Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.

[Mysterysword]

really?

Off the top of my head: I have had a WHM wearing level 1 glamour gear in Qarn. A WHM spamming nothing but Cure II and Cure III, totally unprocced, no cooldowns or anything, in the Aery. A WHM in Hraesvelgr's dungeon (can't recall the name right now) who refused to use any regens whatsoever, and no DPS either, despite the fact that I, as the PLD, was doing the smallest pulls possible and rotating all my cooldowns.

That's just for runs I have had to tank. In all cases, when called out on their crap, these WHMs decided to either blame me, or pretended to listen to advice given to them, only to keep doing what they were doing wrong.

From runs in which I wasn't the tank: WHMs who can't be bothered to cleanse or even heal/cast regens on DPS who are slowly dying, then insult those DPS for dying and call them irrelevant. WHMs who spam Medica instead of Cure III for Nidhogg's Akh Morn, then complain it's too difficult to heal. A WHM who decided to wait until Diabolos Hollow to admit they were new to Dun Scaith, then insults people trying to give advice, such as cleansing Doom.

This has literally gotten to the point where, when I see a WHM in the party, I can automatically assume they are going to be bad, and will be proven right most of the time.

[LordLucavi]

Little rant here about the state of the community right now.

Is it just me or the average skill level in the game dropped massively lately ?

PotD happened, and easily obtainable i235 gear happened. I have seen a lot of people at 60 in pvp gear that cannot play their job at all. When I ask whats up, most admit that they just went from 17 to 60 in potd. They are also missing abilities from job quests.

[bounddreamer]

Little rant here about the state of the community right now.

Is it just me or the average skill level in the game dropped massively lately ?

All of the skilled veteran players have farmed everything out and are playing other games until expansion.

I only log on to do a few mentor roulette, PvP, and see if any returner fc mates need help.

The game population will see a massive leap in a couple of weeks but for people who have farmed everything out, we don't need to run most of that content anymore. I actually have some pages I can throw out, I'll never need them.

[Vidu]

I did a few more mentor roulettes today - most of them were actually good but I also ended up healing a DV-run in progress with a kinda special tank. Paladin, level 52 with an ilvl around 80, maybe? Special notice on the weapon and shield, both were level 43 items, the sword actually the drop from SV NM. When I told them they should get better gear (and even that you can get it cheap at foundation) their response was "I'm still leveling", implying that you obviously dont need to gear up at all before hitting max-level. Same seems to apply to cooldowns - clearly, they're not worth pressing unless you're running savage...

[Eydis]

I really don't want to type out the whole story so....

IF THE TANK IS DOING LARGE PULLS, WAIT TIL THE TANK BUILDS HATE BEFORE ATTACKING!

Otherwise you will be far behind the tank attacking things needing cures losing hate to the healer, get the healer killed then cause everyone to die.
If you plan on attacking things as the tank is doing large pulls.... don't attack things the tank hasn't touched. You will obviously get hate and be too far away from the tank for them to do anything.

Edit: also, stop using knockback on mobs that are still on the tank. It might increase your dps but it lowers everyone else's.

[Faliandra]

... don't attack things the tank hasn't touched.

but the tank definitely, definitely SHOULD hit each mob with something...or else ANY skill, no matter how little hate it builds, will make the tank lose aggro.
Sch doing adlos, or whm/sch throwing eye for an eye or a needed cure in case the tank took too much damage already.
What about BRDs dotting mobs during the pull so he can set up his procs and spam Rain of death in time?

Sure you shouldnt blow your full attack power on a single mob aka trying to kill it while the pull isnt even done yet,but many classes prepare some sort
of setup during the pull. But if the tank loses hate due to a single skill or two during the pull, the tank is in the wrong.

Off the top of my head: I have had a WHM wearing level 1 glamour gear in Qarn. A WHM spamming nothing but Cure II and Cure III, totally unprocced, no cooldowns or anything, in the Aery. A WHM in Hraesvelgr's dungeon (can't recall the name right now) who refused to use any regens whatsoever, and no DPS either, despite the fact that I, as the PLD, was doing the smallest pulls possible and rotating all my cooldowns.

That's just for runs I have had to tank. In all cases, when called out on their crap, these WHMs decided to either blame me, or pretended to listen to advice given to them, only to keep doing what they were doing wrong.

From runs in which I wasn't the tank: WHMs who can't be bothered to cleanse or even heal/cast regens on DPS who are slowly dying, then insult those DPS for dying and call them irrelevant. WHMs who spam Medica instead of Cure III for Nidhogg's Akh Morn, then complain it's too difficult to heal. A WHM who decided to wait until Diabolos Hollow to admit they were new to Dun Scaith, then insults people trying to give advice, such as cleansing Doom.

This has literally gotten to the point where, when I see a WHM in the party, I can automatically assume they are going to be bad, and will be proven right most of the time.

Oh boy. You know, the only explanation I might have for this phenomenon is that when youre a clueless new player, creating a character and then having to pick a class, conjurer is the only one that really does give the impression of a healer.
Arcanist? Hardly. And they most likely wont even know about AST until they get there. So naturally, many new players end up as a conjurer, many of them being noobs.

Still, I just had another AST earlier in my trial roulette, who only healed very little, didnt dps at all and didnt draw a single card.
Yeah,he was still lvling the class, it was only lvl 51 or 52. But I mean, how can you ignore those cards? I sure didnt, and I was a fullblown noob at this game when I lvled ast.

[Raikki]

I really don't want to type out the whole story so....

IF THE TANK IS DOING LARGE PULLS, WAIT TIL THE TANK BUILDS HATE BEFORE ATTACKING!

You need to be putting at least some enmity on the mobs you're pulling. On MNK I virtually never have any problem building up Greased Lightning III on mobs during a pull with the vast majority of tanks, and you have a ranged enmity ability to resecure any singular mob that gets loose behind you. Most of the time it's not even a problem to do en route AOEs during the triple pull in Baelsar's Wall. You didn't post the whole story but from what you said it sounds like you can improve your pulling routine rather than blaming DPS. I'm saying this as someone who tanks these things fairly regularly myself, so I'm not asking you to do anything I don't do myself.

[Galaktica]

Little rant here about the state of the community right now.

Is it just me or the average skill level in the game dropped massively lately ?

It's not just you. While I think people should at least try to gain some understanding of their class and general mechanics, I've said it time and time again: it's far too easy for people to get carried and/or fumble their way through content. Now, on one hand, that isn't inherently a bad thing as it helps propel casual and less-skilled players along. However, the problem arises when there's any content that's actually somewhat challenging and those same players want to participate. They aren't ready.

I'm gonna geek out on game design here for a sec, but hear me out. Some of you might have heard the special by Dara O'Brien where he talks about how video games are the only medium in which progress is gated by your own skill level. i.e. A book doesn't stop you halfway through reading and go "What are the major themes of the book?" and then if you fail to answer correctly, the book just closes itself up. Video games in most cases do do that. A game like Dark Souls will stop you dead in your tracks if you "suck." You may not consider yourself great, but the fact of the matter is you have to have at least a halfway decent understanding of mechanics, systems, and timing - whether it be conscious or unconsciously - to progress through that game. Again, it's not every game, but most games operate that same way.

The vast majority of content in FFXIV does not work that way imo. Think of how many dungeons where one single person can cause everyone to fail just by failing mechanics. Maybe The Vault or Aery? And only if everyone is at minimum ilvl. As long as one or two people know what they're doing, you're probably going to clear. The problem with this is that, going back to what I was talking about earlier, a lot of people see that and immediately go progress = success. "I didn't know what I was doing, but I beat it, so I guess that was good enough?" And, yes, while it was good enough for that dungeon, the moment people step into Extreme primals or Savage raids, they are wholly unprepared for what it takes to succeed. They've been told that their "good enough" is just fine for so long that any real challenge will stop them dead in their tracks.

Anyone remember pre-nerf Steps of Faith? People couldn't handle it. That one trial was a Gatekeeper for soooo many people. And while I can understand and appreciate why they nerfed it, in my mind it only comes back around to bite them in the ass because when they get to something like Dun Scaith (which isn't even that hard) let alone a savage farm, they're once again not prepared because now their mistakes can end up costing the entire group.

[dragonseth07]

snip

You're right, but the problem always comes down to the fact that relying on others to clear sucks HARD.

Imagine a theoretical great player who goes into some hard gatekeeper content. He's easily good enough to pass, but his party isn't.

While it's great that the unskilled players get walled off, the skilled player is a casualty. This can continue basically forever.

Statics are how you overcome that block, and there's nothing wrong with statics, but they shouldn't be necessary for most content. That puts us in the unfortunate state where good players need to be able to carry bad ones, otherwise the good players are unfairly held back.

Penalizing you for a mistake someone else makes feels awful and can be very unfair. I want to see gatekeeper content, but it should be SOLO. That way, one player doesn't cause 7 others to not clear.

[Galaktica]

Penalizing you for a mistake someone else makes feels awful and can be very unfair. I want to see gatekeeper content, but it should be SOLO. That way, one player doesn't cause 7 others to not clear.

Oh yeah, totally. You are also very right. And just for clarification in case someone reading this is getting the wrong idea, I don't think you or I are suggesting that this solo content be super ultra mega hard so only the most skilled of skilled players can make it through, but I think it's safe to say the jobs quests as they are now for example, are a little to lenient and don't actually teach much of anything at all in a lot of cases.

That said, I do think a little group gatekeeping content wouldn't hurt. Again, I'm not saying it needs to be ultra mega difficult, but this is largely a cooperative game and people need experience dealing with real players.