SE: Savage Difficulty Spike and PF Toxicity Shows we need Hard Raids
Many players find Normal Raids too easy and Savage Raids too hard. Some of the highest skilled players sometimes resent the latter players even being in Savage. The solution is easy and requires almost no effort or changes in fight development by SE: just tune with MINE and use copy-paste.
Savage Raids: Using the current 7.2 Savage ilvls as an example for my purposes, when you are creating your next Savage tier or further in the future, tune it to ilvl 730 AND sync it to ilvl 730. Essentially force Savage to be MINE (minimum ilvl, no echo) permanently upon release and forever. Also do not allow pots or food above ilvl 730 either, and possibly do not even allow pots or food at all. Tune it to get whatever percentage of the top players you want it to be cleared by in the world first races.
Hard Raids: Take the unsynced version of the same exact fights and allow upgraded gear, food, and pots. So with the current Savage fights players would start with ilvl 740 gear and eventually get higher levels of gear just as they currently do, but there would be no weekly lockouts because the gear is not needed for Savage so gearing would be faster. Call these Hard Raids.
Normal Raids --> Hard Raids (with gear, food, pots) --> Savage Raids (MINE, without food and pots)
[Hard Raid and Savage Raid fights are identical: only player stats are different]
Hard Raids would emphasize learning the mechanics whereas Savage Raids would continue to emphasize doing both the DPS optimization while doing the mechanics. By tuning the Savage fight such that the best players do not get access to new gear to complete them it would automatically also be tuned for Hard. So basically the challenge will remain intact and permanent for Savage Raids and less-skilled players will have the option to enjoy the same content much closer to release in the form of Hard Raids.
The problems of the current system are rather striking. For many players Normal is too easy and Savage is too hard, at least for a while, until enough gear trickles out. The current Raid system is essentially the release of an easy mode and a hard mode, and then a normal mode much, much later. This means the most-skilled players and the much-less-skilled players each have content to enjoy at release, but a large chunk of players have to suffer with either boring content or frustrating content until enough gear is obtainable: it can take up to eight months for some players to get enough gear to start having fun due to the limited loot roll system. As time goes on the number of players playing the content drops and it becomes harder to find good players or players with enough gear to compensate for their lower skill level. Because the game has no personal damage meters, grading system, or prog point identification system, PF becomes a place where players may never know whether they are good enough to clear or whether they are being held back by the lack of gear or other players. This leads to animosity between players of different skill levels trying to play the same content potentially for different purposes.
The current system is plagued by accusations of prog lying and players on high horses blaming lower level players for skill issues. I have heard many stories of players who feel burned out trying to clear as much as possible early because as time goes on the number of very-skilled players progging drops and the more numerous less-skilled players end up having much less of a chance to clear because the gear doesn't get accessible fast enough. It's easy for high level players to get gear they don't need, but less-skilled players have a harder time getting the gear they do need. The loot system actively discourages higher level players from helping lower level players. Some players have to rely only on the pity book system. It also becomes harder for the more-skilled players who do not have statics because they get paired with less-skilled players in PF. Players use their black lists to try and filter skill or use third party apps to filter skill. Some parties block jobs they do not think are able to clear. Some players disband if prog isn't seen instantaneously. It is easy for the content to become demoralizing for all skill levels especially when there are numerous strats floating around complicating things. Many 'prog liars' are just ordinary people who are making mistakes because they have a had a long day at work and are tired or their hands are sore from actual physical labor: they still want a place where they can go and take their minds off their troubles, but they also do not want to fall asleep in Normal Raids.
All the problems are from SE trying to have one mode serve double-duty: try splitting it into two modes.
I have often heard high level players claim gear isn't necessary to clear the content or it doesn't make much of a difference. Make Savage MINE and let's test that theory. No need to buy or craft new gear. No more pentamelding. No more golden tickets from Khloe. No more funneling gear through alts. No more giving gear to the highest DPS first. No more relying on lucky rolls. Every racer starts at the same line using the gear they earned in the previous raid tier. Oh and I would also restrict pots and food to be no more than ilvl 730 so no need for new food or pots. In fact I would be tempted to remove the use of food and pots completely from Savage, so it would be cheaper too. But this might make the content too hard for some.
I recently heard one youtuber claim 'Savage is not for fun, it is for the challenge; it only becomes fun if you enjoy the challenge.'
So where do those players who 'do not belong' in Savage go? If Savage were tuned at ilvl 730 and possible without the use of food or pots, then the exact same tuning with new gear, food, and pots should allow many more to participate in the Hard Raid content as the DPS and Healer checks should automatically be much less strict from the start than they currently seem to be. More players might think stepping into Hard is not as scary. The current expansion Savage Raids have such great characters, music, and mechanics it is a shame that they cannot be enjoyed at release by more players without grouping with players who sometimes seem offended by their presence.
Since gear would no longer matter for Savage, make winning gear easier for Hard Raids, by removing weekly lockouts, and allow players who have already cleared that week to help other players clear and have fun. Make Hard Raids a socially safer place where failure is not such an emotional buzzkill to so many and where players have a chance to learn new skills and challenge themselves without being as much of a hindrance to others. High level players should want a place where lower skill level players can actually improve their skills. A wider range of skill-levels would have a place where they could practice different jobs without feeling like they need to stick to one job they can optimize. Very few are learning much in Normal Raids because the mechanics feel very dumbed down after only a few runs: sometimes you can fail/eat mechanic after mechanic and still live. There is a massive gap between Normal and Savage difficulty levels.
Having a Savage Raid and Hard Raid split would have many advantages. First those extremely serious players would be able to find themselves more easily, as would those players who want less serious gameplay that is still challenging. I suspect it might even result in Data Centres maintaining their Hard Raids in PF, while only Savage Raid players flock to one Data Centre like Aether (NA). Hard Raid completions could be required to unlock Savage Raids, perhaps even having to clear ten times to unlock Savage. There is no filter between Normal and Savage Raids: Extremes only function like a loose recommendation. Hard Raids would allow players, including higher level players, to improve or practice in a less socially tense environment. Maybe better players would be more willing to help other players improve through positive criticism and those struggling players would be willing to accept it without being so easily offended. There would be no need for the one clear on each Tuesday mentality. Jobs that might be blocked in Savage shouldn't be an issue in Hard. Maybe you wouldn't need a shield and pure healer combination. In the end players will be able to judge their success or failure in Hard and know whether they are suited to trying Savage since only the DPS and Survivability checks are different. The current super gradual luck-based change in difficulty over time is a curse. Players could also practice more easily by intentionally lowering the ilvl of their gear in Hard. Good players who do Savage might use Hard to recruit players or create lists of good players instead of focusing on block lists. Multiple strats used in Hard might also be tested more easily and possibly result in a filtration that leads to a single strat for Savage.
For SE's part the amount of work developing the fights should be no different than currently. Just tune them at a lower ilvl without food and pots. The only difference will be that more players will end up with a separate mode with less severe checks early on because they will have more easily accessible gear sooner rather than waiting for up to eight months when the interest has significantly died down. If you think that quicker gearing would result in players being finished with the content sooner you are wrong. I guarantee there are lots of players who would try and gear all their jobs if the possibility were there on a single character. In fact if gearing is the goal and content is just designed around making gearing a longer process rather than the gameplay being the goal that is a sad philosophy. Try other things: e.g. while I would put the Raid mount as a drop in Savage only, I would be tempted to have an achievement with that same mount recolored for clearing the Hard Raids on every job. If you make the content more attractive to more players, the increased number of players alone will help keep numbers up. If you give more people a place to learn and improve, there's also a chance more people who are actually capable move from Hard to Savage in a less miserable manner.
It cannot be emphasized enough: by trying to force more players at more skill levels into the same content, you are causing unnecessary friction.
So, SE, the next time you are tuning Savage use MINE rules and consider not using food or pots. Stop tuning with the assumption that the best players will have access to new better gear, food, and pots. Force them to continue using the gear from the previous tier. Doing so would allow the exact same fights to be copy and pasted into a Hard Raid mode so that more players can participate and enjoy the content sooner. You just have to split the content into forced MINE and unsynced variants using a lower initial ilvl tune. The same amount of work on your end resulting in two difficulty modes might help increase your content's popularity.
