Why Does It Feel Like Poor Play Is Acceptable (I'm Venting.)

[spagthetapdancer]

The standards I hold myself to and the standards I hold randoms to are as different as night and day. I am far more critical of my own performance than I am of other people’s, unless they start talking big. Then I expect them to have the performance to back it up: if you’re going to talk like your the big man on campus with tons of orange parses under your belt, then I want to see proof that you can live up to what you preach.

My most basic standards vary depending on the content I am in, but generally, in casual content, I expect:
—tanks to hold hate, use their stance (if applicable), and to know their basic 1-2-3 aggro combo
—healers to heal (and if they are a veteran healer decked out in Savage or high ilvl gear, I expect some juggling of DPS and healing), and not stand around idle for the majority of the duty
—DPS to DPS (I don’t care about their rotation, and I don’t expect some optimized opener making use of pots or whatever, but I had better see some AOE in a large pull)

In things like farm parties for Extremes/Savage, my expectations are a little higher. I do not expect orange-parse levels of play, but I do expect a certain level of competency when it comes to completing Extreme/Savage content. If the party is for a farm, I expect the party to farm the fight quickly and efficiently—especially if their PF advertised “fast, quick runs; high DPS; no mistakes or kick” (ironically, it’s usually the PF leader doing the lowest in terms of DPS/healing, and making the most mistakes). I also do not appreciate when people enter into farm parties having either never cleared, or cleared only once and just expect the rest of the group to carry them through the content. You want to farm? Then please pull your weight like the rest of the group.

I’ve asked this many times in the course of this thread, and have never received an answer that was some illogical tangent or analogy, but what exactly is it about asking players to do the absolute bare minimum required of their job/role that is some incredibly high standard?

I think you've listed some fine standards there. that's what I would consider a fairly realistic expectation from most people. it considered more than one context, and it's not exaggerated at all. I am just more concerned with not being subjected to a douchebag's inflated expectations and will throw as many corpses under the bus as I need to to protect myself from those douchebags, collateral damage or not.

I'll just cut to the chase and give you an honest answer. you could be a reasonable person the entire time and it wouldn't matter. I'm not trying to protect myself form you. I'm trying to protect myself from douchebags, just like people in the OP's position are trying to protect themselves from having weird or negative experiences with particularly clueless players.

[Keridwyn]

The root of this issue is communication. On one side we've got people who used to offer advice that no longer do because people get defensive. On the other side we've got people that get defensive because not everyone who sees you doing something wrong is polite in voicing it. What we are left with are players who get by doing terribly because everyone else with them just silently trudges along and gets frustrated by the lowering skill quality.

I can't really speak though, I removed myself from the DF a long time ago. I'm an average player with an awful connection and despite what people say, being polite really doesn't make up for the fact that you're making the run take an extra 5-10min. I'd rather not have the stress of knowing I'm slowing down other people and possibly ruining their fun, so I run with friends who I know don't mind so much.

[spagthetapdancer]

The root of this issue is communication. On one side we've got people who used to offer advice that no longer do because people get defensive. On the other side we've got people that get defensive because not everyone who sees you doing something wrong is polite in voicing it. What we are left with are players who get by doing terribly because everyone else with them just silently trudges along and gets frustrated by the lowering skill quality.

I can't really speak though, I removed myself from the DF a long time ago. I'm an average player with an awful connection and despite what people say, being polite really doesn't make up for the fact that you're making the run take an extra 5-10min. I'd rather not have the stress of knowing I'm slowing down other people and possibly ruining their fun, so I run with friends who I know don't mind so much.

I'm inclined to agree for the most part. I found I could contribute more to a group's objective(clear time usually) by doing simple tasks like holding threat/mitigation and double pulling than I probably can by trying to DPS. we're 6 months into SB and I'm still not sure what good dps numbers are. I recently capped SAM and while leveling I was staying over 2-2.4k on most bosses but I've no idea if I'm doing things badly, averagely, or solidly. when I was leveling WAR I could swap to STR accessories and do about that much but I've no frame of reference if that's any good.

[AppleJinx]

I've found that the best way to do it is just to give whatever advice at the end of the dungeon where there is no longer anything at stake. Just drop a line in party chat then leave. Usually my advice goes something along the lines of "read your skill tooltips".

[Arrius]

I've found that the best way to do it is just to give whatever advice at the end of the dungeon where there is no longer anything at stake. Just drop a line in party chat then leave. Usually my advice goes something along the lines of "read your skill tooltips".

On a subtler suggestion that could help - Those should be active by default when opening the 'Action and Traits' window and go over them with the cursor, regardless when you disabled the action help in your character settings.

[HyoMinPark]

I'm inclined to agree for the most part. I found I could contribute more to a group's objective(clear time usually) by doing simple tasks like holding threat/mitigation and double pulling than I probably can by trying to DPS. we're 6 months into SB and I'm still not sure what good dps numbers are. I recently capped SAM and while leveling I was staying over 2-2.4k on most bosses but I've no idea if I'm doing things badly, averagely, or solidly. when I was leveling WAR I could swap to STR accessories and do about that much but I've no frame of reference if that's any good.

Regarding your comments about personal performance concerns, I find that that stems from a flaw in the design of this game itself. There's no internal resources that show your own performance, nor anything internally to assist players with optimizing their jobs "to the next level"; all of that has to be gathered usually from external resources, and I feel like there's a problem with that.

It's simple enough to read tooltips and follow your flashing boxes for combos, but there's nothing in-game that tells you "Prioritize Shifu over Jinpu" or "Under these conditions, Shinten is more potent than Midare". There's nothing telling you "Here is an optimal opener for a high burst". It's all found out by players, and they use a bunch of math and external resources to do it. Honestly, there should be more in-game assistance when it comes to a person's desire to optimize their role/job.

[MoroMurasaki]

Honestly, there should be more in-game assistance when it comes to a person's desire to optimize their role/job.

Almost like some kind of... In-game parser!

*hides from angry antiparser people*

[spagthetapdancer]

Regarding your comments about personal performance concerns, I find that that stems from a flaw in the design of this game itself. There's no internal resources that show your own performance, nor anything internally to assist players with optimizing their jobs "to the next level"; all of that has to be gathered usually from external resources, and I feel like there's a problem with that.
It's simple enough to read tooltips and follow your flashing boxes for combos, but there's nothing in-game that tells you "Prioritize Shifu over Jinpu" or "Under these conditions, Shinten is more potent than Midare". There's nothing telling you "Here is an optimal opener for a high burst". It's all found out by players, and they use a bunch of math and external resources to do it. Honestly, there should be more in-game assistance when it comes to a person's desire to optimize their role/job.

I thought i responded to this post, but either way: would you know a channel to start with that's really detailed and has a wide range of guides for classes? it's always good to fish for extra hints.

Almost like some kind of... In-game parser!

*hides from angry antiparser people*

as long as I get some degree of privacy about where data on me is stored, then I'd be cool with that.

[HyoMinPark]

I thought i responded to this post, but either way: would you know a channel to start with that's really detailed and has a wide range of guides for classes? it's always good to fish for extra hints.

I would definitely recommend joining The Balance Discord (LINK if you're interested; don't think it's against any rules to link it here, but if so, I apologize). Very helpful and renown Discord that is full of veterans and theorycrafters willing to help people with job optimization. They have a forum as well, I believe. I have never posted there, though. Just the Discord.

[Awha]

Snip . . .

For some (which is silly, when it comes to playing with other strangers. Though this goes into a deeper issue of respect for fellow players.) the baseline standard is tank should tank, a healer should heal, and a dps should dps. That is the baseline standard, anything beyond that is a expectation placed by the players not the game. Duty finder is random, the experience will suffer from massive variance swings, and trying to place individual player expectations on random players also suffers from such variance swings.

In an ideal world your standards would be the norm, but sadly that is not the world we live in, and honestly until SE does something about trying to facilitate play behind, tank tanking, healer healing, and damage dealer doing damage we will always have players that will stick to that mindset. Since the bare standard for SE when it comes to such content is not the same for many in the community. So our only option is to either try to vote kick players that do not met expectations, use PF and form a group that will met the expectations placed, leave the group or deal with it.

I mean I ran into a ice mage once, tried to vote kick him and the vote failed so I adjusted, it sucked and the run took longer then it should have, clearly that group had a different standard. Thankfully they are not the norm. Not trying to defend the behavior, nor agree I do see where they might be coming from when it comes to a community bare minimum. If SE does not enforce the same bare minimum what reason would another player have to listen to another player outside of respect for their fellow player. Hope you understand hard for me to explain it.