Do Something About Duty Finder Already

[Kaethra]

Wildstar - every time I see someone asking for this, I think Wildstar. Remember how that ended up?

Wildstar was a crappy game long before you got to the first dungeon. They literally couldn't make it worse than it was level 1-20.

Segregating players will prevent many of these threads. Threads will pop up, as lesser capable players will want max level gear but can't get passed mid-tier. But that means the system works. WoW: Legion did this. EQ did it in their tier'd content. And several others.

You picked a MMO in your example that was bad out the gate. The ET Atari game has a better reputation for gameplay than Wildstar.

A new Dragoon won't know the skill speed sweet spot is at 625 and 651.

I'd wager the developer who designed the Dragoon job doesn't know that either. How is he supposed to get the UI coder to express that info to the newbie when he himself doesn't even know?

You all keep going off the assumption that devs are the Uber-Masters of their game. They're not. They put some abilities together. See if they work, and when making balancing passes they tweak a few things back and see if its roughly where it looks somewhat decent. And even then, they don't always get it right. They're few, players are many. We theorycraft, they tweak based on metrics. We focus on singular encounters, they try to make the 1-60 work 'well enough'. There's NO way they could have as much knowledge or focus as the playerbase.

Here's how it works (in current expansion, assume they start tonight):

1. Newbie makes a character
2. Gets it to a point where they do dungeons.
3. They get stuff and level some more.
4. Eventually get to 60* and unlock some stuff.
5. They use whatever they've figured out on their own until they reach a roadblock.

The roadblock is when they reach content they cannot complete because of ignorance. They're either causing wipes because of it, or players are kicking them.
This is the moment of truth. They either 'get it' or don't. If they 'get it' and realize they're doing something wrong. They'll either ask questions, seek advice, read guides, or reflect on their own gameplay, maybe all of the above.

If they do this, they will improve and overcome the roadblock.

If not. Then they will likely stop at that point and do things they know they can do. They might quit. They might even blame the 'elitists' who put the roadblock up.

*Sometimes the roadblock comes before 60.

But in either case, its up to the player in question. All of us have realized we need to either step back and reflect on what we were doing. None of us got it right the first time. Many of us took our observations, parses, and experiences and compared them with others'. That's how you got that 'sweet spot' for dragoons. No Dev said, "let's make the sweet spot X and see if the players can figure it out" while twirling mustaches. That didn't happen. Its just the way the algorithm came out.

But because of that reflection, it allowed us to adapt, adjust, and improvise future situations. Its why we can go into a new dungeon, and figure out the mechanics on the fly. Not only do we perform the movements required, we understand why we want to go left instead of right, when to preheal, and when to not execute an assassinate so we don't get stuck in a lethal AoE.

No tutorial, tooltip, or developer insight can teach any of that. Only the player can on themselves. They either 'get it' or they don't.

If they don't get it, then they just don't. Just doesn't happen. Just like basketball. Not everyone can shoot a 3-pt shot. Some with enough practice can, but applying it in an actual game is another story. Some can, some can't.