Originally Posted by Precarious
So, I guess I'll provide some perspective from the other half.
Obviously, whether or not there's a D8 doesn't affect me, and almost certainly never will. But the talk of abolishing divisions altogether does, so I'll discuss that as well. As far as a prospective D8 is concerned, the obvious issue is that even that new super-division could just get stretched out again, as more people reach its requirements and the very top continues to improve. Eventually there would be a call to put people like Etienne in a D9, and so on.
If there's going to be a D8, I suggest making it an Official Tournament-only thing, and hardcapping the number of entrants. Officially, all D8 players would still be D7; the prestige of achieving D7 as the final "rung" would be preserved. Instead, D8 would be a tournament-only elite rung with what amounts to a relegation system. Only the top nine players at that time (however you'd want to determine that) would be eligible to compete in D8. The composition of D8 would thus vary from tournament to tournament, providing an incentive both for current and prospective D8 players to reach that fleeting pinnacle, while also removing any issue of rust (a rusty player wouldn't be placed in that particular edition of D8, obviously). This would give the absolute best players their own arena, while preventing the concept from being watered down in the future, and still allowing "normal" D7 players to be at their hard-earned apex all the rest of the time.
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Obviously, I strongly disagree with any suggestion that divisions be removed. That serves only to further emphasize the difference between existing divisions. We get it; D7 is better than everyone else at this game. But unless you're only concerned with turning FFR into your own exclusive fiefdom, it hurts the community. I've been playing a ton of FFR the past few weeks, and I've improved substantially. I may still be terrible by the standards of everyone else that's posted in this thread (in fact, the may isn't necessary--I am terrible), but competing against other people at my level has provided an impetus for real improvement, and helped to generate a passion for the game. That D1 had the fewest entrants of any division should be alarming. It suggests that not enough new blood is being introduced to the game. Ideally, players advance through the structure, but it's not healthy for the site to be so top heavy in my opinion, and D1-D3 players would have little hope of achieving anything even remotely meaningful in an expanded tournament.
Moreover, the songs themselves become problematic. To me, it's interesting to see what the different divisions play each round. I'm left in awe that anyone can even read the D7 songs. But that gap, if brought together, creates a user-unfriendly environment. Take, say, a low 60s song. To a D7 player, this would probably be boring, hardly worth their time. To me, it would represent an impossible challenge, reducing me to mashing during dense sequences. I'd barely be playing the game at those times, instead just emptily pounding keys with little rhythm, hoping to hit as many notes as possible by chance. Perhaps I'd be eliminated before that moment arrives, but that means boring high division players with songs they can sleepwalk through. It would also, I suspect, reduced the variety of difficulty produced during a tournament. Sure, there have been workarounds suggested, but turning this place into even more of playground for high tier players ossifies the community, scaring off or discouraging lower players who are made to feel meaningless.
If I win my division, I won't get a keyboard or headphones or a t-shirt. That's fine; I'm more than aware that the reason I'm still in the official is because I'm bad at the game, not because I'm good at it. I can assure you that anyone at my skill level realizes this. But this is the opportunity we get to show what we can do against people of our own skill level, and that means something. The same holds true for middle division players, and, I would hope, even the highest divisions. Yes, the current format has issues--right now, anyone who just slips into the next division up suffers structurally--but all a divisionless tournament would be is a rapid winnowing to the D7 players, at which point it would just become the D7 bracket we are already seeing. Even a non-elimination tournament would result in players playing songs that, instead of pushing them to their limits, either goes way past them or doesn't challenge them at all. In a community that counts a gigantic range of skills, the division structure works. You guys are in the majors. There's no reason to kill minor league baseball.
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