A Crazy Solution To The Growing Problems of Inadequate Preparation For Duties.

[LineageRazor]

Just throwing this out there...

A couple months ago, I re-introduced a friend to video gaming. She had literally not touched a video game in almost twenty years, and the games she played then were mostly 2d platformers and such. It was her first experience with 3d games involving camera controls. She simply could not figure out how to operate the camera at the same time as doing anything else - she could move OR turn the camera, but that was about it. It kind of astounded me, because camera controls are second-nature to me now, and I only ever get flummoxed if the axes are reversed or whatever.

I'd hardly suggest that sub-par players in this game are that way because they haven't played a game in twenty years - but I WOULD suggest that many of the controls and concepts that players consider to be basic and easy are only so because they are a natural extension of other games they have played.

This is mainly a refutation of the suggestion that bad players are bad because they are LAZY. Many of them simply have not developed the skills and habits that make for a successful MMO player. Here's a few things that are common in MMOs that may or may not appear in other games:
- Buffs and debuffs (and associated timers)
- Skills that become more powerful when used sequentially with other skills
- Enmity in general
- Studying online for a fight before participating in the fight
- Studying online for ANYTHING (I dunno about you, but for your standard game looking for hints online is something you do AFTER you've won, or when you're hopelessly stuck - that kind of attitude doesn't fly in an MMO, however!)

It could be argued that there's no excuse for making it to endgame without learning the above - but there is. There totally is. The game is EASY before endgame. You can 1-2-3 your way through any dungeon. Heck, you can 1-1-1 your way through any dungeon. You can gear up in equipment just shy of the best without touching any kind of challenging content. So why would you have all these dozens of skills if you don't need them? Because LOTS of games give you skills that wind up being pointless. Heck THIS game gives you skills that wind up being pointless (sleep, Feint, etc.), even if you DO know what you're doing! It's just a thing that games do. I'd even go so far as to say that for the majority of single-player games, there's one attack or combo of attacks that is ideal, with all the other abilities the player has available being at best, situational, and at worst, completely worthless.

Players coming here from another MMO have less of an excuse, as prior MMOs should give them a pretty good idea what to expect from this one. But players for whom this is their first MMO? The game could do a LOT more to prepare them for what is to come.

[Kaethra]

Players coming here from another MMO have less of an excuse, as prior MMOs should give them a pretty good idea what to expect from this one. But players for whom this is their first MMO? The game could do a LOT more to prepare them for what is to come.

This game does a great better job than EQ did for me 16 years ago. The best method is simply the baptism by fire. Get in and get wrecked a bit.

Fortunately, the person you described, is NOT in the expert roulette.

[thegreatonemal]

Yes we are over powered but we are deliberately overpowered... it's deliberately done to be made easy.

Its less to do with that and more to do with 7 months from now someone will be progressing through all these dungeons and its made like this so its smooth process and catches them up to where every one else is quickly. people who got to 60 yesterday are gonna have a fairly easy and quick time gearing up to the 260 range. everything is laid out from ilvl 160 to 270. to balance the dungeons around the people who are at the bleeding edge of content would make this game a nightmare for anyone who wasn't here at the start. And people would still complain about people sucking in dungeons.

@above This game did nothing for you the 16 years of EQ did everything. you came to this one and hit the ball rolling. I hit the ball rolling I had 9 years of maplestory being my only mmo but it taught me that i needed to look up a guide for my class to learn the lingo for this game and what my role does by it self and within a party setting. Really easy when you know what to look for. For lots of people this is their first MMO the devs know this after all this game is called FINAL FANTASY followed by a roman numeral number. Those two words are the sole reason 80% of the players even play this game for.

You can't have a baptism by fire if the game doesn't provide you the tools to deal with the fire in game MMO are notorious for not giving you those tools instead of whining about all the sub par players where are all the threads complaining about how the game doesn't teach anything to players.

[Kosmos992k]

Yes we are over powered but we are deliberately overpowered... it's deliberately done to be made easy.

The current ex dungeons for example are i230 but they were added at a time when everyone was already i250 or even higher.

Everyone? Really? This is one of the issues I have with the Official Forums, this insane belief that is common that 'everyone' has end-game content on farm and is ilvl 270-ish.

As for the rest of your comment, yes, it is the fact that content is overgeared. If players did not overgear content then they would actually have to try harder to progress. Stricter ilvl sync would help because for a player to progress they would have to up their game to some degree.

[thegreatonemal]

Everyone? Really? This is one of the issues I have with the Official Forums, this insane belief that is common that 'everyone' has end-game content on farm and is ilvl 270-ish.

As for the rest of your comment, yes, it is the fact that content is overgeared. If players did not overgear content then they would actually have to try harder to progress. Stricter ilvl sync would help because for a player to progress they would have to up their game to some degree.

The question is how strict do you make it? You'll get people complaining about how all this gear they grinded out and they can't see what it can really do when they go through something they've beaten before thats a huge draw in games to get that strong gear and go beat up on something to show just how much stronger you've gotten. That and more experience players getting paired with newer players and unlike now where if it does become a problem you can just power through and the run takes 5 minutes more, now it takes a half hour more or you can't do it at all depending on the players.

[Kosmos992k]

The question is how strict do you make it? You'll get people complaining about how all this gear they grinded out and they can't see what it can really do when they go through something they've beaten before thats a huge draw in games to get that strong gear and go beat up on something to show just how much stronger you've gotten. That and more experience players getting paired with newer players and unlike now where if it does become a problem you can just power through and the run takes 5 minutes more, now it takes a half hour more or you can't do it at all depending on the players.

I always want to ask, how does obliterating content that you can always unsync, prove how good that new ilvl 270 shiny is? When the option to run unsync'd was added, the actual level and ilvl sync should have been tightened up.

As I said, if you actually require players to beat the content in content/level appropriate gear, they have an incentive to get better. If someone wants to show off, unsync it.

[thegreatonemal]

I always want to ask, how does obliterating content that you can always unsync, prove how good that new ilvl 270 shiny is? When the option to run unsync'd was added, the actual level and ilvl sync should have been tightened up.

As I said, if you actually require players to beat the content in content/level appropriate gear, they have an incentive to get better. If someone wants to show off, unsync it.

Keep in mind you have to grind these dungeons so having to put up full effort to do something your gonna be doing for the next 3 months just to grind for gear. Will wear on people. i'm willing to keep it wheres its at now just wanna see people shut up about it not everyone is willing to do research into a video game now if they decide to step into savage content extreme primal and the like you have no choice other than that, content wasn't made for people on the bleeding edge so people need to stop treating it like such.

[Dzian]

Everyone? Really? This is one of the issues I have with the Official Forums, this insane belief that is common that 'everyone' has end-game content on farm and is ilvl 270-ish.

where did I say that. I pretty clearly said i250 or above which would be reasonable. even if you didn't do alex normal and had a mix of shire and augmented lore a players ilevel would be around 250..
I did not imply anything about players being decked in full 270 and having end game content on farm..

As for the rest of your comment, yes, it is the fact that content is overgeared. If players did not overgear content then they would actually have to try harder to progress. Stricter ilvl sync would help because for a player to progress they would have to up their game to some degree.

it's not though. even at the minimum I level belsaers wall can be cleared by a group of players playing at a minimum level of skill of efficiency...

belsaers would be clearable at i200 without much difficulty.. obviously at i200 you'd have to play much closer to the potential limit but excluding possible HP problems I reckon it'd be easily doable. the only problem would potentially be having enough hp to survive some hits/mechanics but that's not a skill thing that's just an artificial barrier.. skill has no impact on your maximum hp..

if everyone played effectively they'd smash the place to pieces at 230. the content is deliberately tuned to be easy enough that you can play at less than half of what your job is capable of and still clear it

there's a thread where people wanna scrap t9 from wonderous tails because even at level 60 rocking i260 gear where one dps can potentially pretty much do as much damage half a party could in ARR they can't clear t9.. as over powered as they are. because they just aren't using the power available to them or playing there jobs efficiently.

dungeons are no different they're set to i230. but there not tuned anywhere near what players can reach at i230.. for the sake of example if an i230 dps could potentially do 3000 dps. the i230 dungeon is set to a minimum of maybe 1000 dps..... so if you played your job remotely effectively even at i230 you could rip the place to shreds... because the bar is deliberately set at such a low level to begin with..

it's like giving ya gran the keys to a Bugatti Veyron and putting her in a race against a bunch of Toyota aygo's... she'd have all that power available to her but no idea how to use it so she'd never win.... even though she completely overpowers the competition.

it's not to different from zurvan ex for example. a 2 2 4 comp of players at i250 can skip soar. but a 1 1 6 comp with 2 extra dps at I 265 or higher can't skip soar.... all that extra power they have but don't know how to use....

dungeons are pretty much deliberately tuned to people who don't know how to play there jobs. which again ties in to the big skill gap thing that yoshis trying to tackle

[Driavna]

Allowing to overgear content is a "nerf" used by almost all modern MMO's. Keep "less skilled" players happy and busy because "with more gear will kill it" and also leave "good players" alone.

[Kosmos992k]

Keep in mind you have to grind these dungeons so having to put up full effort to do something your gonna be doing for the next 3 months just to grind for gear. Will wear on people. i'm willing to keep it wheres its at now just wanna see people shut up about it not everyone is willing to do research into a video game now if they decide to step into savage content extreme primal and the like you have no choice other than that, content wasn't made for people on the bleeding edge so people need to stop treating it like such.

If the dungeons were a) more interesting, b) more challenging and c) more rewarding, then I believe most players would be OK putting more time and effort in, as long as the amount of reward they could obtain per hour was the same, which is preferable; mindless farming via speed, or an interesting run?