We Need to Start Expecting Mid-Level Sprouts to Play Better

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

This isn't your game, and you don't get to set arbitrary goals for anyone, and this thread should have ended on page 1.

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This also isn’t your game and you don’t get to drag the party down by not understanding the fundamentals of your job

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

This isn't your game, and you don't get to set arbitrary goals for anyone, and this thread should have ended on page 1.

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Some one wants a free carry in dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I mean that comes back to the idea of how much should you need to sugarcoat explanations of absolutely fundamental topics

If someone is spamming cure 1 there is only so many nice ways to tell them that they have no idea how to to play the game

Is my post you quoted, I never once said that I would say in game they suck at healing, at most I said they have no idea how to play the game which if you are cure 1 spamming in kistis hyperboa I stand by

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Sureeeeeeeeeee.
I guess that's why you posted what you posted.

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

This isn't your game, and you don't get to set arbitrary goals for anyone, and this thread should have ended on page 1.

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Your comment should have ended at, this isn't your game.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

If someone is spamming cure 1 there is only so many nice ways to tell them that they have no idea how to to play the game

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The problem is at multiple parts here.

- If you can still easily beat the content, it essentialy didnt matter much that you spammed cure 1. You have beaten it quickly which is still the most important measurement. (and before you think. but you could have used cure 2. plenty of times you could have used panic heals to enable more dps. but you saved these instead. while a smaller dps loss, its still a loss. and therefor a similar argument)
- For any other class, abilities were either useless from the start, or they improved. Cure 1 never improved far enough to be worth it. Its an ability that becomes useless later on. This fails a very basic design aspect in which every tool you have should have its use. (even though sleep is generaly useless, it still has its feature to be able to reduce aggro by disabling a target from the fight for a moment. which is mostly just for msq though)
- Freecure promotes cure 1 usage above cure 2 usage. It gives players false information on the proper playstyle.
- Other abilities also upgrade on the WHM, yet cure 1 doesnt, which again is an indication that its usefull on its own.

Cure 1 is an abomination in its current style. And while some suggest removing it, i personaly would still prefer to see a diffirent upgrade to it. Just so there is diffirences in casting the 2 (and therefor have variety in casting there. otherwise cure 2 just becomes the new stone, but then for healing).

(also, i never use cure 1 when cure 2 is available)

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

This isn't your game, and you don't get to set arbitrary goals for anyone, and this thread should have ended on page 1.

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It was the tank's goal to do W2W pulls, this comes with the expectation that they will use mitigation or let their HP get deleted. Tank didn't use mitigation, however, luckily, in this case, the healer was able to keep them up, after blowing everything they had.

Now, imagine a different scenario. The tank W2W pulls, doesn't use mitigation however this time the healer is not good enough to keep the tank alive and the tank dies. Whose fault is it then? If the tank had used mitigation, they might have stayed alive, which would have avoided this whole fiasco to begin with. It is almost like, if you play as a team, the game gets better for everyone. I know I know, it is a hard concept to grasp, but trust me, I get more satisfaction knowing I am making my teams life easier, than being stubborn and only caring about myself.

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Originally Posted by hagare

Sureeeeeeeeeee.
I guess that's why you posted what you posted.

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Yep, I posted what I posted, maybe next time read the post you quote before you just pretend like I said something completely different, almost as much as that other poster who apparently read the same post and said I was going on screaming tirades at innocent sprouts

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

This isn't your game, and you don't get to set arbitrary goals for anyone, and this thread should have ended on page 1.

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It is not the game of individuals, but of a community. And as it belongs to no one as such (... Except SE, but you get the point), it is necessary to find compromises.

The goal in dungeons should be "do your best to make this particular group work". If a healer kindly asks you to speed up the pace as a tank, do so; in exchange, don't pull in the tank's place if it makes him uncomfortable. You can see that you are not very useful in dps because you are accompanied by level 90 players who dismantle everything? Take the initiative to take the keys to pick up and go open doors, or switch on the elements needed for certain mechanics.

A lot of people are toxic not by insulting; not by giving advice in a dry way; but because it is visible through their gameplay that they are playing as if they are with bots. And yes, this reproach also concerns those who claim to "go at their own pace" without any consideration for others. And this is true whether their pace is particularly slow or particularly fast.

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Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

The problem is at multiple parts here.

- If you can still easily beat the content, it essentialy didnt matter much that you spammed cure 1. You have beaten it quickly which is still the most important measurement. (and before you think. but you could have used cure 2. plenty of times you could have used panic heals to enable more dps. but you saved these instead. while a smaller dps loss, its still a loss. and therefor a similar argument)
- For any other class, abilities were either useless from the start, or they improved. Cure 1 never improved far enough to be worth it. Its an ability that becomes useless later on. This fails a very basic design aspect in which every tool you have should have its use. (even though sleep is generaly useless, it still has its feature to be able to reduce aggro by disabling a target from the fight for a moment. which is mostly just for msq though)
- Freecure promotes cure 1 usage above cure 2 usage. It gives players false information on the proper playstyle.
- Other abilities also upgrade on the WHM, yet cure 1 doesnt, which again is an indication that its usefull on its own.

Cure 1 is an abomination in its current style. And while some suggest removing it, i personaly would still prefer to see a diffirent upgrade to it. Just so there is diffirences in casting the 2 (and therefor have variety in casting there. otherwise cure 2 just becomes the new stone, but then for healing).

(also, i never use cure 1 when cure 2 is available)

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I don’t deny cure 1 is badly designed but that isn’t really the problem here, the problem is if you can sit in a high level dungeon and see every skill you have access to as a WHM and still think cure 1 spam is the correct way to engage with the content then it’s not cure 1’s bad design that is the problem here

Are we talking about normal content here OP? or Savage, Extreme, Ultimate? Because if that OP was directed towards normal difficulty, I'm just kind of shocked. Has ANYONE failed a normal trial or dungeon in years? At worst, you'll have it last an extra 5 minutes if someone is awful. Just finish it and move on. I'm not quite sure what all the hand wringing going on in this thread is all about, normal difficulty in this game at ANY level doesn't require four competent players to finish it, just four players willing to keep trucking through.

I think you'll be happier if you just let the normal players do their thing and ignore bad players. Although from your signature, it seems pretty clear that you enjoy getting a rise out of people, so i have to wonder who really instigated the scenario you've told us about.

1/2:


I feel like people are seeing this as some sort of way to kick or insult sprouts that aren't playing well but that's not the case at all.

Most games have an overall difficulty curve that plays well with mechanisms that teach you how to play (some of those are explicit like tutorials, others are implicit like bosses/enemies that require that you use a certain ability to defeat).

A great game will marry the explicit/implicit tutorials with the difficulty curve to foster the growth/mastery of the player. This is not one of those games unfortunately. The first and last explicit tutorial for handling yourself in group content is the Hall of the Novice. While there are various implicit tutorials with game mechanisms within boss fights growing more and more complex, there are a few issues with it:

1. There are no implicit or explicit tutorials teaching someone how to play their job, or rather, there are but there are also essentially ways to "skip" them. Solo duties sort of fill the role of implicit tutorials to teach you your job. It "tests" you to see if you understand your job well enough. The problem? "Easy" and "Very Easy" options for solo duties. After 1 failure it "gives up" on you as the player and lets you take the easy (or very easy) way out.

2. Group content is under tuned to the point where 2 people (hell, 1 in some cases) could carry the entire group. As hinted at in my first point, FAILING in video games triggers you as a player to rethink what you've been doing and ultimately improve. With group content being so easy, you can continuously fail without necessarily realizing it because you're continuing to progress in the game. If a really casual player never fails, they're never going to sit and rethink how they've been playing. Thus, the difficulty actually perpetuates "bare minimum" gameplay from players. People complained about the ability to do trusts, but Dungeons with trusts FORCE you to actually learn boss mechanisms. I have known people in NN to ask if someone can run them through a dungeon because they can't complete it with Trusts.

3. There is a lack of explicit tutorials in later levels. Implicit tutorials are great for simple stuff (i.e. this is a knockback, you'll want to be near the center; this is bad, don't step in it) but for complex ideas like group synergies and job rotations, explicit tutorials would do a much better job. IMO, they should have a job-based tutorial at 50/60/70/80/90 that goes through and teaches you how your abilities interact with each other and then TESTS you to make sure you understand it. Also, Hall of the Novice was a good idea (not executed too great, but still) and I think that it could be cleaned up and augmented with Hall of the Intermediate, Hall of the Advanced, Hall of the Master, etc to go over various group/role dynamic things that people likely don't understand (Addle/Feint, Group mitigation buffs, Tank mitigation buffs, etc, etc)

2/2:


IMO, the fact that players get as far as they do without knowing/understanding the game is MORE of a failure of the game than the player (the player isn't innocent, but the game should do a better job). Without the game being there to help foster player skill and improvement, the community would need to step in to do so.

The problem is the postmodernist hate of criticism. There's ultimately 3 issues with players that make this very difficult to overcome:

1. Players believe that advice is criticism and believe that criticism is an insult of how they play. This causes people to shut down when given advice and just see the person giving it as an "elitist"

2. Players believe that failure is some big deal. While this isn't an issue with the more difficult content, players in "normal" content seem to believe that failure is some horrible thing, and that's why normal content is so under tuned. It's also why people are so against wall 2 wall pulling because "What if we wipe?" You're not going to die in real life, you respawn and go again.

3. Players don't want to improve, they don't want to put effort in, they just want to jump in and "have fun." The problem is that you're in a game with other people and there's an expectation for you to perform for those other people. You can't leech.

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

It is not the game of individuals, but of a community. And as it belongs to no one as such (... Except SE, but you get the point), it is necessary to find compromises.

The goal in dungeons should be "do your best to make this particular group work". If a healer kindly asks you to speed up the pace as a tank, do so; in exchange, don't pull in the tank's place if it makes him uncomfortable. You can see that you are not very useful in dps because you are accompanied by level 90 players who dismantle everything? Take the initiative to take the keys to pick up and go open doors, or switch on the elements needed for certain mechanics.

A lot of people are toxic not by insulting; not by giving advice in a dry way; but because it is visible through their gameplay that they are playing as if they are with bots. And yes, this reproach also concerns those who claim to "go at their own pace" without any consideration for others. And this is true whether their pace is particularly slow or particularly fast.

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Basically:

If you don't want to be a team player in a team based game, go play with Trusts.

But a lot people don't do that because trusts take longer. Trusts take longer because the trusts are programmed to not do as much damage as players. It's the exact same way as people who aren't playing at a moderate level. If you can't even do as much damage as a Trust NPC, something that is SPECIFICALLY programmed to do lower dps, that's a YOU problem (general "you", not you specifically Merrigan) that you need to work on.

And yes, I've had runs in 80+ content take longer than a Trust would have taken.

It's a bit harsh to say that, but it's reality, something a lot of players need a healthy dose of.

I dont understand the self importance one must have to queue up for a roulette with 3 or more random other people, with any expectation what-so-ever.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

Assuming you play RDM as your profile says, this is what I would consider to be the bare minimum knowledge. You don't hardcast Verthunder2/Veraero2/Impact, you use AoE when there are at least 3 targets and you do utilise your melee combo and finishers, whether that is single target or AOE. For a dungeon, that is it. I don't expect you to always be casting, however, that should be the next thing to work on. Your other oGCDs? Not too bothered, it would be nice if you hit them, even if it isn't optimal, just when you notice it.

I would say that is fairly reasonable. It is the foundation of the RDM rotation after all, this is what everything relies on. If you do find yourself getting flustered over doing your rotation and mechanics, I would suggest going to a striking dummy and hitting it for a while, again, just the basics, and get it into muscle memory. The less you have to think about your rotation, the easier it is going to be to think about mechanics or starting to incorporate your other actions into your rotation.

Hopefully this helps you to get better accustomed to RDM and you will feel more confident going into content and not feeling like a hinderance. Also remember, mistakes do still happen, it was just the other day I accidentally walked off the edge of Endsinger and felt stupid, just laugh it off and learn from it.

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Thanks for the advice :)

I'm actually, sort of, getting there with RDM. I do understand the rotation in principle - it's just putting it into practice where, as I said, I can end up getting clumsy, react slowly, and miss things as a result.

Mechanics are probably my biggest setback. I mean, I do generally get the idea - heck, (whilst I realise most here probably find it ridiculously easy anyway) I've played my favorite, Alzadaal's Legacy, frequently enough that I almost never die in that one anymore and I don't usually feel like a deadweight there.
Sadly, put me in Aglaia and I floor tank every boss :(

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

I dont understand the self importance one must have to queue up for a roulette with 3 or more random other people, with any expectation what-so-ever.

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Because at a certain point, a certain amount of competence is expected. My personal threshold is lvl 70 (mostly due to jump potions existing), others is a bit lower at 60. You don't get much sympathy or have many excuses after lvl 80. You should have a basic understanding of your job. Full stop.

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

I dont understand the self importance one must have to queue up for a roulette with 3 or more random other people, with any expectation what-so-ever.

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So... a tank in a lvl 90 dungeon not activating tank stance at all would be ok then or did you exaggerate?

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Originally Posted by BRVV

So... a tank in a lvl 90 dungeon not activating tank stance at all would be ok then or did you exaggerate?

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You are talking to the person who would be that tank.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Basically:

If you don't want to be a team player in a team based game, go play with Trusts.

But a lot people don't do that because trusts take longer. Trusts take longer because the trusts are programmed to not do as much damage as players. It's the exact same way as people who aren't playing at a moderate level. If you can't even do as much damage as a Trust NPC, something that is SPECIFICALLY programmed to do lower dps, that's a YOU problem (general "you", not you specifically Merrigan) that you need to work on.

And yes, I've had runs in 80+ content take longer than a Trust would have taken.

It's a bit harsh to say that, but it's reality, something a lot of players need a healthy dose of.

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I have to wonder, is it really the player who isn't doing enough (to you) dps's problem? The game doesn't punish them, in fact, it defends them against people being toxic towards them. So whos problem is it exactly? What "reality" is it really?

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Basically:

If you don't want to be a team player in a team based game, go play with Trusts.

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Agreed.
It's simply common sense that whenever you do an activity that is either team-based or takes place in a confined space where everyone's action are bound to affect others you try to not negatively affect others to the best of your abilities.
And "to the best of your abilities" doesn't mean pull off pro gamer moves - but try your best to be a teamplayer and make it a smooth experience for everyone by keeping it mind that everything one player fails to do another has to make up for.
Adjust the pull speed to the party, don't netflix and pick your nose if no healing is needed, use aoes in big pulls, use your mitigation (doesn't have to be used well, just use it), don't stand in the bad and stay in heal range of the healer, use cooldowns as often as you remember them etc.
No reason to make this out as some elitist bs and go around lamenting "b-b--but my FUN" - you're not the only player in a party, everyone's fun and smooth experience is equally important. This is at the same time nobody's and everybody's game.

You don't go on a open for all football field and start randomly run in someone else's way - there is no explicit rule against doing so but it obviously affects them negatively. If you play as a goalkeeper you don't randomly stand next to your goal because nobody told you that a goalkeeper should... you know... guard the goal a little bit?
You don't go ice skating in a rink open to public and stand around in the busiest parts and start a nice group chat even if there is no explicit rule against doing so. Nor do you practice fancy things in the middle of the most-used path, you go into centre where you're least likely to disturb anyone.
You don't go into a supermarket and tak care of that really long phone call in the middle of the only small path to another aisle because there are no rules against it and maybe it's your first time in a supermarket and you're also drunk and didn't sleep.
Not everything should be spelled out by the law for you, some things should simply be a matter of common sense.

But if you really don't want to be a teamplayer, there are trusts. One of the reasons they keep expanding on that feature is that people who'd rather play it like a single-player game can. And if your mindset is "I play what I want and I don't care about the rest of the party" then this is for you.
And if you don't like trusts because they're slower then congratulations, now you understand why people don't like it if others can't show some basic decency and respect towards other people's time by trying to be a teamplayer. Don't be a trust.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

2/2:


IMO, the fact that players get as far as they do without knowing/understanding the game is MORE of a failure of the game than the player (the player isn't innocent, but the game should do a better job). Without the game being there to help foster player skill and improvement, the community would need to step in to do so.

The problem is the postmodernist hate of criticism. There's ultimately 3 issues with players that make this very difficult to overcome:

1. Players believe that advice is criticism and believe that criticism is an insult of how they play. This causes people to shut down when given advice and just see the person giving it as an "elitist"

2. Players believe that failure is some big deal. While this isn't an issue with the more difficult content, players in "normal" content seem to believe that failure is some horrible thing, and that's why normal content is so under tuned. It's also why people are so against wall 2 wall pulling because "What if we wipe?" You're not going to die in real life, you respawn and go again.

3. Players don't want to improve, they don't want to put effort in, they just want to jump in and "have fun." The problem is that you're in a game with other people and there's an expectation for you to perform for those other people. You can't leech.

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(Before the numbers): i agree with this. The game is made with a different amount of exp given as each expansion comes. So, mid content (which was "last top content" in the past) gives more exp than before allowing the char to level faster than before. This leads to a reduced amount of repeatable content (mid content speaking). Like, how often you go t0 lv50 hard dungeons outside roulettes? How often you did that before expansions?

So, some mechanics tends to be in a blur area in ours memories leading to mistakes.

1- Like someone said, this can be aliviated choosing your words better. I always talks about what people can do to pass a mechanic or play their role better. No matter the risks. And I almost never got harsh insults but had myslef ignored at most. So, being kind is a strong weapon here :)

2- that's soooo true! Some take mid content like endgaming tryhard 20hs raiding stuff... xD Again, if we work on them, we can put things in a better mood...

3- yep, that's true. In this case, we have to adapt.

See? In pretty much all cases WE can do better to improve teams performance. And I go for that instead of just point fingers :)

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Basically:

If you don't want to be a team player in a team based game, go play with Trusts.

But a lot people don't do that because trusts take longer. Trusts take longer because the trusts are programmed to not do as much damage as players. It's the exact same way as people who aren't playing at a moderate level. If you can't even do as much damage as a Trust NPC, something that is SPECIFICALLY programmed to do lower dps, that's a YOU problem (general "you", not you specifically Merrigan) that you need to work on.

And yes, I've had runs in 80+ content take longer than a Trust would have taken.

It's a bit harsh to say that, but it's reality, something a lot of players need a healthy dose of.

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It's not harsh, though?

Anyway, to add another thing: there is another option than the "trust" system, that is to play with your FC. With people who agree with your way of playing.

As soon as you enter a team, you implicitly accept its rules. And among these, the rules that are common sense, i.e. to make efforts concerning your teammates. Whether it's in terms of dps, general rhythm or whatever. Which leads me to answer this:

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I dont understand the self importance one must have to queue up for a roulette with 3 or more random other people, with any expectation what-so-ever.

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Look in the mirror, will you? What is arrogant is not having expectations; it is thinking that you can do absolutely anything you want when you fall in a random team with three strangers.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

You are talking to the person who would be that tank.

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Assuming you mean 4 man content, I pray you were booted fast.

The problem of your argumemt is, it works in only in a space without the need of any skill what's so ever. This is for an MMO not true. The baseline is simple the mechs the dev's put into the instance you queue for. They expect you to be able to clear normal content and this is the baseline. And AGAIN calling names or saying "you are this or that " is not an argument at all. It is an personal attack.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

I have to wonder, is it really the player who isn't doing enough (to you) dps's problem? The game doesn't punish them, in fact, it defends them against people being toxic towards them. So whos problem is it exactly? What "reality" is it really?

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Sorry for the double post, but two little things:

1. Yes, regarding the dps it's definitely the player's fault. The game doesn't help (a player before me has explained very well why, so I won't go back to that); but some people make absolutely no effort at all to the point of not being able to string together a single combo.

2. Please stop with this fixed idea about the evilness of the devs, who constantly defend the poor little newbies. The rules are clear on this: advice is allowed. Mockery is not. In other words, you have every right to say the following:

"Monk, if I may give you an advice, your rotation seems off. You should try to ..."

But not :


"Hey, you little shit, get off your ass".

Should we expect players that have played for 100s of hours ... doing 100s of dungeons to know basic game play of their job at level 80/90? Yes.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

I have to wonder, is it really the player who isn't doing enough (to you) dps's problem? The game doesn't punish them, in fact, it defends them against people being toxic towards them. So whos problem is it exactly? What "reality" is it really?

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I mean there's a difference between toxicity and telling someone they're bad, and ideally how to improve.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

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Thank you for wording this more eloquently than I ever could! I rejoined the game a couple months before the release of EW, I had to go through ARR -- there is, at no point, up until ShB, where you are genuinely challenged or have hard steps. Yes solo duties can be difficult, but slap it on very easy and you will breeze through it. I've done it before just wanting to get through the MSQ. In duties, you can literally feel like you're contributing to your group without contributing to the group and that is the problem.

Of course there's obvious cases where you are performing so badly it affects the group. But for the most part? If you have even just one or two competent party members, you will get carried. Most of the time, no one says anything to you if you're playing suboptimally or downright wrong, so you think you're doing fine. Then finally when you get into content that you're struggling with, when someone says something for the first time, it's seen as an attack. "I've gotten through the MSQ and other duties fine up until this point, so what gives this NEET the right to yell at me for playing correctly?" sort of attitude can kick in.

I had the same issue up until Holminster's Switch. Holminster's Switch was a bit of a slap in the face for me - I used mits, but didn't use it correctly. The healer and dps there was *incredibly* patient and gave me advice, was happy to teach me a bit on how to tank so we could get through it. They could tell straight up that while I was mitting and hitting buttons, the way I was doing it was a bit jank and made it slow/hard to get through. I never knew I was even playing wrong until then and it spurred me to look up guides on how to properly play PLD and tank. I won't say I'm the best player now (because I'm not), but I'm suuuper grateful for those two people lol.

Another example of how easy difficulty drives complacency since people don't notice: A couple months ago I que'd for ARaid with a mate. Got CT, average run so far until we notice we're having regen put on us constantly. Multiple people actually. We found the person who did it. They would only move when the game prompts you to teleport to each boss, then they would cast regen. They were not a bot - they were talking and made a couple of jokes - so my mate quips with, "Wow, that's a lot of regens." Not a single response from anyone, the guy wasn't in our party so we couldn't vote kick him either.

End of the duty we check and he ended up casting regen like.. something like 500?? times I want to say, maybe 300 and casted stone like 40 times. The entire time lol.. and no one noticed at all, or if they did, didn't say a thing, because the content is just so easy to breeze through people would rather carry people like this and get through the snoozefest than say something.

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Originally Posted by Bukachu

I mean there's a difference between toxicity and telling someone they're bad, and ideally how to improve.

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To the people who do this kind of thing, the difference doesn't exist. As soon as you draw attention to their deficiencies/laziness, you're being "toxic". Then they expect you to shut up as soon as they use that word and are indignant beyond belief if you don't.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

I, for one, agree. But then I guess I would. As I've said, I'm still not great at the game after eight months of playing. I DO try, but still get flustered trying to understand mechanics and work rotations, I'm still clumsy and slow to react, and it's certainly very rare that I feel that I'm asset to the teams I'm with.

Still, I love the game (particularly the MSQ) regardless of this - and it is disappointing that, judging by some of the comments made in this thread, the answer to the fact that I don't meet the unwritten 'acceptable standard' rule is that I should just quit the game.

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Heres my question: Did you ever look up a guide for any of the jobs that you play or any of the fights you struggle with?

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Originally Posted by Gararr

Assuming you mean 4 man content, I pray you were booted fast.

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You're missing context there, buddy.

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Originally Posted by Yeastyloins

Heres my question: Did you ever look up a guide for any of the jobs that you play or any of the fights you struggle with?

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Yes. Very much so.

However, reading guides - some of which actually come across as making it all sound overly complicated - (and watching Youtube examples) doesn't necessarily translate to actually playing the game. I, personally, don't find it easy to remember everything outlined in a guide and I don't play on the level of someone good enough to post a guide video on Youtube.

I've, more or less, gotten to grips with RDM. I still don't really understand Bard - the Songs are confusing and I rarely seem to be able to get Blast Arrow to proc. Aside from dabbling in trying Summoner I haven't really played any other job as have generally put effort into being at least competent at the ones I've already played.

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Originally Posted by Illmaeran

This is absolutely true. I can count on one hand the number of times I've tanked an 80+ dungeon even though I've been level 90 on PLD for months and do roulettes almost daily. The game thinks that just because I've done them all on a different role (DPS) it means I know what I'm doing when going in as a tank. I once got tossed into the late-game dungeon in Radz, can't recall the name, and had a horrific time tanking; especially the last boss. I did what I could but felt horrible for the group and was extremely embarrassed because I was projecting the attitude of the OP and many others here onto the party members, thinking they must be feeling what the OP's expressed. The worst thing is I couldn't do anything but put my shield up, move forward, do what I could, and hope I didn't get kicked.

People automatically assume just because I'm level 90 and don't trip the "New Player" thing, that I've been tanking higher-level stuff forever, know every mechanic in and out, and know exactly when and where to use each skill for optimal effect. I'd love for there to be a requirement to directly queue and complete each dungeon separately on each role before adding it to the roulette for that role. At least I'd be able to say "This is my first time here" or "I'm inexperienced" without people thinking I'm trolling them.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

I, for one, agree. But then I guess I would. As I've said, I'm still not great at the game after eight months of playing. I DO try, but still get flustered trying to understand mechanics and work rotations, I'm still clumsy and slow to react, and it's certainly very rare that I feel that I'm asset to the teams I'm with.

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Here's my question to statements like this: Did you ever look up a guide, a video, or check a resource such as the balance for any of the jobs that you play or any of the fights you struggle with after running into issues? Did you ever try to sit and practice rotations in stone, sea, sky to get rotations down then test out doing rotations then put them in practice in a fight you are familiar and comfortable with? Did you ever think to yourself "Im having a hard time tanking and/or healing, maybe I should look up some guides to play those roles" or "I never seem to put up my buffs when everyone else does, maybe I should see what people are doing at the start of a fight/pull for [insert job]"?

This isn't a "Have you tried gitting gud?", but rather a question of when faced with difficulties or problems did you attempt to try and figure out what was going wrong with your gameplay or attempt to adjust what you are doing?

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Originally Posted by Padudu

Holminster's Switch was a bit of a slap in the face for me - I used mits, but didn't use it correctly. The healer and dps there was *incredibly* patient and gave me advice, was happy to teach me a bit on how to tank so we could get through it. They could tell straight up that while I was mitting and hitting buttons, the way I was doing it was a bit jank and made it slow/hard to get through.

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Originally Posted by Padudu

A couple months ago I que'd for a raid with a mate. Got CT, average run so far until we notice we're having regen put on us constantly. Multiple people actually. We found the person who did it. They would only move when the game prompts you to teleport to each boss, then they would cast regen. They were not a bot - they were talking and made a couple of jokes - so my mate quips with, "Wow, that's a lot of regens." Not a single response from anyone, the guy wasn't in our party so we couldn't vote kick him either.

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The contrast between these two stories is amusing. The first illustrates a run improving due to reasonable people giving and receiving constructive advice. The second illustrates the uselessness of passive-aggressive snark.

For all the talk of team-based play vs. Trusts in some of the more recent comments, the focus on the "under-performers" is a bit one-sided. I might argue that if you happen to have a bit of constructive advice that would be of significant help in making a run go more smoothly, then you're holding the party back by keeping that advice to yourself. I mean, what's the real difference between being disastrously bad at a mechanic versus being disastrously bad at pushing the buttons for some job? People explain mechanics all the time…

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Originally Posted by BaconBits

Me, staring at the Dragoon that's been spamming raw, uncomboed Chaos Thrust into Sonic Thrust for the entire duty, knowing full well if I say anything it's a 50/50 chance the party will either call me a sweaty tryhard and give me the boot, or get rid of the Goon that seemingly has never read a tooltip in their life.

https://c.tenor.com/2LRO8xWwmuAAAAAC...ck-bateman.gif

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Me: immediately puts up the vote kick on the Dragoon without saying a word and watches it pass

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

The contrast between these two stories is amusing. The first illustrates a run improving due to reasonable people giving and receiving constructive advice. The second illustrates the uselessness of passive-aggressive snark.

For all the talk of team-based play vs. Trusts in some of the more recent comments, the focus on the "under-performers" is a bit one-sided. I might argue that if you happen to have a bit of constructive advice that would be of significant help in making a run go more smoothly, then you're holding the party back by keeping that advice to yourself. I mean, what's the real difference between being disastrously bad at a mechanic versus being disastrously bad at pushing the buttons for some job? People explain mechanics all the time…

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I think very sincerely that people are afraid to get the plague if they use chat too much on this game.

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Originally Posted by Yeastyloins

Here's my question to statements like this: Did you ever look up a guide, a video, or check a resource such as the balance for any of the jobs that you play or any of the fights you struggle with after running into issues? Did you ever try to sit and practice rotations in stone, sea, sky to get rotations down then test out doing rotations then put them in practice in a fight you are familiar and comfortable with? Did you ever think to yourself "Im having a hard time tanking and/or healing, maybe I should look up some guides to play those roles" or "I never seem to put up my buffs when everyone else does, maybe I should see what people are doing at the start of a fight/pull for [insert job]"?

This isn't a "Have you tried gitting gud?", but rather a question of when faced with difficulties or problems did you attempt to try and figure out what was going wrong with your gameplay or attempt to adjust what you are doing?

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Firstly yes - in fact The Balance is probably the one reason I've gotten mostly to grips with RDM. Sadly, I still can't quite make head nor tails of their advice pertaining to Bard!

Secondly, again yes - in fact, after guides and LOTS of practice, I rarely 'die' when playing what is probably my favorite piece of content, Alzadaal's Legacy (which I know isn't the most difficult, but that's beside the point). However, again, guides can prove a lot to remember for some and I do find it difficult to recall said advice in longer content, such as Aglaia for example.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

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LOL I didn't think of it that way - but yeah you've got a point. I will say (we were in VC at the time), we didn't really see the point in speaking up. No one commented on it, it was a silent run for the most part, and they were in a different alliance. We both definitely would have said something had they been in our party, but alas, they were not. We've both had experiences of piping up with "hey, maybe not do that because X" and people snap back very aggressively. The run was going smoothly regardless of regen spammer since it was CT, so in the end we felt like it was just more trouble than it's worth to even start/provoke a fight. People have a tendency in ARaids to bash on the negative nancy being "toxic" towards someone, ESPECIALLY when the run itself is going fine.

I also, FWIW, totally believe that guy didn't care at all and was just using a bot clicker or something to avoid getting kicked/make it look like he's doing something the entire time. Maybe he had friends/enablers or something, idk at the end of the day.

I try to be as patient as I can be with people learning their roles - I get it because I do understand some people have difficulties or whatever. So I do try to prop up with, "hey, maybe use holy instead of single target because of blahblah". Sometimes they take it well, sometimes they hit with: "who asked?". Had a healer one time say they rejoined the game recently and was reading their tooltips, ok whatever, that's fine. This is was some dungeon like mid-MSQ of ShB. They were.. not healing or dpsing at all, just running in circles the entire time. We barely get through the first boss, can't pass the second. We ALL tried helping him, giving him advice, told him to follow the dps so he could at the very least dodge mechanics. Tell him that he had aoe heals, what they did, how to use it, very politely told him he was the reason why we were wiping. We get: "I didn't ask for advice, if I wanted advice I would ask. I'm doing this for the MSQ." Me too, buddy! It doesn't mean I run in circles as a tank. We ended up having to kick the guy in the end, he was just clearly not going to listen or even attempt to improve. Had no idea wtf his deal was to this day other than being a diva.

So anecdotals aside - I do try to give advice when I can reasonably know what I'm talking about. I say it outright because sometimes people just genuinely don't know how to utilize their kit effectively, and I get that. I want to say I'm never a jerk to people, but I probably just word things more bluntly during a run: "hey can u use arm's length pls, it's a good mitigation because 20% slow for 2min cd" or something close to that. But a lot of people just HATE that they're being called out when their mindset is "I've never had problems until you started nitpicking what I'm doing".


In the end I think people just find it's not worth arguing over because people will scream at you for even trying. In my belief this is why the casual content just needs a bit of beefing; I'm not sure how they would do that but forcing people to actually try or think a little would be a good start.

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

I think very sincerely that people are afraid to get the plague if they use chat too much on this game.

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Or rather, will get banned for being "toxic." Whenever someone spins advice as an insult.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

Or rather, will get banned for being "toxic." Whenever someone spins advice as an insult.

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I am not afraid of a ban. Usually when I give advice in the game people are happy. Never had a single negative comment and it is often followed by comms. The same goes when my friends give advice to randos in dungeons. I usually use a suggestive form like “ have you tried x? It may make it easier to blablabla” , “I think you forgot your tank stance” and not “you’re doing it wrong” , “don’t do that” and some of the passive aggressive comments we often see.