Who is gonna raid now with the iLvl 110 gear handed to people??

[Velhart]

Every game I have played was for the experience had and the enjoyment of said game. The journey is as important as the destination.

Experience can only be enjoyed but so much. It eventually goes to wanting to set new goals for yourself, which gearing up is the common next goal.

Then you must have hated 2.0 to 2.1, where philosophy rained from the sky and myth cap was raised. i90 was much easier to obtain and there was no drastically better alternatives. This is the patch cycle, and it isn't like this was sprung on people last minute. It makes me wonder why the raiding community bothers to sub for more than a month at a time and only when a new raid patch gets released.

People did not get ilvl90 gear no where near the speed that people are getting ilvl110 now. Myth was still capped regardless of the cap increasing. ilvl100 gear accumulated over 2.2 can now be upgraded to ilvl110 in a very short time due to the hunts. There are already reports of people getting 6-7 Sands of Time and the patch is only little over a week old. In 2.1, you were still very limited and still took time to get gear. Yes it was easier, but was still balanced at a steady pace. Way it is right now is borderline chaotic.

Also, I don't have a problem with people chasing numbers. What I don't understand is why those that do care so much about what someone else's numbers are. The only reason I can think of is that they want to compare the two and use it as evidence to say "I'm better, because my number is higher."

Its called being competitive, its human nature. I am always comparing myself to others because when someone is performing higher than me, it influences me to go back and see what I can do to improve myself. Its beneficial to both myself and my party. Its fine if you are willing to settle with what you have, but who is going to get picked, the guy who is constantly improving himself, or the person who just settled with what they have because it is "good enough"?

People like job metaphors, so I'll use one now. Do you compare your salary to your friends and say "I'm better because I make more." My response to that: "Then Donald Sterling is better than you..."

That is not really a good analogy to describe the argument. If we have the same job/role and he is making more than me, then I need to go back and find out why he is making more and continue to improve myself to reach the same level he is. He worked hard to make more than me. Believe it or not, there is even competition in the work place.

[L-D-Omlette]

[...]see what I can do to improve myself[...]

I am sad that it takes someone else to inspire or motivate this desire in oneself. That is the crux of the problem, I refer back to the CK image. This motivation should not be based on some comparison of ones self to another. It would imply that once they perceive that they are "the best" they have no more room for improvement. One should always strive to be better, even if they think they are the best.

[Eissels]

Its called being competitive, its human nature. I am always comparing myself to others because when someone is performing higher than me, it influences me to go back and see what I can do to improve myself. Its beneficial to both myself and my party. Its fine if you are willing to settle with what you have, but who is going to get picked, the guy who is constantly improving himself, or the person who just settled with what they have because it is "good enough"?

I'm going to snip this part out, because I have a really big problem with this statement. Competition is good. Competition is great. It pushes you to be better, to pull higher numbers, to streamline and optimize your rotation and learn mechanics.

What you're talking about is not competition. That random guy who's i108 but hasn't even entered second coil? You're not competing with him. Nothing about him is pushing you to better yourself, he's not even related to you in ANY way. He's a distant entity who you will never encounter, and, even if you do, if he wasn't in second coil and you were, you're probably going to be performing better than him anyway.

What you're talking about is ePeen. You want to be viewed as higher tiered than the other guy, which is something entirely seperate from good, healthy competition. You're not kidding anyone by trying to say "But teh randoms make me want to better myself!"

[Velhart]

I'm going to snip this part out, because I have a really big problem with this statement. Competition is good. Competition is great. It pushes you to be better, to pull higher numbers, to streamline and optimize your rotation and learn mechanics.

What you're talking about is not competition. That random guy who's i108 but hasn't even entered second coil? You're not competing with him. Nothing about him is pushing you to better yourself, he's not even related to you in ANY way. He's a distant entity who you will never encounter, and, even if you do, if he wasn't in second coil and you were, you're probably going to be performing better than him anyway.

What you're talking about is ePeen. You want to be viewed as higher tiered than the other guy, which is something entirely seperate from good, healthy competition. You're not kidding anyone by trying to say "But teh randoms make me want to better myself!"

Its called subtle competition. So you are telling me if you are in T8 and there is another MNK there around your ilvl doing much higher than you, you have no influence to figure out why or want to improve yourself? No one is calling out the person like "Haw haw I am doing better than you.". If I see someone doing better than me, I might ask what he does to achieve those numbers. I am not directly competing with him, but it is competition in my head to out DPS him. When I figure out how to go to his numbers or better, I found a way to improve myself, which ultimately made things better for me. I have never once in my MMO career have I used an "ePeen" attitude at someone. Only time it is appropriate to call someone out is if they are doing drastically lower than the required DPS for said fight.

Also, what does it matter if it is someone random or someone I know? If a random person is doing better than me, then I want to know what he is doing to perform better than me. I take the feedback and use it to improve myself, what does it matter where I get it from? Guides, YouTube videos, in game experience, it doesn't matter. Information is information.

Can call it out any way you like, but it improves myself and ultimately my group, who appreciate my efforts at the end of the day as I do for them.

[Eissels]

snip

If I'm in T8, and there's another MNK pulling much higher than me, of course that's going to inspire competition, but that's not what this thread is talking about. This thread is talking about random casual people who don't raid getting i110 gear, and why that's a "problem."

If there are two monks in one run, it's going to inspire competition. But, here's the thing - we're not talking about two raiders in a raid. We're talking about raiders, and casual people who get their gear from hunts. They are two entirely seperate groups.

I fully support being competitive if there's another DRG you know, doing more DPS than you, and that inspires you to get better. But what on *earth* does that have to do with some random guy standing around in Mor'dhona in full Soldiery gear that he got from hunts?