Mediocrity should NOT be the standard for players in any content.

[QT_Melon]

That loyal midcore community is also complaining though. It isn't just the hardcore raiders bemoaning how boring healers have become or how utterly trivial content is below Savage. You're also vastly overstating how much worse things would be for casual players. Most hardcore players know dungeons are never going to be intensely hard nor do they necessarily want them to be. What they want is something requiring more than a pulse. When I can collect eight vulnerability stacks on the last boss of Grand Cosmos, why do I care about any mechanic he has? In fact, I routinely stand in AoEs as a tank, DPS or healer because I know they'll never be threatening enough I need to care. When I can literally AFK a normal mode raid because my co-healer friend simply doesn't need me to help... that says everything that needs to be said about how pathetically low outgoing damage is. I'm not kidding either. A friend and I have tested this several times. I can either DPS without looking at my heals or straight up AFK and it doesn't make a lick of difference to how she heals. Normal modes are that laughable.

I don't want them to suddenly be EX Primal difficulty. But they shouldn't be completely brain dead either.

Gordias killed a lot of midcore and I don't think it was ever the same again. The problem with a lot of fights is the scripted aspects so that people feel they can get away with a lot of what you mentioned. Much of the RNG that was there has been taken away. This is the problem with themepark style of MMO. I think the problem is that there is only so much content they can make and I agree what is needed is more midcore content.


There needs to be a reason for people to want to improve, and midcore tends to fit that bill. Hardcore players give other players a goal to achieve in bettering themselves (to one day BE that player) - but only if that representation of them is done right. While I do believe the vast majority of the top players don't try to cause large amounts of strife on the player base, those that hang around them or fanboys may be causing it with memes, and overall being edgelords. I think that problem is what causes so much more dissonance among the player base.

I think social media and social presence need to stop hovering (yeah easier said than done) the snarkiest edgy comment to grab those likes and upvotes but general support from players who can help out others in a general enthusiastic way of improving one another. It's not that there shouldn't be some snark or edgy humor. I like it, but I see so much of it, it's just set people firmly in their camps that it is depressing when topics like this come up and people can't figure out that the problem is less of the devs but how the community treats each other.

This game probably has a lot less "toxic" attitudes than some other mmos, but it is rather noticeable how much dogpiling and echo chambers go on about the same topics.
I don't have an easy solution, and have helped when I could, even though my eyesight isn't the best and my RSI flareup just make it difficult some days to play at my best. But I can at least tell people what methods I have used to deal with mechanics, or resources for people interested in improving or getting better at certain aspects of the game.