How to get more people into raiding 2016 onwards

Rift has some epic encounters, seen in raids like ID, PBB, IG or MoM etc. However a lot of people don't see these bosses in a tuning that is challenging for them but within reach of their abilites.
They see them in Raid IAs, Chronicles or an xpac later in the actual raid. So basically they don't see them in proper, exciting and epic way.

In this day and age, it is expected that a raiding system can cater to casual/progress/hardcore raiders at the same time. Guild raiding and pug raiding are both legit ways of raiding. In Rift however current tier raiding is reserved to guilds, pugging outdated content often requires achieves and extreme overgearing. Add to the mix that also a lot of non raiding grinding is required to get raid ready and its no wonder that not many raiders make it to T3 in a timely manner.

Here are some suggestions to improve the situation:

- Normal and Hard Mode:
Normal Mode is basically one step up from dungeons and demands a basic class performance, assignments and the execution of mechanics.
Hard Mode is targeted at experienced progress raiders, that can deliver a stable high end performance in any given situation, even if "all hell breaks loose" with high demands on multitasking and situational awareness.

- Reliable catchup mechanics:
Rolling vs various people that also need RNG gear in a weekly lockout is not a solid catchup mechanic. Gearing through spammable dungeons that offer catchup gear for current raid content, getting a set of catchup gear through world activites in a resaonable amount of time or even upbolstering for normal mode are possibilites. My favourite would be challenging dungeons that prepare you for the challenge that comes with raiding.

- Matchmaking for regular raiding:
Some people think that matchmaking for raiding equals LFR tourist mode as if it was still 2011.
The landslide success of manual and automatic tools such as Oqueue/Open Raid/Official Premade Builder or Duty Finder has proven otherwise. Especially a "normal mode" as described above could be accessed via Matchmaking.

- Organized Large Scale World Boss Raiding:
Rift has some epic Open World Raid encounters like for example Volan or the Dendrome bosses. So far however they were basically zerg based.
They could be rereleased in a more demanding version that requires people to join Voice Chat channels where officers make assignments before the match and "on the fly" during the match. This is truly epic and also gives a strong sense of community.

Summary and discussion:
In order to get more people into Raiding change is needed. There are various possibilites and as everything it comes with advantages and disadvantages. However the above suggestions are not made up out of thin air, but have proven to work. Hopefully now you have some food for thought. I would be glad to read your suggestions and thoughts on the matter.

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How to get more people into raiding 2016 onwards