The number of bad players are rising!

[xenosuke1]

This isn't exactly practical advice, considering most of this game is instanced content that needs a party to get through. As nice as it would be to have a static group of friends that will play with you all the time, most of us don't have that and if we followed these rules we wouldn't really have anything to do.

then u have no right to complain and wail about noobs, because like i said u are bringin those probs on yourselves, with playin with randoms, and im not talkn bout the instanced stuff tht u have to do for like story completion and whatnot

[Velo_Vandore]

I think a casual / hardcore checkbox on the duty finder would help a lot. Party finder has this, but not many people check the party finder unless doing top tier stuff I think. In my experience at least - I waited over 3 hours for a "slow and easy", "newcomers welcome" run of Pharos (as a healer), with only one person showing interest".

The idea would be:

Set Hardcore only if you're on a repeat run / speedrun for loot or tomes, and want to avoid noobs / delays.

Set Casual only if you're on the first run or still getting the hang of tactics. Or if you just prefer not to speedrun and love to help people.

Set Both if you're experienced enough that you can keep up with the best of them, but you're OK to slow down and help others out.

Sure someone can still hit hardcore when they're not, but then the rage they encounter from other players will be more justified. People can hit casual just to get into a run quicker and still rage at noobs, but again telling them where to go or vote kicking would be justified.

[Odett]

I think one of the main reasons for people that don't play their class as intended is that they try to play this MMO like they would play others. Healers in this game aren't full healing machines and their DPS is actually not bad at all, and Tanks are supposed to always be rotating cooldowns, not "oh look I'm almost dead, better pop Rampart". But I think that the two biggest problems are the difficulty curve of and its effect on inexperienced players.

Pre-50 and even the majority of lv 50 dungeons don't really offer a challenge. Many tanks don't learn how to correctly cycle between cooldowns because WHMs/SCHs are just panic healing every time their HP goes under 95%, and many healers resort to panic/full time healing because tanks are not mitigating correctly; it's a vicious cycle. Then we have DPS players who either refuse to or do not know their correct rotation because bad player mentality is "it doesn't matter as long as we get the kill". Good DPS is not a nice thing you do for a group, it's your job.Then there are also FATEs, which teach you absolutely nothing about your class. This game offers no worthwhile challenge until Tanks do Garuda HM and DPS/Healers do Titan HM, and this too is now void with the Echo buff.

I remember the first time I did Titan HM in 2.0, it kicked my ass and it felt GREAT. I studied the fight and spent an entire day making PF groups that would wipe endlessly until I finally made one that got the kill. Seeing that Stardust Rod on my back made me giddy for hours. A lot of new players used to complain about Titan HM being a roadblock, but that's exactly what it's supposed to be, because back then, when players didn't have such good gear, you either got a good grasp on your DPS rotation or you'd have a hell of a time burning the heart.

Now we have much better gear and the Echo buff. The main problem I see with the Echo buff is that it once again encourages mediocrity. Bad players don't need to get better because they do the same damage with 40% Echo that a good or even decent group does WITHOUT Echo (I'm not even exaggerating, I've been doing Titan HM this week countless times to help my friend farm for his Titan staff). The problem with this is that an endgame fight that originally made you reevaluate the way you play is now "smash your head repeatedly until you get the win with a 50% handicap". Now you can do HM Primals without learning the fights, and then unlock EX Primals (good luck with that). I understand that a lot of players just want to see content and some do not feel like learning a fight, but the problem with this is that this is a team game. If this were a single player game, you could play however you wanted because it's not affecting anyone. But when you play with people, and you are not doing your best, then you are holding everyone back and affecting the whole group.

I understand the point of the Echo, but I see it as doing more harm to the community than good. If you cannot beat the simpler fight without the Echo, then you cannot expect to perform adequately on the harder fight that follows.

[Velo_Vandore]

<snip>

I think what you're saying is true, but we have to be realistic. Some players will never reach a level of familiarity with their role and skills to be able to beat something like Titan HM at it's maximum difficulty. That's not to say that each of these players is not capable of learning, but simply that they may not find the tactics as easy to pick up as others, and may not have time to, or care to make time to achieve the goal. Remember this IS a game and that it's not a crime if someone chooses not to take it very seriously, and research their job (at the same time of course it's absolutely fine to take the game very seriously and strive to play your job very well, if that satisfies you).

So with that in mind, you may say to these more casual players - well then, don't expect to play endgame, and slow everyone else down. I partly agree, but then what should these players do instead when they hit level 50? Sure there are other jobs to level, crafting, achievements or whatever, but that doesn't mean people want to do these things, and again there's nothing wrong with that. You can't presume just because content exists that people want to do all of it. Their interests are their interests. At the time patch 2.2 was released there will have been many players hanging around at the pre-coil stage. In fact I know personally of a friend who reached this point and decided they couldn't be bothered with coil - they un-subbed and played other games in the meantime while waiting for more content to be patched in.

So if you start thinking outside of your own motives to play and your own lifestyle, then you can start to understand the developers choices. The developer want's to get these subs back in, and so should we all, as this game needs a lot of subs to fuel future development. Now a lot of players were ready for the 2.2 content, whether casuals, pre-coil waiting for more casual content, or hardcore players who finished turn 5 wanting more hardcore content. I'm guessing the developers simply didn't have time to make separate content for casual and hardcore players in time for the patch, which explains why they opt instead to nerf. The devs only need to concentrate on developing new hardcore content, and the old hardcore content (hm / ex primals and coil) is recycled for more casual players using echo buff. This keeps content available / accessible for more players. Now at first I HATED the idea of echo buff, but now I understand the tradeoff being made I think it does make some sense, and I'm just glad the option at least to remove the echo buff exists

So basically there's no point trying to persuade people to take the game / their role more seriously. It's better to wake up and realize the pro-gamers only world doesn't exist and never will. If you're looking for that stick to your hardcore FC ad forgo the duty roulette bonuses / convenience of duty finder.

Fact is that many players wanna have the convenience of tomes on tap through the duty finder instead of having to wait and pre-form a group, but they are ignorant to the fact that the world isn't theirs and different types of people do exist. Then hurtful comments fly about to scare casual players from the duty finder - that's just not fair, and completely un-constructive unless you want to scare away casual players from the game and hinder it's success / future development overall.

If you wanna play the duty finder you have to be patient with less skilled players, because being rude to them is firstly just rude, and secondly against the games rules so can get you suspended / banned. If you don't wanna deal with less skilled players, then you have to be patient and form a pre-formed with your FC, or party finder, or LS's (yes even for tome farming). Bottom line is, whichever way you look at it you just have to be more patient, cause people don't want to and don't have to sing to your tune, do their homework on the game, buck their gaming ideas up, or whatever other nonsense. I'm afraid you have to just deal with it.

Disclaimer: Odett, I'm not aiming all of the above comments in last paragraph at you personally. I have no idea how you deal with slow / unskilled players on a duty finder run. For all I know you're very polite and helpful

[ispano]

If you wanna play the duty finder you have to be patient with less skilled players, because being rude to them is firstly just rude, and secondly against the games rules so can get you suspended / banned. If you don't wanna deal with less skilled players, then you have to be patient and form a pre-formed with your FC, or party finder, or LS's (yes even for tome farming). Bottom line is, whichever way you look at it these people just have to be more patient, cause people don't want to and don't have to sing to their tune, do their homework on the game, buck their gaming ideas up, or whatever other nonsense. I'm afraid they have to just deal with it.

The only real problem with this is that it's almost always one sided. Almost always. The skilled players have to slow down to the level of those who don't take the game as seriously. But if those same people are asked to pick it up just a little, rage ensues. Double standard if you will. "You have to come down to our level, but we won't budge at all for the sake of the group."

[Lunavi]

I think a casual / hardcore checkbox on the duty finder would help a lot. Party finder has this, but not many people check the party finder unless doing top tier stuff I think. In my experience at least - I waited over 3 hours for a "slow and easy", "newcomers welcome" run of Pharos (as a healer), with only one person showing interest".

The idea would be:

Set Hardcore only if you're on a repeat run / speedrun for loot or tomes, and want to avoid noobs / delays.

Set Casual only if you're on the first run or still getting the hang of tactics. Or if you just prefer not to speedrun and love to help people.

Set Both if you're experienced enough that you can keep up with the best of them, but you're OK to slow down and help others out.

Sure someone can still hit hardcore when they're not, but then the rage they encounter from other players will be more justified. People can hit casual just to get into a run quicker and still rage at noobs, but again telling them where to go or vote kicking would be justified.

Yeah, and guess which button all the scrubs will press? I do not think it is the one that says it will put them with people at their own level...

[Velo_Vandore]

The only real problem with this is that it's almost always one sided. Almost always. The skilled players have to slow down to the level of those who don't take the game as seriously. But if those same people are asked to pick it up just a little, rage ensues. Double standard if you will. "You have to come down to our level, but we won't budge at all for the sake of the group."

Hmm... fair point, but I don't see it that way. There's no easy /normal / hard mode in the game. You wouldn't expect every player to take on hard more in a single player game. For those players who just play games on easy and normal mode are you really saying they can't play this game or aren't welcome? I can't get behind that :/

That said I agree that to some extent if a player is exceptionally bad they may wanna stay off duty finder and get some friends to run with, but I'm talking more about the common situation where people are insulted for not speedrunning / skipping scenes / performing excellently in general.

edit: what i mean is that people are being called bad players because they aren't excellent players. The average player doing normal mode in a single player game wouldn't research tactics, and watch guides before hand to ensure success. You have to expect some failures if you're playing with the average joe on duty finder. He shouldn't need to step his game up just because he messed up a few times on a first attempt and cause the duty to take longer.

[Lucke]

I wish SE would have a reputation system for players because right now, there is no incentive to be good because when you do DF, the chances of you meeting that person again is nil. Anonymity is the enemy. Have an up/down vote system.

It's easy! At the end of a dungeon, you can give each player an up vote if they were awesome, a down vote if they sucked or had a bad attitude, or abstain if you can't be bothered. People of similar rep will be grouped together: good players will not see people with lots of down votes, and down votes won't hinder the experience of people with lots of up votes.

People are gonna say it can be exploited, but these are the same people that claim the sky is falling each time something cool is added. I doubt it will be exploited to a level these people are worried about.

[Velo_Vandore]

Yeah, and guess which button all the scrubs will press? I do not think it is the one that says it will put them with people at their own level...

Yeah some people won't classify themselves as casual but still pull the group down, just like in party finder when a less than excellent player tries to get a free ride in an experienced only group. All I can say is that at least the occurrences would be less frequent, you'd be justified in kicking the scrubs, and the scrubs who know it can stay out of hardcore runs as much as possible. I just think it could help, not solve the issue 100%.

[MrLeonheart]

Set Hardcore only if you're on a repeat run / speedrun for loot or tomes, and want to avoid noobs / delays.

Set Casual only if you're on the first run or still getting the hang of tactics. Or if you just prefer not to speedrun and love to help people.

Set Both if you're experienced enough that you can keep up with the best of them, but you're OK to slow down and help others out.

Ah yes, segregating the community is definitely the answer. After all, why should you, the Golden God-Kings of Eorzea be forced into contact with the disgusting unwashed casual masses? What benefit could possibly be derived from such a loathsome scenario?