Why do people avoid getting better at the game?

Quick, someone post the bait meme!

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Originally Posted by Shinkuno

Because no matter how challenging the content is, if the classes are designed for people that afk in limsa i wont have fun regardless

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❤❤

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Originally Posted by Tint

A more welcoming atmosphere. People have no desire to join parties for harder content when they get judged for their skill level, holding everyone back, get called out and then people leave / the group disbands after a few minutes.

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What are you considering harder content?

The only time I've seen "hard" content teams disband is when the PF is for a specific phase/mechanic and it's clear the party isn't going to reach that point. Sometimes there's a little salt but otherwise ends in "thanks for your time" and disbands.

A party disbanding after "a few minutes" is about 1 pull so I'm calling BS on that one.

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Originally Posted by Troxbark

What are you considering harder content?

The only time I've seen "hard" content teams disband is when the PF is for a specific phase/mechanic and it's clear the party isn't going to reach that point. Sometimes there's a little salt but otherwise ends in "thanks for your time" and disbands.

A party disbanding after "a few minutes" is about 1 pull so I'm calling BS on that one.

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Ive seen that happen more often in wow than FF14. Still, it may happen just like you said.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Quick, someone post the bait meme!

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https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.6045...600,f8f8f8.jpg

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Originally Posted by Fellgon

Ive seen that happen more often in wow than FF14. Still, it may happen just like you said.

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It usually happens in learning parties when someone clearly lied about their progress.

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Originally Posted by CaedemSanguis

Casual content is made for casuals, and its therefore easy

Hardcore content is made for hardcore raiders, and its therefore very hard

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And yet there exists but one suite of abilities for players to use for each job, in both types of content you describe. Mastery of a game focused on accurate choreography not withstanding, that has left us with jobs losing bits and pieces of themselves over expansions, with the general take away being that it was done to make them more "accessible" rather than to tighten up the gameplay or necessarily make them more "fun."

Which was my point.

Note that this isn't me saying that the casual players, or even players that just aren't skilled in general, are at fault for this turn in job design. This is Squeen baggage, which has many different variables pushing the direction (with some not as agreeable as others).

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I do most of the hard content in this game and I tend to scale above average in savage at my best. I used to be in the top 20%, sometimes top 5-10 depending on fight but I haven't done as well in recent tiers.

That said,


Some people simply don't have the capability of getting better than where they currently are.



I'm atrocious at fighting games, no matter how many guides and videos I look up. I suck at fps games, despite understanding how the mechanics in them work.



Not everyone can be good at a specific thing. Doesn't mean they can't still get some enjoyment out of it.

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Maybe but if you come into a fight and drag everyone down because you aren't good in it then you are dragging the rest of the party down and making their lives miserable

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Originally Posted by ronibosch

Ah man, they nerfed it? I love that duty, so much so that it's probably my favorite part of the expansion as a whole.

Regarding the main topic of this thread, I know a lot of the optional dungeons are still challenging compared to their MSQ counterparts. Still, even they get easier over time thanks to repetition, as Atelier and Midare have stated. I will admit that the game isn't as punishing as it used to be, thanks to nerfs, higher average iLvl, and other adjustments (like how skills refresh after a wipe).

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They only nerfed the easy and very easy version, normal version was left untouched iirc.

Why do people not realize that they get better at the game after playing it for a long time. Things aren't going to keep getting harder to keep up. That would make the game impossible for new players. It's like you won't be happy until Sastasha has ultimate mechanics in it since you'd say everything else is too easy.

Difficulty is relative. Stop forgetting this.

I try very hard, actually... u_u

I would argue that it isn't that they aren't required to get better - Just that most people are simply too lazy to do such. Or because of disability or just outright hitting their peak sooner than others.

The problem with such measures is that people who don't want to learn - Will never learn regardless of what you try and propose for it, in grouped content, to a certain degree this will just inconvenience the group at large as they will be forced to then pickup the slack.

Further to this though... You need to consider that it is also done with accessibility in mind, e.g., those that may have some form of disability or just something imposed by older age, I don't think people should be relegated to a solo experience with the story just because you don't feel like the game is challenging enough. But one thing to consider though is when you do the upper end of content, e.g., extreme and savage then the remainder of the game on normal level just feels slow by comparison, but if you only do story then to a degree it does actually have progression with difficulty. That said, I do personally think the game has gotten more mechanically challenging, but stuff like gear creeping renders a lot of it moot, similarly, and by this, you just find that things don't hit maybe as hard as they ought to.

I'm not entirely against it by any stretch, but there are implications behind some of the suggestions e.g., why should people who might be bad at the game due to external factors need to be relegated to a solo experience? All this does is goes from punishing one group of players to punishing another group of players, and many of the latter may be of no fault of their own.

Similarly, the next implication is that by enforcing challenging group content that you will force everyone to get better at the game - This is not always the case. Many people hit their peak sooner than others, this is not an appropriate countermeasure for laziness, etc.,

I don't even care about "hard/ difficult", I just want things to have replay value because they're still engaging after the first few times.
And the big problem preventing that is the extreme predictability of everything and the big gaps between two big brain mechanics happening. Between them happening you have... nothing. Smileton, Eric and Tapeworm Lady are good examples of this but there's plenty more. You have long gaps of nothing happening, where you just stand still and do your thing. This is especially annoying on tank and healer as the former doesn't have anything to mitigate and the latter nothing to heal. But even on several dps it just gets so repetetive. You have long periods of dummy fight, a short big brain mechanic that makes first timers go "ooooh! aaaahhhh!" and then back to dummy fight.

Practice, getting better at your class and game and all wouldn't be so bad if the focus wasn't so heavily on having that 1-2 big brain mechanics but then nothing else because can't overload poor brains, so better not add anything else.
Instead of making it overall smoother and giving you more smaller things to react to in shorter intervals. That's what often keeps content in other games engaging even for experienced players that ran it many times.
It's a matter of balancing the impact of mechanics (how detrimental is it if you fail?) and the frequency and the predictability so you have a more consistent engagement that doesn't suddenly poof after a couple of runs. And you always have binary positioning. There's a safe spot that's always 100% safe, you either stood in it or not. And since patterns are mostly static and repeat, that leads to being able to position in a safe spot that will cover the next 2-3 mechanics and dozing off for the next 4min because you don't need to anything else.

Things like getting knocked up for a bit or a 2s stun or a short slow or a short damage down when failing something makes it low impact but still gives you a clear incentive to try to avoid it. If you fail, it's alright. Not the end of the world, it's more of a nuisance than a real danger. But you have more to react to instead of having a handful mechanics over 10min that look really complicated and like you need to study for it but ultimately come down to standing in a specific spot and you will eventually know before it happens where to stand. That is how things become stale for experienced players: it's a lot of smoke and mirrors but very little consistent substance.
You can add these mechanics and show creativity, not saying they're bad in general. But when the entire encounter is focussed around them it can get problematic; quality isn't always better than quantity and the lack of quanitity makes it stale for veteran players.

Dungeon difficulty has slowly gone up in terms of mechanics, but the overall difficulty has gone down based on the maximum survival threshold of our job's toolkit went up in a party setting. Look no further than how tanks improved from Stormblood's dungeons in a 4-man / Shadowbringers' dungeons during Shadowbringers expansion and Endwalker dungeons in a 4-man currently.

The dungeons in Stormblood actually required a healer to power through it because tanks didn't have natural self sustain. The amount of sustain they had was a lot lower that they can die to bosses from unavoidable damage.

In Shadowbringers expansion, tanks have gotten better mitigation. PLD and WAR in particular went crazy strong in terms of self-sustain when push comes to shove. WAR can now use Nascent Flash (HP recovery per enemies hit) over Raw Intuition (flat damage reduction). PLD being able to keep one to 2 other players alive during Malikah's Well Final Boss even if a healer is dead purely from the lowered MP cost of Clemency being able to keep up with their MP generation (4000 MP -> 2000 MP) and Atonement. That being said, tanks still mostly relied on healers. Healers were still pretty important when things go south, but the amount of healing tank can start being able to cover gave a LOT more room for error in terms of finishing a duty - thereby drastically reducing the difficulty of the dungeon.

In Endwalker, every tank has the ability to self-sustain and can do dungeons without bringing a healer (which only speaks volumes to how much extra room for error that healers -- whose entire toolkit is basically healing now-- can provide to prevent a wipe when in the past, they were a necessary component). Parties even sub in a third DPS if they are premade for that reason because the innate self sustain of a tank is enough to offset the total amount of unavoidable damage in most cases. WAR had their Raw Intuition reworked so it will now recover HP in dungeons starting from lv 56 onwards rather than wait until they get Nascent Nascent Flash at lv 76. PLD gained healing on both Sheltron (Now Holy Sheltron applying both mitigation + regen effect) and in 6.3, PLD got another rework where they have healing attached to every Divine Might combo/Requiescat usage.

A more extreme and easier to see example of Dungeon's mechanical difficulty versus overall difficulty would be the Lv 47-49 dungeon Aurum Vale. If you compare Endwalker dungeons and then you look at dungeons like Aurum Vale, you can see the difference easily. You can say Aurum Vale is much easier mechanically in terms of simplicity (especially after the telegraphs are now visible nerf), but the dungeon itself is much more difficult in relation to that level because of both a stat limitation and skill limitation required players to perform a lot better than what is demanded -- the party themselves couldn't greatly exceed the difficulty of the dungeon. There's a lot less room for error. Aurum Vale is a 4-man party where you actually needed a tank, a healer, and DPS to do the dungeon.

A more mild example would be Bardam's Mettle (Lv 65 dungeon). That dungeon's mechanics are very straightforward. However, the mobs themselves can hit very hard and wipe the party if the tank and healer are not up to par with their mitigation and healing. There's room for error and mistakes, but it's one of those dungeons that really encourage all players to use all of their toolkit or they won't have a very easy time. This was especially the case with the gear spike in the past (ILV260 Shire gear and ILV274 HQ gear had a huge gap in defensive scaling in the past, but I'm not sure if it's still there in Endwalker after stat squish).

There's a huge reason why people say healers feel very superfluous in dungeons for that reason, and would rather have more engaging DPS gameplay when they are stuck pressing 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 in Endwalker -- and is magnified even more than Shadowbringers now that tanks no longer require as much attention on external healing with each passing expansion. Between big differences in maximum ILVL sync through gear and lots of skills, there's so much leeway that the difficulty feels like it has gotten lower, especially with how predictable mechanics are once you seen them enough times.

It isn't necessarily avoidance in all cases.

I've been playing since December 2021 and whilst I'd say I've probably improved over that time, I'm still not where I feel I should be for someone who has been playing for as long as I have.

And I will say that it's NOT for want of trying. I've worked my ass off learning rotations with the jobs I've chosen and have a fairly good grasp of the ones I've learnt (still haven't really tried healing and have only dipped my toe into Tanking) but despite that I seem to have an absolutely appalling memory for mechanics. No matter how many times I've played *enter name of content here* I either forget the mechanics, make stupid mistakes or simply react to them too slowly and end up tanking the floor.

I don't know - perhaps one of these days something will click and I'll suddenly stop being so useless where those issues are concerned, and again - it isn't that I don't try - but I do still feel like my performance shouldn't really be where it is at this point and I could understand if someone were to think that I fall into the subject category of this thread.

I think Endwalker msq, trials, dungeons are actually pretty fine in terms of difficulty, I know on patch day when it was all new people seemed to have to learn somethings and the pulls were generally pretty hard as a tank/healer (if you didn't have a warrior) for a lot of the msq 6.0 dungeons, Not to say a lot of it is difficult but I don't really think it needs to be, it teaches you the basics its a decent challenge where you need to be aware, Although my main complaint is that tanks should be punished a bit more from taking a vunstack from failing a mech (increased damage on tanking classes specifically would be nice).

I wouldn't mind more midcore content though, I feel like theirs not a lot in-between dungeon level content and Savage content. It would be nice to have more things around slightly below EXT trial levels in general or a system to replay dungeons but made harder or something? like adding more damage and having less obvious mechs, I do feel like its too much of a Jump to get into EXT from normal duties I remember doing one of the SHB EXT and being told to watch a guide by a friend and all of it seemed intimidating at first.

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Originally Posted by R041

Jokes on you, the dungeons get significantly easier over time. They practically play themselves.

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No. No, they don't get easier. On the contrary the later dungeons in the game are significantly harder than the early ones.

Nowadays there is really only one mechanic in the dungeons, and that is to avoid AOEs. In the later dungeons you have much less time to react to AOEs, and often less safe space to find.
In some cases the time to react becomes so short that unless you have already memorized where to stand there is sometimes practically no chance to avoid an AOE.
This is not the case in the early dungeons - there you usually have a chance to avoid the AOE attacks no matter where you stand when the boss starts casting.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

They only nerfed the easy and very easy version, normal version was left untouched iirc.

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Oh, I see. That's a relief. I'm cool with them nerfing it for the easier versions, as long as normal remains untouched. I want to try it again in the future.

It was a pleasant challenge that I wasn't expecting during the MSQ.

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Originally Posted by Shinkuno

If people actually used their buttons instead of still spamming cure 1 in lv90 content, then yes current dungeons would be a million times easier than mid ARR/HW dungeons where you are strippe off all your tools. When i get a tank that knows what to do, i never have to use half my kit cause its just that easy

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What are you even talking about? This sounds like you're regurgitating the thoughts of the echo chamber, but lack of experience healing in dungeons has you making any sense of it. The more abilities all the roles get, the less a healer has to rely on GCD heals to sustain the group. Ease of trash pulls in dungeons is a team effort. Tanks using their skills mitigate damage, healers using oGCD skills to help sustain while dealing damage, and DPS figuring out ways to optimize their kits to burn the trash quickly so healers don't burn up their resources and end up having to spam GCD heals. It has always been this way, with the difference between low level and later dungeons are players have more skills to accomplish. this. In lower level dungeons, healers have no choice but to use GCD heals because they do not have enough oGCD abilities to take care of the job.

Besides, trash pulls don't have mechanics. The dungeon difficulty I'm referring to belongs to the bosses. What later dungeons have a lot more of than earlier ones are a guaranteed wipe if the healer eats dirt and there is not another job like RDM or SMN to raise them. If you're a healer in these instances, I would worry a lot less about getting a tank who knows what to do, and make sure you're staying on your own feet. If you die, the wipe is pretty much entirely on you.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

What are you even talking about? This sounds like you're regurgitating the thoughts of the echo chamber, but lack of experience healing in dungeons has you making any sense of it. The more abilities all the roles get, the less a healer has to rely on GCD heals to sustain the group. Ease of trash pulls in dungeons is a team effort. Tanks using their skills mitigate damage, healers using oGCD skills to help sustain while dealing damage, and DPS figuring out ways to optimize their kits to burn the trash quickly so healers don't burn up their resources and end up having to spam GCD heals. It has always been this way, with the difference between low level and later dungeons are players have more skills to accomplish. this. In lower level dungeons, healers have no choice but to use GCD heals because they do not have enough oGCD abilities to take care of the job.

Besides, trash pulls don't have mechanics. The dungeon difficulty I'm referring to belongs to the bosses. What later dungeons have a lot more of than earlier ones are a guaranteed wipe if the healer eats dirt and there is not another job like RDM or SMN to raise them. If you're a healer in these instances, I would worry a lot less about getting a tank who knows what to do, and make sure you're staying on your own feet. If you die, the wipe is pretty much entirely on you.

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i wonder if you realize that you basically say that its easier without realizing

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

It's like you won't be happy until Sastasha has ultimate mechanics in it since you'd say everything else is too easy.

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Why do people keep bringing up Sastasha, when we have a perfectly good Aurum Vale to reference? lol
Or Wanderer's Palace (Hard)

You're all also talking about bosses, but we're not comparing Trials here, we're comparing Dungeons. You're forgetting about half of the whole experience. You know, the walking forward and being mindless?

And past 64, if you have an RDM then your party just never dies. Wiping in a dungeon these days is basically unheard of with the kits we have, and the trash certainly never got harder. They choose your pull count now.

Actually yeah, someone go do Wanderer's Palace (Hard) synced, come back and let me know if it was easy and if you had fun.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

Dungeon difficulty has slowly gone up in terms of mechanics, but the overall difficulty has gone down based on the maximum survival threshold of our job's toolkit went up in a party setting. Look no further than how tanks improved from Stormblood's dungeons in a 4-man / Shadowbringers' dungeons during Shadowbringers expansion and Endwalker dungeons in a 4-man currently.

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A lot of players are reaching their effective skill cap after a decade of content difficulty growth. SE has to be cautious about increasing difficulty in the MSQ as s result. They're going to have performance data they can analyze to see where players start having difficulties.

That's going to disappoint those seeking increasing challenge, especially if SE doesn't increase the amount of side content with higher difficulty.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

There's a huge reason why people say healers feel very superfluous in dungeons for that reason, and would rather have more engaging DPS gameplay when they are stuck pressing 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 in Endwalker -- and is magnified even more than Shadowbringers now that tanks no longer require as much attention on external healing with each passing expansion. Between big differences in maximum ILVL sync through gear and lots of skills, there's so much leeway that the difficulty feels like it has gotten lower, especially with how predictable mechanics are once you seen them enough times.

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I rarely feel superfluous as a healer but then I stick to the more casual friendly content where we're more likely to run into players who are skill challenged.

That's where SE starts having problems when it comes to healer design. Too many abilities overwhelm healers who are better off in casual content. Not enough abilities and you bore healers in high end content.

Makes me wonder if MMOs should add in horizontal progression with respect to abilities within content. I'm thinking in terms of something like Duty actions but with a more general use within an encounter compared to the Duty action very specific use. But that also edges dangerously toward the borrowed power systems that WoW was using and which were ultimately leaving players unhappy.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

The dungeon difficulty I'm referring to belongs to the bosses. What later dungeons have a lot more of than earlier ones are a guaranteed wipe if the healer eats dirt and there is not another job like RDM or SMN to raise them. If you're a healer in these instances, I would worry a lot less about getting a tank who knows what to do, and make sure you're staying on your own feet. If you die, the wipe is pretty much entirely on you.

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Or you can get a Tank that knows what they're doing and can solo practically any boss from ShB-EW with little issue.

The last dungeon boss that I'd argue has any semblance of challenge is the Mist Dragon in the Burn

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Or you can get a Tank that knows what they're doing and can solo practically any boss from ShB-EW with little issue.

The last dungeon boss that I'd argue has any semblance of challenge is the Mist Dragon in the Burn

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Care to test your mettle, bub? Come with me into a dungeon of my choosing. You tank, and I'll go as heals, and I'm simply not going to heal you. Let's see how you do. You game?

There are far fewer opportunities to have that "oh, I've been doing things wrong. I should change my playstyle" moment. Between duty support npcs and the terms of service scaring real players from speaking up, it's no wonder that we get people at 90 who don't know what they're doing and make things take way longer than they should. Some of the people playing this game today would have meltdowns if they had to exist in the mmo communities of the mid 2000's, where people would just flame you until you got better or left their group. Not saying we should go back to that, just that it used to be the opposite end of the spectrum.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

A lot of players are reaching their effective skill cap after a decade of content difficulty growth.

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People are at lv90 content spamming cure 1. They havent reached their skill cap, the content is just so easy that they get carried through it

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Originally Posted by Shinkuno

i wonder if you realize that you basically say that its easier without realizing

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I wonder if you even know how to read.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

I wonder if you even know how to read.

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Apparently better than you

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Care to test your mettle, bub? Come with me into a dungeon of my choosing. You tank, and I'll go as heals, and I'm simply not going to heal you. Let's see how you do. You game?

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I mean I think he’s kind of right. I’d take you up on this offer if you need proof. Never tried it so even if I fail and prove you right it’ll be fun. But it’s up to you.

Just remember he specified SHB-EW era.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

This sounds like you're regurgitating the thoughts of the echo chamber, but lack of experience healing in dungeons has you making any sense of it.

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This is so rich coming from you, someone who has waxed philosophic about how the state of healing is fine in high end content despite not actually doing any of that content. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

This is so rich coming from you, someone who has waxed philosophic about how the state of healing is fine in high end content despite not actually doing any of that content. :rolleyes:

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In that regard the OP of this very thread has held back all of the savage groups they've been in. They haven't even cleared this tier yet.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I do most of the hard content in this game and I tend to scale above average in savage at my best. I used to be in the top 20%, sometimes top 5-10 depending on fight but I haven't done as well in recent tiers.

That said,


Some people simply don't have the capability of getting better than where they currently are.



I'm atrocious at fighting games, no matter how many guides and videos I look up. I suck at fps games, despite understanding how the mechanics in them work.



Not everyone can be good at a specific thing. Doesn't mean they can't still get some enjoyment out of it.

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I think you're short changing yourself. Just like how you got good in raiding in FFXIV, you can do the same with fighting games and shooters. It just takes practice. Repetition is the mother of skill.

For most people it's either a lack of confidence that keeps them from trying, laziness that keeps them from trying, or they don't play the game enough to merit putting effort into it.

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Originally Posted by Leifei

I think you're short changing yourself. Just like how you got good in raiding in FFXIV, you can do the same with fighting games and shooters. It just takes practice. Repetition is the mother of skill.

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Skill caps are a genuine thing. Not everyone can be amazing at everything, even with huge amounts of time invested. That's why you gotta choose which skills you invest in carefully. I tried to rank up in Overwatch for years, but it just wasn't the type of game I could be amazing at. However, anyone outside of those with genuine disabilities (no offense to those people) can become pretty good at most things. Not amazing, but pretty good. Most people in this community probably could clear savage if they put time and effort into it, they just don't.

There's also the idea of working smarter, not harder that a lot of people don't consider when trying to improve at a skill. Repetition isn't enough, repeating it the right way is the key.

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Originally Posted by Shinkuno

Apparently better than you

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All evidence the contrary. Because if you did you'd have a counter argument at very least instead of a snide comment that does nothing to dispute what I'm talking about.

Care to try again, champ? Or do you want to continue to troll with more verbal garbage?

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

The answer is simple. There is no reason to get better at the game.

XIV offers such a casual experience that the player base has never had a reason to actually get better at game mechanics outside of those who wish to participate in Extreme/Savage/Ultimate content.

The player base get babysat through the entire game, even get difficulty DROPS in MSQ instances because.. it is too hard?

There is no reason to babysit people. People adapt and become better players by being challenged, even if it is only a small challenge.

There will always be that crowd that shouts for nerfs to content because they don't want to actually have to learn to play the game, Those players will complain about everything that makes them have to actually think while playing.

Content does not have to be 'Extreme/Savage' level of difficulty to be challenging. The final duty in 6.0 was a good example of this. It was not hard, but it DID challenge people and they learned from their mistakes and eventually cleared it.

What could change?
What incentives would be required to get people to try out new content?

Who knows, Discuss below.

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Incentive? I'd say glamour locked behind savage fights. Put a lot of options in there. Everyone loves to glam. I think that would increase the participation rate for endgame content. This would indirectly increase the average skill level of players. Also, the glam drops would need to be locked behind an Item level range when doing the content so people cannot cheese the content for drops later.

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Originally Posted by CaedemSanguis

what's the problem with a lot of people not being good ?

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The issue isn't people not being good, it's people being bad at a critical mass.

If you get a full group of mediocre players that only kind of understand their jobs it'll take you a little extra time to clear any given content. Not good, but not catastrophic.

If you get a full group of bads, you won't clear. That's a problem. This is only worsened when you get one poor, competent player surrounded by bumbling idiots - they're now doomed by proxy.

I don't care if people aren't optimal, but they should be trying because if not they're telling everyone else to pick up their slack and that's not okay.

I'm not here to carry someone else, if SE wants that from me they have my bank info.

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Originally Posted by SeiyaSoiya

it creates a divide in the community between good players and bad players, giving good players a reason to be elitist, and therefore creating a toxic enviroment

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Yep, exactly this.

A game pretty much has three paths open to it over time (provided it does not die before that ... maybe that's why it feels like so many chill games die? Less "games die because they were chill" and more "games were remembered as chill because they didn't last long enough to come to the inevitable dilemmas that ruin it all"?) as the skill gap between players widens.

The trouble is there usually isn't a lot of solution to it by the time you realize there is a problem.

Plan A: You make a point to hang onto everyone, which creates a situation where there's a big enough gulf between the most casual players (who, when one considers their primary and maybe only purpose in playing the game is to unwind and destress, can't really be knocked too hard for not putting a significant priority in skill improvement, especially skill improvement for its own sake) and the most hardcore players (for whom getting better and better at the game is a goal of itself, and done for its own sake).

Upshot: Casual and hardcore players end up at permanent loggerheads, creating an endless stream of conflict and contumely in the community. Intermediate players get caught in the middle (especially since it's always harder to actively design for intermediate skill than for the endpoints), feeling like they have no place in either camp.

Plan B: You give in to the loud voices of the hardcore and raise the skill floor over time to force people to improve or leave so that there's more common skill ground among strangers.

Upshot: People, especially when a game gets to be a long runner so that the skill frog boiling is gradual enough, quit, often under particularly grumpy terms because they probably liked the parts of the game that they were able to handle before they hit a wall of either brick or simply of more effort than they deem enjoyable to put in given their goals in playing the game. Often, stereotypical talking points (true or not) about the mindset of hardcore gamers are trotted out in the process. The community is STILL noted as tense and conflict ridden as a result (especially when the reason for quitting isn't because players can't, but because the work required is no longer enjoyable, which usually results in shots back from the hardcore crowd about how the complainant is lazy and wants people to put in effort on their behalf).

Plan C: You give in to the voices of the people who want relaxed fun and nerf the difficulty so that it's easy enough that less dedicated players don't drag down the more dedicated too much.

Upshot: Dedicated fans complain that the game no longer rewards their dedication, in other words often the reverse of the previous scenario (it used to challenge them, now it doesn't). They take to soapboxes and complain that their dedicated support is not rewarded and the game caters to people that don't put in effort. Although this USED to be just a minority of usually easy to dismiss people, in the world of streaming video, they often reach out to their sycophants about this grievance, resulting in many people (who were often not actually fans of the game itself at all but only of their favorite streamer) ditching the game and Biz worrying about the PR implications of having major influencers dissatisfied with the product.

Plan D: Apparently we need it, but what?

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Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44

For most people it's either a lack of confidence that keeps them from trying, laziness that keeps them from trying, or they don't play the game enough to merit putting effort into it.



Skill caps are a genuine thing. Not everyone can be amazing at everything, even with huge amounts of time invested. That's why you gotta choose which skills you invest in carefully. I tried to rank up in Overwatch for years, but it just wasn't the type of game I could be amazing at. However, anyone outside of those with genuine disabilities (no offense to those people) can become pretty good at most things. Not amazing, but pretty good. Most people in this community probably could clear savage if they put time and effort into it, they just don't.

There's also the idea of working smarter, not harder that a lot of people don't consider when trying to improve at a skill. Repetition isn't enough, repeating it the right way is the key.

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Skill caps exist, true. However, believing that there is a plateau that you cannot overcome will hinder your growth in any skill set. Mentality is extremely important. Aside from putting in the time you have to believe that you'll be badass with the right effort. As for working smart, that goes without saying. The repetition part includes refinement of the training process over time.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

It isn't necessarily avoidance in all cases.

I've been playing since December 2021 and whilst I'd say I've probably improved over that time, I'm still not where I feel I should be for someone who has been playing for as long as I have.

And I will say that it's NOT for want of trying. I've worked my ass off learning rotations with the jobs I've chosen and have a fairly good grasp of the ones I've learnt (still haven't really tried healing and have only dipped my toe into Tanking) but despite that I seem to have an absolutely appalling memory for mechanics. No matter how many times I've played *enter name of content here* I either forget the mechanics, make stupid mistakes or simply react to them too slowly and end up tanking the floor.

I don't know - perhaps one of these days something will click and I'll suddenly stop being so useless where those issues are concerned, and again - it isn't that I don't try - but I do still feel like my performance shouldn't really be where it is at this point and I could understand if someone were to think that I fall into the subject category of this thread.

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As someone who followed your initial thread/journey into the game I would say this: you are the target audience- you aren’t expected to be the best and have been able to clear a lot of the games content by doing your best. Sometimes you got frustrated, but you could get through it.

I would even argue you are above average because you have put a lot of effort into being better and trying harder content. So from me to you, in my humblest opinion, I think you are doing fantastic.

Remember: the devs collaborated to make a TV drama about an older man playing this game and essentially being carried through binding coil by his son. They appreciate effort, gumption and individual accomplishments over actual big-picture player-wide skill levels.

I'm sorry if I am repeating other people's points but I haven't had time to read the whole thread.

FFXIV, in my experience, has a terribly large gap between the skill floor of the player base and its skill ceiling and the primary reason for this to exist, in my opinion, is that most content in the game does not require a player to be performing at even 50% of their ability.

Healing in dungeons is relatively easy thanks to how powerful tank self-healing is and how low damage output of monsters generally is. I can't think of a time I've used a hard-cast heal in dungeons this expansion.

Alliance raid content and normal trial content don't have hard enrages and you can limp through the encounters with dozens of deaths.

These two things combined has lead to a group of the player base that wants to perform well and clear things as quickly as possible and a second set that is just fine pressing one-button and getting their clear. It's easy to see how the former would resent the latter and feel that they're carrying their dead-weight. I personally feel my time is being disrespected by players that put in the minimum effort. The game isn't *that* complex and it's pretty easy to sort a single- and multi-target damage rotation. Your hotbar even lights up, yet I've still come across players obviously not even doing their 1-2-3 combo.

It's frustrating, and I would like to see content be more difficult in the future - not significantly so, but enough that players need to learn the basics of the game.