Please improve PFs for Progging Savage Raids (NA...but ideas for all regions)

[Hastatus]

The hardest part of progging the current savage raids in PF is that there are not enough players in the pool (NA on weekends and prime time weekdays in my case). It can take a long time to fill groups and those groups can have one or two players that cause the group to disband quickly. During EW I only progged P1S and P2S because finding groups was super tedious and time-consuming. The current raids feel less difficult in terms of DPS and body checks so there should be more players capable of participating, if they know it and can find each other. I managed to complete M1S in PF rather quickly but M2S feels like a ghost town. I suggest the following ideas to increase the pool and quality of players.

Data Center Traveling Issues
1) Please create new regional data centres for progging only: yes, no Duty Completes allowed. Currently many players would go to Aether as in the past but it is congested most of the time and not available to travel to. Primal seems to be the second option but usually seems to have half the population of Aether in terms of Savage Content PFs. It would be super nice if progging in all homeworlds was not possible, only Duty Complete for current Savage Raids in homeworlds would be allowed. This would force all progging players into the same pool. By separating the progging groups and the Duty Complete groups it would have the added benefit of making searching through the lists much easier too for both sides of completion. Such a Data Centre could be very useful for other forms of content too: Unreal, Criterion (Savage) Dungeons, the upcoming 24-man Savage Raids, etc.

Player Progress Issues
2) Please create personal-prog checkpoints. Every time you are alive while seeing a mechanic five times you would get a checkpoint for that mechanic. PFs could then be created with certain prog points in mind and only those who had been to those mechanics five times could enter. Example: If you are doing M2S and you set the prog point as Beat#3 only players who had survived through Alarm Pheromones 2 five times could enter. When someone creates an enrage/clear party no one will have to worry about whether others had seen enrage before. The quality and experience of players entering would be known and everyone would be much more likely to be in synch.

(Continued in Next Post)

[Hastatus]

Weekly Reward Lockout Issues
3) Remove the penalty that causes players who have completed a specific raid for the week from loot/chest-punishing other players who have not yet completely-progged a raid before. Some players who have completed are afraid to enter progging groups because of the penalty they might impose. Yes, some elite players might take advantage of getting a couple guaranteed chests once...they probably already do that every week using alts. It is not worth hurting average players who play a single character and want to practice and clear. Those who genuinely want to help others should not feel restricted from helping less-accomplished players. Players who (sometimes delusionally) expect to clear will not be so worried about who is coming to help them. If this cannot be done because protecting your already-scant rewards is too important, just remove ALL rewards from prog/first-clear PFs. Progging groups shouldn't have to worry about 0,1,or 2-chest parties, it just splits people up when it is already hard to fill up groups. You might even attract a lot more players if EVERYONE who completed raids for the first time got TWO CHESTS GUARANTEED: it takes a long time for most players to prog such content the first time. A First-Time Completion Bonus for all would feel really nice and remove other problems entirely.

PF Advanced Search Issues
4) If you cannot create, or until you do create Prog-Only Data Centres, please create separate Savage Prog and Savage Complete tabs in the PF Finder. It is too annoying to sort through the two types of PFs. Some PF creators do not properly use the "Practice" and "Duty Complete" Options so "None" overlaps both objectives. The "Duty Completion" Objective is often used by those with "Duty Complete" because it is not obvious enough that everyone wants to complete content: maybe create a "First-time Duty Completion" option for differentiation. Progging groups cannot be easily filtered because the Advanced Search Filter is not exclusive: i.e. we cannot set the filter to exclude all "Duty Completion" Conditions. Maybe you could add some Objectives that could be used as easier filters: "Prog Group: 0-2 Chest" and "Prog Group: 2 Chest"... or eventually just "Prog Group" . It just seems like PF Advanced Search never had progging savage content in mind.

SE, as you have expanded the game over time you have unintentionally created many systems that have split up the pools of progging players and made it as challenging as the savage raids themselves. Sometimes it can takes hours of searching for only ten minutes of play. It is your job to help bring the right types of players together into one place where they can have better chances of finding each other and the success that comes with it when dealing with challenging content. Thank you. FYI: DT has been great fun!

[PercibelTheren]

I think the solution to 1 is just to enable cross-DC PF. Personal checkpoints seem a little pointless to me. I think gearing should have the system from Normal raids where you get 1 personal loot item per week. Being unable to help friends whose static member is sick because you would nerf their loot sucks. I definitely agree that PF needs better filtering. What we have now is awful.

[Banggugyangu]

On point 2: Surviving a mechanic does not necessarily mean you did the mechanic correctly. It's very possible to be the only person who screwed up and also the only person who survived.

On point 3: The problem with this idea is that it is very exploitable. You WILL have statics where each player has 2 characters. They clear 8 times per week to get all the rewards for the 1 person who hasn't. In regards to the "they probably already do this with alts" thing, yes, there are people who run dual characters and will do a run with half their party on mains and the other half on alts, then switch, allowing mains to get more gear, but changing to your suggestion will be HEAVILY exploited. Frankly, it's not hard to gear a role in savage. You can truthfully gear 2-3 roles if your party clears quickly. And while there are SOME people who just like helping out, you will find that the end result has the opposite effect. You'll have more players finish their gearing and be burnt out far faster, resulting in less drive to do anything with the raids altogether. I'm not saying gearing doesn't need to be revisited, but we definitely don't need the suggestion you proposed for it.