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

[Spif]

Everytime I see posts like these, i see pathetic cries for attention. OP, when you claimed you can't tell whether a player is good or bad from his/her gears, what you truly meant was, other players can't tell whether you are a good or bad player from your gears. Yea, you passed some rots, I applaud you for your amazing skills. There's a simple solution to your problem really, make 7 like-minded friends and play together.

[Pinworms]

You can't judge someone by their gear. Making 3 different tiers of raids and gear is pretty lame as well - it won't fix anything except - epeen much? Gear in this game doesn't make you good. The ability to dodge and do sustained dd or burst dd where needed does. Everyone's doesn't have to break dps records to be "good".

There are bad players in every game. By us all havering the same gear pretty much it equalizes us, and that's where the skill comes in - not gear. Your elite right so you should know that.

[Miburo]

This is a bad comparison. Because this is a video game, EVERYONE is able to reach maximum performance on their character. It's your capabilities irl that sets your character back, being lack of focus, lack of learning, or whatever. So a better comparison would be that "If I benched 1 ton and got a reward but then they lowered the requirements so another person benched 1/2 a ton and got the same reward." This is how the game operates, it nerfs dungeons so that players, who are personally unable to complete a dungeon, are now able to be on par with the people who are capable.

My analogy is fine. The point was that people taking what is perceived to be easier route to achieve the same reward doesn't have any bearing on my own personal achievement. You're also addressing something slightly different than what the OP was addressing there. Though, the same reasoning still applies. Even if the rewards are the same, the accomplishments aren't. If the accomplishment is what matters to me, then my accomplishment is still something I can be proud of. Someone getting the same reward for a lesser accomplishment is irrelevant, unless you care more about being a special snowflake by having rare video game clothing than the feats you've accomplished.

And who cares if people "don't have an incentive to improve"? It's BS anyway because there still is an incentive, that being clearing the newest most difficult encounters. But if people are content with waiting months to do something, then there isn't anything at all wrong with that. Odin forbid people have different goals in a video game, right? It's not like making gear even more difficult to get would make people who obviously don't care about getting gear work harder at getting it...


Edit: And dudes above are also right. Especially in this game. There is an armory system where I can gear up an alt in full allagan and EM primal drops that I have no clue how to play using my main. It doesn't matter how hard you make obtaining that gear, it's entirely possible I can still get gear for a job I blow at. Unless you also want to further nerf or get rid of the armory system too, despite it being arguably one of the most redeeming qualities of the game. It's also entirely possible to be good at some encounters, but not others. I know people that can one-shot every turn in coil, yet the blow hard at titan. Oh, and don't forget RNG drops making it possible to clear every turn of coil weekly for months and never see drops for your class, so even if you're the best player ever your gear wouldn't show it. Or people could be awesome at multiple classes, but because of weekly lockouts and myth caps they have no way of gearing up all those classes with the best gear. Way too many variables to ever be able to just look at a guy and tell if he's going to be good or not that have nothing to do with ease of acquiring gear.

[Inflorescence]

I don't know if it's just this game or the MMO community in general (never seriously played WoW. Played a lot of Ragnarok Online, though! Man, that game was awesome...), but this weird mentality is being spawned here that I've never seen anywhere else.

"Lack of incentive" to improve?
"Wasting everyone's time?"
"Responsibility?"

What is this? High school? College? A job? It's... a game. And I don't mean that in the "It's just a game, go outside, dude" kind of way. I mean it in a...

-You have no responsibility to the community, whether teaching or learning
-You're deciding what to do with your time, whether you can afford to play this game or not
-If you don't play today, you will be at the same place tomorrow
-Most importantly, you play this game knowing of all of these conditions

...kind of way.


Are MMOs making us forget or ignore how to interact with other humans, despite how hard many of us have fought in video games' defense against that argument?

[Delorean]

Maybe they were a Warrior. Maybe they didn't have Provoke. Because they didn't want to play Gladiator. Maybe they didn't know what "Taunt" was or what Provoke does.

You don't even need Provoke until Coil/Extreme Primals anyway.

But it's the same in every game, what can you do about it? You can't really expect new players to get any better at playing a game in a community that won't even give them a chance to play the game that they want them to get better at playing.

It's not like they even have a training simulation to practice mechanics with or anything.

[Viridiana]

yes you can get a full set by its by far the optimal set. The optimal set is a mix of myth gear and coil gear and some of the primal ex gear. So its safe to say getting Best in Slot for every slot is the reward for good players. the not so god players can still earn some gear over time.

Varies by class. BRD wears very little BC gear. Think our BiS list has, like, 3 pieces?

[SarcasmMisser]

BiS for bard is debatable depending on the acc caps you are going for, it can have more than 3. People like to ignore t5 but the weapons are still bis so never forget them.

[Merlinian]

Fact is, it is hard to learn encounters in this game, or any MMO. All PF finder parties last night on my server for T1-4 had some phrase like "dont suck, three strikes and you are out, no newcomers" and so on. Learning parties are few.

I understand the frustration, you have limited time to play, undergeared or cluless people waste your time. Been there, done that, when i farmed Garuda HM back in November with my first char, i used to count the CS viewers, three or more was a wipe, 100% predictive accuracy.

I personally do not care anymore as my hardcore raiding days are long gone, but some gear to distinguish the true raiders from the grunt grinders. This is a socialist game, in the end when it is all done, we are all the same. But not really....

[Katchii]

I somewhat agree with the OP, but people have to learn from somewhere.

Watching videos and reading strategies only gets anyone so far. People actually have to do it themselves to really get an eye for it and gain experience. Knowing what to do, and actually doing it are completely different things. Look at the olympics, how many people do you see there that fail? Gymnasts and Figure Skaters are easy to pick on here. How many times have we seen a skater fall? a gymnast completely miss a vault? Plenty, and they sure as hell know what to do.

People have to be willing to teach (or at least deal with a few oopses) to get through some of the more difficult content. I haven't even set foot in the primal extreme parties because I'm kind of intimidated by everyone saying "don't suck." I know I don't suck, but I also have little to no experience in the fights so I know I'm going to fail a few times.

[illuminapanic]

My analogy is fine. The point was that people taking what is perceived to be easier route to achieve the same reward doesn't have any bearing on my own personal achievement. You're also addressing something slightly different than what the OP was addressing there. Though, the same reasoning still applies. Even if the rewards are the same, the accomplishments aren't. If the accomplishment is what matters to me, then my accomplishment is still something I can be proud of. Someone getting the same reward for a lesser accomplishment is irrelevant, unless you care more about being a special snowflake by having rare video game clothing than the feats you've accomplished.

And who cares if people "don't have an incentive to improve"? It's BS anyway because there still is an incentive, that being clearing the newest most difficult encounters. But if people are content with waiting months to do something, then there isn't anything at all wrong with that. Odin forbid people have different goals in a video game, right? It's not like making gear even more difficult to get would make people who obviously don't care about getting gear work harder at getting it...


Edit: And dudes above are also right. Especially in this game. There is an armory system where I can gear up an alt in full allagan and EM primal drops that I have no clue how to play using my main. It doesn't matter how hard you make obtaining that gear, it's entirely possible I can still get gear for a job I blow at. Unless you also want to further nerf or get rid of the armory system too, despite it being arguably one of the most redeeming qualities of the game. It's also entirely possible to be good at some encounters, but not others. I know people that can one-shot every turn in coil, yet the blow hard at titan. Oh, and don't forget RNG drops making it possible to clear every turn of coil weekly for months and never see drops for your class, so even if you're the best player ever your gear wouldn't show it. Or people could be awesome at multiple classes, but because of weekly lockouts and myth caps they have no way of gearing up all those classes with the best gear. Way too many variables to ever be able to just look at a guy and tell if he's going to be good or not that have nothing to do with ease of acquiring gear.

If you read my post fully, I can quote in my post where I mentioned that I do not care about people getting loot and only caring that people don't take the time to get better at dungeons or at their class. And there is no incentive to clear new content if you already refused to clear old content when it was buffed. Why try to get better at new content when it will just be nerfed to be easy mode for you? All new content, as the interviews have already stated, will be just as hard. Sure, maybe people will try them just because they are released but if its too hard for them, they will give up and just wait until the nerf.

I don't know if it's just this game or the MMO community in general (never seriously played WoW. Played a lot of Ragnarok Online, though! Man, that game was awesome...), but this weird mentality is being spawned here that I've never seen anywhere else.

"Lack of incentive" to improve?
"Wasting everyone's time?"
"Responsibility?"

What is this? High school? College? A job? It's... a game. And I don't mean that in the "It's just a game, go outside, dude" kind of way. I mean it in a...

-You have no responsibility to the community, whether teaching or learning
-You're deciding what to do with your time, whether you can afford to play this game or not
-If you don't play today, you will be at the same place tomorrow
-Most importantly, you play this game knowing of all of these conditions

...kind of way.


Are MMOs making us forget or ignore how to interact with other humans, despite how hard many of us have fought in video games' defense against that argument?

See the thing is, this is an MMO. You can't progress anywhere in this game without other people. Your train of thought seems selfish to me and sounds like the people who say "I pay for my sub so I do whatever I want." Well if that was the case, then don't shout for groups to help you, don't use party finders, and don't use dungeon finders. With the exclusion of overgeared players carrying others, EVERYBODY needs to do their part while doing 4/8/24 man content. This is why the fail rate for dungeon finder's is at 75% or maybe even higher for the common dungeons people are complaining about. People que into them expecting to be carried since they don't take the time to play their class efficiently to help the other people that are there. And if the mentality was "Well I don't have a responsibility for others", then no one would even tell you what you are doing wrong and thus leads to failure. Why even have these features at all if everyone just thinks of themselves. They have console games for solo play that you can pay for.

Watching videos and reading strategies only gets anyone so far. People actually have to do it themselves to really get an eye for it and gain experience. Knowing what to do, and actually doing it are completely different things. Look at the olympics, how many people do you see there that fail? Gymnasts and Figure Skaters are easy to pick on here. How many times have we seen a skater fall? a gymnast completely miss a vault? Plenty, and they sure as hell know what to do.

Except, they made it to the Olympics because they are skilled at what they do. Forgive me if I'm wrong, since I don't follow the Olympics much but I think you have to be trials and judges to be in the Olympics? It isn't a "I think I'm good enough so I will be in the Olympics" type of deal. If it is then I'm mistaken.

Regardless, in the same thought, yes we all can make mistakes and even the most skilled players in video games can and will make mistakes. The point is not that people make these mistakes but it's that some people choose not to learn from theirs, choose not to improve, or choose not to take advice from others. It cripples the community.