Fixing Player engagement DEV pls consider

Carrot-on-a-stick works, Squeenix has been abusing it for years to make people do mind-numbing content they don't want to do. But it's not a solution, it's a band-aid.

Why go to your local supermarket by making a U turn around the moon? If you want people to be engaged, simply make the content more engaging.

Or they add the same window like in pvp so everyone can see if they did good or did not.
Or actually implement a dps parser. No need for another token that fills up my LIMITED inventory.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Have you tried Thok ast Thok in a full sprout party?

Too many new players would quit, in fact I think a lot would quit around Brayflox, if it were forced to all sprout parties on level.

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This only highlights how bad the game is at teaching players, new or not, how to play.

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Originally Posted by xbahax92

Or they add the same window like in pvp so everyone can see if they did good or did not.
Or actually implement a dps parser. No need for another token that fills up my LIMITED inventory.

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They've categorially said no to parsers. The director does not want them for XIV. It doesn't really matter how many times some here on the forum ask for them we aren't getting them ever. I sincerely doubt they'd entertain the OP's suggestion either.

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Originally Posted by ZedxKayn

This only highlights how bad the game is at teaching players, new or not, how to play.

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Would the removal of level 80s as the GP suggested help them learn any better? At least with a few experienced players helping the sprouts a portion of them won't actually quit and will become decent players.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Would the removal of level 80s as the GP suggested help them learn any better? At least with a few experienced players helping the sprouts a portion of them won't actually quit and will become decent players.

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No, but proper in-game guides and tutorials would be a much better solution.

Although the idea is admirable, this will never happen. You cannot police medals when someone gets taken out for something they did not do, like an aoe that someone drops on you and kills you. I feel like from a design aspect, that would be incredibly hard to award appropriately. Beyond that, to many casual players in this game and many would likely take some sort of issue or offense to this type of thing.. it is the unfortunate state of things. I do think they should just revamp the commendation system. Once you get the parade choco, I don't believe you ever get anything else. At least I never have. Maybe that would be a good way to at minimum foster cooperation and foster "better play" in content. I do wish there were more ways to help people improve in the game though.

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Originally Posted by MrPresident

Not sure it would work. Would have to be based more on your personal rotation instead of damage output for reasons others have already stated. Other people could kill you, or hamper your DPS, then there goes your gold medal through no fault of your own.

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Yet the commendations system exists, which is a requirement for mentorship and if anything else is even more flawed. People comm based on glamour, role, catgirls, don't bother comming, they comm 0 dps healbots, the dps who used peleton but actually did terrible dps, the tank who wall pulled with no cd's and was carried by the healer and so on. The commendation system relies on players, many of whom are new, inexperienced or don't know how your role works rather than math, logic and actual numbers.

Why can't we have a medal system or performance report when it's perfectly fine for the vastly inferior commendation system to exist?

Also for the argument of "someone else could get you killed and there goes your gold medal". Is a gold medal really that important? It's just a "well done" for a good run. Who cares if someone messes your run up from time to time, you know what happened and if you play well you'll get plenty of medals on average.

I personally wouldn't mind a medal reward system for content, though I'd definitely want it to have a mix of personal and group grading.

For example in group grading, completing the content could have a base reward just for completing the content but then have it augmented by collective group effort, such as:
Abilities stunned
Abilities silenced
Avoidable attacks evaded
Stack markers stacked
Damage mitigated (doesn't include self)
Players KO'd
Time completed
Etc.

For personal, it should rely entirely on your job:
If you have positionals, how often you hit them (the tank could make this harder, for sure, but you also have True North to help you with situations where you miss positionals).
If you have a buff you need to maintain, how often you lost it.
If you have mitigation abilities, damage mitigated (for self as mitigating others is listed under group)
Etc.

For general personal
Enemies killed
Enemies killed that you assisted in (like in PvP)
Damage contributed to the content
For healers, health restored could be added to their damage grading (health restored above max shouldn't be graded)

Like many things in the game, it can be abused by anyone looking to be jerks (not unlike currently running content and having "that guy" looking to ruin someone's day in the game) but I think this would be a neat addition.

I could also see it being segmented by (and probably should for personal) based on what the content is being attempted. Any dungeons pre-50 should definitely not have the same personal grading as a 71-80 dungeon, for example.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Yet the commendations system exists, which is a requirement for mentorship and if anything else is even more flawed. People comm based on glamour, role, catgirls, don't bother comming, they comm 0 dps healbots, the dps who used peleton but actually did terrible dps, the tank who wall pulled with no cd's and was carried by the healer and so on. The commendation system relies on players, many of whom are new, inexperienced or don't know how your role works rather than math, logic and actual numbers.

Why can't we have a medal system or performance report when it's perfectly fine for the vastly inferior commendation system to exist?

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Because the commendation system exists precisely to reward people you like being in a duty with, regardless of the reason. If you put on a silly outfit and it makes someone's daily roulette more fun, then good for you. If you only heal the tank and makes the tank feel safe, then good for you. It's not a flawed system in that regard as it's doing exactly what it's supposed to. You could be the best player in the duty, but if the rest of the party did not enjoy playing with you, there's a chance of you not getting a commendation.

If there's any flaw to the system, it's the fact that there is a weekly task you can do to gain rewards for giving out a certain number of commendations. That's the only thing that needs to be changed (ie, removed).

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Also for the argument of "someone else could get you killed and there goes your gold medal". Is a gold medal really that important? It's just a "well done" for a good run. Who cares if someone messes your run up from time to time, you know what happened and if you play well you'll get plenty of medals on average.

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Because the OP wants to tie the medal to more tangible rewards. Human nature would make people not feel good if they're shown (or think) to be hindered from reaching their goal by someone else.

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Originally Posted by linayar

Because the OP wants to tie the medal to more tangible rewards. Human nature would make people not feel good if they're shown (or think) to be hindered from reaching their goal by someone else.

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Maybe, but seeing as you get a chance every time you get an eligible roulette the loss isn't that great, and while people like to focus on the worst thing that can happen, I.E. the community breaks down and starts insulting each and blaming each other (Something that already happens still) I think, and am a bit confident, that the majority of people would be more willing to communicate, and put up a group effort so that everyone does well.

I think if we can put ourselves in that situation, lets say a Nier raid at the moment, and I really wanted that medal. If I see someone dying I'd let them know what the mechanics do, make sure to answer any questions they have and encourage other people to do great so we can get them. Overall increasing the social aspect and performance of the group as a whole, that is something uplifting. And I think the majority of people would behave this way. Rather than purely negative, which some few regrettably do, and they resort to blaming and accusation regardless of a reward or not.

Is the game we want to play really designed around and for those that won't be happy no matter what? That will find the negative in everything we do? I'd care to say no, That is what the disciplinary tools are there for, Vote kicking, GM reports, etc. Not the game and raid design... That should be guiding, encouraging and challenging us to do better.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

I think, and am a bit confident, that the majority of people would be more willing to communicate, and put up a group effort so that everyone does well.

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The existence of the duty finder would suggest that less communication is preferable.

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Originally Posted by linayar

The existence of the duty finder would suggest that less communication is preferable.

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I am of mind that the existence of the duty finder is a suggestion that people like convenience, not that they would not like to speak to anyone or interact with them. It defeats the purpose of playing an mmorpg to suggest that is what people are looking for, solitude. And for those folk the trust system has been an option since 5.0.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

I think if we can put ourselves in that situation, lets say a Nier raid at the moment, and I really wanted that medal.

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If you wanted a medal, you'd overcap on them just doing the easy peasy dungeons doing your dailies.
Trying to get a medal in any specific content would work... if there's a tracker for what duties you have/haven't folded. But this medal system will really fumble if a gold from Sastasha has as much weight as one from e12s.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

If you wanted a medal, you'd overcap on them just doing the easy peasy dungeons doing your dailies.
Trying to get a medal in any specific content would work... if there's a tracker for what duties you have/haven't folded. But this medal system will really fumble if a gold from Sastasha has as much weight as one from e12s.

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Yeah, I think in page 2 or 3 I mentioned it would be for level 80 activities mostly, when, presumably one is expect to have a decent grasp on their jobs. And grinding them is more than okay, they could have no cap at all. And once a person has gotten all the rewards they want, as long as they keep adding new ones they will always try to perform well in duties simply to snag one while they're at it.

You know how you can trade achievement points with Jonas in Gridania? and occasionally they add something in there? Something like that or the Faux Hollows currency. But with more expensive items and updated a bit more regularly since they barely put any attention to that one.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

I am of mind that the existence of the duty finder is a suggestion that people like convenience, not that they would not like to speak to anyone or interact with them. It defeats the purpose of playing an mmorpg to suggest that is what people are looking for, solitude. And for those folk the trust system has been an option since 5.0.

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When do people speak to one another in DF other than say hello or ty for the party? You're joking right? Many time they say nothing at all.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Yeah, I think in page 2 or 3 I mentioned

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Lol sorry you've been having to repeat yourself so much.
It's been difficult following along in this thread.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

When do people speak to one another in DF other than say hello or ty for the party? You're joking right? Many time they say nothing at all.

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Lol yeah, I have a macro that says hi and that's about all the talking I do 95% of the time.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

When do people speak to one another in DF other than say hello or ty for the party? You're joking right? Many time they say nothing at all.

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Unless everyone is social, I usually say "Hello" at the start and "Thanks all, gj" at the end. There are also times where half my party dies to a tank buster that another group's tank decided to drop on us and I say something like "Gotta love that tank buster. lol" like I did earlier. I was still the only one to say anything the entire time outside of the standard greetings at the start so I guess it was a little awkward. I guess it's my way of trying to de-escalate the tension.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Unless everyone is social, I usually say "Hello" at the start and "Thanks all, gj" at the end. There are also times where half my party dies to a tank buster that another group's tank decided to drop on us and I say something like "Gotta love that tank buster. lol" like I did earlier. I was still the only one to say anything the entire time outside of the standard greetings at the start so I guess it was a little awkward. I guess it's my way of trying to de-escalate the tension.

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Bet you're fun in a party. I have alts on Crystal maybe i'll catch up with you sometime although I do a lot of capping with hunt trains nowadays.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Bet you're fun in a party. I have alts on Crystal maybe i'll catch up with you sometime although I do a lot of capping with hunt trains nowadays.

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Never know! I run a few specific roulettes just about every day. To be honest though that is also how I tend to cap my tomestones anymore, hence not running as many roulettes as I used to. It's just too good.

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

Very much a non issue. The site that shall not be named does exactly this and also keeps a 2d recording of everything, SE wouldn't have an issue doing what a random site with less funding can do.

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Are you are implying that which has no name actually pulls the data from the SE servers?

I know how that which has no name works in other games that don't have one built in (WoW, for example). It reads battle data sent to the user's computer in real-time and records it. It uses your computer's CPU and memory, not the MMO company servers. It is also doing so for a single battle environment, not every battle environment occurring at the same time across all servers.

Talk about ping ...

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Originally Posted by Ath192

I am of mind that the existence of the duty finder is a suggestion that people like convenience, not that they would not like to speak to anyone or interact with them. It defeats the purpose of playing an mmorpg to suggest that is what people are looking for, solitude. And for those folk the trust system has been an option since 5.0.

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Convenience comes with not having to communicate (much) due to how easy the content is. Once the content starts to get harder, forcing more communication, people would use party finder instead of just using the duty finder.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Are you are implying that which has no name actually pulls the data from the SE servers?

I know how that which has no name works in other games that don't have one built in (WoW, for example). It reads battle data sent to the user's computer in real-time and records it. It uses your computer's CPU and memory, not the MMO company servers. It is also doing so for a single battle environment, not every battle environment occurring at the same time across all servers.

Talk about ping ...

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Yeap all a parser does is use the info from your combat log.

If parsers pulled data directly from the servers SE would have a super easy time tracking down who used them, which would mean it would be easy to figure out who to ban. It's because it uses client side data that SE can't tell who is using a parser from their server info. Sure the info that the combat log gets is from the server, but a piece of software does not need to be connected directly to the servers to read a body of text, which is what the combat log is.

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Originally Posted by Nightroad

It is called Part Finder.
Make a party with your requirements .
Not sure how long it would take to fill.

In duty finder you get what you get , roll with it or leave.

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By not trying to clear the content you've queued for in duty finder in the most quick and efficient manner possible you are wasting the time of 3/7/23 other players. This is at best griefing, and at worst social parasitism.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

By not trying to clear the content you've queued for in duty finder in the most quick and efficient manner possible you are wasting the time of 3/7/23 other players. This is at best griefing, and at worst social parasitism.

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"Griefing" is intentional harassment or provocation of another player. There is a difference between that (or an alleged case of "social parasitism") and simply not trying to clear a queued content "in the most quick and efficient manner possible."

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

By not trying to clear the content you've queued for in duty finder in the most quick and efficient manner possible you are wasting the time of 3/7/23 other players. This is at best griefing, and at worst social parasitism.

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I would love to report Thancred and Alisaie for sub optimal play. Like they don’t even try to dodge mechanics sometimes. And don’t get me started on Alisaie wasting limit breaks...

/s

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

When do people speak to one another in DF other than say hello or ty for the party? You're joking right? Many time they say nothing at all.

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Originally Posted by linayar

The existence of the duty finder would suggest that less communication is preferable.

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You cant communicate in this game. The abc mentality prevents it. If your communicating then your not doing dps. And you will be slammed for it.

The other reason people don't communicate is because you finish whatever duty your in and you'll almost never see the same players again. It's why the social aspect of modern mmos has deteriorated so much..

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Not the game and raid design... That should be guiding, encouraging and challenging us to do better.

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The reality is the game and devs do everything possible to make the game brain dead easy.. msq quests that were all ready braindead easy now have even easier difficulty options..

The whole game should be encouring players and challenging them to do better. "Raise the players up" not "bring the content down"

This is where most of the games problems lie. Players run through all this brain dead easy stuff that's almost impossible to fail. Then decide to go and try sone ex / Savage level content. Get smacked in the face with a huge reality check and a ton of attitude for wasting everyone else's time.

If the game actually had a learning curve, thought and raised players up. They'd be much more prepared. that end game stuff.

But the games attitude is one of handouts and making everything brain dead easy.. with easy modes, massive Ievel overpowering, huge echo buffs and even unsync.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

You cant communicate in this game. The abc mentality prevents it. If your communicating then your not doing dps. And you will be slammed for it.

The other reason people don't communicate is because you finish whatever duty your in and you'll almost never see the same players again. It's why the social aspect of modern mmos has deteriorated so much..

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If the game were solely instance after instance after instance, your point might be valid.

Every modern MMO has other mechanisms for socializing that do not involve a dungeon instance. In WoW you have guilds, in FFXIV you have Free Companies. If you desire social interaction, the chat window is the means to that end, and so is your headset if you join an FC/guild with a Discord server.

I have enjoyed in-game banter in FFXIV for over six years now, and do not feel it necessary to force socialization from random players who join in the same dungeon instances. That doesn't mean I have never had an interesting conversation with someone in an instance ... I tend to get chatty in the MSQ roulette, for example. I also realize that English is not necessarily the first language of players who I meet in an instance.

I've played MMOs long enough to know that dungeon instances are the last place for any meaningful socialization to occur. The days before dungeon finders was certainly one where some amount of socialization was necessary to even run an instance, but it wasn't a requirement.

If you want to point fingers at the primary reason you might remember earlier MMOs with more fondness (from a social viewpoint), blame the lack of Internet forums and websites that lay out everything for you, rather than the game itself.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

I would love to report Thancred and Alisaie for sub optimal play. Like they don’t even try to dodge mechanics sometimes. And don’t get me started on Alisaie wasting limit breaks...

/s

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Trust are for those who can't. Duty Finder is for those who can.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Do not underestimate how prickly some people can get over feeling like their time was wasted because of someone else.

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OMG yes.

Also, people would farm something like this. They would find the easiest route to the highest amount of medals and spam it. And if anyone in that run screwed them over for their medals, they would lose their minds. Because they would want the items the medals give them as quickly as possible. We see this anytime some new thing to collect for a reward comes out. It would happen and it would lead to a lot of toxicity.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

If SE isn't going to provide the best tool for the job, we know what it is, they should implement something akin to this purposed medal system or style meter. Furthermore, they should also tier the duty finder. So players of similar skill levels are matched together instead of the randomness we currently have.

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That goes completely against the idea of the Duty Finder. Do you honestly think it's there for us vets? If it was a situation of just tomes or things like clusters, they could give daily missions or something like other games do. The point of DF is to keep that content populated so sprouts aren't stuck in a queue for hours for something back in ARR.

I find myself reminded of Campaign in FFXI where EXP/Note rewards corresponded to categories of actions you acted in, culminating in individual caps that added together over an ideal tag refresh rate of every 15 minutes for longer battles. With how the job/subjob system work, min/maxing this system also encouraged people to play jobs outside of their common style and wound up creating a group of players mad the Campaigners could level and "not know their job" because they dared work around the Campaign meta. To see this sort of toxicity manifest in XIV with some kind of individual performance system, especially with factors outside of the player's control, is something I don't find particularly far-fetched.

Pragmatically, I'm not a believer that just making things harder and/or forcing more people to be savage-tier raiders is not the actual solution to prolonging interest. MMO statistics don't lie here in the assertion that hardcore content is the rarest cleared and often overlooked by the majority. And it's not so much because some people don't want to see or try, but that the expectations snowball into something they either can't routinely participate in (for example, if you can't form a static due to a fluctuating schedule) or force unfun farming for preparation (consumables or other expensive goods). If the solution was as simple as a ballbusting MMO bringing in the big bucks because players were in this nebulous definition of engaged, it would've happened by now.

I'm more inclined to say XIV has a lot of content outside of the instanced sphere that does not go far enough. Something like the Ishgard Restoration served as a temporary exception to this for crafters, but if we're being honest about the game's economy, a significant amount of it is a diseased, festering corpse that could be rejuvenated if players had reason to make things outside of leves that could actually positively impact their server (and not be undercut by RMT/bot influence). Yet, I'd argue this same "close, but not far enough..." extends to FATEs, a general lack of weekly/daily quests, a better randomized dungeon system, expand housing to the creation of (collaborative) villages over this hamfisted inadequate system, or even greater gear/wardrobe customization. None of these may appeal to the raider sorts that feel compelled to flaunt their greatness over others while seeking further affirmation through yet more coded systems, but they're all still things a greater majority enjoys and craves. Of course, there's also the untapped potential of player-generated content where people could make the back-breaking encounters they crave. But the reality is they'd have to be solely for bragging rights and not unique rewards, which makes the idea DOA for some challenge-seekers. Which is another way of saying some players have unreasonable expectations and are impossible to please.