People are bad at this game

[Hysterior]

There are people who also watch full walkthrough of games including ending before playing themselves. If they have fun that way, great but i will never watch a video before trying. Sorry.
I do like the pf above, create a practice party and learn hands on.

[Sibyll]

Giving the players absolutely no information about the boss encounters is like having an experienced chess player go against someone who doesn't know anything about chess and will not be told hardly anything about the nature of the game before the match. It's just a massacre.

Obviously people figured it out though, so it wasn't so cryptic that it was impossible. The designers are doing a pretty good job of building on previously taught mechanics and easing people into new mechanics. I don't see why people need to be provided any information prior to the fight. Where does this mentality that people are somehow entitled to just waltz into an encounter and down it on the first try? If it's going to be that damn easy then why even bother with the fight.

Furthermore, think it's a bit of a stretch to say they provide no information. They do a fairly good job of providing cues without spelling it out for you (buffs, line/reticle indicators for abilities). You use Twintania as an example, but what about all the other fights. Do you really think people wiped hundreds of times figuring out that you had to kill the razor plumes to protect the rocks on Garuda HM? How long do you think it took to figure out the mechanics for Caduceus? I mean the first 4 turns of coil are essentially basic training for turn 5. Are there any other encounters you can think of that were so cryptic as to require videos to complete?

You bring up a really good point, but I think it has more to do with people being too lazy to figure it out themselves than the information, or lack there of, provided about the encounters.

[Viridiana]

How many wipes do you think it took for people to figure out that having the guy with the fireball jump into the conflagration in the Twintania encounter would reset the counters on him?

Probably not as many as you think. The conflagration is just like Titan's gaol, only it's deadly if it lasts too long and you can purposely run into it. You don't take any damage when you're in the gaol, so it stands to reason you wouldn't take any damage in a conflagration, either. What better way to soak 13k damage? Heck, if I'm not mistaken, the first two strategies that were going around for conflags were "Sleep it" and "Have the tank run into it." You can't tell me, with those two already being figured out (and one of them quickly patched), that it took long to have someone run a fireball in there.

[Nakiamiie]

What is the problem, seriously?

It's because of people like that, with superior attitudes, that duty finder is bad.
It takes only two wipes for an abandon duty to be triggered.
Which, quite honestly, is a big downer since people don't try as hard if it doesn't come to pass in the hope that another abandon if brought up.

Instead of being haughty, why not try to explain the strategy to your fellow teammates?
Why not try 5~6 times before calling it a quit with the abandon duty feature?

Elitists are just as much bad players as n00b not listening to anyone.

If you can't handle people trying to learn and improve, then stick with your FC or hand pick your own party members.
Furthermore, I shouldn't have to stop playing and watch a video of the game I want to play to play it. Let me try and see the patterns 2~3 times and we'll definitely make it on the 4~5th (especially if you take the time to explain and encourage instead of insulting).

And you know what? I'll continue to decline abandon duty when there are new players learning, for their sake and to slap some sense into bad elitists.
I'll also continue to try my fights with the DF first, for the same reasons.

Cheers!

[bokchoykn]

In all honesty, FFXIV has the lowest average skill level amongst its players out of every online game I've ever played.

[Rufalus]

It's possible that a majority of players are actually good at the game, but due to unforgiving mechanics it only takes one bad player to cause a whole party to fail. Statistically it is very likely that a random party of 8 people will include at least one bad player, and that's enough for it to be a bad party. Bad tanking or a dead healer will end the game no matter how well other players perform.

[zlotjko]

ok here is (one of) possible solutions for this. By using the crystal and the mysterious power that it has given us, we are able to see memories of other people.
Well, make a menu from which we can choose to see/take part of a battle that gives no loot or does not progress the story. A training mod if you will. Also make a parser in that training mode so that we can see if we are doing ok or not.
The best is to program the bots/players in a way they don't receive damage (only tanks and players get damage). Also the dps is evenly distributed over the all party memebers (not including the player) and it is the minimum for clearing the content.

That way if the players fails his dps check, he knows he is to blame. If he doesn't heal the tank, he is to blame (perfect scenario just healing the tank and raid wide dmg). And if the players is a tank, he can focus on mechanics of the fight. Also more indicators about the fight in general.
And that should be a way to do it. Not the only way, hey maybe not even the best way, but a way that will help out new players, or players that want to practice a fight on a new role without frustrating other players/friends.

[ImDingDing]

Most people are BAD at ANY games (and their study/jobs/sex, etc...), the only difference is other games may have a rank system to fliter out players with diff skill lv. However this do require a huge huge size of player pool to do so. Or you will have a thread complain about the forever waiting time as a DPS in DF in the near future.

[kayuwoody]

In all honesty, FFXIV has the lowest average skill level amongst its players out of every online game I've ever played.

You sure that isn't rose tinted glasses you're looking through? Consider:

• Most other MMOs also didn't have unforgiving mechanics in fights that depended on players twitch skills when the game's own netcode was/is horrible in the first place (Twisters, plumes, landslide).
• The ease in which you can get into raids with DF and PF also means you're meeting more random people, which naturally increases your chances of meeting bad players.
• Most MMOs to do end game content you pretty much needed to get into static groups. Static groups of course will display better skill and synergy.
• There's a lot of hand-holding in the game. Which may allow some people to actually hit 50 and gear up a lot more than their actual skill level.
• Odd game mechanics. I've come across people who did not realise to dodge AoE you needed to be out of the AoE animation before the cast bar finishes and had nothing to do with the animation itself. They were not actually bad players, it's just not an intuitive design. Once they were enlightened to that fact, their performance improved immensely.

All this just makes it more obvious, and I think not necessarily means that other MMOs had better skilled players.

[ColorOfSakura]

Square also has a problem with putting low item level in endgame dungeons too. Example: Haukke Manor (Hard) is listed as iLvl 48. You really can't complete it with iLvl 48 unless your DPSes are just completely and totally on their best game ever.

Like, my friend and I ran it last night (I'm iLvl 55 WHM and he's iLvl 62 PLD) and wiped six times against Halicarnassus because our two DPSes were running lower level gear and just couldn't output enough damage to down the adds quickly enough.

I'm all about helping new players out, but I think Hard Mode dungeons and certain other endgame content should probably have higher iLvl restrictions in place, because otherwise its just frustrating to run things. Not because the players are terrible (some are, but most aren't), but because the mechanics can just be unforgiving for people who don't have decent gear.