Why I Decided to Become an Elitist

[Purrfectstorm]

I think of this game like a team sport, only a lot of players have not been taught about teamwork or good sportsmanship at all. Instead they are pedantic, perfectionist and completely intolerant of people who haven't done the content 100 times. Why play with other people if you are not prepared to take on all that is involved with being part of a team. In a team you do abuse and deride the weakest link, you support it and strengthen it, you offer a helping hand. I kind of wish people with your attitude would just play a single-player game. You don't contribute anything to this community, you only take away from it.

I'm not sure if you're referring to me or to someone else in this thread. In my defense, I help new players all the time and it's not the "weak" players I am concerned about, it's the lazy players who expect others to work harder to make up the difference. At any rate, I would not deride the weakest (or any) link; I never advocated that in this thread and in fact I clearly said (several times) that I was against treating others poorly. For one thing, it's morally problematic sure but also it's just not effective. If someone bashes their party members, it's going to create a kind of tension and performance anxiety that will cause that player to do even worse.

That being said, I don't ever feel obligated to throw away my time on hopeless causes (with the possible exception of debating people on online forums LOL). That means that if I join a party and no progress is being made after several attempts (and the odds are in my favor if I have a different team) then I will leave and roll the dice another time.

As for the rest of what you said about an MMO being like a team sport, I completely agree. Unfortunately, (and it's kind of the entire point of my OP) the focus is usually on the experienced players being team players. What about the less experienced players being team players by:

- watching a video
- reading a guide
- asking for advice
- listening to advice
- being kind to their experienced teammates
- being patient with others
- forming practice groups
- having appropriate gear
- having all their job skills (Swiftcast etc.)

No, the focus is on experienced players who are expected to carry inexperienced players and have unlimited patience. The point of my OP is that this is unfair and it is wrong to demonize experienced players who did not sign up for this as "elitist."

This conflict arises because time is a finite resource. Inexperienced players want the time of the experienced players but they don't want to spend their own time (to learn, get job skills, or gear). And the experienced players don't want to spend their time to grow players who won't share some of the responsibility for clearing content (especially ones they'll likely never play with again).

[Ashkendor]

I think of this game like a team sport, only a lot of players have not been taught about teamwork or good sportsmanship at all. Instead they are pedantic, perfectionist and completely intolerant of people who haven't done the content 100 times. Why play with other people if you are not prepared to take on all that is involved with being part of a team. In a team you do abuse and deride the weakest link, you support it and strengthen it, you offer a helping hand. I kind of wish people with your attitude would just play a single-player game. You don't contribute anything to this community, you only take away from it.

So... let me get this straight. People that go into a duty with full knowledge of the fight and willingness to help people clear it aren't contributing to the community; people that go in without even the slightest idea of what's going on and basically expecting the other seven people to carry them are contributing to the community. I don't follow this line of thinking at all. If someone seems to mostly know what's going on but is shaky on a mechanic or two and needs some practice, I have no problem with giving them friendly advice on what's going wrong and how to fix it. If someone has no idea what's going on... well, that complicates things. A lot. It's not just that you're suddenly seven-manning the fight. You're seven-manning the fight with a completely unknown quantity bouncing around that has the potential to seriously muck up the mechanics for others. It's not fun for the rest of your party to have that going on.

Let's roll with the "team sport" thing - would you sign up for a basketball team without any inkling of how to play in the first place? Don't you think it would be detrimental to the other people on the team if you did? Going in completely unprepared isn't being a team player any more than acting like a complete asshole to less experienced people is. I agree with you that nobody should abuse these people; in an ideal world, nobody would feel the need to heap abuse on anyone for any reason. I'm all for helping people learn, and actually jump into learning and clear parties fairly often. If we're talking about Duty Finder here, there's simply a limited amount of time in which to strengthen that weak link.

I don't mind helping, but I'm only going to help people that are willing to help themselves. If you can't be bothered to do some basic research like watching a video, reading a guide, or joining some learning parties, at best you're going to spend most of the fight dead. At worst, you're going to wipe the raid repeatedly until someone ragequits.

Storytime! Four members of my static were bored the other night and queued for some random duties (four that were hand picked by the one guy that was drunk, but hey it turned out to be fun). The first thing that popped was T10. Immediately upon entering, we got the soldiery bonus message. I asked who was new, and the monk spoke up. I figured that if anyone else was new, it would be readily apparent. We actually got to the second adds on the first attempt. The monk had a couple of derpy deaths (that electric floor poop under the boss is a major pain in the ass, seriously) but he largely seemed to know what was going on. We actually watched pretty closely, and he did quite well.

That monk ended up getting his first T10 clear in Duty Finder, partially due to the fact that he was prepared for the fight. We wiped a total of four times before we got the clear, and if memory serves none of them were his fault. After each wipe, we went over what had gone wrong and corrected it. Had that monk not prepared himself beforehand, the probability of actually finishing the encounter would have dropped dramatically. I absolutely love when people are prepared to play as a part of a team and we can help them get a clear, because first clears are warm and fuzzy. ^^

EDIT: oh my god I wrote a novel I don't even

[LTEvil]

(Wallotext crits for 9000 damage.)

[Kiroh]

(Wallotext crits for 9000 damage.)

Sixty-nine pages of nothing but and this occurs to you now?

[LTEvil]

Sixty-nine pages of nothing but and this occurs to you now?

Nope I responded earlier and I just felt like lightening the mood. Troll else where or have the text dropped on you. /Sunglasses

[kalasnikov]

This thread is keeping popcorn industry alive.

[Kiroh]

Nope I responded earlier and I just felt like lightening the mood. Troll else where or have the text dropped on you. /Sunglasses

No love for Y'da and Papalymo here I see...

[Discordia]

But your post does kind of illustrate my point: all frustration for lack of progress is directed at so-called elitists.

What point? The only point you've laid out is that you don't really care about other players as long as YOU'RE having fun. I'm on the middle ground here. I'm good enough to be in ANY raid setting, but that time of my life where I used to be able to lead a guild/FC, spend hours a night wiping on cutting edge content is long past. I can ill afford a couple of hours here and there to play this game, and don't want to punish other players by burdening them with scheduling issues, so I abstained from joining an FC. OTOH, the way the main story scenarios are designed, in that you're at the mercy of the GOOD WILL of other players is a stupid design. This shouldn't be the wall that you're required to scale in order to play an expansion that you're going to pay for and the monthly fees you already paid for (for F2P content, sure, I don't give a shit about any paywalls they put up)

In the end, everyone pays a monthly subscription. No one should be "above the law" in this case.

[GenJoe]

you don't really care about other players as long as YOU'RE having fun

Okay.. I'll come out and say it.

I don't care as long as I'm having fun.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Discordia, I think you've really misunderstood what was said here.

We've used many different analogies here and summarized and clarified, but naturally, it's been lost in the hubris. No one is saying if you CAN'T put the time in to make the effort or come prepared, etc. then they don't want to play with you. We're saying if you've had the time and opportunity to do so, but simply WON'T or refuse to do so, then yes, we - those who put the time/effort in to excel at the game - do not want to pick up the slack.

I play with parents, parents of newborns, college students, military members, and so on. Many of them are gone at varying lengths of time, sometimes I am too, and for all kinds of reasons. Now, I'd argue that I (now ex-military) have a lot more time I can put into it, so I do. And when I do, I make tons of effort to be proficient at anything I do in game. For me, THAT is fun. Performing well, being able to help others who can also perform well. It's the best. And that's nothing against the people who have less time to put into the game.

But for those with the same amount of time and opportunity who do not take it or refuse to take it, or use such flat reasoning as being able to play how they want because they pay for it or the like; the OP was simply saying it's not fun to play with someone like that, much less take blame or be vilified, even scoffed at for having done exactly the same things they could've done but didn't.

It sounds to me like you perhaps hold issue with the game's structure, and there's nothing any of us can do about that. There are those that can and do. Those that can't but try, those that can but don't try, and those that can't and don't. In your case, you can but you simply aren't able to put the time in to legitimately say you can (this is in no way a criticism or suspicion of your ability. Please bear with me.). Thus you generally fall into the very grey category of "can't but try". Many players are like this. What makes the difference is if they prepare, practice, and follow though. If they do not, there's really nothing anyone who "can and do" can do to help them. The game literally makes that difficult. Neither side is to be hated for it, because again, it's a very grey area. We're simply here to state that we are not elitist to refuse to help someone who will not help themselves. It's just like the old "give a man a fish/teach a man to fish" saying.

We who can fish will not give you fish. And it must be understood that, if given the same amount of time and opportunity to learn to fish like we did, it is NOT our obligation nor responsibility to teach you to fish. Lastly, those who are not elitist or jerks about it would still very well be willing to help you fish/learn to fish. But we will NOT be guilted, demanded, or obligated into fishing.