Players Who Don't pull their weight.

[RiceisNice]

Some people have difficulty understanding the basics of life. It's not as rare as you think. I've met so many grown up people who don't get that if you add 20% to a price and then take away 20% it's not back to the original price. So it's no wonder you meet people who have difficulty understanding the basics of a game where rotations are highly dependent on potencies (not to mention positionals, I had to google what "flank" meant when leveling lancer and I got pictures of meat ). The fact is, random matchmaking was created to allow those players to play the game so that they may fund the development of the game. Another fact, you are going to run into them if you choose random matchmaking. The question is: what should be done about it?

Just to run off your example, I'm not even looking at direcitonal potentiates either, but proper comboing (and the game highlights your friggin skills, on top of it being automatically placed in your hotbar) and really...just not standing in AoEs. "I'm new to the fight" should never be an excuse to die to a marked AoE or even cleave like npc overpower or dark fire... at level 60. I mean I won't be bothered as much as a monk who only does DK-TS-SP combos just to stay on their flank, but more often than not I'd probably point out that alternating the hits and moving would yield better results, but more on that below.


What should be done about is both communal and developmental. Going off tangent from the main topic, but nothing in this game really holds players (specifically the dps) accountable to their role, not unless it's savage or EX trials. Players aren't encouraged to play better, infact they aren't encouraged to play in consideration with their party members either (unless you count vote kicking). As far as the community is concerned, I honestly feel that people should stop defending or justifying individuals like my example (and especially those who stand by their 'I play how I want" when it's an active detriment to the party) but instead opt with walking them through (especially in leveling dungeons). The way it is right now, content that isn't EX or savage is so low-tuned that even at the min-ilvl, you can get away with clearing if one or both dps spams their 1 ability or DoT ability the entire run, the only detriment being a clear time. Its a factor in the huge content gap between easy and difficult, and players who can't/don't want to do savage raid aren't left with any challenge or middleground content.

For the record, I'm not advocating for anything to segregate the players by skill (which includes both the OP's suggestion in the other topic and avoiding DF altogether, it doesn't solve anything), but rather that everyone should be...well...playing the game in order to progress, not just button mashing or falling the burden on your party (because honestly, not even that gets you through most single player games or platformers).

Yet we have this 40+ page thread which has managed to improve an estimated amount of 0 players.

The reason why this keeps going on for some many pages is because of the rift of players. You have one end saying that at any point if you're telling someone how to play or they're under performing (missing the context on why or the degree of underperforming), you're an elitist. On the other end you have people (satire or not) advocating that people should be playing at their peak, whether it be healers dpsing or having melds on every single equip. I keep saying this in my posts with discussions like this; make a sensible judgement on what other people should do in a party. I'm not expecting people to be playing asi f theyt're raiding savage, or 20 minute runs thorugh DF, but I certainly as hell would get rather peeved if a level 60 DRG is spamming plethobmize on every mob and boss. I could tell him straight up that doing combos would be better, but then that also causes the rift with the aforementioned people where any sort of expectation in DF would label me as an elitist, or they'd throw the "I play how I want card", signalling that they're perfectly fine with doing almost no dps as a dps job in party play. It's happened more and more frequently after I resubbed just for this patch, and honestly I'm surprised that people are encouraging this, despite my efforts in clarifying on what I (and more often than not, half the side of the people in this argument want.)

[Vnecat]

Just because you probably won't, doesn't mean you can't help them improve. The less terribads/lazies there are, the better the overall community/playerbase becomes, the better type of content we get and the less chance of wasting a 30+ min queue on a horrible pt who can't comprehend the easiest of mechanics.

According to this thread, if people were willing to improve and heed given advice, then there wouldn't actually be an issue altogether. I'm personally totally up for helping people with things! I'm genuinely one of those types of people out there who go out of their way to try and maximize other player's experiences; but there's certainly a limit. Communication is a two-way thing. If people are unwilling to learn or compromise, then it's a disaster waiting to happen and best just to move on.

[RLofOBFL]

...

I am going to sound really elitist cruel rn but...Figuring out to use Blizzard 3 instead of Transpose requires not only reading the tooltip, but using your brain to take the pros & cons to see which is more efficient for maximum damage....which is asking a lot for those same people that don't read tool tips to begin with. I have actually told BLM(2.0) how to play a couple times before NICELY & both time I was ignored completely.


What I encounter most is the Fire 3 Blizz 3 BLM, which again requires weighing the pros & cons, if you play other FF games, Fire 3 > Fire 1 so maybe they assume it's a replacement spell ie Stone, Stone 2 & since they don't bother reading tooltips they go on thinking that because those are the types of people who need someone to TELL them how it works aka a teacher aka what mentors should do(?). I assume tooltips are similar to googling in their mind, they don't wanna have to google to learn to play. I honestly think this can all be solved with a tutorial of the skill that pops up on screen(after mobs) telling them how to use it, like if you ever played Kingdom Hearts, that. I am rambling....anyway godspeed my children

[Bourne_Endeavor]

That's kind of the thing, though. If it were simply a matter of getting the same handful of players over and over and running the same content one run after the other with no improvement, then I'd definitely raise my voice and say there's something not quite right here. But when you're met with complete strangers with different experiences every single time that you enter the Duty Finder, it's a very difficult (and very mentally draining) job to try and continuously instruct them on what to do when, as I said before, chances are you're not going to see them ever again.

They (Square) can, however, curve the learning processes upward. If content became progressively more difficult at a reasonably measured pace, there wouldn't be such a massive gap. The issue is dungeons have become little more than facerolls, thus allowing extremely poor play to still result in clears.

[AnaviAnael]

Many bad randoms is a symptom of a large portion of the community not knowing how to play their class in any sense minimally. Having a large portion of a video games player base goes beyond "just form a static lol", it means that new content AND old content (Steps of Faith anyone? Pharos?) will be nerfed or simply released easy to appease the masses of people who can't function. It's never been simply about running into a single bad person in a roulette- that's not what the heart of this discussion is about, it's what the large masses of bad players means for the future of the game and it's Softcore/Midcore and Hardcore groups, because most content in this game won't even push a softcore player to their limits.

Look at how many people on this forum were asking for Final Steps and Weeping City to be nerfed because "it was too hard." Neither of those instances are hard if you pay attention and do your job.

[RiceisNice]

Look at how many people on this forum were asking for Final Steps and Weeping City to be nerfed because "it was too hard." Neither of those instances are hard if you pay attention and do your job.

Exactly this, there's a lack of a difficulty curve anywhere in the game beyond gimmicky fights (Steps of Faith had it's own issue besides "too difficult") that encourage players to grasp the fundamentals. Fights like Nidhogg and Weeping City are long-needed competency checks (and the very few we previously had are optional content, like the sunken temple of corn), and its astonishing that people die to telegraphed horrid roars and from a lack of healing (and this is generally because of healers dpsing during ahk morn) consider that to be hard. It's the same content we've been through, only now they decide to tune it so it actually kills you for ignoring it.

[WinterLuna]

I agree to a certain extent. I absolutely hate carrying people because most of the time it's pure laziness on their part.

I will say, however, some people physically or mentally can't play as well as others. I'm aware you already included this in the OP, just this makes it harder for anything to be done about it. I once played with someone who was of old age and it took them a few tries to complete fights due to their reflexes. This is 'acceptable', whereas simply being lazy isn't, but how would anyone know the difference?

I completely understand your thread but I'm afraid it's a problem that has no solution without harming genuine players. (I'm aware this has probably already been said too, but I'm on my phone and don't really want to read 45 pages just to check.)

[ErikMynhier]

People really need to stop using the word elitist as a means of smothering discussion.

Jeez, whatever happened to communal efforts to get better in games?

I'll use the word that fits. His thread is about how much better he is and how much worse everyone is doing then him. Its elitist so I call it that.

There is no communal effort to improve the game. He isn't offering advice to play better. He isn't offering ideas for content to train players. At best the OP is a rant. And in his rant he comes off as elitist, and that's fine. If he has worked hard enough to be as good as he says, then he has earned that. But don't try to deny what it is and call it constructive criticism because its not.

[Greedalox]

I'll use the word that fits. His thread is about how much better he is and how much worse everyone is doing then him. Its elitist so I call it that.

There is no communal effort to improve the game. He isn't offering advice to play better. He isn't offering ideas for content to train players. At best the OP is a rant. And in his rant he comes off as elitist, and that's fine. If he has worked hard enough to be as good as he says, then he has earned that. But don't try to deny what it is and call it constructive criticism because its not.

If you say so. I have a jarring feeling that a Cry Wolf mentality is going to be emerging soon, but more along the lines of Cry Elitist. Eventually people are going to block out the word due to its overuse and then players may actually have issues with a true elitist and everyone will assume they're just being delicate.

[WinterLuna]

Snip

To me, his thread is not elitist, but venting about lazy players while still acknowledging the fact that a solution would be difficult.

As I said previously, I don't fully support the thread, due to players who can't help either their slow learning or slow game play, but it doesn't take away from the fact that there are players who are willing to stand at the entrance of a dungeon and let you finish it for them if you let them.

My opinion on the subject is neutral, but I wouldn't call the OP elitist.