Oh the irony in the recent live letter Q n A

[Draciella]

Let the casuals be casuals and let the good player proceed.

Everybody wins. The Casuals either git gud or git caryd and the good players get to enjoy their exclusive content.

The problem with all of this is people get the echo, so clueless people eventually get through. And sadly SE takes everybodies cash so content will always be of mixed abilities. Not all of us have a static to run everything with everyday. Im not just focused on dps, this should hopefully be applied to tanks on cooldown management, rotation priorities and to healers, single target vs group heals, precasting and buff usage/debuff cleansing. Id like to think im a good tank but i know my dps game seriously lacks....

[Parryacg]

If you're a solid tank, why worry about DPSing?

You got the insta-queues, you got the power to control parties, I don't see a problem. With that said, people can dislike my comments all the want, but no amount of echo is going to carry a party that miserably fails at mechanics.

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

To me it seems Alex normal is actually the first thing that is going to challenge players a little bit and maybe make people better in general. That is if SE doesn't end up nerfing it like everything else.

[Orbiaus]

They tell you to play better, put in dps checks everywhere, but ban the usage of parsers.

How can one know what they're doing is any better or worse than if they did it another way, without some way to measure?

Agreed. They put DPS checks but no parsers lol. It's so weird to me and the fact you can get banned for one? Crazy! I used to play DCUO and that showed dmg numbers and it never was a problem.

[Orbiaus]

To me it seems Alex normal is actually the first thing that is going to challenge players a little bit and maybe make people better in general. That is if SE doesn't end up nerfing it like everything else.

I have a feeling they'll nerf floor 4 in some way. I've grinded it in DF though and doing coil that way was much harder so maybe they won't.

[Draciella]

If you're a solid tank, why worry about DPSing?

You got the insta-queues, you got the power to control parties, I don't see a problem. With that said, people can dislike my comments all the want, but no amount of echo is going to carry a party that miserably fails at mechanics.

Id like to be able to join a party finder or duty finder and have a good time, not be hesitant and expect the worst. This is a team game with a team effort, i cant clear any content unless the dps/healers are upto scratch. Find the team spirit!

[Draciella]

They wouldnt need to nerf if people were comfy doing their tole to its best potential. Once thats in hand im sure mechanics wont be too far behind

[Parryacg]

Id like to be able to join a party finder or duty finder and have a good time, not be hesitant and expect the worst. This is a team game with a team effort, i cant clear any content unless the dps/healers are upto scratch. Find the team spirit!

the phrase of the day is; "Trust yourself, not randoms"

If I wanted to rely on someone, I'll rely on my friends. Friends are quite easy to make as a good tank, too.

[Azphel]

If you're a solid tank, why worry about DPSing?

You got the insta-queues, you got the power to control parties, I don't see a problem. With that said, people can dislike my comments all the want, but no amount of echo is going to carry a party that miserably fails at mechanics.

This. You can be unsynced lvl 60's with full echo doing T5 and still wipe.

[BlaiseArath]

in FFXI, they released a battle for the job "Rune Fencer", where you could chose a difficulty level (Item level 109, 129, 135, something like that) that were difficult to do but doable with skill and gear and just knowing how to play your job. The challenge of the 135 one is real, you will not win without a good mix of knowing what abilities to use, when to use them, and a good strategy. They're very challenging and reward you with materials to upgrade your armor if you can complete it, as well as a unique title for winning.


What I'm getting at, is Guilds should offer unique Leve-like quests that really push your knowledge of the job. Think of it like "Learning" the job in a "Crash Course" sort of way. They can start with a difficulty similar to what you'd expect from a Hard Mode dungeon, something you can do with a little knowledge, and go on to be difficult like Coil or even Savage coil, with increasing rewards for increasing difficulty, with the ultimate goal of teaching people who to play their class well. Some examples

GLA/PLD, - Managing Multiple Enemies.
Objective: You have 5 targets in range and our Black Mages are ready to attack. Get in there and hold hate.
Victory Conditions: Defeat all 5 enemies without losing hate on any of them.
Failure Conditions: Losing hate on a single enemy fails event.
How it works - Black mages wont attack for 2 seconds once enemies are pulled, after that, they will do AoE rotations (Fire II, etc) to defeat the enemies, a CNJ will be there to keep you alive, your only goal is to keep hate on all targets throughout the fight.
What it teaches you: Keeping hate on multiple enemies with AoE-heavy jobs using aoe spells.

BRD(Job Specific): Defeat the enemy without letting your healer run out of MP.
Objective: Utilize your abilities to defeat an enemy and assist your party.
Victory Conditions: WHM Stays above 25% MP throughout the fight.
Failure conditions: Enemy not defeated withint 5 minutes or WHM drops below 25% MP.
What it teaches you - Managing your Songs while maintaining your DPS.

NIN - DoT Applications.
Objective: Utilize your Attacks and DoT effects to defeat the enemy.
Victory Conditions: Enemy is defeated within 3 minutes
Failure conditions: Enemy survives longer than 3 minutes
How it works: Enemy will cycle between taking heavy physical damage and reduced DoT damage, and heavy DoT damage and reduced physical damage. Only by utilizing your DoT effects and melee will you succeed.
What it teaches you: Use your darn DoTs, they're part of your rotation for a reason.

Each one doesn't need to be a specific goal, they could be as simple as defeating enemies within a time limit or such to maximize your potential, with some of them training you in very specifics aspects of the job that help you learn rotations and the importance of certain things. Could even have a "Score board" or "Time Attack" mode/display when winning so you can see your own improvements and battle/play against yourself or other players on your server. Either way, if the rewards were worthwhile (even really cool job specific glamours, high amounts of Exp/gil something) it might garner enough attention and teach people how to better do their job. In the same light, it would give those with a competitive spirit a way to measure their rotations/knowledge against others. (Maybe with an option to post your score/name or not)