Mediocrity should NOT be the standard for players in any content.

OP doesn't understand what the word 'mediocre' means.

How will I KNOW if i'm mediocre though? I don't really have friends who run instances with me often enough to tell me if i'm bad or not and randoms don't really talk in instances i'm in. Do I need to just expect a callout towards me when I'm doing bad? If that's the case since nobody has been saying anything I guess I've been doing alright.

A semi-irrelevant side note. I've played with a few people who are old and don't have the reaction times or flexibility in their hands to be able to perform on a level that would not be considered "mediocre". They really did try their best but they were either physically unable to perform better or they just had a hard time comprehending the unwritten/unofficial (whatever you want to call it) rules and guidelines set up by the community itself. Partly due to them not paying attention to chat, forums, videos, or the like. They still really enjoyed the game though... Don't know how long that lasted...

Just to illustrate how bad things have become: some 24 man raids are faster with a Party Finder Group that does non-standard runs, like no-jobs or minimum Item Level, than with what you get in Duty Finder. But then, those people know they're in for a challenge.

Though I'd rather blame the fact the ItemLevel sync for some content is just so bad. People can't learn content if they get carried through the content and can't even see the mechanics that got skipped due to the excessive damage that bad itemlevel sync gets you.

EDIT: About old people: even they are willing to try to improve if you tell them. I've seen some of them being even more hardcore players (and better players) than some that aren't even a third of their age!

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Originally Posted by Kanitezz

How will I KNOW if i'm mediocre though? I don't really have friends who run instances with me often enough to tell me if i'm bad or not and randoms don't really talk in instances i'm in. Do I need to just expect a callout towards me when I'm doing bad?

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No, callouts towards you can actually net that player a ban, so pugs will tend to be silent. If you aren't being kicked, you're not doing terrible but there aren't many legal means to judge self-performance.

Acutally, we need to start to be like japanese, praise good players by telling them they have a great playstyle. praise bad players by telling them they look nice.

Your milage my vary one what good players are.

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Originally Posted by Kanitezz

How will I KNOW if i'm mediocre though? I don't really have friends who run instances with me often enough to tell me if i'm bad or not and randoms don't really talk in instances i'm in. Do I need to just expect a callout towards me when I'm doing bad? If that's the case since nobody has been saying anything I guess I've been doing alright.

A semi-irrelevant side note. I've played with a few people who are old and don't have the reaction times or flexibility in their hands to be able to perform on a level that would not be considered "mediocre". They really did try their best but they were either physically unable to perform better or they just had a hard time comprehending the unwritten/unofficial (whatever you want to call it) rules and guidelines set up by the community itself. Partly due to them not paying attention to chat, forums, videos, or the like. They still really enjoyed the game though... Don't know how long that lasted...

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Honestly, general rule is that if you read all of your skills, know how all of them work, and can keep up a coherent rotation without dropping things like enochain or your dots too often, you're doing better than like 80% of the playerbase.

A vast majority of people are only really decent at their jobs, which means they know how all their skills work but they can't really keep up a good rotation and make a lot of mistakes while leaving OGCDs on cooldown for decently long periods of time.

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Originally Posted by 0xReki

Just to illustrate how bad things have become: some 24 man raids are faster with a Party Finder Group

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This has been true for a long time. Even back in heavensward when people needed to run the crystal tower raids weekly for animal weapon Arther Oils. A premade pf group of 24 players could clear all 3 of them in about half hour.

Last boss in labyrinth ignore pads. Boss will be dead before even the first ancient flare goes off.

Sycus tower. Done in under 7 minutes...

Last boss in world of darkness ignore the clouds just beat her down. she'll be dead before the sequence is over.

Back then and even in 4.0 There was a bit of a thing on reddit for 24 man speed runs and it shows just how low the content really is tuned. When a full group of decent players can absolutely break entire alliance raids. 4.0 alliance raids got a lot of flak because premade groups were trouncing bosses and breaking mechanics on patch days.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

No, callouts towards you can actually net that player a ban, so pugs will tend to be silent. If you aren't being kicked, you're not doing terrible but there aren't many legal means to judge self-performance.

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The most I'll do now is ask "what level do you learn X at?" if I notice the player isn't using a skill they should know by now. Like yesterday had a BLM who didn't use AoE's (especially not Flare), Enochian and Fire IV. So I casually asked them what level Fire IV was learned at.

They didn't do anything for a bit, but they started to use Fire IV (so they were probably putting it on their bar)... not a whole lot, but they used it (as well as Enochian). I wanted to mention AoE's, but I worried that if I kept pestering them I'd get reported :/

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Originally Posted by Nestama

The most I'll do now is ask "what level do you learn X at?" if I notice the player isn't using a skill they should know by now. Like yesterday had a BLM who didn't use AoE's (especially not Flare), Enochian and Fire IV. So I casually asked them what level Fire IV was learned at.

They didn't do anything for a bit, but they started to use Fire IV (so they were probably putting it on their bar)... not a whole lot, but they used it (as well as Enochian). I wanted to mention AoE's, but I worried that if I kept pestering them I'd get reported :/

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Yeah, I hate this. I was talking about this earlier in some other thread. I talk around the issue just like that as well, just so if I want to say something I can't get banned for something so dumb.

This is @ Melichoir mainly

Just wanted to say how much I appreciated your post, you'd clearly gone away and considered my points and come back with a genuine attempt to engage with me. It was great! You single handedly restored my faith in human nature.

I definitely agree that our differences on challenge are semantics really. Setting myself writing targets every week isn't a challenge, it's what I do, but I can see how they would be viewed as such. To me it's just a motivational thing. Same in game. I work daily on trying to improve my knowledge of the ShB dungeons by running them over and over, I don't see it as a challenge but it's definitely aimed at getting more familiar with mechanics.

Real nice to engage with someone who listens and is looking for a helpful dialogue. So thanks a bunch. You get my comm!

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

No, callouts towards you can actually net that player a ban, so pugs will tend to be silent. If you aren't being kicked, you're not doing terrible but there aren't many legal means to judge self-performance.

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There's a difference between "Hey, I noticed you're using Aeolian Edge alone instead of comboing it, you'll do more damage if you combo into it" and "Wow, ninja, you don't even combo into that attack". One is clearly meant to be helpful, and the other is clearly antagonistic. I make this exact example because I had this exact thing happen in a Qitana run while leveling DRK. Ninja was just spamming Aeolian Edge, not comboing, not Hutoning or Suitoning. Bard was the first to speak up being directly antagonistic and demeaning towards the ninja, while me and WHM actually gave advice. By the end of the run, ninja was actually using trick attack (though huton was still a ways off) and was properly comboing. Bard was being a pi*sy jerkwad the entire time. Ninja eventually told us he only started playing the game a couple of weeks before and just didn't know quite how to play, only making it that far due to trusts.

Point is, tone matters. Context matters. You may think you're being helpful but you're not if you're going to be a demeaning a*shole about it. It muddies the waters of the discussion when you use the hyperbole of "being helpful gets you banned"; no, being an a*shole gets you banned.

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Originally Posted by KalinOrthos

There's a difference between "Hey, I noticed you're using Aeolian Edge alone instead of comboing it, you'll do more damage if you combo into it" and "Wow, ninja, you don't even combo into that attack". One is clearly meant to be helpful, and the other is clearly antagonistic. I make this exact example because I had this exact thing happen in a Qitana run while leveling DRK. Ninja was just spamming Aeolian Edge, not comboing, not Hutoning or Suitoning. Bard was the first to speak up being directly antagonistic and demeaning towards the ninja, while me and WHM actually gave advice. By the end of the run, ninja was actually using trick attack (though huton was still a ways off) and was properly comboing. Bard was being a pi*sy jerkwad the entire time. Ninja eventually told us he only started playing the game a couple of weeks before and just didn't know quite how to play, only making it that far due to trusts.

Point is, tone matters. Context matters. You may think you're being helpful but you're not if you're going to be a demeaning a*shole about it. It muddies the waters of the discussion when you use the hyperbole of "being helpful gets you banned"; no, being an a*shole gets you banned.

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Two things I would like to point out. Sometimes even by using your first example people will flip out and it's nigh impossible to convey tone via text. You can try and making a cutsey as possible but if the person on the other side reading it had a bad day i can garantee it will come off wrong regardless of your good intentions. It's all how you read things in your head and your current state of mind unfortunatly has a big influence on how you tone what you're reading. People can be genuinely trying to be nice but you can read it as sarcasm. Heck there was a thread in the healer forum where a good chunk of healers when being told that they were doing a good job thought people were being sarcastic towards them instead (probably because they get treated like crap most of the time to the point they fail to see when they're being complimented).

Things are not as simple as you make them out to be sometimes.

The thing is, regardless if they took it the wrong way or didn't - in the case of the former if the person used the more polite example and the user reported them, chances are higher a GM will just cite it up to playstyle differences and not land a player in Gaol.

In a game where people are asking people to do their best in game, it's a wonder to me how many excuses come up from the people making that argument can't do their best to convey information to other players on how one could help to meet better standards.

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Originally Posted by QT_Melon

The thing is, regardless if they took it the wrong way or didn't - in the case of the former if the person used the more polite example and the user reported them, chances are higher a GM will just cite it up to playstyle differences and not land a player in Gaol.

In a game where people are asking people to do their best in game, it's a wonder to me how many excuses come up from the people making that argument can't do their best to convey information to other players on how one could help to meet better standards.

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I wasn't even concerned with the fact that they might report you. (In fact i find it interesting how it's mostly the US data center players that are concerned about being reported. As far as I can tell in the EU data centers people don't really worry about that at all lol)
The fact of the matter is that it creates an unpleasant experience for everyone involved in that party if it backfires.

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Originally Posted by Schan

Two things I would like to point out. Sometimes even by using your first example people will flip out and it's nigh impossible to convey tone via text. You can try and making a cutsey as possible but if the person on the other side reading it had a bad day i can garantee it will come off wrong regardless of your good intentions. It's all how you read things in your head and your current state of mind unfortunatly has a big influence on how you tone what you're reading. People can be genuinely trying to be nice but you can read it as sarcasm. Heck there was a thread in the healer forum where a good chunk of healers when being told that they were doing a good job thought people were being sarcastic towards them instead (probably because they get treated like crap most of the time to the point they fail to see when they're being complimented).

Things are not as simple as you make them out to be sometimes.

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So...what, burn it all down because there are some who will overreact, some who have been nigh harassed in the past for doing less than optimal DPS, some who are quick to get defensive against a community that makes threads titled "Mediocrity should not be the standard for any player in any content"? I've been to TalesFromDF, I participate in discussion there, I know those types of players exist. I've experienced them. But they're so few and far between, that I have to wonder if the problem seems to be so bad for you because you don't know how to communicate.