Good Vs Bad Player

I have seen over my years of playing MMO's people talk about bad and good players.
I have been given many different reasons why players are bad and why players are good.

The one thing that does bite my ankles is how people seem to expect other people to do homework on their choice of class/job/Weps/Armor etc. Homework could be asking to be told what is going to happen just as they enter a dungeon, reading guides or watching videos of fights.

Now here is the thing. How is anybody a bad player because they chose to NOT do their homework?

The whole point of playing an MMO is about adventure, how is knowing what is going to happen before it happens an adventure?

I looked up a few definitions of Adventure..

1) An unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.

2) Engage in hazardous and exciting activity, esp. the exploration of unknown territory: "they had adventured into the forest".


So isn't doing homework on things going against the game type we all are supposed to love?
As it states above unknown territory is hardly unknown if you just read about it or watched it on youtube.

So back to my original point. I see people who do not do their homework being described as bad players.
How are they bad if they are doing exactly as the game type suggests. While it may take a few runs to learn what is what, their experiences while they learn are the adventure.

Wouldn't it be more realistic to point the finger of a bad player towards people who NEED to do homework to get through the adventure?

This makes sense to me how MMO's are supposed to be played. Yet so many people do their homework and take away the adventure from the experience.

How do you guys see it? agree? disagree? mixed feeling?

The reality is that MMOs have perverted the very basic goal they had initially set out to deliver. I suppose its more the players own fault cause developers have changed MMOs to meet the demands of the majority. People apparently don't want to adventure. They want a cold and calculated experience.

My FC went into coil with no knowledge of what to do and we are at turn 4 now in 3 day of raiding. (3 hours a day.) Just get into a FC that is trying to get server firsts. You will end up doing a lot of fights that there are no guides for.

I agree for the most part. I don't want to have to watch videos or read guides before going into a fight.

That being said, I can also see the need for these if you're bad at pattern recognition. (Like me >< )

I have a hard time with pattern recognition. I can eventually figure it out, but more often than not, I have to have someone point out the pattern to me. However, I still want to go into the fight the first time without having watched videos and studied it. The studying, for me, comes after the initial encounter.

My choice to address this, is that I plan to run the primals and some of the higher level dungeons with friends only, or with my husband as the whm in the party. He's excellent at pattern recognition and can tell me the pattern without spoiling the fun of the first run. If I need to practice a fight/dungeon/instance then I plan to do it the same way; either with friends or with a shout group that knows I'm doing this for fun and practice.

Hopefully there will be other people out there with the same desire to have fun exploring the fight with no expectations of perfection. I want to run in, throw everything I've got at it, die spectacularly, laugh about it with the group, go over some points/strategies and do it again and again until we've got it right. :D

Good player will do their research on endgame dungeons and fights. Will make an attempt will property gear themselves and have adequate gear for what they are trying to accomplish.

Bad player is the type of player who doesn't research their class, will queue up for AK in DF having all AF and a level 40 weapon level 20-30 accessories expect to be carried and have everything explained, crys about elitists when they get called out for gear.

Idealistically, you want like minded players playing together.

A group of players going into fights blind should not be compared to a group of players that go in knowing what to expect.

It's when these two groups mix together, that some negative consequences can arise.

Being an MMO with a diverse group of players, it should always be considered what type of group you are playing with. You should also have an idea of what is expected from you as well.

Also, DF can burn in hell.

Doing your 'homework', as you put it, is only for the HxC gamer, and even then should only be done AFTER lvl cap and running through everything. Because by then you've had your excitement of the game and just striving to be the best. I enjoy not knowing what happens*I will ask people who have run the dungeons before me to point out the attacks and mobs, but only because I'm a GOOD tank who plays with the party I'm in.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

Good player will do their research on endgame dungeons and fights. Will make an attempt will property gear themselves and have adequate gear for what they are trying to accomplish.

Bad player is the type of player who doesn't research their class, will queue up for AK in DF having all AF and a level 40 weapon level 20-30 accessories expect to be carried and have everything explained, crys about elitists when they get called out for gear.

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How are you adventuring by learning about everything in advance?
You know like playing a single player game and learning how to beat the game before actually attempting it to the best of you ability first?

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Originally Posted by Sixmp

I have seen over my years of playing MMO's people talk about bad and good players.
I have been given many different reasons why players are bad and why players are good.

The one thing that does bite my ankles is how people seem to expect other people to do homework on their choice of class/job/Weps/Armor etc. Homework could be asking to be told what is going to happen just as they enter a dungeon, reading guides or watching videos of fights.

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Since when does doing homework = learning the fight before hand? You're already making assumption that's based entirely on your opinion. Let me ask a question in return then. How do you determine a good adventurer? One who learns how to use his chosen weapon properly, who frequently maintain his gears and learns as much about both the location and monsters he'll encounter going into a forboding dungeon as he can? Or someone who can barely pull the string on his bow, who wears rusted and worn out gear into battle and who charges into a room filled with monsters and traps ignoring the warning of his party members?

I never ever minded someone who's new to an encounter. However, I will always tell people who don't know how to play their class that they don't know how to play their class. If that makes me an elitist bastard, then so be it.

In my experience over 30 years of MMOing...bad players can be good players with a little help, guidance, and patience. However, no one wants to go through the effort. Most 'good' players find a guide on a site or watch vids off of youtube and learn off of other players who already did the content anyways. It's not like most actually figured it out themselves...

Ah the good old days before 'parsers' showed up which is now the go to yard stick to judge people. We are not human, we are simple a number on list and if you don't make the grade: yer a baddie! Doesn't matter if you are a good person in personality, no that matters not at all. Oh tight nit friendly game communities and pleasant social interaction with others....how I miss thee. /extinct

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Originally Posted by Sixmp

How are you adventuring by learning about everything in advance?
You know like playing a single player game and learning how to beat the game before actually attempting it to the best of you ability first?

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It's called playing the most efficient way possible.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

It's called playing the most efficient way possible.

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So how does that make you a better player? You are going in with the answer for every puzzle that someone else told you?

Yeah. I do ask about any tricks before going into a boss, but watching a guide would be a straight up spoiler - too boring.

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Originally Posted by sasakusaku

30 years of MMOingt

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lolWUT?

I don't watch videos and never have problems. Yet people who "know" the fights fail over and over. Sorry but "doing your homework" is actually "copying other peoples work" and in no way makes you any better.

These games are not designed so that only min/max players can complete them. If you really need better than AF gear for AK then you suck. Same goes for Ifrit... Darklight requirement for ifrit cracks me up.

to some extend for the adventure, But, the dungeons-trials in ff14 are time limited.

the other day i did Gaurda normal with a pug. 2 of the 4 had no clue what the fight would be like. it took a good 40 minutes for them to actually catch up on the mechanics, and in the end we won with 10 mins to spare. so it took us 80 mins, and 10plus wipes.
that's not an adventure anymore imo.

Brut

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Originally Posted by TrystWildkey

Hopefully there will be other people out there with the same desire to have fun exploring the fight with no expectations of perfection.

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This is how I have the most fun. The problem is, when you get to endgame these type of parties (through duty finder) are too few and far between. All throughout the main story, any time I had to use DF I got grouped with a group of first-timers. We all shared this same basic philosophy. "Let's give this a try, if we die so be it. Regroup and try again." Watching YouTube videos on fights really doesn't help me that much anyway, because there is always extra things you will learn by just actively participating in said fight. I have yet to see a YouTube video that explains every facet of a fight, they normally just go over basics. The intricacies of each fight need to be learned through trial and error.

Towards this, to answer the OP, I have a decent example of the difference between good/bad players. I orchestrated a Hydra group last night. After we had a group of 8 people, we found out that 7 of us had never done the fight before. The 8th person who had done it before had only done it from a healer's perspective so he didn't have much insight on what we needed to. He just knew, "Heal and stack middle when Hydra goes there". Those are very vague instructions for anyone who has fought Hydra. There is A LOT more to that fight than that. So I said, "It's ok, if we die we will learn from it and try again." After 2 tries most of the group had it down, except for one summoner who kept dying and not moving out of AOE quick enough, not stacking middle quick enough, not helping with the wyvern adds quick enough... Basically just not contributing enough. Although I knew it was happening, I didn't lose my cool. We died 5 times before I offered the summoner any advice. We died another 4 times before the summoner said he/she was experiencing lag spikes in the fight. We died another 2 times after that before the summoner quit the group, admitted he/she was holding us down.

I picked up a first-timer Dragoon to round out our party, explained the DRG the fight and we beat Hydra on our first attempt. It was his first experience with Hydra after we had all just ran it about 10-11 times, dying every time because of one person. After the fight, the DRG says "Sheesh thanks for the easy mode Hydra run!" I couldn't help but laugh :)

Good/bad players shouldn't be characterized by whether or not they can watch a damn video online. However, when there is easily enough trial and error for everyone to understand what's expected from them in a fight, and still can't pull it off, then you can start calling a player bad. A prepared fighter isn't always a good one.

This game uses a "Job" system. So your character is one of the jobs implemented in the system. Like any job you have to know what you are doing, even if it is your first time/day, you are expected have some knowledge of what your job details. There are people who are good at their job and people who are bad at their job. Knowing the optimal rotation, priority, or mechanics of your job in any situation is what makes a person great at their job. On a side note doing research is never a bad thing! Research is what makes the world go round and the only thing putting money in my pocket :( !

The problem here is that you have a few completely different types of players:

1) video games are for fun, adventure, and solving problems. No matter how many times you fail along the way.
2) video games are a sport, and sports are about efficiency and winning, and having the minimum number of mistakes and failure along the way.

A small subset of the latter camp seems unwilling to accept that there is another camp at all. There are good players, and bad players. And good players play like them, as a sport, for efficient, perfect, wins. Bad players are anyone else. If you aren't playing like them, you are doing it wrong. Period. If you can't learn as fast as them, you are bad. If you didn't research, you are bad. If you want to explore/have an adventure/care about the story, you are bad. If you do anything that isn't the way they want to play, you are inconsiderate of their play time.

Problem is, the sports mentality is fine in this game if you keep it to the others who are of the same mindset. But by using the DF they are intentionally putting themselves with group 1 over and over again making them very visible to the overall community. Most sports minded groups who are doing it "right" so to speak, are in their own team running towards coil, if they aren't already there, minding their own business.

But there is this subset of the sports minded folks, and they are pushing themselves onto the former group via DF and then claiming the other are simply bad, wrong etc. and should get out of their game if they can't be bothered to do it "right".

I don't believe it is actually as prevalent as it looks right now, rather if you have 3000 of these players at a time, out of 300K total players, but they currently are constantly running end game duty finder, it will appear to everyone else that they are the norm. In reality, most players aren't at 50 yet (or are just getting there now), and most players who are at 50 are happily minding their own business.

Anyway this is just my current take on the subject.

Only thing I bring to the fight is proper gear and how the fight mechanic go I learn as I go .

Well said. :D

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Originally Posted by PsychologyPhD

This game uses a "Job" system. So your character is one of the jobs implemented in the system. Like any job you have to know what you are doing, even if it is your first time/day, you are expected have some knowledge of what your job details. There are people who are good at their job and people who are bad at their job. Knowing the optimal rotation, priority, or mechanics of your job in any situation is what makes a person great at their job. On a side note doing research is never a bad thing! Research is what makes the world go round and the only thing putting money in my pocket :( !

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A few quick points on this: (while I wait for the DF ;) )

Like with any job, you learn as you go. Some jobs you can have some prep/background for. But rarely do you know exactly how to do everything or can just jump in and know what you are doing at every step of the way. If your real world job you can, that is great, but in my experience that is not the norm for at the very least first time jobs (which is what these are in game), and rarely for well, any job.

Also, this game doesn't teach you any of the new job skills. It just gives them to you. No quests to train, no text bubbles. Just "here have a new skill!". So, in game, you are expected to learn the skills and how to use them "on the job" so to speak. And while it is true you are playing a character with a given job, in game context, you are doing it without outside support. These jobs are "ancient" jobs, hidden/gone from the world. You are mostly learning them on your own in game, without much support. As far as job rotation/groups, I agree that perhaps there should be more practice involved in game, but mainly through guildhests. People should be playing those over and over again for practicing groups and there should be more of them geared towards specific roles. These should probably be more widely used and tied to the main story to encourage them, but they aren't currently, so expecting people to have the skill acquired through such practice is naive: most people will learn again, "on the job" in dungeons.

Finally as far as dungeons go, in storyline, your job doesn't help you with mechanics or knowing what is required to win any given specific fight. In game you go into each dungeon "blind" for the "first time". So if you believe in story context, and adventure, then it is actually contrary to story immersion to go in already knowing the fight. It has nothing to do with "being prepared" and everything to do with story immersion/adventure.

If you don't care about that level of story immersion, that is perfectly fine and I don't think anyone would fault you for it, but don't expect others to feel the same way as you or try and force them into giving up the story immersion simply because you don't care to play that way.

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Originally Posted by ogopogo

Since when does doing homework = learning the fight before hand? You're already making assumption that's based entirely on your opinion. Let me ask a question in return then. How do you determine a good adventurer? One who learns how to use his chosen weapon properly, who frequently maintain his gears and learns as much about both the location and monsters he'll encounter going into a forboding dungeon as he can? Or someone who can barely pull the string on his bow, who wears rusted and worn out gear into battle and who charges into a room filled with monsters and traps ignoring the warning of his party members?

I never ever minded someone who's new to an encounter. However, I will always tell people who don't know how to play their class that they don't know how to play their class. If that makes me an elitist bastard, then so be it.

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Its common knowledge that certain people expect other people to know things in game that they could never know about unless they read a guide or already completed it themselves.
Anyone can learn to improve their character play on the road, or at an inn or from some stranger etc, there is nothing wrong with expecting people to have the best gear that they know about,but you cannot expect them to know about things they have never been to or seen, knowing in advance the workings of a trap ridden castle that nobody has ever entered before, or the exact pattern of a one of a kind mob, how is that possible?

As for my idea of a bad player, it is very hard to gauge, having bad gear doesn't make someone a bad player, you could argue that the person who has got as far as you have with bad gear could be a better player.
Once everyone is in the best gear with the best weapons a parser will tell some people who is the best players are, unfortunately those numbers don't mean much.

People who go in blind are at a larger disadvantage than someone who has read guides, yet they can still win by reacting to what is happening around them, learning tactics on the fly or during a break after a wipe. Wouldn't that be the better player?
Personally i don't really care about the best, i prefer nice people. If they happen to be good at the game cool, if they are bad, cool.

I always giggle when people i know have learned a fight inside out from guides and youtube after completing it first try then boast to me about how easy it was.
To me it is just like someone getting the answers to the Times crossword filling in all the answers and then telling everyone how easy it was.

I would prefer to learn as I go, personally. If you've watched videos of a fight beforehand, you already know everything that's going to happen and what you're supposed to do, so there are no surprises and the game really becomes about how well you can copy what you've seen. I did do a brief stint in a permadeath guild on DDO where (in addition to the rule on permadeath) such things were frowned upon as metagaming, and if you'd done the content before you weren't supposed to tell anyone else how to do it.

That said, the chances of getting a party who are all new to the content or tolerant of such behaviour and are all of a similar mindset is vanishingly small. As I don't want to be a horrendous burden on my party, I'm happy to read up on mechanics or have them explained to me in advance, but I avoid watching videos. At least then it's a matter of executing a plan rather than pure mimicry.

On its own, there's nothing wrong with wanting to learn as you go along, but you need to form your own learning group or tell people ahead of time that you're going to be learning as you go before they invite you.

If you don't understand why, consider the analogy of a series of math classes: Everyone starts at a basic level, say, addition and subtraction, and works their way up to, say, calculus. When you join a PUG of people who know the fight, and you don't, it's like you're walking into a calculus class knowing only addition and subtraction and you're asking to be taught your way up to calculus while everyone else waits for you. Now imagine by the time you start to grasp calculus, the class lets out. The next day, another student shows up knowing only, say, basic algebra, and they need to be caught up. This continues day after day, and the students never get to learn or practice any calculus. This is what you're doing when you join PUGs without knowing what to do ahead of time.

I do the primals all the time for fun and to help FC members. I have to explain the basics of every fight and then run randoms through them which almost always results in a few wipes before they get it.... well not Ifrit but he is really easy... I do not complain, I do not whine, I have fun. Maybe some of you should try that sometime?

Anyway point is if you don't like watching the cut scenes, want speed runs, expect perfect gear, expect experienced players, or any combination of those then you should be making your own private group. Joining up with randoms and acting like that just informs everyone else you are a dbag.

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Originally Posted by Raikki

On its own, there's nothing wrong with wanting to learn as you go along, but you need to form your own learning group or tell people ahead of time that you're going to be learning as you go before they invite you.

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This is true of self formed pugs absolutely, people should know that they are going in with the same expectations. But if you refer to the duty finder, the duty finder is the key place for the story adventurers. Why? Because that is what the in game story prompts tells them to do, and why it was put in the game in the first place. On the other hand, those who are working outside of the context of the game, and learning from the internet and youtube etc, should already be aware of this, and be looking for people who share their perspective of how to play, or at least be okay with running with those who do not share their views.

Some thoughts for you: in over 50 runs of Sastasha through Halatali, I have run across at most 5 new people entering a dungeon the first time with prior research.. The ratio changes with HM and Qarn, but not hugely (Cutter and Stone I haven't done enough to have a good sample size).

In other words, the norm is to come in without researching the dungeon. So your entirely analogy is flipping the situation on its head. Also remember: you are on a legacy, your perspective of how many end-gamers vs non-end gamers there are is very very skewed. The majority of all end-game players are on legacy servers. The new players far outweigh the experienced on other servers, and in my own runs to date, most new players do not subscribe to the research beforehand method of playing the game.

Teamwork, not homework!


- Your goal. Is an encounter completion your primary or secondary goal? Are you visiting a dungeon for the very first time as a part of the story or are you just grinding tokens? If you are grinding tokens and are doing so with PUGs, you might want to familiarize yourself with the most efficient method of running a particular encounter.
- Your group. Are people in your group friends who are helping you or random people? If you are with friends, there should be no reason to do homework, unless the encounter is very complex, because they will give you a few hints, if needed.
- Encounter difficulty. Is an encounter difficult? How likely is the encounter failure if you don't know what to do?

Thus, depending on the combinations of these factors, you could consider whether you should do homework or not. Personally, the only time I would do homework is when the content is substantially harder than usual because just attempting it unprepared may hurt my team.

Over the years of playing MMOs, the most fun time I had was venturing into the unknown with a group of friends. We may fail the first time or even the first few runs - we'll have fun in the process anyway, but we'll learn from our mistakes and succeed eventually. One of the most fun parts of MMOs to me is overcoming obstacles with teamwork! :)

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Originally Posted by sasakusaku

30 years of MMOing...

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This statement made me laugh really really hard.

Even watching a video or reading a guide before hand won't help you with actual experience.

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Originally Posted by Sixmp

Now here is the thing. How is anybody a bad player because they chose to NOT do their homework?

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You could say that someone who studies hard and always does well on tests is a good student. Is a school student that never studies and always fails his tests a good student? Sure, he can always just retake the test over and over again, never bothering to study and he'll eventually get enough answers right to pass the test, but that doesn't make him better than the person who studied before hand, not by a long shot.

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Originally Posted by Cluebilly

This statement made me laugh really really hard.

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Why? They've been around longer than that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...r_online_games

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Originally Posted by Reiterpallasch

You could say that someone who studies hard and always does well on tests is a good student. Is a school student that never studies and always fails his tests a good student? Sure, he can always just retake the test over and over again, never bothering to study and he'll eventually get enough answers right to pass the test, but that doesn't make him better than the person who studied before hand, not by a long shot.]

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Taking a test doesn't supply you with the conditions to learn unless of course you are talking about a particular test? So in that context of course you would say that the student that does not study is a bad student.
Here is the thing though, we are Adventurers and we test ourselves against an environment that allows us to learn as we go.

So while i see your point, i feel it is not quite relevant in the context you are trying to use it in. Also in the environment we are testing ourselves in we are allowed to learn on the fly, so you are testing your wits and ability to adapt rather than just memorizing patterns you are taught on a guide or on a youtube clip.
Which would imply not studying means you are learning to use more skills to complete the test.

I actually have a very different definition of good vs. bad players (compared to the OP), and most people I know seem to share it for the most part. It's easier to define in the negative, so I'll start with that.

A 'bad player' isn't someone who comes in unprepared, it's someone who can't react or learn or engage in what might be called 'rational behaviour' in the game environment sense. For instance, in the XIV sense, a bad player would be an individual who routinely gets hit by standard red-zone AoE, or doesn't figure out Ifrit's plume rotation within the first few runs, or doesn't understand the most basic elements of tanking despite reaching level 50 on a Paladin.

A 'good player' is someone who doesn't embody these unfortunate traits. They learn quickly, adapt rationally, and while they make mistakes, they don't generally make the same mistake twice. Such a player will also generally recognize when their gear is insufficient for a particular challenge, which is why they are rarely seen engaging Garuda with a level 45 weapon and full AF.

TL;DR - Both good and bad players can do their homework, or not do their homework. A good player will quickly learn whether they have or haven't researched the activity in question, while a bad player will fail to be proficient whether they have done the homework or not.

PS - This discussion, from my perspective, is completely separate from the question of whether or not someone is enjoyable to adventure with. While I generally prefer adventuring with good players, there are plenty of talented jerks, and plenty of wonderful people with dubious skill.

I find this whole "homework is bad" stuff rather amusing, considering there's an entire chapter of the mainquest dedicated to your character gathering information from the Company of Heroes on how to fight Titan :P

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

I actually have a very different definition of good vs. bad players (compared to the OP), and most people I know seem to share it for the most part. It's easier to define in the negative, so I'll start with that.
A 'bad player' isn't someone who comes in unprepared, it's someone who can't react or learn or engage in what might be called 'rational behaviour' in the game environment sense. For instance, in the XIV sense, a bad player would be an individual who routinely gets hit by standard red-zone AoE, or doesn't figure out Ifrit's plume rotation within the first few runs, or doesn't understand the most basic elements of tanking despite reaching level 50 on a Paladin.

A 'good player' is someone who doesn't embody these unfortunate traits. They learn quickly, adapt rationally, and while they make mistakes, they don't generally make the same mistake twice. Such a player will also generally recognize when their gear is insufficient for a particular challenge, which is why they are rarely seen engaging Garuda with a level 45 weapon and full AF.

TL;DR - Both good and bad players can do their homework, or not do their homework. A good player will quickly learn whether they have or haven't researched the activity in question, while a bad player will fail to be proficient whether they have done the homework or not.

PS - This discussion, from my perspective, is completely separate from the question of whether or not someone is enjoyable to adventure with. While I generally prefer adventuring with good players, there are plenty of talented jerks, and plenty of wonderful people with dubious skill.

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I wouldn't say my version is that much different to yours. You agree with me on the point that "homework" is more of a choice of playing style rather than proof of being a good player as well :P
I did spend more time pointing out that for the most part people i see screaming and shouting are usually stating that people who don't come totally prepared to a fight including watching videos etc are bad players.

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Originally Posted by Freakiie

I find this whole "homework is bad" stuff rather amusing, considering there's an entire chapter of the mainquest dedicated to your character gathering information from the Company of Heroes on how to fight Titan :P

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Hehe, did it tell you to google the fight on youtube? :D

I don't think the intention is to say homework is bad, but to point out that just because people would rather go in blind for the extra difficulty, feeling of excitement etc, does not mean that they are instantly bad players. Which from my experience is what seems to be going around in MMO's.

Perhaps do the fights/encounters when guides/videos/etc didn't exist. The only "adventuring" that you're probably going to experience is if you're one the first few people to get to that content. Unfortunately, that's just the way things are in this day and age of MMORPGs. If you haven't achieved something within the first couple of weeks of it being available, then the norm will change to you needing to know ahead of time what you're about to deal with because the information is readily available to you now.

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Originally Posted by Rivienne

A few quick points on this: (while I wait for the DF ;) )

Like with any job, you learn as you go. Some jobs you can have some prep/background for. But rarely do you know exactly how to do everything or can just jump in and know what you are doing at every step of the way. If your real world job you can, that is great, but in my experience that is not the norm for at the very least first time jobs (which is what these are in game), and rarely for well, any job.

Also, this game doesn't teach you any of the new job skills. It just gives them to you. No quests to train, no text bubbles. Just "here have a new skill!". So, in game, you are expected to learn the skills and how to use them "on the job" so to speak. And while it is true you are playing a character with a given job, in game context, you are doing it without outside support. These jobs are "ancient" jobs, hidden/gone from the world. You are mostly learning them on your own in game, without much support. As far as job rotation/groups, I agree that perhaps there should be more practice involved in game, but mainly through guildhests. People should be playing those over and over again for practicing groups and there should be more of them geared towards specific roles. These should probably be more widely used and tied to the main story to encourage them, but they aren't currently, so expecting people to have the skill acquired through such practice is naive: most people will learn again, "on the job" in dungeons.

Finally as far as dungeons go, in storyline, your job doesn't help you with mechanics or knowing what is required to win any given specific fight. In game you go into each dungeon "blind" for the "first time". So if you believe in story context, and adventure, then it is actually contrary to story immersion to go in already knowing the fight. It has nothing to do with "being prepared" and everything to do with story immersion/adventure.

If you don't care about that level of story immersion, that is perfectly fine and I don't think anyone would fault you for it, but don't expect others to feel the same way as you or try and force them into giving up the story immersion simply because you don't care to play that way.

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You state some very valid points and I see no reason to argue against them. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. One thing I would keep in mind, even though "most people" do one thing or another doesn't make it right or okay. People do have the right to do what they feel is best but that doesn't mean their actions are deemed useful or practical. Just as in real life, MMOs, and other online-games, communities develop a society. That society creates its own Norms, Folkway, Mores, Taboos, Stigmas and what they consider deviant acts. Some see playing without a care as Bad wrong fun, some see it as enjoyment. Each group will see the other as performing some sort of deviant act breaking some from of the aforementioned. Who is right or wrong I don't know and neither does anyone else, but we can speculate all day.

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Originally Posted by Sixmp

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I agree 100%. I see nothing adventurous about going and watching youtube videos of someone else running a dungeon so that I do not have any surprises at all. I know it gets frustrating when you wipe on a dungeon..heck I get annoyed too..and my personal intentions are never to ruin someone elses experience by being that newb. However, I feel like there is a much greater sense of accomplishment if I learn on my own...even if that entails learning from a more experienced player while I am in the dungeon.

The idea of "doing homework" and watching all the tips and tricks vids prior to doing something on my own seems so lame and it negates all sense of accomplishment or adventure that a good MMO should give..at least in my opinion.

Goodness, this is getting so old.

Hm. From my point of view a good player can learn the dance fairly quickly and adapt to it. And average player may take longer to learn but eventually gets it.

A bad player is someone who can't/won't learn and will continue making the same mistakes until carried through, or raised after the fact.

Gear in this game isn't hard to get, it's just tedious and time consuming, so I don't feel like not gearing up makes you a bad player. It just makes you a person who doesn't care about other peoples time enough to put in any effort. That being said, people in this game seem to cry if you're not absolutely overgeared for everything.