Leveling & Player Skill in PotD - am I the odd one out?

[RubyCirha]

To be honest I just wish people would stop complaining and actualy do something to help people improve but everyone just jumps on this bandwagon of rip on them first and ask questions later mentality it's anoying go back to wow if you Wana be a jerk no room for you here but that's just my opinion

[Kopy]

(The text that you have entered is too long (1046 characters). Please shorten it to 1000 characters long.) R.I.P. Argument that stated levelling in general is bad for end-game rotation and both methods don't matter.

Your gear should average on 33+ if you plan on grabbing the weapons; make a 51-60 run, at the start apply some moves and mash away, as long as you're contributing as big or small as it may be nobody actually cares, when you kill the boss you have around 10 minutes to put all your abilities onto your hotbar do this! Now that you're out read all the tooltips for each move and give yourself a 20 minute study while assigning moves to places where they would feel comfortable. Now you're officially ready to grind PotD, if you really feel you're doing something wrong do what everybody that just turned 60 does and look up openers, ask FC buddies for advice/questions etc.

[Doozer]

I don't think leveling in PotD makes people unfamiliar with their job. If they don't know how to use their skills efficiently, it has very little to do with how they learn them. People were bad before PotD, and people will continue to be bad. It's a conscious choice to not bother looking at skills and going "okay this one gets a combo with this one so I'll do these in order".

[Maero]

Really though when jump potions arrive it will be no different then Palace.
I have heard some people be harsh about people who say have Kinna weapons, people right away assume those are bad players.
Don't blame Palace 100% for bad players as bad players have existed even before Palace @Samsara
Myself i used it as a means to level my astro from 50-60 and machinist as well as dps queue times are horrid for any other content.
All other jobs i levelled by doing dungeons MSQ and fates. I actually find it as a means for players to find out if they like a certain class before actually having it levelled outside of Palace.

[Ethania]

I'm learning PLD in PotD and I'll try some dungeons later.

*Pull 6 mobs in PotD with a 99/99 Healer*

*DPS run away from me* "OMG why did you take so many mobs we will die and fail this PotD !" *They just are looking for some silver chests and let me die*

*Heal 99/99 can't heal me (I already used all my CD)* "OMG you took 6 mobs I can't heal you it's so hard !*

*Wipe, healer + dps are insulting me and leave then*

*Am I supposed to take 1 or 2 mobs as a PLD ? How can I learn to use my skills and my CD rotation if I pull only 1 mob ?*

50 % of my PotD are like this (and I'm not a "good player", just an average / casual one).

[alimdia]

I'd still say that this is the players' fault for not reading skill descriptions and trying to get used to them, not PotD's.

It is PotD's fault because not only it doesn't allow people to test out what they read from skill descriptions, it pretty much discourages even trying to learn, everything dies too fast.

PotD is the equivalent of getting to max level without leaving the tutorial, specially for tanks and melee DPS.

[Faliandra]

Some people seem to insinuate that it's PotD's fault when people only know how to press 1 2 3 on their job, but that's simply not true. It's their own fault.

You are right, I agree it's people's fault.
But the game is allowing it to happen and actually encourages new players to spend a good amount of time in it because:
"OMG, I can level in there and get a good weapon?!"


And Idk if you noticed but I sure have, that during the last few months, DF player quality has dropped drastically.
I do not remember it being nearly as bad before.

Also take into account, that PotD got nerfed quite a bit when they introduced floors 51+, so it became even easier.
Before that, it wasnt too uncommon to wipe in floors 31+ when people became too reckless.
Now hardly anything bad can happen in PotD that will really make you use all of your abilities.

Monk is probably the best example. PotD has no positional requirements, and keeping your Greased Lightning stacks for very long is basically impossible. These are important skills for Monk and simple cannot be learned in PotD, no matter how long you spend in there.

I made exactly that mistake and spent most of my time with my MNK in PotD. Now, I am one of those people who just wanted it at 60 for the sake of having it at 60. I do not enjoy melee classes in particular,
I am absolutely NOT used to positionals etc. And really, mobs in PotD die before i can even build up my buffs and they usually run out before we get to attack the next mob.
Trying to keep your stuff up absolutely doesnt work there as people mostly just do SINGLE pulls that are killed in 2 seconds. I would like to do better as a MNK,
I even have a nice spreadsheet with rota and opener of monks, but I'll be frank, I just cant memorize it along with the positionals. I just dont care enough
because I wont ever play my monk.

I definitely wouldnt call myself a bad player, but I'm a bad monk. And you know what? When I did do a few normal dungeons in the end to get it to lvl 60, it wasnt too
uncommon for me to still be first in DPS. That was scary AF and I have no idea how its even possible.

[SilkaN]

It is PotD's fault because not only it doesn't allow people to test out what they read from skill descriptions, it pretty much discourages even trying to learn, everything dies too fast.

I never understood this kind of attitude.
"Blame the tool, not the one who uses it."

I don't like comparing ingame mechanics to RL, but it's like you're saying it's alcohol's fault for people becoming alcoholics. Which is not true.

snip

Maybe it's because I hit level 60 on my first job during 3.3, but I did not notice a decrease in player skill.
Also, did you actually try to make use of all of Monk's skills / unique features in those dungeon runs?
If yes, then it proves my point. It's all about mentality. Even if enemies die too fast in PotD, if you try to apply what you've learned to normal content, you can still have "okay" dps.

It's the same for me, just because I basically melt everything in PotD as Summoner doesn't mean I don't try my best in normal content, too. If I were to suck in normal dungeons, it would be the fault of my own laziness, not some leveling tool.

[Noscifer]

POTD is awesome, I've switched to DPS from tanking seeing how the community is (Good luck future tanks...) And here's what I did : I went inside floor 51 solo with a fixed party, took a look at all the skills and checked synergy, then I placed them all on my keybinds to ensure it makes sense. Once I've done that, I left the floor then queued for matched party. I am now level 50 on my dragoon and can say that I'm used to skills, orders and keybinds associated. Personnaly I think it is a good way to train as DPS.

[Faliandra]

Maybe it's because I hit level 60 on my first job during 3.3, but I did not notice a decrease in player skill.
Also, did you actually try to make use of all of Monk's skills / unique features in those dungeon runs?
If yes, then it proves my point. It's all about mentality. Even if enemies die too fast in PotD, if you try to apply what you've learned to normal content, you can still have "okay" dps.

It's the same for me, just because I basically melt everything in PotD as Summoner doesn't mean I don't try my best in normal content, too. If I were to suck in normal dungeons, it would be the fault of my own laziness, not some leveling tool.

Yes I have tried to make use of my skills, but there have been skills
that confused me even after reading the tooltips (again,I'm only talking about MNK here). So I had to ask my friends about it to grasp the idea behind it.
Maybe my MNK isnt a good example, because I was never interested enough to actually play that class seriously. So putting in extra effort into something you do not
enjoy is kind of a turn off (I still did it to some extend but wouldnt say I have succeeded very much, but I also am quite hard on myself in that matter)

But back to the learning curve of the game:

If the game is forcing you or guiding you towards using your tools by gradually introducing something new to you, its easier and more fun for many
people to learn as they play their class. If you just shove it into their face along with many skills at once like Palace of the Braindead does, you get away with everything
no matter how wrong you use your skills. A mob that dies in 2 seconds isnt a good way to practise skills on and it certainly isnt a good indicator
on whether you're doing a good job or not. I imagine it could be quite misleading to some people.
And I bet you, many people dont consider it fun to take a look at many skills at once, remembering what all of these skills do, figuring out the best possible
combinations/right order to use it to their fullest potential. They wanna PLAY the class in action.
The game is allowing this to happen without any penalties and the majority of people are known to always take the simplest road given to them.

Besides, many people also do NOT use a parser because they can't (PS4) or because they dont even know
about it, so they wouldnt even know if their rotation is improving dps or not.

Personally, I enjoy the normal dungeon lvling because to me, getting all these skills so quickly is overwhelming.
But I still care to be a good player, even on classes that might not be my cup of tea, so I avoid PotD.
I am better with getting 1 new skill at a time and using it as I play.

It isnt a good way for ME to learn and I realize that. Hence I don't do it.
A new player who basically grew up doing PotD may not realize that.

It's awesome if it worked out for you but I feel that you are a minority in this regard.
And IMHO this now reflects on the DF. Istarted playing in 3.1 and I have done roulettes on a daily basis (maybe taking a break for max a week sometimes) for
more than a year now. I feel the difference between back then and now is huge and judging from what other players I talked to say,
I'm not the only one thinking this way.