Is anyone else bothered by the lack of incentive for mediocre players to improve?

[Yenn]

You're all missing the point, which is that giving out free loot to bad players makes it impossible to identify skilled players, as you can in other games.

Guess how hard it is to replace someone for BC?
I have no way to know whether the Bard in i90 gear obtained it from whacking a loot pinata, or actually worked for it, without wasting time bringing them to Twintania.
Even then, in order to bring them to Twintania, I have to wait for them to clear Turn 1 to 4 with some random group. After that, it wastes my entire group's time if they suck, instead of just mine.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

You're all missing the point, which is that giving out free loot to bad players makes it impossible to identify skilled players, as you can in other games.

I'm going to counter this by saying that people still have to work for the tomes to get that gear. And I don't recall any of the original sources of tomes to be all that easy when you didn't already have gear from said sources, or were just barely meeting the minimums. This is of course under the ideal model that people aren't abusing the goodwill/efforts of other players to be carried through content in order to grind tomes. Sure it's a lot easier now to get tomes, yes, but let me raise another point: Assuming there was a loot system like WOW (never played, only using the info you've provided me), how do I know the person with "heroic" gear actually earned it? How do I know he didn't have friends carry him to get it? Or perhaps cheated for it (however possible or not that may be)?

The flaw in your argument, Yenn, is that you assume all players (insert your "99%" comment here) = bad. And that all these bad players can just roll over and get good gear. That simply is not true. Yes, it's unfortunate that you get stuck with people who turn out not to be as good as their gear would suggest, but then, you're a bit at fault for wanting to assume they're good based on gear alone. Gear doesn't = skill, and I believe we at least agree on that. But gear locks or higher tiers/requirements really don't solve the problem either.

[Yenn]

I'm going to counter this by saying that people still have to work for the tomes to get that gear. And I don't recall any of the original sources of tomes to be all that easy when you didn't already have gear from said sources, or were just barely meeting the minimums. This is of course under the ideal model that people aren't abusing the goodwill/efforts of other players to be carried through content in order to grind tomes. Sure it's a lot easier now to get tomes, yes, but let me raise another point: Assuming there was a loot system like WOW (never played, only using the info you've provided me), how do I know the person with "heroic" gear actually earned it? How do I know he didn't have friends carry him to get it? Or perhaps cheated for it (however possible or not that may be)?

The flaw in your argument, Yenn, is that you assume all players (insert your "99%" comment here) = bad. And that all these bad players can just roll over and get good gear. That simply is not true. Yes, it's unfortunate that you get stuck with people who turn out not to be as good as their gear would suggest, but then, you're a bit at fault for wanting to assume they're good based on gear alone. Gear doesn't = skill, and I believe we at least agree on that. But gear locks or higher tiers/requirements really don't solve the problem either.

Everyone has to work for their gear, but the problem I'm pointing to is that they don't have to improve to get better gear. They just have to go through the motions of running Wanderer's Palace or something equally trivial each week.
It's really just grunt work, with no sort of skill involved. At this point in the game, even the entry level dungeons are easy, because there are enough geared people running it for tomes or random duties.

In WoW, each dungeon had three difficulty levels: looking for raid, normal, and heroic. The looking for raid dungeons are done via duty finder, every encounter is extremely watered down, and it gives lower level versions of gear. The heroic versions have extra mechanics and are very tightly tuned (similar to Twintania, but a bit harder), and give higher level versions of gear. Players can use LFR to learn the encounters and get a slight gear advantage for normals. Groups that find the normal encounters too easy can do heroic. The heroic versions are too tightly tuned to carry anyone through them, so there's little risk of someone having a lot of heroic gear without deserving it.

To put 'everyone is bad' into perspective, I've been trying to get my tank alt a new ring. My score on Ultima is 6/30. My score in Garuda is 0/11. The Garudas were all party finders with completely different people, and 4/30 of the Ultima wins were party finders.
There is nothing mechnically challenging about either of these encounters. In the case of the Garudas, most of the group were requiring i80 or higher (i.e. 15 levels higher than intended), and they often could not beat her enrage, let alone kill her.
Every other player in my BC group flat out refuse to do anything unless at least four of us are in a group to carry, because they have the exact same experiences.

Currently, I have absolutely no way to tell if someone is good or bad. It's impossible for me to form groups efficiently with the current state of gear.
I can form a group of i80+ players, go into a duty, find out that 3/7 of them suck, and then have the entire group disband on me because of it.
Gear should be a reward for playing well, and new gear should be something you work to improve yourself to attain.

[snakey77]

You're all missing the point, which is that giving out free loot to bad players makes it impossible to identify skilled players, as you can in other games.

Guess how hard it is to replace someone for BC?
I have no way to know whether the Bard in i90 gear obtained it from whacking a loot pinata, or actually worked for it, without wasting time bringing them to Twintania.
Even then, in order to bring them to Twintania, I have to wait for them to clear Turn 1 to 4 with some random group. After that, it wastes my entire group's time if they suck, instead of just mine.

heres an idea for you and your kind you know the ones parser perfectionist hero harassing type start a big fc and run all your hero content and etc together and then you won't have anything to complain about!!! and you can stay right a way from communicating with the so called BAD PLAYERS in fact i think they will welcome it!!!

[Lyrro]

You're all missing the point, which is that giving out free loot to bad players makes it impossible to identify skilled players, as you can in other games.

It's probably not that they're missing the point, so much as that these are the guys who this thread is talking about. Anyone who would make the argument that someone getting the same reward as you after putting in less than a fraction of the work as you isn't a bad thing is obviously not the guy putting in the work. Plain fact is, this game is flawed from the ground up, giving people fates as an easy way to jump to 50 without having to do any real practice for their role, then allowing them to jump straight into a dungeon which drops i80 gear while letting you farm for i70 gear. Then of course you have coil t2 which has been made infinitely easier by the enrage method, which I have had the "pleasure" of trying and, having done t2 the way that actually requires some mental capacity since coil was released, can honestly say that t2 enrage method is complete bull and caters to the most severely impaired players.

The whole arguement I keep seeing people make about how you should "just worry about yourself" and "the way others play doesn't affect you" are, yet again, clearly the people the OP was talking about. You can make the arguement all you want that other people don't affect you, but lets see you try to do titan ex with a pug who's wearing i90 gear but still can't hold aggro or, as I've had the chance to witness, tanks Garuda hard while standing in two twisters. Not one, he actually pulled her to the point where two of the twisters were overlapping and tried to tank her there despite being told over and over to get out of the aoes. He died, then we all died, and people still want to tell me that "the way they play doesn't affect you".

[Inflorescence]

It's probably not that they're missing the point, so much as that these are the guys who this thread is talking about. Anyone who would make the argument that someone getting the same reward as you after putting in less than a fraction of the work as you isn't a bad thing is obviously not the guy putting in the work.

Edellis' post is very relevant to this. Anyone that has their equipment got it the legitimate way; by playing the game. Thank you, untradeable equipment. They didn't put "less work" into it than you. They probably did take the game a lot less seriously than you do.

Plain fact is, this game is flawed from the ground up, giving people fates as an easy way to jump to 50 without having to do any real practice for their role, then allowing them to jump straight into a dungeon which drops i80 gear while letting you farm for i70 gear.

This is not what a Fact is. I'm not pointing it out to be the Grammar Police, but because this philosophy is a huge problem in the game on the forums. Your beliefs about how seriously players should take this game are creating an atmosphere of hostility, rather than enjoyment, which is making everyone suffer. And your entitlement about it ("Plain fact is...") is degrading and unnecessary.

The whole arguement I keep seeing people make about how you should "just worry about yourself" and "the way others play doesn't affect you" are, yet again, clearly the people the OP was talking about. You can make the arguement all you want that other people don't affect you, but lets see you try to do titan ex with a pug who's wearing i90 gear but still can't hold aggro or, as I've had the chance to witness, tanks Garuda hard while standing in two twisters. Not one, he actually pulled her to the point where two of the twisters were overlapping and tried to tank her there despite being told over and over to get out of the aoes. He died, then we all died, and people still want to tell me that "the way they play doesn't affect you".

As far as I know, nobody has claimed that DF doesn't affect you. Taking less personal offense to someone playing their character in a less efficient manner is not saying "let it go, the way they play doesn't affect you." It's saying, "You have three options in these situations: 1.) You could be a leader and a role model, 2.) You can ignore it and play the cards you're dealt, or 3.) You could be a jerk about it."

[Lyrro]

Edellis' post
This is not what a Fact is. I'm not pointing it out to be the Grammar Police, but because this philosophy is a huge problem in the game on the forums. Your beliefs about how seriously players should take this game are creating an atmosphere of hostility, rather than enjoyment, which is making everyone suffer. And your entitlement about it ("Plain fact is...") is degrading and unnecessary.


As far as I know, nobody has claimed that DF doesn't affect you. Taking less personal offense to someone playing their character in a less efficient manner is not saying "let it go, the way they play doesn't affect you." It's saying, "You have three options in these situations: 1.) You could be a leader and a role model, 2.) You can ignore it and play the cards you're dealt, or 3.) You could be a jerk about it."

Fact:a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true:

True: fates can be run starting at lvl 1 and can be ground all the way to lvl 50.
True: starting at lvl 50 you can go straight into ct to farm i80, i70, and myth tomes for i90 gear.
True: most fate farm areas for people grinding to 50 are done in decent numbered zergs and thus require little effort on the part of those grinding.
True: it's very rare for me to see a ct run where people aren't killing skeletons right beside bone dragon, dropping comets on iron giant or behemoth, or ignoring napalms despite at least one person per trip giving instruction before each fight. Personal experiences vary, but given that I've done well over 100 ct runs at this point, I'm going to go with the idea that experience doesn't lie.

So far I've yet to see where what I stated ceases to be a fact. My beliefs on how players at lvl 50 should know at least enough about their jobs to do their jobs does not affect the facts listed above. In regards to your idea of my "getting insulted" by people who don't play as well as I do. I'm not insulted by those people, I'm that guy who joins random titan hard runs with my zenith weapons to help random pugs. I couldn't care less about people not knowing the game as well as I do or not being as good as I am. I get agitated by people who run around in i90 gear and getting the party wiped for the fourth time (not choosing a random number, I've seen in plenty of times) by making the exact same simple mistake because they're so used to not having to try that they just don't want to, or they're so used to not having to try that when they have to they don't know how to. The vast majority of my ct runs have resulted in my alliance sitting in front of KB trying to convince at least one tank to MT or OT because none of the tanks can, or none of them want to because it's so much easier to stand by the tower and do nothing. This of course just being another fun example.

If you've actually read all the posts, btw, instead of just skipping to the last one and reading it then posting, you'd notice that several people have actually made the comment "the way they play doesn't affect you", though their wording may vary somewhat.