What is a HC player?

[Arillyn]

As others have said, I would expect this to be a static possibly trying for a world first. And many statics going for world firsts will take the first week off when a new savage drops.

[MPK]

As others have said, I would expect this to be a static possibly trying for a world first. And many statics going for world firsts will take the first week off when a new savage drops.

Might not be a world first team, could just easily be a week 1 static

[Dragonblanco]

As you see by posts here, the terminology is divided. Originally hardcore meant that the game was priority in your life. You might work and all, but you'd call out sick or request time off for some things. You'd stay up all night and go without sleep because raiding was more important than sleep. Obviously within that mindset often was young kids and people under the age of 25 overall. Not to say we didn't have older, but that's what it consisted of. Of course, usually it was moreso joked about in saying WoW > life or whatever, but it was also a culture saying to fit in the time you can. If you want to be the best at anything, you have to put in the time.

Opposite of hardcore was causals. For casuals, life takes priority over anything else. They log in and will push whatever content they can, but they aren't sweating it. They have kids, jobs, or whatever else. They are the "responsible" people. Yet because they couldn't put in time, they usually didn't always remember fights, lacked in gear (because they couldn't push content to get the best), and often started to fall behind compared to "hardcore" players. This difference between gear and experience made it difficult for hardcore players and casuals to play together.

That said, specifying you must do 10+ hours a day doesn't quite fit the traditional hardcore. I mean, it does, but to the extreme. And as mentioned in OP, it speaks for a lack of skills and communication. True hardcore gamers with their salt will attempt a few times, which might be like 10+ hours on those days, but then you break. During that break, you'll have people analyzing logs, watching the videos, and discussing possible strategies. You upgrade gear or improve on your rotation, but also try to relax and maybe do some other stuff. Then you get together and run again.

For example, back when I was part of a guild that consistently got World First and sold raid carries to others, this was something of our schedule: (not exact, but to kind of show)
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Monday: Mythic runs 6pm-midnight
Tuesday: Rated Battlegrounds 6pm-11pm
Wednesday: Raid Carry for newbies (new people in guild, to gear them up) 5pm-midnight
Thursday: Guild event like lottery, mount farm, or whatever else. Also crafting night to make sure we had potions, elixirs, etc for the weekend
Friday: Current Raid Progression: 6pm-midnight (Once we first part of content and had it on farm, this turned into selling runs/carries)
Saturday: Current Raid Progression: 6pm-4am (We'd run multiple groups. Just like prior, some spots would be sold for carries or would have newer players just to gear them up for harder content)
Sunday: Random...sometimes we'd push content more if we hadn't finished. Other times was just like a do whatever day. Or we'd end up doing stuff like guild pvp tournament and stuff. But it always varied.

*NOTE* When I show like 6+ hours of stuff, it wasn't always same people there all the time. Sometimes people would leave or join us within those times due to work or other things. Also important to note that schedule was just for people who wanted to raid. There were other events and things going on for lower level players and those who weren't looking just at end game. That said, some of us would also get together outside of those scheduled times to run with PUGS, friends in other guilds, or whatever.

But yeah, we'd do a good 3-5 days of raiding, which could get old. But we were big enough that we'd rotate around. We started with one static group but built it up to running multiple. Some individuals might have pushed longer hours like your recruit message. Main idea is that is more "extreme" and you're essentially seeing someone trying to be "competitive" hardcore. They are hoping by tossing in all the time, they'll do better than others. Sometimes it works, but sometimes they start screwing up because they repeat too much and just drain themselves. It's hard to find good balance between hitting progression but also being mindful of how your mind and body operate. Screw up on one end and you'll fall behind. Screw up on the other and you'll constantly wipe and make mistakes.

[Roeshel]

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I can spend 10 hours playing a game on the weekends but not actively playing it if you get what I mean. For example, if I use df for a dungeon as dps I wait 20 mins in a queue and actually play 15-20 mins in the dungeon. So in the 20 mins I was waiting I was doing something else completely unrelated to the game and maybe I was even afk. When doing savage you have to pay so much attention when you are still learning. I am no longer enjoying myself if I have to do it for more than 2-3 hours of actively playing. I can push myself to get the clear a day earlier but what's the point? I will wake up with a headache and feel like crap throughout the whole day because instead of sleeping I was raiding.

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I made parties for X mechanic onwards, we play, we wipe, we play, someone leaves, I recruit more ppl, repeat. When I am confident enough(seen enrage), PF becomes a clear party. Obviously, not everybody is welcomed, you need enrage experience or a clear. I usually played on the weekends for progging because parties filled up quicker, and there were more practice parties as well.
The most difficult raid was the Oracle of Darkness because it was locked behind another raid boss and it had no normal raid version. I needed 3 more days of progging to get clear of e12s part two after clearing part one. I must mention that by the time I sat down to learn e12s' guide they already enabled the echo which gave us 10% boost to stats but I still think that I would have been able to get the clear if they postponed their patch.

I am basing what savage is on my personal experience with pf. I get that not everyone has had the same experience. And I know that people who are more willing to kick other players during pf practice groups are more often than not bad players, who are frustrated immensely at their lack of skills so they get pissed when someone else makes a mistake before the X mechanic in the pf. I've been kicked twice from pf practice groups. Once it was by a tank who was progging e12s relativities for 2 whole weeks. The other, well..., a player who currently has 27 echo runs on e12s, part 2 is all gray logs, you can imagine how it was when we were doing practice. This speaks a lot more than I can say. He did tell me that he sits 6h+ per day to get a clear. I assume he wasted a lot of days, trying to get his clear. He wastes his time meaninglessly. Instead of taking a break, think, reflect on his mistakes and his rotation, he just spams savage, without any improvement.

In any case, when Endwalker drops, I hope that the gameplay of the healer classes is going to be more interesting because I won't be creating ten alts to do the raids because the loot is restricted, grinding is not what keeps me in a game, it's gameplay. I literally unsubbed because in the hardest raid I hated the excessive amount of clipping caused by the constant need for movement. WHM is or more like was my main. I am definitely changing to other healer classes if it remains the way it is right now.

[CaedemSanguis]

If a game is someone's priority when they have a family, gf/bf/partner, job, college/schoolwork to balance as well then I'm genuinely concerned for their mental/physical health and wonder if they miss sleeping.

You can ask Sco or Gingi from wow, about their physical/mental health

[SturmChurro]

I can spend 10 hours playing a game on the weekends but not actively playing it if you get what I mean. For example, if I use df for a dungeon as dps I wait 20 mins in a queue and actually play 15-20 mins in the dungeon. So in the 20 mins I was waiting I was doing something else completely unrelated to the game and maybe I was even afk. When doing savage you have to pay so much attention when you are still learning. I am no longer enjoying myself if I have to do it for more than 2-3 hours of actively playing. I can push myself to get the clear a day earlier but what's the point? I will wake up with a headache and feel like crap throughout the whole day because instead of sleeping I was raiding.

I have the time to do it fairly regularly, but I usually only do it on anticipated game releases, updates/expansions, or just generally if I'm really into something. Launch of Zadnor I spent probably 10+ hours in there for a few days, for example. I simply lack the interest most of the time. In regards to raiding yeah, it's actually what burned me out of doing harder content in ShB. I was spending 10+ hours a day during and after ShB launch doing extremes and trying to farm the mount(s), I even dabbled in savage prog. I just don't have the tolerance I used to when I was younger, in terms of grinding content like this nonstop.

[Fawkes]

It's so odd how people think people who do ultimate or w/e are hardcore but in reality, what ever is shown in OP is what HC raiding really is.

They can both be hardcore.

Just like how someone who only dabbles in late savage well after it's been all figured out could be a casual, and someone who thinks 24 man raids are too hard and only runs dungeons is casual.

[Awha]

Is this the general understanding of what hardcore players and statics are? Seems a bit too extreme for me and rather unhealthy for the mind and body alike.

Also, If you have to invest 10 hours or even more to clear a raid tier as a static on week 1, doesn't this mean that the players are slow learners? I by no means claim to be a fast learner but it is just strange for me that someone who needs 10h+ to learn ten mins scripted fight expects fast learners to join him. If 10hours is fast then what is considered slow? Are the savage raids on week 1 that hard? I really want to find out.

I can see this being the standard for week one or work first groups, especially with ultimate taking time off from work is not unheard of. Generally the extreme aspect is probably relative to the group I know of some players in other games that would think 10+ hours is rather lax while others it is extreme. Depends on the person and many other factor.

[Dreamsoap]

I knew someone who told me they did 16 hour ultimate prog days. 5 days a week. He lost his gilrfriend and one static member was at risk of losing their leg.

Don't do games, kids.

[Akiudo]

I must mention that by the time I sat down to learn e12s' guide they already enabled the echo which gave us 10% boost to stats but I still think that I would have been able to get the clear if they postponed their patch.

I am basing what savage is on my personal experience with pf.

don't want to dimish your achievement, you worked to kill e12s, you killed e12s, kudos to you, BUT

after echo so realistically with a group where everyone was at least close to 530 and with knowledge of how the fight works (you know, allready read a guide).

you really don't see how doing it with 15-20 itemlevels less (and no echo) and while not being able to fall back on allready established tactics will take a lot more time ? and i mean a lot ?. even if everyone played literally perfect the idea of "learning a 10 minute scripted fight" would be a lot to simply as you actively have to figure out just how stuff is even supposed to work.

imagine you are 8 minute into any fight and some big really complicated mechanic pops up wiping you instantly. it will now take you 8 minutes every single time you even want to see the mechanic to have any chance to practice said coreography, and it will surely take more than 1 try to actually figure out just how to handle stuff, and thats for one mechanic and assuming literally no one messes up, ever, even after hours of concentrating to the max.