Does 14 Promote a Culture of Mediocrity?

One word: controllers. You don’t really have much freedom if you have to also cater to people that are “handicapped”.

In fact I’m already curious how Microsoft is going to butcher WoW to bring it to Xbox, it might just become the same. Try to imagine playing a TBC heroic dungeon where people can be one or two shot in the blink of an eye with a controller.

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Originally Posted by MidnightEquinox

I can assure you you're mediocre or bad at at least one of your hobbies, unless you literally have like just the 1 hobby.

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I'm mediocre at this hobby. I'm not "punting a basketball down the court" bad at any of my hobbies. I feel like i was pretty clear in what I typed the first time.

*Edit: and while I may be mediocre or bad at any number of hobbies, I sure as hell dont try to be. Or get angry if my lack of skill ruins someone else's time. This isnt a stamp collection, its a game played with other people.

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Originally Posted by Kandraxx

One word: controllers. You don’t really have much freedom if you have to also cater to people that are “handicapped”.

In fact I’m already curious how Microsoft is going to butcher WoW to bring it to Xbox, it might just become the same. Try to imagine playing a TBC heroic dungeon where people can be one or two shot in the blink of an eye with a controller.

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If people can play fighting games at a professional level on pad, people can play at a high level in FF14 on pad.

Heck, look at high-profile Devil May Cry 5 players; a good deal of them play on controller, and the APM for some of those combos is higher than most MMOs. On the level of micro in older RTS's, even.

Controllers are a factor in keeping the maximum number of skills on a job limited to ~32, but not for movement, undertuned trivial content, removal of aggro management as a mechanic, the terrible mismatch between healer and content design, etc.

"punting a basketball down the court" sounds like not actually playing basketball. The in-game equivalent would not be relevant to any of these various threads talking about mediocrity or what not. It's closer to things like trolling, being AFK, playing while severely incapacitated (high), etc. But none of those have anything to do with skill. You can be great at the game and troll or you can be terrible at the game and troll, so I assume that's not what people mean when they're complaining about mediocrity or toxic casuals.

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Originally Posted by AnnRam

And yes farming tomes for that wow +10 item level gear isn't rewarding, impactful etc, you gonna glam that piece of gear immediately to mog shop items.

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Lol. 100% true can confirm.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

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No one should be shunned from teaching. Yes, some people can get better at it. Being toxic is not a good way to do it (I never said it was), but you should not cast doubt on those wanting to teach. Teaching in this game has been largely successful by many people, myself included. You are simply casting doubt at it's effectiveness under the guise that people don't really care. That's goes against basic human nature.

Someone not being receptive to being taught is not an inability to teach. It's stubbornness on the part of the other person. It has nothing to do with teaching or learning. Is it possible to get through to people? Yes. Does it always work? No.

Someone berating someone is not teaching them, and it is not common at all in this game. Although at 'higher' levels of play, people are expected to perform better, and it is the place where this is more likely to occur. Most gameplay is not 'high level.'

At more casual levels of play, people are expected to still participate and actually contribute in some way to the clear or win a match. Most of the toxic behavior and stubbornness to learn comes from individuals cloaking themselves in the mantle of 'casual' in order to protect themselves from being 'criticized.' It's an insult to people that casually play the game to be lumped in with those that get carried in the game, because they don't want to put in effort.

You keep using the second person in your scenarios.

Also, I'm a little late, but aggro management was terrible and I mald every time I see someone suggest bringing it back.

No thanks. Not everything that makes the game easier is bad.

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Originally Posted by Zsolen

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They shouldn't but unless they have certain mentalities that are suitable to creating a tone or place that is conducive to such then some people either need to reshape their mindset or just leave it alone. I'm casting doubt on the basis that people create unrealistic expectations, do so whimsically and then get pouty when it doesn't work. Generally I would say developing it isn't entirely a bad thing but if people aren't open to the idea that they're wrong or inadequate at explaining something at the time then just.. It's a lovely notion and all, don't get me wrong, but if the objective is to actually do it effectively and produce results then I would beg to differ. There is a point where it's more of detriment than an advantage.

Someone not being receptive is for a myriad of reasons, including a level of stubbornness, but equally an incompatible and inadequate 'expression' of teaching. If you try and explain something to someone several times and they don't understand or show a level of understanding then you try and reshape how you've conveying that information. Explaining it? Try bumping up a GIF or even go on MS paint and try to do so visually. Certain pieces of information are better suited to this. 1+1 does not always equal 2, so to speak. Adapt yourself to it. Beyond a certain point people show reluctance but I see many people try to explain something, then explain it the exact same way for the next 4 pulls and wonder why they still don't understand - To many people the whole 'didn't explain it very well' doesn't really register as a possibility- and they immediately jump to the conclusion that they're dense.

My experience would be to the contrary, unless that particular duty was already stated for learning, It's definitely more common in higher-end duties but these mentalities only permeate in all fields of content, regardless of the difficulty of said content. People crying and being toxic because someone is single pulling on a duty. Being berated because people have some understanding that the Cure II proc from Cure I is a good idea. This almost stems entirely from the fact the designers have elected to maintain this particular piece of design. I've already unfriended several people because they whine about this. Again this permeates through all content regardless of the difficulty of said content.

and who determines what constitutes as a contribution, or sufficient enough? Not using cooldowns and core skills is something entirely different to someone that is single pulling, be it out of nerves or gauging the ability of other members in the party before pulling bigger, as just 2 common examples. Is it optimal or the best course of play? Of course not, but it's a contribution all the same, or is that going to be denied because it doesn't conform to a persons ideals of a 14 minute duty. I would wager that it isn't people cloaking themselves in the mantle of a casual but rather simply people just creating an inappropriate umbrella term to address those that aren't conforming to standards. This is why I mention it being attached with a negative connotation. - Many people on this forum have used the term casual to address less skilled players. Despite the very fact this game has many adequate casual players.

Irrelevant, really. I think it should be a given that I'm not necessarily addressing you personally but just the audience in general that are otherwise reading. The point still applies regardless, but I'll try to accommodate if it bothers you.

Promote? No, I don’t think so.

But it could do more in teaching a rotation and what basic mechanics do but I assume they expected the Mentor system to be a thing.

I don't think it promotes it. It certainly does nothing to sway away from it though

It promotes it like most modern media that has to spend millions to make. Can't really blame XIV over following a trend. /shrug

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Originally Posted by Brownondorf

FF14 is a sandbox MMO, it's designed for EVERYONE. There's content for all skill level.
But the truth is simply that there's a massive amount of unskilled and stubborn player in the game. And a lot of white knights and enablers.
So many people can't to their rotation, can't read their skills, can't dodge anything, the cure1 bots, the "you pull you tank" players, the NOdps Sages... and so many people that defend that "bUt iTs fInE wE cAn ClEAr tHe CoNtent AnYWay DoNt Be tOXic bla bla bla"
There's a difference between being a toxic elitist and expecting people to play at a decent level by the time they reach the lvl90 dungeon...
Do you really think it's ok to do expert roulette in 30+ minutes because the healer is spamming cure 1, the tank is doing small pulls and the dps only know to do their 1-2-3 combo when it's easily beatable in less than 20 minutes by playing at a decent level?
Why there so much people ok with this is beyond me...

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I don't think it's so much people being okay as this just doesn't seem common.

I play on Aether, in Eastern time zone prime time to the wee hours of the morning and all day on weekends. I do Expert every day. I get the Dead Ends so much it feels like Dead Ends roulette. I PUG almost everything. I can't remember the last time I saw something like this. It's possible I just didn't notice it because I was busy adjusting to a pear-shaped group. But my personal experience has been I just don't see this that often, in almost 8 years playing.

So for me it's not a huge deal if I have to step up a little more here and there in a group from time to time. The vast majority of my groups are quick, fast, and efficient. Someone might get hit with this or that but nothing we can't recover from. I have no reason not to be chill about my party mates because my experience has been if I do get those types, they're just a momentary blip on my radar that I barely notice. If things are egregious enough with enough members of the party, we won't be able to clear. Then we may need to look at what we're all doing. Or just acknowledge our makeup may not be working and abandon. I think I can count on one hand the number of times that's happened.

It promotes the culture of have fun however you like in our game.

I'm not sure why so many people found your post offensive.

As far as the classes go, every expansion it's "we're cutting off the fat guys." but there's no fat left to cut. They're just picking at the bones. Homogenization everywhere. Previously complex classes turned mind-numbingly easy and/or mashy so that high APM gives the impression of depth. Removal of DoT interactivity and DoTs. Positionals mattering less and less despite having a giant crutch named True North, if they're not removed entierly. Less penalty for messing up rotations. No aggro management at all. Healers having no damage rotation despite not having to constantly heal so they're just hitting that same button over and over. I mean, really. Nuance and depth is stripped at every turn and the skill ceiling and floors are crunched together ever closer. It's a shame, every system that lets players stand out from one another in performance should be celebrated and inspire others to do better, not removed.

It's one of the few criticisms I can give this game. It's fantastic but classes are certainly shallower than it used to be.

This game (more like this community) promotes an “it’s ok to be bad if you’re having fun” and in all honesty it’s the worst part about the game. It’s not ok to be bad! It’s a multiplayer game where your performance effects the time and enjoyment of others. Being able to press 123 and a few OGCDs in a relatively semi correct order isn’t too much to ask. Stop promoting mediocrity.

Quick point before all the keyboard warriors and white knights jump to defend themselves for being bad players. No one expects people to be doing 99% top tier dps. Just to play semi decently.

White knights will defend mediocrity, even as it is slowly hurting the game. 14, is turning into a joke in the eyes of many with it being known for two things: bad players and degeneracy. The game used to be such better. I Iong for the halcyon days of HW and SB.

I've spent the last ten years training people to do simple manufacturing jobs and something you need to understand is that sometimes people are just not good something no matter how much they try. In a work environment, this can get you moved around or released but for a game that people pay for you can't really punish them for it nor do they have the pressure of having to perform or be fired.

Another stellar thread designed to insult FFXIV. There's a door here somewhere.

Hurt the "Game" is a bit of an exaggeration. Hurting optimized/strong players with injected boredom...sure, maybe. While I didn't go through all 12 pages, this has been explained in pretty great detail already. There are 2 key factors on why you feel like complexity in job rotation has been tuned out over time:

1) Developers have stated that they do not feel it is healthy for the game to continue to develop more difficult encounters mechanically while also continuing to make playing the class more difficult. This ends up raising two ceilings and is likely factored by percentages that clear difficult encounters. This has always been a thing in all well grounded, developed MMO's.

2) Class complexity has to be balanced around "adding more to the class" each expansion. If you have some highly tuned class with a large ceiling running 200 apm you don't leave a lot of room to "added more buttons". I'm not saying they're doing it right, wrong or the other, but it is easy to see how it can become a logistical nightmare, and one where there are 100,000 indians with their own idea of what's "good" -> Tanks are a prefect example.

I'm definitely not countering your point, but they are definitely things that need to be considered. Personally I'm neither here nor there. The reason my neutral thoughts is this complaint doesn't come from a spot of progression but instead from optimization and parsing.

Very much agree on all fronts

And I wince on those defending this practice saying “it’s made for a diverse crowd so it needs to be as accessible as Tetris on a leapfrog” or “the game isn’t meant for you if you want somthing that requires a ounce of foresight” or my favorite one “this game respects your time” which doesn’t even add anything to the conversation but shows how hypnotic and enthralled the community is with their own words.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

playing this game is also not a job it's supposed to be for fun. some people just take playing this game way too seriously.

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My god I’m sick of this low hanging fruit of “people take this game too seriously” whenever someone discusses difficulty. It’s a multiplayer game and if your not even trying your holding everyone back, from the easiest dungeon to Ultimate. If your so lax I recommend only do trusts or go play a single player game where no one relies on you…..or play DPS

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Originally Posted by DkFusion

Hurt the "Game" is a bit of an exaggeration. Hurting optimized/strong players with injected boredom...sure, maybe. While I didn't go through all 12 pages, this has been explained in pretty great detail already. There are 2 key factors on why you feel like complexity in job rotation has been tuned out over time:

1) Developers have stated that they do not feel it is healthy for the game to continue to develop more difficult encounters mechanically while also continuing to make playing the class more difficult. This ends up raising two ceilings and is likely factored by percentages that clear difficult encounters. This has always been a thing in all well grounded, developed MMO's.

2) Class complexity has to be balanced around "adding more to the class" each expansion. If you have some highly tuned class with a large ceiling running 200 apm you don't leave a lot of room to "added more buttons". I'm not saying they're doing it right, wrong or the other, but it is easy to see how it can become a logistical nightmare, and one where there are 100,000 indians with their own idea of what's "good" -> Tanks are a prefect example.

I'm definitely not countering your point, but they are definitely things that need to be considered. Personally I'm neither here nor there. The reason my neutral thoughts is this complaint doesn't come from a spot of progression but instead from optimization and parsing.

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The system where aggro management was split between the tanks amd the party was objectively an easy system, but an engaging one with how it interacted with encounters. Same as stance dance and having multiple combo paths. These were easy and approachable mechanics in SB that SE felt they had to remove for the lowest common denominator.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

The system where aggro management was split between the tanks and the party was objectively an easy system, but an engaging one with how it interacted with encounters. Same as stance dance and having multiple combo paths. These were easy and approachable mechanics in SB that SE felt they had to remove for the lowest common denominator.

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NGL, I miss playing chicken with aggro on my MNK.

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Originally Posted by DkFusion

Hurt the "Game" is a bit of an exaggeration. Hurting optimized/strong players with injected boredom...sure, maybe. While I didn't go through all 12 pages, this has been explained in pretty great detail already. There are 2 key factors on why you feel like complexity in job rotation has been tuned out over time:

1) Developers have stated that they do not feel it is healthy for the game to continue to develop more difficult encounters mechanically while also continuing to make playing the class more difficult. This ends up raising two ceilings and is likely factored by percentages that clear difficult encounters. This has always been a thing in all well grounded, developed MMO's.

2) Class complexity has to be balanced around "adding more to the class" each expansion. If you have some highly tuned class with a large ceiling running 200 apm you don't leave a lot of room to "added more buttons". I'm not saying they're doing it right, wrong or the other, but it is easy to see how it can become a logistical nightmare, and one where there are 100,000 indians with their own idea of what's "good" -> Tanks are a prefect example.

I'm definitely not countering your point, but they are definitely things that need to be considered. Personally I'm neither here nor there. The reason my neutral thoughts is this complaint doesn't come from a spot of progression but instead from optimization and parsing.

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Dev team found their footing with Alex Creator Savage, ever since YoshiP has been content with the bar being set at that level for savage difficulty, as the clear rates satisfied them. This was at the time when stance dancing was a thing on healers, tanks, and ranged. It's more of they have always followed how players played the game and adjusted to a play style.

Like they really started to pick up that good players realized tank stance was a crutch after getting aggro. Or that the really good groups with dark knights always had ninjas. Healing tanks was a non-issue because you were always tank swapping after busters to get the most mitigation possible between both tanks. This still applies today. First tank uses living dead, the next one will hallowed ground, etc.

As for jobs, when you have this many, you can't really redesign every job's buttons for the next expansion, so you just go with the addition. For rehauls, you have to pick and choose, and Summoner was a prime target. Then you have jobs like Black Mage that already were pretty fluid in SHb, and the new skill(s) you add give it a better of quality of life. They also found a footing on doing adjustments in SHb, just adjust potencies and numbers to get things right instead of making actual skills changes whenever possible.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

My god I’m sick of this low hanging fruit of “people take this game too seriously” whenever someone discusses difficulty. It’s a multiplayer game and if your not even trying your holding everyone back, from the easiest dungeon to Ultimate. If your so lax I recommend only do trusts or go play a single player game where no one relies on you…..or play DPS

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If you as a group are clearing the content in a random PUG, regardless of how bad you're doing, you're playing the game "good enough" for the devs. They are well aware..extremely in tune with the idea that if they made it much harder, people would quit. Simple as that. I have no idea why people can't grasp this when there are obvious clear reasons the devs have stated for not wanting most of the game to be that hard to do.

This is a "Disneyland" MMO. Everyone gets to wait in line and do the 95% kiddy rides like the pirates or small world. There are even a few more intense rides that are not for everyone. You're welcome to do those, and even make your own group to get an optimal experience. Disneyland wouldn't succeed as a park if it was 95% extreme roller coasters. Same deal here.

Honestly alot of the complexities people say they are dumbing down the game by removing are things resulting from bad design choices such as cleric stance. or something players came up with to get around bad design choice. only reason stance dancing even became a thing was to get around the fact that tank stances used to reduce your damage output

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Originally Posted by Pyro2hell3

Honestly alot of the complexities people say they are dumbing down the game by removing are things resulting from bad design choices such as cleric stance. or something players came up with to get around bad design choice. only reason stance dancing even became a thing was to get around the fact that tank stances used to reduce your damage output

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To remove systems to make a game easier is the definition of dumbing down.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

If you as a group are clearing the content in a random PUG, regardless of how bad you're doing, you're playing the game "good enough" for the devs. They are well aware..extremely in tune with the idea that if they made it much harder, people would quit. Simple as that. I have no idea why people can't grasp this when there are obvious clear reasons the devs have stated for not wanting most of the game to be that hard to do.

This is a "Disneyland" MMO. Everyone gets to wait in line and do the 95% kiddy rides like the pirates or small world. There are even a few more intense rides that are not for everyone. You're welcome to do those, and even make your own group to get an optimal experience. Disneyland wouldn't succeed as a park if it was 95% extreme roller coasters. Same deal here.

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Absolutely. Every single time the developers are asked questions about the game, there's always someone (or multiple someones) who asks for harder content or more hard content or more complex class designs. They answer this. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. In fact, in the pre-EW press they explicitly addressed class design not going back to it's HW state. They've heard the arguments, and it's something they've considered and addressed with plans for additional Ultimates, DR Savage, solo fights in Bozja, a new Deep Dungeon, etc. They know the game they are making, and the game they are making is seeing massively increasing numbers. You don't have to like the game they are making, of course, but it's the game they are choosing to make.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

or play DPS

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Or just stick with the Trusts thing. Had a RDM last night really wasn’t holding their own. I get the same expert dungeon every time I play. I as whm, and my spouse as RDM as always when we queue up. This run took us nearly 10 minutes longer than usual. No embolden. No acceleration. Just the basic 1,2,1,3 rotation all run from the PUG RDM.

When I get home from work at midnight, my spouse as well, 10 minutes can make a difference in doing 1 roulette or 2.

Respect peoples time.

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Originally Posted by Kolaina

Respect peoples time.

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no because

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Originally Posted by Lieri

It promotes the culture of have fun however you like in our game.

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:)

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Originally Posted by Rinhi

no because



:)

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Post like that really make FOR GARLEMALDing look like a good option.

Go play Dark Souls or Lost Ark if you want a difficult game. Have fun. The devs have stated they made this game so people can have fun not so tryhards can gloat about a bunch of pixels.

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Originally Posted by iheartlove42

Go play Dark Souls or Lost Ark if you want a difficult game. Have fun. The devs have stated they made this game so people can have fun not so tryhards can gloat about a bunch of pixels.

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Cause there doesn't exist any gray area between "99% parse on this levelling dungeon or gtfo" and "what do you mean AoE?" Great argument, you fixed FF14... Nay... GAMING... as an institution. Your Nobel Prize is in the mail

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

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It is not your place to tell people they cannot teach, nor can people not teach, even if they wanted to. Your definitions of teaching and learning are a bit archaic. Teaching should not and frankly cannot be restricted to the 'experts' or people deemed acceptable enough by others to teach.

The people that are problematic are the ones refusing to learn, not the ones that struggle. No one cares if players struggle in casual content, only when they don't try, afk, or outright throw. Most of the toxic behavior comes from this group not 'elitists.' FFXIV is not even close to being elitist. It is by far the least elitist MMO I have ever played, where very little of the toxicity is coming from 'the top.'

You should always refrain from using the second person in such situations, irregardless of whom you are addressing. Only use the second person when you are actually addressing that person, or your post will not be read the way you want it to be read.

I like how we have a roulette mislabeled expert roulette, as it is the easiest and most repetitive content the game has to offer.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

The system where aggro management was split between the tanks amd the party was objectively an easy system, but an engaging one with how it interacted with encounters. Same as stance dance and having multiple combo paths. These were easy and approachable mechanics in SB that SE felt they had to remove for the lowest common denominator.

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Disagree. As a DPS it is not enjoyable or engaging to have aggro management take up hotbar space instead of a more complex base rotation with more buttons. DPS still have plenty of damage mitigation abilities that are basically useless outside of high-end content and that's fine. We don't need every aspect of tanking to be a team effort. Especially not when the aggro management system also made it a fucking nightmare to play with strangers who refused to use their tools effectively or disagreed on who's responsibility it was to manage aggro. I don't need tanks refusing to take a damage hit and letting the DPS die, and I don't need healers greeding damage with cleric stance and letting the tank die.

SB also still had TP, which was also a pretty terrible system held over from an earlier design philosophy where complexity was put into the player toolkits rather than the encounters themselves, and it also restricts the design space for hard encounters because those tools are either essential (which means old encounters become broken and incomplete when job skills change, like in WoW) or non-essential which then makes them rather useless as skills unless they do more damage and kill the boss quicker.

In order to keep the game fresh with each new expansion and content release stuff has to change. Jobs have to change, but old encounters still need to work and provide some level of challenge at the appropriate level. If you design the encounter challenge around frankly niche skills the challenge doesn't last more than one expansion, as those niche skills get old the fastest, are removed and the encounters are rebalanced to allow brute-forcing mechanics. On the other hand, if you just shuffle around the ways Jobs do and mitigate damage they can still feel fresh each new expansion without breaking all the old fights.

In short, it's not about how easy or hard it was. SE isn't designing the game the way they do in order to make it easier for players. The difficulty is just shifted to the encounters themselves, because they're going to stay the same even when the next expansion comes out, while the Jobs will inevitably continue changing.

The polarizing nature of this forum is insane. We have a 1000 page thread dedicated solely to documenting less than mediocre players ruining the game for everyone else, but we also have threads like these where people would die to defend their right to "have fun" and not "work" in the game (as if demanding basic stuff the game basically teaches you to do is somehow demanding hard work).

Please remember that the fun you get at the expense of other people NOT having fun is also not ok. The entitlement of some people in here is unbearable.

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Originally Posted by Theox

The polarizing nature of this forum is insane. We have a 1000 page thread dedicated solely to documenting less than mediocre players ruining the game for everyone else, but we also have threads like these where people would die to defend their right to "have fun" and not "work" in the game (as if demanding basic stuff the game basically teaches you to do is somehow demanding hard work).

Please remember that the fun you get at the expense of other people NOT having fun is also not ok. The entitlement of some people in here is unbearable.

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3000 pages, it was closed now theres a new one.

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Originally Posted by Theox

The polarizing nature of this forum is insane. We have a 1000 page thread dedicated solely to documenting less than mediocre players ruining the game for everyone else, but we also have threads like these where people would die to defend their right to "have fun" and not "work" in the game (as if demanding basic stuff the game basically teaches you to do is somehow demanding hard work).

Please remember that the fun you get at the expense of other people NOT having fun is also not ok. The entitlement of some people in here is unbearable.

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It's not so black and white either; Players are not either 100% top tier grade A and 100% absolute crap grade F.

It's ok to not bring your A game to content. I'm not advocating being an absolute waste of a slot F game, but it's fine to go like, B-, especially if the content is not demanding. We all obviously have the option to vote-kick and should utilize it. If the majority doesn't agree to kick...well they are doing good enough for the group.

*(Narrows his eyes and quietly continues to watch the thread while slowly munching on popcorn) *