What is a HC player?

[Aelin_Ashryver]

Hardcore varies depending what stage of life you are on I feel.. A young teen on holidays can easily put 10h+ in. Or I guess if you are unemployed there is that too! I always found MMO players version of harcore always took more hours due to the nature of the genre as well.

[Tlachtga]

its more of a mindset or approach to fights rather than time invested.

that 10 hrs a day is normal in XIV for world first groups, and some week 1 groups. it sounds very extreme, but generally these groups only need 1-3 days to kill a raid tier.

[Roeshel]

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.

Yes, I know that doing it with weaker gear would be a lot harder but... it is a static. Players in static should be more organized than a random pf group.

I think the smart way to prog savage without guides is to visually record your pulls and each time you encounter a new mechanic and you wipe, watch the replay, observe the last mechanic, see if it is in any way similar to the normal version of the raid, think of ways to solve it and then try and see if your solution was the correct one. It is better than just wiping again to see 4-5secs of the last mechanic. A static should be able to have at least this bare minimum of additional coordination and utilize it, something that PF groups won't ever do.

I assume that it would be very difficult to do that in a PF group so if clearing raids week one is too much of a time investment for the wrong reasons, I will wait for the guides.

[Rilifane]

Yes, I know that doing it with weaker gear would be a lot harder but... it is a static. Players in static should be more organized than a random pf group.

I think the smart way to prog savage without guides is to visually record your pulls and each time you encounter a new mechanic and you wipe, watch the replay, observe the last mechanic, see if it is in any way similar to the normal version of the raid, think of ways to solve it and then try and see if your solution was the correct one. It is better than just wiping again to see 4-5secs of the last mechanic. A static should be able to have at least this bare minimum of additional coordination and utilize it, something that PF groups won't ever do.

I assume that it would be very difficult to do that in a PF group so if clearing raids week one is too much of a time investment for the wrong reasons, I will wait for the guides.

Entry level gear and blind prog already makes a gigantic difference you seem to be underestimating and I don't think you're really in a position to judge it as harshly. Clearing savage and clearing savage 1st week are two entirely different things. Escpecially the last boss is a huge roadblock because it has a secret phase so you don't even have the slightest idea from doing normal.
If people go for clear races or even 1st week in general, 10h/ day is pretty normal.
Everyone knows in advance what's coming, so they take days off, take care of things they need to take care off etc. and then raid. It's only for a few days, afterwards they go back to having a few days a week with regular ties like 3h max.
And recording and talking about strategies is part of raiding. It's not 10h of straight chain pulling, things get discussed between pulls. Yes, a static is coordinated but the additional difficulty goes way beyond requiring a "I'm using my Samba here". Standard practice is doing a couple of chain pulls, everyone keeping their eyes peeled during tries, checking the recordings if nobody was able to clearly figure out what happend and chain pull again.
Even with breaks, concentrating for 10h is stressing and by hour 5+ you're not able to concentrate the same as someone that just now hopped into PF for some relaxed practice after chilling with their cat on the couch for a bit. You're on a timer and it adds mental pressure. But simply cutting it down to 5h isn't going to work either because if you're racing, you need the time even if people can no longer play at their absolute best.
And since nobody is able to play at their absolut best for 10h straight, you'll inevitably have some mistakes.

[Katie_Kitty]

An easy way to identify that I personally prefer:

HC means the group wants to begin day 1 and clear everything by the end of day 7.

MC means the group wants to begin day 1 and clear everything in the first month.

Casual means everything else.

I know that's not exactly how recruiters use them, but that's how I see it.

[van_arn]

If you’re not putting in the time or hours for a week 1 clear, you’re not hardcore for that tier. No exceptions.

[SirCadogan]

Back in wow during the Wrath expansion there was an raid encounter called “Three Drake” it was an achievement that basically made the encounter very difficult. At the time it was considered the hardest achievement in the game.

My guild was in a race with another guild for server first. Yeah we basically raided 8+ hours a night to get it done. We made server first and it was so not worth it.