Do you know why the average pf player is so bad?

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Originally Posted by Wolwosh

What also doesn't help is that people are way to nice. I remember doing Sastasha at release as a Tank and I was horrible.
My group chew me out even though I said I was new, which made me want get better fast xD
Not saying that was the good way to handle a sprout tank, but every is so overly sweet in this game.
If you say anything to someone someone will probably come to their defence and say be nice, it doesn't matter etc even in high level content, or the bad player will gets super defensive, even if you say something like please use your cooldowns Tank.
You rarely get responded to with sorry and improvement.

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Yeah, I agree.
The game could do a better job of teaching players.
However, our overall niceness has also atrophied players brains.

Like an over-nurturing parent.

It's not that being a jerk is something that should be tolerated... but being too nice isn't helpful either.
What doesn't help is the game doesn't create many points of adversity for player growth and when it does try even a little bit we coddle people.

We're like Eulmore! Everyone is fat dimwitted miquotes with too much money sitting in their night clubs while the world is dying around us.

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Originally Posted by Vandso

You know, I like watching new players trying FFXIV for the first time on youtube, I like to see their reactions and stuff. But one think I also notice is that a lot of them complain about how easy the earlier fights are, and they are indeed braindead easy. The orange juices take too long and are not punishing enough, you can literally stand inside them and nothing will happen. The bosses die too quickly and are not interesting at all, there are no mechanics and you don't learn nothing with them. There are no non-optional challening dungeons in ARR (yes, all the somewhat challenging ones are optional, which explains why new players struggle a lot in them). You know where the first stack mechanic happens? In fucking Praetorium. The first proximity? Titan (it doesn't even kill you). The first spread? Ultima. Wtf? These are mechanics trash mobs should use imo (but that's a discussion for another thread), you should definitelly see them way earlier and way more frequent.

How would be my approach to solve this issue: you know that slime that is a midboss in Copperbell Mines? You know the tiny slimes that it shoots that explodes? Yeah, make the telegraphs be a second long. And make them take half of your life and give you vul stacks. Yeah, you will be hit in the first time but you won't want to be hit in the second time. Make the players see what's going on in the screen and solve their own problems. The fire boss in Halatali? Make that be an actual dps check. You just have two or three dps buttons at that level! Press the buttons! The divebombs of the last boss of Stone Vigil, make them way quicker! I always fall asleep in that boss! And please add more of the fundamental mechanics such as stacks, spreads and proximities throughout the earlier dungeons, you should not have to wait 50 levels to start to learn about them.

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I would suggest a true min ilvl setting then. One that would see all content in its original difficulty and ilvl not being able to be cheesed with high level gear.

Like I mean a true min ilvl. Then see if people whine its too easy. Which is laughable to hear since most parties still wipe in crystal raid series

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's a hindrance, because in standard you have to slowly turn your player around with the mouse, which takes about 1 second. Then you can start running forwards out of the aoe. By the time you have done that, it has been 2 seconds. Casts are typically 3 seconds, and some of that is taken up by ping, so you are just barely avoiding it.

In contrast, while in legacy, you just press "S" to run out of the aoe. You can do it one-handed in 1 second. Because you have 2 seconds left, you can delay it for uptime and move out at the last moment.

It makes the game significantly easier on a keyboard/mouse. A large part of the difficulty for most keyboard/mouse players is created by being in standard mode tbh.

There are some people that find standard better but they seem like a minority, because anyone I teach about legacy usually finds it transformative to their gameplay.

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What is "legacy movement" ? 5 years in the game, and I never heard of that x)

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

What is "legacy movement" ? 5 years in the game, and I never heard of that x)

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It's exactly what I described. With standard movement, the direction of your character is tied to the camera, so mouse movement controls the direction your character faces and therefore you have to move the mouse or slowly turn around, before you can begin running out of an AoE.

With legacy movement, the direction of your character is not tied to the camera, so if you press backwards, instead of slowly walking back, your character immediately turns around and runs out of the AoE. It makes the game significantly easier. It's such an advantage that it trivializes mechanics compared to standard.

I was helping some people with P10S recently and saw a few of them were struggling to avoid the chains and getting Doom. We explained about legacy and it transformed the game for them. Just an example.

(It's in Character Configuration, under Control Settings and General. I personally disable auto-fly/auto-dive)

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

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And beyond difficulty, when your average casual player decides to give an Extreme Trial a try and pokes their head into the Party Finder, they'll see things like "doing double-reverse windmill strategy" and "must have watched video" they're going to be like "Ah, this isn't for me" and never look back. Because they want to play a game, not do research and homework.

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Actually, that's one of the main reason l don't do anything beyond story mode. But l doubt if l would do or even if there is a smooth curve for other reasons.

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Originally Posted by hynaku

One reason might be because they're handicapped. Like me with two bad hands and bad hearing. They also might be new and their first time doing the duty. I have seen bots in my party from duty finder. Get a bot tank or healer and the party will be very bad.

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Being handicapped definitely affects my game play. I even had the tank ask if I was trolling in a recent raid. (It was the one where you fight Nophica and some of the other Twelve).

I told him truthly I wasn't. "I'm just really bad at that particular raid."

It 100% comes down to the fact I am fighting my body and mind to react to mechanics and that doesn't give me much time to react to things. Usually, I just avoid those types of duties/raids but sometimes you just have to take what the roulette gives you.

But... I still try to be a good player by learning my rotations, reading tooltips, and watching videos.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's exactly what I described. With standard movement, the direction of your character is tied to the camera, so mouse movement controls the direction your character faces and therefore you have to move the mouse or slowly turn around, before you can begin running out of an AoE.

With legacy movement, the direction of your character is not tied to the camera, so if you press backwards, instead of slowly walking back, your character immediately turns around and runs out of the AoE. It makes the game significantly easier. It's such an advantage that it trivializes mechanics compared to standard.

I was helping some people with P10S recently and saw a few of them were struggling to avoid the chains and getting Doom. We explained about legacy and it transformed the game for them. Just an example.

(It's in Character Configuration, under Control Settings and General. I personally disable auto-fly/auto-dive)

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Thanks for the tip! It sounds like something I need to try.

The game sets the bar to completion too low, and people cry any time there's something remotely challenging (Remember when they nerfed the EW MSQ mission?) Not only that, they buff jobs that don't need buffs to make streamers and rage babies happy.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Being handicapped definitely affects my game play. I even had the tank ask if I was trolling in a recent raid. (It was the one where you fight Nophica and some of the other Twelve).

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I'm completely tolerant if someone is handicapped long as they say they are at the start.
I remember one time waiting on a main tank in Praetorium of all things - it was right before you get to ride the magitech war mecha - I can't remember the particulars but they needed to replace some tube thing that was attached to their body.
I was like sure and waited and so did everyone else.

I'm not sure how niche the handicapped audience is but that's not particularly what I reckon most of us are covering.
Even then if it's somebodies first time or they don't get something - I'll always be patient and ride it through.
If you don't give up I won't give up.

The issue we're talking about has more to do with other people who face a skill wall and quit because the game hasn't taught them well

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's a hindrance, because in standard you have to slowly turn your player around with the mouse, which takes about 1 second. Then you can start running forwards out of the aoe. By the time you have done that, it has been 2 seconds. Casts are typically 3 seconds, and some of that is taken up by ping, so you are just barely avoiding it.

In contrast, while in legacy, you just press "S" to run out of the aoe. You can do it one-handed in 1 second. Because you have 2 seconds left, you can delay it for uptime and move out at the last moment.

It makes the game significantly easier on a keyboard/mouse. A large part of the difficulty for most keyboard/mouse players is created by being in standard mode tbh.

There are some people that find standard better but they seem like a minority, because anyone I teach about legacy usually finds it transformative to their gameplay.

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Minority here.

You can strafe while holding right click, theres no need to completely turn around. Theres no time difference at all unless you meant turning by just holding left or right.

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Originally Posted by Mecia

Minority here.

You can strafe while holding right click, theres no need to completely turn around. Theres no time difference at all unless you meant turning by just holding left or right.

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There is a time difference. It's not a full second but the time to click is still an extra button compared to just moving with legacy.
Doesn't really affect that much though.

I only started using it once I got into deep dungeons since it's so much easier to kite with legacy controls.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

It 100% comes down to the fact I am fighting my body and mind to react to mechanics and that doesn't give me much time to react to things. Usually, I just avoid those types of duties/raids but sometimes you just have to take what the roulette gives you.

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Being a tank can be useful if you are handicapped, because tanks can survive mechanics that other players can't. They can usually just rack up at least 4 vuln stacks without any problem. Whereas other roles will die to those mechanics. Of course, the tanks should do mechanics, but frankly they are fine if they don't a lot of the time.

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Originally Posted by Nadda

I'm not sure how niche the handicapped audience is

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It's not as niche as you think. In fact, most people (at least older people) probably have one. It's just not necessarily severe enough that it affects them in a noticeable way. For example, they might be color blind or get pain in their hand or arm from playing too long or suffer from an injury, while for others it's more severe like limited hand movement, not being able to keep their hands still, only having one arm, or memory disabilities.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's a hindrance, because in standard you have to slowly turn your player around with the mouse, which takes about 1 second. Then you can start running forwards out of the aoe. By the time you have done that, it has been 2 seconds. Casts are typically 3 seconds, and some of that is taken up by ping, so you are just barely avoiding it.

In contrast, while in legacy, you just press "S" to run out of the aoe. You can do it one-handed in 1 second. Because you have 2 seconds left, you can delay it for uptime and move out at the last moment.

It makes the game significantly easier on a keyboard/mouse. A large part of the difficulty for most keyboard/mouse players is created by being in standard mode tbh.

There are some people that find standard better but they seem like a minority, because anyone I teach about legacy usually finds it transformative to their gameplay.

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It's really only a hindrance if you aren't used to it. I've played MMOs for over 20 years now using standard. My issue in XIV is legacy turns my character left or right when I am trying to strafe while still facing the boss (or away from the boss). I also use both WASD and mouse for movement so the time to turn is just as quick as with legacy.

I think people should certainly try it out and see if it works, but shouldn't feel bad (or at times be mocked or degraded by others) if it just doesn't jive with them. I've never subscribed to the idea of "you must do x or y" with controls because a setup that works for one person won't always work for others and people should find what is going to work best for their unique situation.

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Originally Posted by Nadda

Yeah, I agree.
The game could do a better job of teaching players.
However, our overall niceness has also atrophied players brains.

Like an over-nurturing parent.

It's not that being a jerk is something that should be tolerated... but being too nice isn't helpful either.
What doesn't help is the game doesn't create many points of adversity for player growth and when it does try even a little bit we coddle people.

We're like Eulmore! Everyone is fat dimwitted miquotes with too much money sitting in their night clubs while the world is dying around us.

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My personal stance is anything over lvl 70 the gloves should be off. It used to be 60, but they keep increasing the level of the free trial edition. If you can't even do a basic rotation at lvl 90 or ignore Aoe completely? Yeah, I personally consider you a bad player. But that's just my opinion man.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

If you can't even do a basic rotation at lvl 90 or ignore Aoe completely? Yeah, I personally consider you a bad player. But that's just my opinion man.

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So you consider them a bad player.

Okay. What then? Being a bad player doesn't exclude anyone from playing through the MSQ or normal content. That is supposed to be content available to all regardless of skill.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

legacy turns my character left or right when I am trying to strafe while still facing the boss (or away from the boss). I also use both WASD and mouse for movement so the time to turn is just as quick as with legacy.

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There are two keybinds for this:
Move Left / Right (turns your character left/right and runs in that direction).
Strafe Left / Right (doesn't turn your character left/right, but moves left/right anyway).

I don't personally care, so I mostly just move left/right, but I have Strafe left/right set on Q and E in case I want it.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's a hindrance, because in standard you have to slowly turn your player around with the mouse, which takes about 1 second. Then you can start running forwards out of the aoe. By the time you have done that, it has been 2 seconds. Casts are typically 3 seconds, and some of that is taken up by ping, so you are just barely avoiding it.

In contrast, while in legacy, you just press "S" to run out of the aoe. You can do it one-handed in 1 second. Because you have 2 seconds left, you can delay it for uptime and move out at the last moment.

It makes the game significantly easier on a keyboard/mouse. A large part of the difficulty for most keyboard/mouse players is created by being in standard mode tbh.

There are some people that find standard better but they seem like a minority, because anyone I teach about legacy usually finds it transformative to their gameplay.

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I've tried legacy but it doesnt really mesh well with how i play. Legacy is obviously best if you move with WASD but I dont do that. I do all my movement exclusively with holding mouse buttons and for that case only standard movement is better in my experience.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's exactly what I described. With standard movement, the direction of your character is tied to the camera, so mouse movement controls the direction your character faces and therefore you have to move the mouse or slowly turn around, before you can begin running out of an AoE.

With legacy movement, the direction of your character is not tied to the camera, so if you press backwards, instead of slowly walking back, your character immediately turns around and runs out of the AoE. It makes the game significantly easier. It's such an advantage that it trivializes mechanics compared to standard.

I was helping some people with P10S recently and saw a few of them were struggling to avoid the chains and getting Doom. We explained about legacy and it transformed the game for them. Just an example.

(It's in Character Configuration, under Control Settings and General. I personally disable auto-fly/auto-dive)

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But does it affect your dps? I mean, as a melee there are plenty of moments where you can get out while sticking to the mob; using movement as you describe it is a dead loss, compared to using the mouse (which I always keep down anyway, personally)?

And turning your character completely, if you need to get away from something very quickly, doesn't take "a second". It's immediate with camera movement + straff to the side.

... I swear, I'm not trying to be sarcastic, it's just that I don't understand the point of losing such a practical bind as the "s" (= backward on my keyboard) when you can simply hold down the right mouse button at any time to have better control .

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

But does it affect your dps?

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If you die to a mechanic or get a damage down due to struggling to avoid mechanics, yes! Also means you can greed for longer because it takes less time to navigate out of an AoE.

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I mean, as a melee there are plenty of moments where you can get out while sticking to the mob; using movement as you describe it is a dead loss, compared to using the mouse (which I always keep down anyway, personally)?

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I don't personally agree. I used to do Savage in Heavensward with standard and I could do all the mechanics, but I was just barely achieving them all and it was very last moment stuff, very tense. It's comparatively braindead with legacy and not really tense at all.

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And turning your character completely, if you need to get away from something very quickly, doesn't take "a second". It's immediate with camera movement + straff to the side.

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Well it's good you found a workaround. Like I said, some people prefer it or find a way to make it work.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

If you die to a mechanic or get a damage down due to struggling to avoid mechanics, yes! Also means you can greed for longer because it takes less time to navigate out of an AoE.

I don't personally agree. I used to do Savage in Heavensward with standard and I could do all the mechanics, but I was just barely achieving them all and it was very last moment stuff, very tense. It's comparatively braindead with legacy and not really tense at all.

Well it's good you found a workaround. Like I said, some people prefer it or find a way to make it work.

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I honestly don't see how you can struggle to avoid mecanics with the straffing method (< this is not ironic, once again), but indeed : if it works for you, then it's better to do it this way.

ANother reason why a lot of PF players are bad is due to them learning the strats for fights over the fights themselves, it then leads to not being able to keep up when things change slightly.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Being a tank can be useful if you are handicapped, because tanks can survive mechanics that other players can't. They can usually just rack up at least 4 vuln stacks without any problem. Whereas other roles will die to those mechanics. Of course, the tanks should do mechanics, but frankly they are fine if they don't a lot of the time.

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That thought has already crossed my mind. I'm already planning for Dawntrail to be my tanking and painting expansion. LOL

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's not as niche as you think. In fact, most people (at least older people) probably have one. It's just not necessarily severe enough that it affects them in a noticeable way. For example, they might be color blind or get pain in their hand or arm from playing too long or suffer from an injury, while for others it's more severe like limited hand movement, not being able to keep their hands still, only having one arm, or memory disabilities.

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Exactly. There are a lot of us disabled players in FFXIV.

Think about it for one second.

Individuals who are disabled are often stuck at home. They want to interact with people. So, they join MMOs like FFXIV to have that social interaction and also the opportunity to do something enjoyable.

Unfortunately, they sometimes struggle with things other players do with ease. This causes frustration on both sides.

But, I do think there is a lot of middle ground. It's just that, well, people are taking extreme positions on the issue of how challenging the game should be and how well should your average player be. It's the old Casuals versus Raiders dynamic.

Thoughts:

FFXIV does need another overhaul to adjust the slope of difficulty. There should be a smooth curve in the challenge of the content with each duty/raid preparing you for the next step.

There should also be better education within the game to teach individuals how to play. For example, the Training Grounds could be expanded to prepare players for the mechanics they will be facing soon and their telegraphs.

Have it be required content for levels 15, 30, 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90 with the reward being a certificate required to get into the appropriate duties and raids. It's similar to the idea of having gear level requirements but relies more on the player's effort to learn rather than their luck with gear drops or skill at making gil.

Just my 2¢s...

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Exactly. There are a lot of us disabled players in FFXIV.

Think about it for one second.

Individuals who are disabled are often stuck at home. They want to interact with people. So, they join MMOs like FFXIV to have that social interaction and also the opportunity to do something enjoyable.

Unfortunately, they sometimes struggle with things other players do with ease. This causes frustration on both sides.

But, I do think there is a lot of middle ground. It's just that, well, people are taking extreme positions on the issue of how challenging the game should be and how well should your average player be. It's the old Casuals versus Raiders dynamic.

Thoughts:

FFXIV does need another overhaul to adjust the slope of difficulty. There should be a smooth curve in the challenge of the content with each duty/raid preparing you for the next step.

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I also feel like a lot of people assume so much with terms and phrases when it comes to changing the game. Making the game difficult or making it harder. If I say It I don't mean Touhou Bullet Hell levels of difficult or hard. But adding enrages back wouldn't hurt, making it so Alliance raids feel like a step up from dungeons so they can ease you into extremes isn't bad either. You have some who will assume that creating a guiding line with the difficulty of content means you wanna force people into harder content, railroad them even, But thats not the case at all.


What XIV needs, like you said, like so many of us have said, is a better way to show and teach and prepare people for and with it's difficulty curve, instead of raising or lowering the skill floor and ceiling forcefully or mechanically, do it naturally by creating a way in which players are not only progressing through the games world and narrative, but as they lvl progress into being better overall players.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

If you die to a mechanic or get a damage down due to struggling to avoid mechanics, yes! Also means you can greed for longer because it takes less time to navigate out of an AoE.

I don't personally agree. I used to do Savage in Heavensward with standard and I could do all the mechanics, but I was just barely achieving them all and it was very last moment stuff, very tense. It's comparatively braindead with legacy and not really tense at all.

Well it's good you found a workaround. Like I said, some people prefer it or find a way to make it work.

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I've used the standard control scheme in MMOs for 20+ years, including various high end content, and have never had a single issue. It's absurd to write off the entire control scheme as inferior just because you personally struggled with it.

i speak for myself my first final fantasy game was ff7 my second was ffxi played that for 11 years then started ffxiv at the start of arr/2.0 and have been learning ever sense the trouble with players is they need to learn their jobs the best gear/weapons and how to run dungons/raids for me its doing the best i can to win.

Average players aren't bad. They're average. It's in the name. Bad players are bad, however, for many reasons, including physical and mental hinderances. But I can forgive that if announced at the beginning of a run. What gets me the most are the boosts! People end up not knowing their job or the mechanics.

I don't think that any of these fights are designed to be mechanically difficult from a reaction time/finemotor precision perspective. You're generally solving a series of movement puzzles. Fights start with a mechanics showcase where they teach you the 'vocabulary' for that fight. The latter part of the fight involves you applying that 'vocabulary' to progressively more elaborate mechanic strings in order to find the safe spot. That's also why a lot of recurring mechanics (Stack/Spread/Protean/Shakers/Chariot/Dynamo/TB) have very standardized signposting so that they don't have to waste too much time reteaching those things individually. Harder fights just tend to give you longer mechanic strings, less time to resolve the safe spot, and have a longer duration.

This also means that having completed more content will help you learn subsequent fights a lot faster. The reason why there are some significant skill gaps between players is because some people have been playing across many years and have seen a lot of these patterns many times before, while others are completely fresh. There's also a degree of fear around moving up into harder content types, in part because seeing multiple mechanics intersect at the same time can be daunting when you first see it. But when you actually make that jump and clear a harder fight, everything pitched at the previous difficulty seems trivial, to the point that you can't remember how it ever challenged you in the first place. I think you can teach most people how to do the content in this game with some guidance and patience, but there definitely are some barriers built into progression that prevent people from doing so.

A big number of these issues stems from the changes brought by later expansions. The potency creep is real, even basic hits from players melt things compared to ARR days and the amount of stats your character gets fairly quickly and easily makes even Healers able to tank some things for a while.

With all the changes, removal and addition of skills - players have a lot fewer buttons to press on lower levels and their power is absurd. If this keeps happening, the early game boredom keeps getting stretched further and further.

There have been a lot of good suggestions including introducing weaker versions of many later skills throughout ARR section just to get people used to their buttons and in turn also allowing them to spread the power from few buttons to multiple, making the game more interactive and less insanely bursty in favor of players.

The updated dungeons actually improved a lot of them mechanically, while gutting few on the progress, but they ended up very undertuned for most part.

Another common topic is how big the jump of difficulty between normal content and something like extreme and savage is, the game should be bit more linear in difficulty. As it is aside from few outliers, players go from baby mode to slightly less so to eventually somewhat easy standard difficulty. Even some notorious Alliance and Normal Raids have been neutered by now as to not wall people.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

I've used the standard control scheme in MMOs for 20+ years, including various high end content, and have never had a single issue. It's absurd to write off the entire control scheme as inferior just because you personally struggled with it.

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It wasn't so much that I struggled with it... it is just that when you see how much better legacy is, how much time it saves and how you can do it one-handed, it's a degree of advantage that is hard to ignore.

When I see other players struggling to do a mechanic in time, sure, I'll write it off and say they would probably benefit from this much better control method.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It wasn't so much that I struggled with it... it is just that when you see how much better legacy is, how much time it saves and how you can do it one-handed, it's a degree of advantage that is hard to ignore.

When I see other players struggling to do a mechanic in time, sure, I'll write it off and say they would probably benefit from this much better control method.

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The two are identical in performance for those who know what they're doing. You happen to have an easier time with legacy. I have the exact opposite experience and find legacy obnoxious to use, so my performance would suffer. It's just personal preference.

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Originally Posted by SailorCeti

Average players aren't bad. They're average. It's in the name. Bad players are bad, however, for many reasons, including physical and mental hinderances. But I can forgive that if announced at the beginning of a run. What gets me the most are the boosts! People end up not knowing their job or the mechanics.

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Nah, average players are bad, they have no idea what they're doing. Throw them in an EX trial and see for yourself. Midcore content should be the actual level of average.

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Originally Posted by ThaCa

A big number of these issues stems from the changes brought by later expansions. The potency creep is real, even basic hits from players melt things compared to ARR days and the amount of stats your character gets fairly quickly and easily makes even Healers able to tank some things for a while.

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As a healer who has been playing the game for a long while I'd have to agree. Old content doesn't hit as hard anymore and we hit harder.

Ask for the big jump in difficulty. It wouldn't be so big if we just gave that normal content a number boost. Nothing crazy we need to make this curry mild instead of weak. EX/Unreal is Hot, Savage is spicy and Ultimates are REALLY SPICY.

In the same way that our community is forgiving of mistakes, the game has also become too accommodating of mistakes to the point we've atrophied newer players' brains like an over-protected child.
And if the game doesn't give way to teaching and nurturing our player base, our community in response is gonna become more toxic over time as the divide becomes larger between skilled and unskilled players and patience/kindness evaporates.

And I don't want to see that happen but you can see it here in our own speech including mine that kinda simmering of the burden.
The Why only at higher levels of content do I now need to explain cure 3 creates an aoe based on the target and it doesn't have to be the whitemage as the epicenter. To a fellow 90 Whitemage.

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Originally Posted by Vandso

Nah, average players are bad, they have no idea what they're doing. Throw them in an EX trial and see for yourself. Midcore content should be the actual level of average.

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No. Average players are average. When you take words out of context, I can just as easily say average players are good. Do you see how that works now?

Players who have no idea what they are doing aren't necessarily bad either. What they really are is inexperienced, and the range of skill and experience of players who go into unreal/EX content is wide. You'll find everything in there. If you are of the mindset that there is 'good', and everything below that is 'bad', then there is no such thing as "midcore." There is only hard mode (content you suck at), and easy mode (content you're good at).

the average player from a certain group of players can still be bad overall

Thought:

if your average player can do what the game requires of them to progress, does it really matter if they did it particularly well?

Outside of a very specific set of content that will demand bad players get better in order to find groups to do it, there is no difference in reward for being good at the game, or just mediocre.

That tells me the players aren’t necessarily bad, but that the game is just not demanding.

It feels that complaining the average player is bad -in normal content- that can be cleared with NPCs is akin to complaining about player skill in games like Minecraft or Candycrush.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

Thought:

if your average player can do what the game requires of them to progress, does it really matter if they did it particularly well?

Outside of a very specific set of content that will demand bad players get better in order to find groups to do it, there is no difference in reward for being good at the game, or just mediocre.

That tells me the players aren’t necessarily bad, but that the game is just not demanding.

It feels that complaining the average player is bad -in normal content- that can be cleared with NPCs is akin to complaining about player skill in games like Minecraft or Candycrush.

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This type of thinking is exactly why it's an issue though. You're still on seven other peoples time, and given the role you're hoping someone else can pick up the slack and if they can't and you can't then it's now 6 other peoples problems. Playing in any online space on other peoples time is in of itself an agreement to at least try to do your best, and in the case your best is average or below, then yeah cool, no hard feelings. But if you can do better, or pull the extra slack, it's always nice to do so.

Because as much as people love to be gracious here, and in general in XIV, the average player is bad, And no, it's not because they die, It's not because they don't do high damage. It's because the average player is ignorant of the basic aspects of the games combat system and half of the time can barely keep up with some of the slower fights let alone the faster paced ones and then anyone expecting a max lvl player to understand what an invuln is, is now wrong and a bully in the eyes of the majority.


The issue is based in the inability to hold others to a standard. It's that simple.

I have guilty pleasure of watching the newbies struggle a bit with the harder content, it makes the content all that more fun for me and to help them out.

Makes the battle a bit more exciting rather than being all on-rails easy mode.

I know its a weird take, but the game is just too easy right now and I'm desperate for difficulty in any form hahaha.

except Savage...keep that away from me.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

This type of thinking is exactly why it's an issue though. You're still on seven other peoples time, and given the role you're hoping someone else can pick up the slack and if they can't and you can't then it's now 6 other peoples problems. Playing in any online space on other peoples time is in of itself an agreement to at least try to do your best, and in the case your best is average or below, then yeah cool, no hard feelings. But if you can do better, or pull the extra slack, it's always nice to do so.

Because as much as people love to be gracious here, and in general in XIV, the average player is bad, And no, it's not because they die, It's not because they don't do high damage. It's because the average player is ignorant of the basic aspects of the games combat system and half of the time can barely keep up with some of the slower fights let alone the faster paced ones and then anyone expecting a max lvl player to understand what an invuln is, is now wrong and a bully in the eyes of the majority.


The issue is based in the inability to hold others to a standard. It's that simple.

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I think you are missing the point the devs have tried to hammer home. You going into an instanced trial is you agreeing to do the thing for up to an hour. You have the option to leave the instance if the play style of others isn’t to your liking. They’re being bad at the game is not against the rules put out by the devs.

If you are so hard up that you need to play with “good” players, you have the option to make a linkshell/community with like minded people. You are encouraged to do so! But when you play with randos, you get what you get.

Until the game or the devs want players to improve, they won’t. Nor will they need to. That’s the game this is.

The core game is designed to be so easy that it doesn’t even matter in most cases if you even have a tank. Or a healer. If one person floortanks, you are still going to clear the content with very very very rare exceptions.

That’s the point. It’s not that the game doesn’t hold people to standards, it’s that the standards don’t match yours.

The game’s core standards are quite simple: Is the average player having fun? Are they enjoying their time enough to continue paying the sub?

I have some friends that are "bad" as per what a lot of people would say. They don't literally grief duties with bad aggro management, or things that immediately spell the doom of the party. But they do subpar damage, they die to more things than most, or just struggle with some things. They also don't care about outputting an optimal or decent dps rotation, they just want to press buttons and have fun. This is not even talking about actual handicapped players irl. You'll never know, and you'll still harass them for being bad. It's kinda crummy if you ask me.

I'm not gonna throw stones at them for having a different type of fun than what people consider a straight gamer experience in MMOs. The casual content is designed for them in mind, and they're having lots of fun in it. There isn't that many players like that in the game to begin with, but I've stumbled on true disasters in some roulettes (rarely), and we went through it eventually. They were having fun, trying, and I never cared. I helped, and spending 5 or 10 more minutes to clear it didn't make me mad about it.

I feel that a lot of people have serious entitlement and anger management issues online. Not only that, but it's very telling on the individualist IRL mindset as well.

People that constantly try to pit each other against each other for being "bad" are a total gatekeeping eye sore. Instead of trying to remove half the playerbase, perhaps it could be more productive to actually push for intricate jobs and things that don't necessarily ask for a higher base difficulty in casual content, but a higher ceiling for those who can.

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Originally Posted by Vandso

Nah, average players are bad, they have no idea what they're doing. Throw them in an EX trial and see for yourself. Midcore content should be the actual level of average.

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If the average content is to become more complex (and it needs to), we need to look beyond midcore as it's currently conceived IMO. Because no, reducing everything to an extreme level would be neither desirable nor pleasant. Let me remind you that in the extremes, it's common to wipe when a player makes a mistake, and that you have to farm memos via the roulette wheel. Without even tackling difficulty as such, i.e. boss pv, strat and the like, there are plenty of ways to make content interesting.

- Tanks are under-exploited to a miserable level. I've rarely seen a game with so much tanking potential, and so little understanding of the role. I'll pass over the absolute necessity of doing away with that bullshit "stance" idea that makes aggro automatic, whatever the dps / healers do: I don't think they'll do it. But even without tackling this problem, we need to exploit all the facets of this role, including placement, which is, in general, non-existent; and force people to think about pulls. What's worse, instances with these problems exist (Damzel, the old version; Aurum Val). We need to make these problems more common, and a little more advanced, and we'll already have a spike in interest.

- Healers... I'm not going to dwell on them. There's a whole thread on current healer problems. So I'll settle for bitching about two things: our heals are too powerful, our mana management nonexistent; and stop abusive rez. We need a rez gauge or something that prevents us from raising an entire raid if something goes wrong (lb3 excluded). As things stand, most people don't seem to give a damn about dying... And rightly so. A debuff, a rez that comes within 10 seconds? It has almost no impact in most content. Smn and rdm should also be limited.

- For dps, give them targets to prioritize (once again: abnormal, completely abnormal that this mechanic, which is nonetheless a basic on MMORPG, isn't a thing on FF) and control possibilities. Example : doton could be the equivalent of wow chaman's earth shattering, and have a chance of interrupting ennemies (oc : we would need more deadly casts for that... And the suppression of Whm miracle's stun).

So, instead of doing a strict equivalent of Extrems, the game should exploit all facets of each roles by changing the instances design. Make things interesting, more demanding in terms of exploiting your jobs abilities.

Edit : funny how the whm miracle's stun is the perfect example of the subexploitation of crowd control in this game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Valence

I feel that a lot of people have serious entitlement and anger management issues online. Not only that, but it's very telling on the individualist IRL mindset as well.

People that constantly try to pit each other against each other for being "bad" are a total gatekeeping eye sore. Instead of trying to remove half the playerbase, perhaps it could be more productive to actually push for intricate jobs and things that don't necessarily ask for a higher base difficulty in casual content, but a higher ceiling for those who can.

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It's entitled to be a burden on others because as you said they don't care because they are having fun? I don't think it is fun. I'm tolerant of it. If this thread didn't exist I wouldn't even be talking about it really.

Nobody here is best player to ever play the game. I'm not the best nor is anybody else here. Well, if we're not the best but we're not the worst that makes us the Average. I'm at that level quite comfortably. People who are objectively bad at the game are not average. So why are we trying to lower the bar and say they are when they aren't?

Now to preface there are three Don't's on the path of being a decent player:

Don't be a burden. I can't play your role for you, this is a team game, do your job well enough. Don't expect to skate by doing things half hearted.

Don't make excuses. When you make a mistake, own up to it, no BS, no pointing fingers, Ask questions if you're confused, and try not to repeat it again.

Don't be a jerk. Don't kick people when they are down, A good team is a unit, if they fail we fail, we pick people up, we try again, focus on doing your job.


Nobody here is being a jerk by pointing out the obvious. I'm not gonna start harassing people and making people feel bad for playing a game they should be enjoying. The game needs to do a better job of teaching players.
EXs/Unreals are not hard the gap between that and normal content isn't as far as people think, we've not given players the tools to acclimate to that level. Sure people socialize or just care about the story fair enough.
You don't need to be max level to go to parties or socialize.
You don't need to play the game to experience the story.
You do need to be competent if you want to play the content that the designers spent the most resources on.

If you coddle people they'll never have a chance to grow. That to me is toxic positivity.
I'm not asking for base content to be difficult. It should be able to acclimate people to a certain degree of competency that doesn't exist right now.
I can't tell people who as you say subpar damage, dying or struggling they are doing a great job. In a world without adversity may seem like heaven, but really it's a type of hell, and the game has not given people the agency or competency to escape it.
I'm not gatekeeping people out of content when I talk about this stuff. When having conversations like this - we've been holding the gate open so people can do this content.
Only to be told; Oh people don't HAVE to do it if they don't want do, they don't HAVE to get better because the majority of the game doesn't expect them to.
Now tell me? How am I denying entry to the gates when you're constructing a wall behind me of excuses why people shouldn't try to be better?
I want those people in here, but the game and our community at large is giving people every excuse to stay away.