Is progressive content or the community to blame for player skill gap?

[Kosmos992k]

In my opinion there will always be a skill gap. You can point to things like the progression system, lack of proper tutorials, unhelpful communities and all the rest; however, when you get down to it one thing will always be true: those that desire to learn and play well will, those that don't care won't.

One other factor that players should perhaps consider more often is this; there are two broad groups of players, those who will play end game and those who won't - often because they do not enjoy that kind of content. There are specific skills and ways of playing that are required to raid and play current end-game well, those skills are not required to play the non raid, non end-game content. When those two groups meet in DF, it's incredibly unrealistic to expect players who don't do end-game/raid to suddenly play like a veteran raider. That's not going to happen. It will be perceived as a skill gap, and someone, on either side of the clash of style will post a rant on the forum about it. It would be easier for everyone to relax, understand and get on with playing the game and having fun.

[Malzian]

One other factor that players should perhaps consider more often is this; there are two broad groups of players, those who will play end game and those who won't - often because they do not enjoy that kind of content. There are specific skills and ways of playing that are required to raid and play current end-game well, those skills are not required to play the non raid, non end-game content. When those two groups meet in DF, it's incredibly unrealistic to expect players who don't do end-game/raid to suddenly play like a veteran raider. That's not going to happen. It will be perceived as a skill gap, and someone, on either side of the clash of style will post a rant on the forum about it. It would be easier for everyone to relax, understand and get on with playing the game and having fun.

Actually, I'd say there's 3 broad groups of players, but it seems most people only think in strokes of 'casual' and 'raider'. I, personally, don't raid... but I'd hardly consider myself casual considering all I've done in the game. I can handle most of the harder content, I just choose not to do it, partly because of time constraints. That makes me neither a raider nor a casual, so therefore... midcore.

That still doesn't change the fact that there's always going to be a skill gap somewhere. Why that gap is there or how big it is varies, and people are going to fight and bitch back and forth over it like they do every other little thing in life. The only point that can be made is that you're going to have people who are tolerant and people who are not... once again, just a matter of people being people/