven't been able to do chaotic yet, but I think for it to be midcore it should have rewards casuals want (like a cool new hairstyle), offer better gear than what you can get doing duty finder raids, and be harder than duty finder raids. Yet not as hard as extremes.
It should serve as a stepping stone for people to start doing hardcore.
Normal raids are where midcore is supposed so be HENCE NORMAL meaning base or middle difficulty. Just delete extreme difficulty it makes no sense in terms of difficulty curve
Difficulty scale should go
Dungeons
Trials/Alliance raids
Normal Raids
Savage
Ultimate
Normal raids should be about practice for savage raids for everyone.
The issue with 14 in s the lack or regular content. Open world hunts bosses bozja etc
A year since launch and its to far gone to be fun
I count midcore as semi-difficult content inbetween say normal mode stuff and savage/ex's and content that takes more time investment that can be seen as offputting, such as relics. Why relics? Isn't it just grinding a ton? Well yeah BUT I've heard hundreds of players who say they will never touch relics or exploration zones because of the time needed.
Which is why I was very upset that EW lacked a good relic grind and gave everyone casual friendly glorified tombstone weapons. The casuals already have tons of content for them to do so lacking midcore content we did get before was a mark against EW for me.
Island Sanctuary is mid-core content. Legendary fishing is hardcore
CASUAL: anything that doesn't require any kind of guide for the vast majority of the player base. Little to no wipes to clear. Anything that does not require previous content to unlock besides story.
MIDCORE: anything that requieres a guide for most players or constantly wipe to learn. Does not necessarily require thorough study of mechanics and practice. Might be completed within a single lockout when it's new by some players
HARDCORE: anything that either demands a guide or requires extensive, thorough and detailed study and research of mechanics through wiping, death recap recordings or watching others who are more advanced into the fight, as well as extensive and intensive practice throughout many hours, days, weeks or even months.
1-3 hours of work upon release is doable by average casuals with the ability to get carried without wiping a run.
mid-core: Normal raids, Jeuno alliance
mid-core grind: Bozja, Eureka
high-midcore: Extremes
Hardcore: Savage, Chaotic, Ultimate, Unreal.
I expected something more like the Shadow lord/M3 but maybe 1 or 2 ticks harder
These comment literally anything that might require some coordination is just too much for midcore? I'm starting to think its midcore = softcore like what's the point of even a having a softcore designation if midcore is also softcore lmao. Literally anything extreme up is just too much for a midcore apparently from comments. I'm starting to think this is just a fake group of people. Did we pick up a bunch of lazy whiners from the wow exodus?
We don’t need more mid core content we need a new game , with a new engine , with new characters , new combat mechanics . We tired of playing the same game over and over again every freaking expansion
In my head, mid core is like, a trial where the boss does lots of mechanics quickly, or in conjunction with each other, but everything is still telegraphed with aoe indicators. Like, close to, or at, extreme tier.
Maybe my brain is crap, but if a trial or whatever requires me to watch a 30 minute video explaining where I need to be or what I need to do at very specific points in the fight because I just have to know what’s coming beforehand then I might as well just wait until I can outlevel and unsync that content.
Skill issue for sure, but also I’m working with a literal handicap, my eyes suck, so in the heat of combat I very easily miss more subtle tells for upcoming attacks.
as i see it the problem with chaotic is the 3 party system since it makes healing a pain when you are a ranged
I think of midcore content as extremes and 1st, maybe 2nd tier savages. Exploration zones seem to be easy to be considered to be midcore, and 3rd tier savage and ultimates seem to be too difficult. Let me preface as well, I'm in no way a top-tier player. Yes, I do hardcore content, but I'm not great at it.
I think what FF needs more of is more difficult content that isn't revolved around precise coordination. Content that doesn't require you to coordinate a song and dance to defeat. There are different ways to achieve difficulty, and lately i think FF only knows one way. I think if CoD was designed similarly to P1/P3 of the fight throughout, then it'd be perfect for what FF needs. Fast, lots of personal responsibility. Punishing but recoverable, and basic, on your toes coordination.
Mid core: A difficulty level harder than dungeons but easier than extreme trials. Ideally with gear rewards with a generous, or no, lockout.
How is savage, which you can progress through the party finder in a couple weeks, not considered midcore content?
I'm sorry for my offensive WoW mindset but midcore only starts to end imo. where it's simply impossible to pug (in WoW usually starting somewhere in the mid-mythic raid) so you need to find a fixed group to play and schedule with.
no what SE needs is real hardmidcore content; imagine this your in a EX/savage fight and instead of having to do some crazy positioning to soak towers/break tethers dodge aoes you now have to do a randomized jump puzzle in the middle of the fight, you fail you wipe and then to top it off instead of having to use LB for a mech you now have to use one of your emotes that you had to grind beast tribes quest to get which would be completely random and the last thing you need to do is strike a gpose and the game will grade your pose. now what should be locked behind this would be a 24 person mount that you can use in duty
but on the real this isnt too hard as long as you have the tenacity to keep going.
Have a group of friends you can consistently learn with and skip the waiting: midcore and good fun
Play solo or only have 1 or 2 friends who play the game: hardcore rando roulette where you spend the majority of the time just waiting.
Midcore means xivfrogs don't boil when put under any level of demand from the game. Anything else is hardcore, elitist, and toxic.
Way I see it if prog is involved in content then it's hardcore.
Also, lmao at people that thought Chaotic would be close to EXs when they specifically said it was closer to savage when it was announced.
Casual does not mean farming or non raiding content. Midcore, and hardcore have almost nothing to do with the content itself. But to do with how the group plans to clear. Casual content is self expanitory. We do not list midcore content or hardcore content. We say savage content, extreme, or ultimates. We do not list the content itself as casual mid or hardcore. We list how we clear them as those definitions.
Casual groups are groups that plan to just play the raids and have fun. If they clear cool, if not, whatever.
Midcore plan to clear and clear relatively quickly but they do not plan to meet outside their agreed upon meet times.
Hardcore plan to go hard on the content. 12-14 hours a day doing the content for 2-3 weeks until you clear it. Then you do the reclears.
Those are the only definitions that matter to ffxiv. Other games definition of midcore/hardcore does not matter here.
Extreme and savage 1/2 5/6 9/10 are firmly where midcore sits. You can reasonably go do the first or second savage and get through it in a few tries if you have no idea what you’re doing. You can also clear these with deaths.
The wall for “i have to know my class and understand how to do’s as well as move. If I don’t learn these mechanics, we will fail” last expansion was P3S. If you die, you won’t pass the damage checks.
A case could also be made for last tier savage with echo.
I think a big problem with the game is the major focus on choreography. Every fight is an increasingly difficult dance you have to remember and execute, as well as your own dance (rotation) to meet enrage/dps checks, and your entire party has to be on the same level or you can wipe pretty easily. It’s also had a major focus on just releasing harder and harder stuff, basically only appeasing the people who can “dance together” the best. The way they balance it to get harder is dumb too, make tells harder unless you memorize it, punish the party harder if someone messes up or dies, have less time between mechanics so if you aren’t in the right spot with the right latency just consider yourself dead. Every single thing that has come out for years (maybe aside from bozja or variant dungeons) has just been that, a harder dance that is more punishing if everyone isn’t amazing at it. This makes it hard to define midcore, too, because a hardcore player is going to be good at the dances, and they will see everything as easy, and a casual player will see anything more difficult than what they can handle as unsurpassable. I’ve always viewed midcore as something casual and hardcore players could get into, and would have a reason to enjoy it or engage with it beyond “I need harder content” or “I need easier content”. With the way the game plays now currently, I see getting more midcore content as near impossible without major structural changes to combat, classes, skills, etc.
For chaotic specifically remove the full 24 man body check. Not outright. Make the 3 man towers 2 man and make the 2 man tower 1 man. Alongside this remove the stupid eyeball lazers and its almost perfect. Its still challenging, still requires dps, still requires coordination. However instead of requiring near perfection it would give a margin of error for players to adjust too without making it completely easy mode. The eyeball lazer removal is more of a "why are you loading MORE things onto A/C it already is crying with mechanics" sorta fix. A/C is brutal compared to B sleepy mode tiles and the lazers are just unneeded.
I do want to comment on what people call midcore also. Personally first off, anyone who calls savage midcore is really dumb imo. They mean to say Ultimate is the only hardcore content and the rest is just a tutorial to it? Okay buddy. But aside that it will ALWAYS be subjective. You can go by difficulty, effort, mindset, ect. Difficulty is what most people lean to when we talk about it but some view things like big fishing or lengthy achievements as hardcore because of the effort it takes. Easy difficulty but hardcore grind. Some people like larryzaur say casual is a mindset where you take the game chill. So itll never be a simple thing to solve.
For me I just want something in between the massive leap that is doing alliance/normal raid and extreme trials. SE has almost always failed miserably to put a difficulty between them and even though DT has closed the gap a little we have basically nothing in the game still. I want something that has a chance of failure but doesnt take such precise coordination and high dps that youll be in party finder constantly kicking or remaking just in the hope of having 7-23 other clowns aside yourself to clear the content finally. And I want it to be current content at that too. Something like doing CE's, CLL, Dalradia when it was current. Something to fill that gap like I mentioned.
I've been trying to clear COD for days with a few friends. When you don't have 24 people you know personally, trying to Prog in PF is a bloody mess. Your Alliance could do perfectly, but one of the other ones screw up just ONE THING and the whole raid is going down. Trying to coordinate with three alliances full of random people is a whole mess. Not to mention there is people who haven't even done it yet, joining PFs that are trying to prog in phase 2 and just messing up everything.
I wouldn't be nearly as annoyed with this content if it wasn't released so close to an ultimate. There are plenty of players like myself with a family and a career that enjoy challenge but can't devote hours and hours to party finder.
Midcore content for me is something that isn't as difficult as extremes or higher, but is noticably higher than our bog standard 2 pack, 2 pack, boss x3 dungeons we've been getting, or our standard raids. Midcore content to me is something that is easy to pick up and doesn't require intense precision, noclippy, etc., but offers ways to squeeze more out of it, such as with the Bozja and Eureka actions.
Most of all though, Midcore content to me is something that will just engage me regardless of difficulty. Give me a carrot to chase, give me something to do with my time that I care about. I've said it before and I'll say it again until I'm blue in the face, FF14's reward structure is so beyond formulaic and static that it's boring, and they put almost everything of interest behind the higher difficulty content. Endwalker was abysmal for me as a player that finds casual dungeons too easy to be engaging, but doesn't have the internet quality nor patience for PF, nor time to dedicate to a proper static for anything higher end. With nothing like Bozja to keep me going and occupied and interested, EW was a snoozefest to me. Island Sanctuary was a waiting simulator, and in the greatest show of cosmic irony, the content referred to as "Variant Dungeons" was hilariously formulaic right from the start, being not at all variable as the title may suggest.
I'm bored, and I don't have any carrots to chase. I swear on all things that are holy if they put the relic grind behind "lol just farm tomestones again :B" this time, I'm out of here. I can't do another 3 years of paying to be bored. This all ties hand in hand with the class homogenization of everything falling under this 120s rotation window, most jobs playing very, very similarly, and a degrading sense of job identity and excitement. DT's job changes were a lot of things that – to most players – just ended up being slight animation changes with a potency increase. Which doesn't matter to a lot of players because the game gives you no real way to track your damage and the number spaghetti flying all over the screen during combat sure doesn't help either. It doesn't feel like anything meaningfully changed.
tl;dr – Midcore to me is content that is between our current high end of extremes or higher, and the easiness of our standard MSQ dungeons, normal raids, and alliance raids, but the real problem at hand for me is a boring loot structure leading to both a lack of interesting content for me, and a reason to do anything. Pair with increasing class stagnation in playstyle and identity, and a large portion of the playerbase feels forgotten.