What does the community need?

Deleted. Disregard my original post.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

I've been thinking about this for a good while...seriously, it's like 5am in the morning as I write this. For all the wrong things I have done to this community, I can't help but wonder if there is anything one could to do help it. I got to thinking about recent threads lately, and it really made me wonder what the community, particularly NA/EU, would want and/or need. And I keep drawing blanks because of my own actions. But, I'm sure that there are ways that the community could grow, could improve. Not just server side, either - I mean, as a whole. I see Pvp revitalizations on discord, min ilvl discords, and things of that nature cropping up quite a bit. When I saw them, I thought there were so many amazing ideas that just...happened. Because folks wanted it, people banded together and made it happen.

So I turn to the forums in hopes of a nice little discussion. As I said, I'm drawing complete blanks here. Not suggesting that the community is bad in any way - especially when compared to other MMOs. But I wonder what the community could use more of? What do you think, OF? What could the community use, whether it's a need or a want?

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I would say a need to stop taking itself so seriously. I remember posting on one thread that was essentially a troll post, but wasn't done out of spite or with malicious intent and everyone on there was vying for the OP to be banned claiming they were "fostering a negative and toxic environment".

To have fun and remember what that was like. Feels like people spend so much time moaning and lamenting what the devs didn't do, haven't done or won't do that we forget what there is to do and that we can make our own fun. Instead of taking what we have and making it fun we would rather sit in our houses and complain because I want all the new stuff now so that in 6 weeks time when I'm bored of it and got nothing to do I can continue to moan there is nothing to do. Why not spice up your dungeon runs? get a tank group for Raba or a whm group or something. The game is what you make it, much like life, you have control. It's like when you have young kids and they complain they're bored during the holidays yet there is a cupboard full of games and coloring books they haven't touched and they've got an Xbox with 127 games and a phonebook with 20 friends in it they can call and go out to play with...but they sit in the living room and moap about complaining they're bored and got nothing to do.
mabe I'm wrong but it just feels like at end game people lose the fun from the game and it becomes all a bit too serious. relax, chill and have a good time. Go find a newbie at a duneon entrance and help them out with a quick run or something xD

Personally:

I think SE are missing a trick by allowing external sites such as Reddit to become regarded as the central hub for discussion of this game for many. Having this stuff on a site that's under your control makes it a lot easier to keep ontop of the current sentiment, it helps to prevent communities becoming fractured and polarised and there's also benefits when glaring issues arise such as Ungarmax.

As far as the community on these boards go, we need more stability and certainty. Am I putting my posting rights in someone elses hands by trying to help someone else or participate in a discussion whilst providing data to do so? Is there a way I can still back up my thoughts whilst ensuring that I don't cross the line? Where even is the line anyway?

Whilst we're at it. A 'lighter touch' subsection of the forums disclaimered up that allows things such as parser talk, logs and other grey areas (obviously, there would need to be a line in the sand here as well, both in regards to ettiquite as well as clarity on things that are not considered ok, bots? modding? and so forth).

The health of the community in game is a separate matter really and I've got some unsurprisingly strong views on this as well ;)

IMHO, the friends thread on here is super telling. A lot of people play this much like a single player back with a chat room client running alongside it. Eureka is a bit of a success in this regard as for all it's issues and shortcomings, it does force people together and to cooperate to a fair extent. I also think that the manner in which you actually have to go the NPC to queue for it is a good thing too (same with HoH).

I can't be the only one who misses the days of Wineport through to Hinterlands where you had to gather at the raid entrance to go in. This is something I'd love to see return not only for Savage, but Ultimate and 24 man as well.

The rest of my suggestions all pretty much branch off of that suggestion. Any additional content that shoves the community together with the aim of getting people talking and interacting with each other is a good thing imho.

Intelligence and education about the game..

Having seen how WoW has changed and observing that FFXIV has on numerous occasions added big features from WoW in some fashion, I'm a bit concerned that convenience and asocialness will come to rule the game. A good example of this is fates. In ARR, they were arguably the primary way to level alt battle jobs, though tanks and healers were a bit better off with dungeon spam. However, the dungeon spam was tedious enough many would still do fates. Relic and Anima weapons were also used to boost fate participation. This created a populated world full of players for you to interact with. Fates were casual and somewhat slow paced content, so it wasn't uncommon to chat in /p to people you were spending several hours with.

After the addition of Palace of the Dead, fate grinding basically died. Heaven on High is of course continuing that tradition. Instead of being out in the world, interacting with your servermates, you're tucked away in an instance somewhere with randoms from other servers. This isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but it is a blow to server communities and an active populated world. I don't think they need to discontinue deep dungeons, but perhaps they should make fates a better way to level alts, while leaving deep dungeons as somewhat competitive, though inferior. Deep dungeons have unique rewards other than XP, so people still have incentive to do them, and if the XP is reasonably close to fate grinding, even if not necessarily better, people will still do them to either kill two birds with one stone or for a change of pace. Fates also act as some bonus XP while leveling, so perhaps they shouldn't get buffed XP until you've already hit the level cap from their level bracket (ie 50, 60, 70, 80? for ARR, HW, SB, nextpac), which would keep them as a leveling method specifically for alt jobs.

That's just one thing, but in general, convenience, standardization, and streamlining are the enemies of community. Players will always form their own communities, but to keep those communities in the game where they belong, you need to make sure people have a reason to come together, not just once, but over and over. There are already elements of this game that have grown less sociable, such as dungeons. Some of this is likely inevitable as the game ages and the average player becomes more experienced, but I'd like to see SE actively fight against community erosion in the way they design.

Well, people need to come together and realize that we're all playing a game together, to do their best so their teammates aren't let down, to have the drive to self-improve at least a little bit. But I don't see any way to change that in people, it's just too much a part of our culture.

So... I'm gonna go with more PvP revitalization. Astagalos and such are fun, but the queue times suuuuuuuck!

Error 301, Faulty Premise.

"The community" is a conglomerate of individuals, each and every with their own 'needs' and desires, many of which are incompatible with each other. The only thing connecting them is that they're playing the same game, but as soon as you look at how or why they're playing it, the results differ drastically from person to person.

The only thing it needs to grow thus is more people playing the game. And if given the tools to do so, they just might cluster into groups with semi-homogenous interests in order to enhance their experience by keeping a close company of like-minded people. And if one such cluster becomes too big, we blame Balmung. Such is life.

Cowbell. The community needs more cowbell.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Error 301, Faulty Premise.

"The community" is a conglomerate of individuals, each and every with their own 'needs' and desires, many of which are incompatible with each other. The only thing connecting them is that they're playing the same game, but as soon as you look at how or why they're playing it, the results differ drastically from person to person.

The only thing it needs to grow thus is more people playing the game. And if given the tools to do so, they just might cluster into groups with semi-homogenous interests in order to enhance their experience by keeping a close company of like-minded people. And if one such cluster becomes too big, we blame Balmung. Such is life.

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True, and to be honest, I am not the right person to have even brought up this thread...but I couldn't help but bring it up because I've seen the good folks on reddit start up those two things that I mentioned (min ilvl runs and PVP restoration). Limsa Lominsa is seemingly the accepted hangout spot for most of the big Aether servers (dunno about the other datacenters), which I think it pretty nice. I'd love to see more of this within the game - not really to improve the game, per se, but just to foster something bigger than just a conglomerate of individuals coming together.

What does the community need? It's pretty simple, really - we need Hien, Magnai and the Warrior of Light to engage in mud wrestling. Naturally given the nature of such a sport, their clothes would get dirty...so they'd have to make do without! ;)

It needs a boost to the social aspect.

Comunication is clunky. Many MMO already have voiced chat for nearby players, party etc...

I would like them to implement it. I like the way "GTA 5" or "VR Chat" allow voiced chat for nearby players, it helps to feel more like real life, where we can gather together, show emotes, dance etc...
It would help for roulette. It's clunky to need to give acces to a discord server, to wait the strange players join, just to have the fight done, and leave. Isn't much easier if the game had it?
It would help console players that don't have a easy time tapping the chat.

Many times I try to communicate via chat, and it seems that they don't even read it, I need to send a tell to get attention.

Don't come to me to say "oh, but the people without microphone..." stop, are you saying that people are playing a paid game with subscription yet they don't have money for a cheap headphone? yeah, yeah...

If them implement it, I imagine a lot of options for self configuration, the range for hearing, mute player, mute self, roulette: prioritize voiced players...

Anyway, I see a lot of fun with it, a lot of easier RP. I see some RP using a lot of chat, this would allow voiced scenes.

They could even add it to the app if they want things expanded.

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Originally Posted by Nixxe

Having seen how....

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Community is there if you want it MMOs are no longer about forcing you into it to advance in the game anymore. Besides this is a single player final fantasy game until you hit the level cap. As for fates and HOH if fates become better HOH dies you can't have both its one or the other in this type of game people looking for efficiency will go after the fastest method and the 95% of everyone else will follow suit.

A sense of belonging and some virtual purpose.

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Originally Posted by thegreatonemal

Community is there if you want it MMOs are no longer about forcing you into it to advance in the game anymore. Besides this is a single player final fantasy game until you hit the level cap. As for fates and HOH if fates become better HOH dies you can't have both its one or the other in this type of game people looking for efficiency will go after the fastest method and the 95% of everyone else will follow suit.

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Yeah, I mean that's really the issue: "solo" group players have taken over MMOs. They want nothing to do with the staple game structures of MMORPGs, but won't go find another game.

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Originally Posted by Nixxe

Yeah, I mean that's really the issue: "solo" group players have taken over MMOs. They want nothing to do with the staple game structures of MMORPGs, but won't go find another game.

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I think this right here is part of it. I think another contributing factor is that a lot of content is locked to FCs, so it's a bit hard to do community things because more often than not, there's more benefit with either friends or linkshells. For me, there are things I'd love to do as a community, but I have a bad reputation, so I just hope there are other like minded individuals who will start it up. FATES, for example, I know there was a pretty significant one on Siren before I left that server, but there are achievements, lore, and mounts that myself and others did want.

I dunno if Cactuar has one like it, or if anybody is even interested in doing FATES for this reason. I remember other servers had a get together for pictures to share. I dunno about other servers. But I think something more widespread like that would be nice.

I'm a roleplayer in a roleplaying server. I want more roleplayers. In fact, if it was up to me, I would ban anyone who does not roleplay in this game.

I detest the idea of people in MMOs who don't roleplay.

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Originally Posted by Super_Bee_Brian

I'm a roleplayer in a roleplaying server. I want more roleplayers. In fact, if it was up to me, I would ban anyone who does not roleplay in this game.

I detest the idea of people in MMOs who don't roleplay.

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I hope this is a joke. I really do...I cannot be held responsible for the things my fingers will type if this is not a joke.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

I hope this is a joke. I really do...I cannot be held responsible for the things my fingers will type if this is not a joke.

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There's nothing to worry about because it will NEVER be up to me. I'm simply saying that IF it was, I would make nonroleplaying against the rules of the game. Nothing irritates me more than catboys without lore-friendly catboy names

There's nothing to worry about because it's not really up to me.

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Originally Posted by Super_Bee_Brian

There's nothing to worry about because it will NEVER be up to me. I'm simply saying that IF it was, I would make nonroleplaying against the rules of the game. Nothing irritates me more than catboys without lore-friendly catboy names

There's nothing to worry about because it's not really up to me.

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Nothing irritates me more than terrible suggestions that would do more to fragment the player base. Thank goodness you aren't in charge of anything. You wanna know what's ironic about that statement about male Miqo'tes? You have a Roe without a Roe friendly name. See, two can play at this game. Either stay on track with the thread, or begone with your trolling. Troll in your own threads - don't come into mines and say ridiculous things.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

I dunno if Cactuar has one like it, or if anybody is even interested in doing FATES for this reason. I remember other servers had a get together for pictures to share. I dunno about other servers. But I think something more widespread like that would be nice.

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The issue with FATEs as a whole is that they are thoroughly uninteresting. Coupled with how often they are thrown in people’s faces during various content (e.g., Relic steps, Events, Diadem, Eureka), people have gotten sick of them — personally speaking, I am burnt out on them after Anima Aspected Crystal step and the Yokai event, despite both being “optional”. I know of others that still get triggered by them because of Atma farming in 2.x. The Stormblood changes (EXP bonus FATEs) hasn’t seemed to have done much; at least, not on Cactuar. I don’t see a lot of individuals doing FATEs in any of the areas, Stormblood included, that often.

That’s what I think is wrong with FATEs, anyways. Unengaging content that is overly used, in some instances with different coats of paint. The difference between them and the other Discords that you have brought up (PvP, Min iLvl content, etc.) is that those types of content can at least be made engaging in some shape or form. For me, personally, I don’t think there’s any way to make FATEs engaging.


As for what the community wants, it’s difficult to say or to even know where to start. I have some thoughts, but I’m not sure how productive they would actually be to put a voice to.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

Nothing irritates me more than terrible suggestions that would do more to fragment the player base. Thank goodness you aren't in charge of anything. You wanna know what's ironic about that statement about male Miqo'tes? You have a Roe without a Roe friendly name. See, two can play at this game. Either stay on track with the thread, or begone with your trolling. Troll in your own threads - don't come into mines and say ridiculous things.

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Alright. My apologies. I'm deleting what I originally said. I didn't mean offense.

FATEs just have no impact. IF we take GW2 which actually implemented them well, failing succeeding a dynamic event actually has an effect on the map/surrounding. Maybe a town will be taken over/liberated, maybe a path will be swarming with enemies instead of being guarded by allies. Hell a chain of those even affects the entrance to a dungeon! FATEs in this game have no consequence and give barely any reward of worthwhile importance, so why care?

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

The issue with FATEs as a whole is that they are thoroughly uninteresting. Coupled with how often they are thrown in people’s faces during various content (e.g., Relic steps, Events, Diadem, Eureka), people have gotten sick of them — personally speaking, I am burnt out on them after Anima Aspect Crystal step and the Yokai event, despite both being “optional”. I know of others that still get triggered thinking about Atma farming in 2.x. The Stormblood changes (EXP bonus FATEs) hasn’t seemed to have done much; at least, not on Cactuar. I don’t see a lot of individuals doing FATEs in any of the areas, Stormblood included, that often.

That’s what I think is wrong with FATEs, anyways. Unengaging content that is overly used, in some instances with different coats of paint. The difference between them and the other Discords that you have brought up (PvP, Min iLvl content, etc.) is that those types of content can at least be made engaging in some shape or form. For me, personally, I don’t think there’s any way to make FATEs engaging.

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That still holds true on Cactuar - nobody at present is interested in doing them. I got lucky when I asked the NN for some help and plenty of folks came to help me - it was the Cancer FATE in Costa de Sol. But you have a point - most FATEs just aren't that interesting and a lot of folks were burnt out by Atma. I still don't know how HoH is, but I imagine that most with alts or desire to challenge the highest floors are busy doing that, if they aren't crafting, raiding, or just hanging around Limsa. I do wish I had some insight on JPN servers (and was capable of reading Japanese) so I could gather some ideas myself and try something, at least on Cactuar, if not through Aether.

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Originally Posted by AxlStream

FATEs just have no impact. IF we take GW2 which actually implemented them well, failing succeeding a dynamic event actually has an effect on the map/surrounding. Maybe a town will be taken over/liberated, maybe a path will be swarming with enemies instead of being guarded by allies. Hell a chain of those even affects the entrance to a dungeon! FATEs in this game have no consequence and give barely any reward of worthwhile importance, so why care?

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Agreed for the most part. Most FATEs are uninteresting. I dunno if the devs would even consider spicing up the FATE system like that, because it runs the risk of boring players. If the level sync would go away, or be raised a little higher in ARR/HW areas to enable solo play, maybe...but we'd have to make a whole lot of noise, and while I may personally want this, I don't think there'd be enough support between here and reddit for it.

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Originally Posted by Super_Bee_Brian

Alright. My apologies. I'm deleting what I originally said. I didn't mean offense.

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You don't need to go that far. I disagree, I stated why I disagreed. If you stand by what you say, then stand by it. No need to apologize, either just move on, or do you. Trust me, you didn't offend me.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

That still holds true on Cactuar - nobody at present is interested in doing them.

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I know. I said as such. The only FATEs that people will call out on Cactuar are the large boss FATEs that give rewards; NN calls them out and the Hunt LS I’m in call them out. But, the turn-out always varies. The last time I did the Coeurlregina FATE, I think there was maybe 8 people there total. I don’t think many do Ixion or Foxy Lady that often on Cactuar anymore; I haven’t done them in a while because all the rewards it offered with the tokens I got within the first 2 weeks of the expansion.

A hug. Maybe two.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I know. I said as such. The only FATEs that people will call out on Cactuar are the large boss FATEs that give rewards; NN calls them out and the Hunt LS I’m in call them out. But, the turn-out always varies. The last time I did the Coeurlregina FATE, I think there was maybe 8 people there total. I don’t think many do Ixion or Foxy Lady that often on Cactuar anymore; I haven’t done them in a while because all the rewards it offered with the tokens I got within the first 2 weeks of the expansion.

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I'm not sure. The hunters are usually busy with the call outs, but I only see Ixion and Fox Lady maybe once every other week. They've been unusually quiet this weekend...well, quieter.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

You don't need to go that far. I disagree, I stated why I disagreed. If you stand by what you say, then stand by it. No need to apologize, either just move on, or do you. Trust me, you didn't offend me.

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Thanks.

My opinions often grate on people's nerves. lol

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Originally Posted by Super_Bee_Brian

Thanks.

My opinions often grate on people's nerves. lol

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I've gotten on 95% of the GD's nerves at one point or another - many on multiple occasions. Not a big deal. You're good.

Overall I think the community needs to come to terms with the fact that everyone player is different, and has their own desires for the game. I have seen so much fighting within the forums simply because ideas to do not line up and some take it as a personal attack. In short the community needs to relax.

To stop taking everything in the extreme and to get over itself. We're all here to have fun and play a game.

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Originally Posted by Awha

Overall I think the community needs to come to terms with the fact that everyone player is different, and has their own desires for the game. I have seen so much fighting within the forums simply because ideas to do not line up and some take it as a personal attack. In short the community needs to relax.

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I agree. I posted on a thread about Monk's One Ilm Punch where I stated that I thought it would be cool if it had knockback and maybe a stun like the move Bruce Lee did that it derives its name from. I've never had so many people so up in arms about a simple suggestion. It was rediculous. People seriously need to chill on here.

Also, people need to stop with the thread titles meant to rile others up (like a certain one about Character Creation having a race problem.) All it does is create friction and unnecessary drama.

I wanna try throwing out a thought and I wanna ask if something like this could work on individual servers. Obviously I cannot participate for obvious reasons, but, I want to attempt to contribute something positive to the community, even if it's just an idea that somebody runs with.

How about something like a holiday season gift exchange during the holiday season, or a secret Santa kind of thing? Or something of that nature.

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Originally Posted by Joven

I agree. I posted on a thread about Monk's One Ilm Punch where I stated that I thought it would be cool if it had knockback and maybe a stun like the move Bruce Lee did that it derives its name from. I've never had so many people so up in arms about a simple suggestion. It was rediculous. People seriously need to chill on here.

Also, people need to stop with the thread titles meant to rile others up (like a certain one about Character Creation having a race problem.) All it does is create friction and unnecessary drama.

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Probably because abilities like that may be fun for the user, however they aren't fun for other players. It gets incredibly tedious having to drag a pack of mobs to pick up the one sent off to Narnia.

Hmm... Oh well, was worth a shot. Thanks for all who came and commented. Appreciate it. Gonna go ahead and call this a dead thread. /bow

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Probably because abilities like that may be fun for the user, however they aren't fun for other players. It gets incredibly tedious having to drag a pack of mobs to pick up the one sent off to Narnia.

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Yea... I'm pretty sure that was a reason they took the knockback effect off fluid aura and deleted blank entirely.

There were skills that used to do that @joven and they could be used to grief pretty easily. Even so, that doesn't give anyone an excuse to shut ideas down so harshly.

As for community, I think it's important to remember that these forums are a very small bubble of many ffxiv communities. Things that people are up in arms about here are often not even a blip on the radar for communities like reddit or in-game communities. The parser argument for example. This is literally the ONLY place I've ever seen people so mad about it. Everywhere else is like, how do I see my dps? Cool, cool.

Although, the one thing I did see the collective FFXIV including the JP community get angry about was removing the Need button and I guess mentors are pretty well known as being awful across all western servers.

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Originally Posted by Joven

I would say a need to stop taking itself so seriously. I remember posting on one thread that was essentially a troll post, but wasn't done out of spite or with malicious intent and everyone on there was vying for the OP to be banned claiming they were "fostering a negative and toxic environment".

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In that sense I'd have to agree. At least at this point people are more willing to defend other points, logically, against fallacious attacks. But are even those mild-mannered, well-constructed expositions of common sense overly "serious"? I'd say not. I find only the particular snappish or fallacious posts obtuse.

I could even say that I wish the playerbase took itself more "seriously", but in a simple, "basic adherence to common decency" and/or personal responsibility sort of way -- as opposed to obligatory irony or combativeness, especially over imagined offense. But what could as easily say that'd be taking things less "seriously", at which point the word fails to do much to pin down desired ends. Oh well. At least we're up to 3k characters before we have to Edit any further clarification in.

That said (in reference to the references made by your other posts in this thread), I think people should be quick and strong to contest suggestions they find appalling. I just wish more of those reactions were more constructively -- both on the part of the reader and OP to factor, compile, and reiterate -- so that we could eventually move from agreeing upon what issues we truly have with the game as it stands to some eventual decent suggestions by which to try and solve them.

Almost any roots-up discussion on these forums withers and dies in its first couple pages, while dead-as-horse-dust factional discussions rarely leave the front page, and quickly exceed hundreds of posts. We're so eager to butt heads, yet rarely ever eager to collaborate.

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Originally Posted by Rockette

Yea... I'm pretty sure that was a reason they took the knockback effect off fluid aura

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You sure? I've just swapped to WHM and it says it deals a 15-yalm knockback. They took the damage off it though, so it's pretty much a useless spell except for the bind. But even that is useless outside of solo content (and in solo content it's marginal how useful it is). But yeah, hopefully in the next expansion, Fluid Aura gets the prune, or they make knockbacks and binds worth a darn.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

You sure? I've just swapped to WHM and it says it deals a 15-yalm knockback. They took the damage off it though, so it's pretty much a useless spell except for the bind. But even that is useless outside of solo content (and in solo content it's marginal how useful it is). But yeah, hopefully in the next expansion, Fluid Aura gets the prune, or they make knockbacks and binds worth a darn.

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Apologies, you're right. I knew they'd taken it out of being useful, just got the details wrong.

Honestly, it's still useful for pushing stubborn ranged mobs into the group like in Library.