Mark Who Initiated Combat

Imagine if you will, hypothetically speaking...


You're a Mentor tanking in a disastrous Alliance Roulette, the players are bickering, blame is being tossed around for just about anything, bosses are pulled earlier when they should have, and when pulled the arguing is growing worse.


Now, I'm not saying players would EVER do this, but in the event you're living in my reality where they did, consider: wouldn't it be helpful to have something that just told you?

I'm sure this suggestion has been given before, but I propose it again as the game is in this era of making the game play experience more single player oriented. If there was something in chat that would mark the combat initiator especially in Full Party content, I think this would be a boon for players of all levels; it establishes who is going to tank or lead combat, transitions players used to a one player experience to one with others, and it would also keep players accountable. If players saw who pulled something, now there's a name to generated enmity, this could also act as a deterrent for any who would do something reckless.

The battle log itself provides this information but that requires focus on it and fine tuning it to specific information to not move so quickly. Having a simple "Combat initiated: [Player Name/World] " right before or after the message "[Instance] will be sealed off in 15 seconds!" could solve a lot of problems.

This would require that 'player accountability' be something that SE is interested in fostering...

I guarantee you that this would be ignored at best and used as a catalyst to start fights at worst.

You've joined a group with random people all with various levels of experience, skill, personalities, and expectations. Sometimes it works out well, sometimes it all goes south because a few personality types that don't get along start fighting which then spreads like wildfire.

The real problem is the casual content lacks consistent difficulty. Meaning, most groups know what to do so they face roll it. That then becomes the expectation. Throw in some newbies that need to fulfill key roles or if dps isn't high enough to skip mechanics then suddenly difficulty appears where there was previously none before. The expectation hasn't changed though, it is to faceroll it, so people get frustrated and start fighting.

If the game was consistent with it's difficulty in casual content this wouldn't be as big of an issue. Even in current content, most bosses have a mechanic skipped or you see it once, that's it. The problem is insane with older content. Most alliance fights aren't representative of what they used to be at all while some are shadows of their former selves (so the occasional wipe happens).

Current content needs bosses with a range of hp that goes up / down based on the group's average ilvl. For old content, if they aren't going to balance newer jobs for it then the max ilvl needs to be dropped a bit while the boss hp is increased.

People hate Syrcus Tower not only because it shows up all the time, but because it isn't engaging. Every boss fight is a training dummy that sometimes slaps you.

All this to say, if the older content was still engaging and if the expectation was not to faceroll it anymore, then you would mitigate problems like the one you describe (mitigate, not remove entirely). That's what needs to be done, old content needs to be re-evaluated and balanced. The game is constantly giving us incentives to go back and play it, but it's simply not fun and quite a few people have little patience when it comes to playing content that isn't fun with the expectation they can get in and get out.

The fighting comes from bad expectations. Those expectations are a symptom of the real problem, old content isn't consistent with the balancing of it. Most of it is a joke, and only some of it retains a small amount of challenge that isn't too easy for newbies.

Not untrue, unfortunately. But I also think that's been the flaw in our state of play presently and many Mentors agree. But if we're overhauling and tweaking systems, I think this and ideas like this should be up for consideration. For it isn't bad or wrong to be accountable for one's actions in a group setting especially if the goal is to foster community; the emphasis that we are one of many should be assuring, not punishing.


The mechanical and utility benefits of this suggestion alone outweigh any drawbacks or invented sense of 'consequence' Consider that it would:

• Bring awareness
• Provide accessibility with a notification
• Bring forward an already recorded section of the Battle Log without further configuration or complication
• Assist with Party/Alliance communication in the absence of other communicative forms or tactics

And best of all it would reduce in-fighting (in theory).

Most of what you said I agree. Old content definitely does need balanced along with the jobs that perform in them. But SE didn't instill that expectation, and they can also implement things to bring us away from that expectation (ironically one of those being balance!).


What I disagree with is the fact that in our current environment, with both content and caliber of community, the behavior I described--ie pulling when one isn't supposed to or in a role outside of tank in Full Party content, though this would apply just as much in Light Party as well--is disruptive and subject to punishment. And as we know the moderation team is flawed, if someone is somehow gaslighted in a position of doing something they didn't do yet enough people submit reports, that's just stacking Penalty Points unfairly. If people had a clear indicator of who initiated, at least this scenario could be massively circumvented.


In addition, anything in this game could be a catalyst to start fights, but that's not to invalidate the mechanical, utility providing, and collaborative good change can invoke.


Balance however is a huuuuuuuuuge undertaking and such a precise and delicate dance, tipping even a little too far can dramatically effect everything down the line. So long as this game continues to homogenize, I argue that balance will be more difficult to achieve, not less.


Casual content applies to a mass majority of the player base, and as the landscape has changed and players can choose a single player experience, assistance to transition into group content wouldn't be unwelcome. Any mitigation is good mitigation, and added with the mechanical and utility offering points i mentioned above in addition to the various toxicity this could prevent, I'd take a 1 over a 0 if allowed.