Forcing NA Duty Finder to be better, we need a grading system.

[Kaurie]

That is a majorly pressing issue because?... Oh thats right it just isn't.

"OMFG! I have toi spend some time longer in a dungeon coz peoples suck! I could spend that time doing equally trivial and unimportant stuff!" Is not a reason to segregate the commuinity. You want really fast runs? Well enjoy them with the hour long queue time you'll get.

The "appropriate time" is the average time, don't care for your terrible reason as to why it's not. You can't get a more appropriate timescale than the average for your datacentre.

I don't really feel this post adds a lot of value to the discussion, but from what I take away is that you disagree on what is appropriate.

Average is not a very good metric to use, as that is the central point of this conversation. "The average is too weak" is the argument and the argument back is that people are near the average so it is ok. It makes very little sense.

That said, I think that having the system designed the way it is has resulted in both very poor play and a toxic community who speak in ways similar to your post. This in my opinion is a very large issue, and probably the largest issue facing the game. In close second are boring sub-stats, no horizontal progression, no talent trees or talent/skill builds, and horribly long grinds for the sake of having people play longer.

My playtime has dropped dramatically over the last year, where once I was playing close to 60 hours per week - and now I am playing 7 hours per week. This obviously is not necessarily representative of the entire community, but it certainly is representative of my enjoyment of the game, along with misunderstood expectations of the games direction.

In terms of the grading system, I don't like it. It's convoluted and would take a lot of coding for the devs, where they could simply allow addons and provide parser support. The community has their own capability to create societal norms and expectations.

Can I tell when the other dps isn't playing well? Yes ofc. Does it make me salty to a point I feel the need to segregate myselff? Not in the slightest. Also I advocate for anyone who wants to do this can do it voulentarily but they loose their roulettes as there is a purpose for them (to help newbies progress).

I see this was added after my initial response. I agree, I do not think segregation is an appropriate solution. It's far better to help those that need it than push them away into cliques. That is another reason I do not like this grading system. However, I do think there is a major problem that needs to be addressed, and I think the current method of addressing it is doing more harm than good.

How I see it is there are two sides, people who play well and/or put in a lot of dedication, and people who play less well and/or play casually. This causes a rift, as there are clear priority differences in why the people play. Naturally, this results in conflict. One solution is to provide things like a parser, which allows everyone to see how everyone is doing and may directly cause some people to harass players who play less well. Another solution is to prevent all discussion of DPS (like we have in FFXIV). However, this has resulted in a mindset that any effort is OK and anyone who wishes to have a higher dedication from their teammates is deemed an elitist. In other words, this also results in harassment (in the opposite direction). So in both situations you haev harassment, but in one you are more likely have the overall skill of the community improved. Outside of reversing who is being harassed, I am not sure what benefit blocking discussion regarding DPS is doing for the community.

To add on to this, I'd like to raise the question of where do we draw the line between harassment and creation of societal norms. Throughout history, in cultures across the globe, people have used peer pressure to create societal norms. These norms are enforced with further peer pressure to the point that nearly everyone abides. That is what allowing discussion of DPS can do. People can say things like "Our DPS is low.", "Your DPS should be higher". Naturally, some people will take this too far (just like people always take things to far), and it would need to be policed. I think that would result in a far better community than the one we have now.