Problem : Brand New Players think Ruthless is the default game mode

I refuse to believe that any functioning adult playing a game for the first time can't see a toggle labeled "Ruthless" or their native language equivalent and figure out, from context ALONE, that they are opting into a significantly increased degree of difficulty by clicking that toggle.

And that's not even counting the additional explanation which pops up explaining what specifically Ruthless means, which OP decided to handwave away with "people don't read those pop-up messages anyway (sic)."

These are people who genuinely need to be filtered out as quickly as possible, or at the very least taught the lesson that reading is important in this game. Because, and I am going to reiterate this because I don't think you can overstate the importance of the facts on the table here, we are talking about people who can't even get past character creation before they stop paying attention to the information on their screen, in a game they are playing for the first time.

NONE of these guys are getting out of Act 1, in ANY game mode.

I can confirm I selected Ruthless as a newcomer. I thought you had to select SSF mode or ruthless and SSF didn't sound fun. I didn't realize you can just pick the league and move on. The radio bubbles suggest you have to pick on or the other.