The general player base needs to improve

[Shihen]

This isn't directed at anyone, just piggybacking off of these comments to make a few points.

You don't get better unless you hit a wall of some kind that makes you want to improve, and that legitimately fails you as you are.

I agree with the spirit of this statement, and the general message, but don't think it necessarily has to be pass/fail to spark the will to improve. An impassable wall is a challenge for some, but for a lot of others it's the end of the road. They aren't willing to put in the effort to scale the wall, which ties into:

You look up your rotation...

The wall is higher than it needs to be. Most players just aren't going to do anything to improve that requires stepping outside of Eorzea and while that's certainly laziness on the player's part, the design is also to blame. There is a lack of meaningful communication when it comes to combat performance in this game that makes improvement unnecessarily roundabout. Many players opt not to improve because they don't even know where to start and are pissed off that they have to at all because they were all straight A students before they signed up for Byakko-sensei's class and got an F. They meld incorrectly because instead of percentages, we have arbitrary ratings that require a google search and calculator to make sense of. They do sub-par damage because knowing how much damage you do requires a third-party, ToS breaking app instead of a conversation with an NPC beside the training dummy. They fail basic mechanics because hall of the novice is an optional hut in the middle of nowhere instead of, you know, a hall novices have to go through.

I think if they really wanted to they could come up with pretty good ways to coax the general playerbase into getting better, but it's probably just not on the radar. Between 5.0 design, 4.x development, bugs, and drafting a statement that pretends to care about PvP, their hands might just be full.

[RiyahArp]

I agree with the spirit of this statement, and the general message, but don't think it necessarily has to be pass/fail to spark the will to improve. An impassable wall is a challenge for some, but for a lot of others it's the end of the road. They aren't willing to put in the effort to scale the wall, which ties into

Well, that's the way it is already. I mean, the game doesn't kick you out of it if you don't do savage or expert. Most people are going to make a choice, but if someone argues that the playerbase needs to get better, that means we get these kinds of walls.

The wall is higher than it needs to be. Most players just aren't going to do anything to improve that requires stepping outside of Eorzea and while that's certainly laziness on the player's part, the design is also to blame. There is a lack of meaningful communication when it comes to combat performance in this game that makes improvement unnecessarily roundabout. Many players opt not to improve because they don't even know where to start and are pissed off that they have to at all because they were all straight A students before they signed up for Byakko-sensei's class and got an F. They meld incorrectly because instead of percentages, we have arbitrary ratings that require a google search and calculator to make sense of. They do sub-par damage because knowing how much damage you do requires a third-party, ToS breaking app instead of a conversation with an NPC beside the training dummy. They fail basic mechanics because hall of the novice is an optional hut in the middle of nowhere instead of, you know, a hall novices have to go through.

I think if they really wanted to they could come up with pretty good ways to coax the general playerbase into getting better, but it's probably just not on the radar. Between 5.0 design, 4.x development, bugs, and drafting a statement that pretends to care about PvP, their hands might just be full.

The reason for obscured mechanic makes sense, but also is annoying as hell.

They do it to give the elite theorycrafters something to do, and those crafters form sort of a core to the MMO and create the whole community thing that makes games a lot stickier. It's one thing to know everything from the start, but when you are forced to ask someone in game, or receive advice, that really binds the players to the game. Like look at FFlogs; it's created a community around it, all due to the fact that its hard to actually evaluate damage in this game, and it has among the top players whose influence trickles down to everyone else by meta, by streaming, and other means.

It's annoying because it works so well. That core of knowledge-spreading players has a huge impact on a game. And they probably don't fix it because you'd end up isolating players even worse in their own worlds. you wouldn't need to ask anyone else for anything. I'm sure there are other reasons, but thats what i feel the stupid "hide all damage numbers" persists long after the intial reason-immersion-is dead in the water.