“Don't like poor play? Use a static!” thoughts

[HoodRat]

I’m curious to hear from anyone in a similar situation - do you feel like playing with more reasonable players makes you dread DFing things?

Pretty much. I really dislike having to play worse in order to cater to a party that doesn't want to put effort in. It's also pretty depressing seeing the amount of dps in expert roulette who do less damage than the tank and/or healer for the entire run; after the buff to war, I've found that running expert with 4 warriors is typically faster than queuing solo.

[F_Maximillian]

No.
I don't want to hurt anybody there, but I think OP thinking is a little pretentious.

So you're usually playing with first league football players.
This sunday, if you're playing with some random people on the beach, will you get frustrated at them because they're no good ?
Will you give them advice so that they get as good as the pro league players you usually play with ?
You get it ?
They will most probably not care.
They will eventually tell you : "give us break, go get a beer dude..."
Yea, you're surely right, they lack skill, teamwork, class...
But they don't care, it's sunday, and they're just wasted, trying to play a game while eating barbecue...

Roulette is exactly the same thing.
Can't you "elites" get that in your head ?

In the end, OP's post is useless as "bad players" don't even give a dam about what he thinks, or about all his strategizing/theorycrafting...
But it looks like some people need to have others know that they are "good" players encountering "bad" players....
I guess it gives them some confidence or a reason to show off :/

Don't want poor play ? Use a static.

Going with your example (assuming you're talking about football as in everywhere not in the US football), what if a few of those guys playing casually on the beach were just kicking the ball and standing there or standing in front of the goal making an obviously half-assed attempt to block a shot as goalie. What if they were putting in just minimal enough effort that you could confirm they were still alive and not dead on their feet but not much else? I'm pretty sure their fellow drunken players would still take up issue with them putting the bare minimum effort to be considered a being thats alive and can move. "Kick the ball with your foot", "you should probably aim for the goal instead of someone's car", "move with the ball don't just stand there like a mannequin", and "actually try to block a shot that's coming your way at a snail's pace". Is advice like that considered essential to becoming a "first league pro" or is it simply the bare minimum to play the game with others?

Most of our problem lies with people who stand in the obvious circle that shouldn't be stood in (aka standing in bad), using single target moves when aoe moves are confirmed better by anyone with two eyes that can read (and a calculator for those less mathematically inclined like myself), and standing around doing nothing as healers or spamming heals on someone who hasn't lost even half of what that heal would restore. Just changing these things is in league with the bare minimum to be considered by most reasonable people (even if they're drunk out of their minds) to be playing the game. Nobody expects random people to be world class players but why is hitting a button that's a few centimeters over from the one you're currently hitting, not standing in very obvious geometry, or just hitting buttons at all considered something so beyond people's capabilities?

[missybee]

Don't want poor play ? Use a static.

We're in the same loop that OP mentioned initially:

Don't want the potentiality of your play to be critiqued? Use a static.

Generally speaking, no one is asking for "pro league" players, nor do they even consider themselves to be "elites." I can only speak for myself, but if I see people attempting to move out of bad, a healer trying to throw out DPS here and there, and the tank blowing defensive cooldowns when necessary, I call it a pretty successful PUG.

It goes both ways though. Some people are hyper critical and some people are hyper sensitive.

[DreadRabbit]

Okay there's a lot to unpack here. If you don't read all of this or respond to me that's perfectly understandable.

In my own way I’ve taken the advice of those salty little forum monsters who tell me to not have standards outside of people I know - I have sequestered myself in a bastion of competence, the walls of which have been thick enough to mostly protect me from the shambling masses.

First of all, you're calling people salty because they didn't listen to you and accuse them for being mad that you have standards (and are therefore assuming that they don't). You might be dramatizing this for a comedic effect, but for having a serious conversation about this this really isn't the way to go about it. You can't expect people to react to your criticisms well if you belittle people like that (even if you didn't mean it that way, it comes off that way).

And that's something I noticed in the responses in Kaiva's thread discussing the player base's overall skill level (not Kaiva herself mind you). A lot of people, including you, claim you try to give advice to players performing poorly, and almost every time you get snapped at for it. And as such, you've lost faith in helping people.

Have you ever wondered if your delivery of said advice is coming off as rude to these people you're trying to help?

I ask this because someone in that thread accused Kaiva of potentially doing the same thing, and you jumped to her defense saying she has fantastic intentions. And I believe you. And I believe you have the best intentions too.

But what you and a lot of other forum members forget is that you know each other. So if someone types "You're doing your rotation wrong," (crude example) you know that it comes from a good place and that you/a person from here mean to help.

But to a person who lives across the country from you? Potentially across the world? Who has never met you? To them they're already in a situation they might not like and might already be aware they're performing poorly. So if someone just types "you're doing your rotation wrong," with no other context to fill the void it comes off as judgmental and rude.

"But dungeons go too fast to type more than that," someone might counter.

And all I can say is this: whose fault is that? Newbies don't set the pace of the dungeons. The vets who do most of the complaining do. Like it or not we set up this fast paced "go go go go" environment that doesn't encourage people asking or accepting help while in instanced content. If you want people to listen to you, then you have to learn how to communicate properly with strangers. And if you can't do that, then yeah, you're better off playing with just friends.

Is that actually good though?

I don't understand what the problem is in the first place. You've found a group of people you enjoy playing with. You're the one who is voluntarily stepping into duty finder with the mindset that these people won't live up to your standards. You're setting yourself up to get upset and angry with people. If anything it's better you're not in Duty Finder for your own emotional health.

No. I expect people from DF and PF to be average at best, and I'm pleasantly surprised when they're better than that.

Keep your expectations realistic. People who play together often and can communicate with voice chat will most times be better than random people you meet. You don't know how random people play and they don't know how you play. You also generally are not in voice chat with random people. Of course the experience with them is far less likely to be amazing. These people are strangers and you can't communicate with them as easily.

I deeply appreciate this quote and touched on this in the other thread too. While this is an unofficial census, there are roughly 230,000 active characters on the North American data centers alone: https://ffxivcensus.com/

Even if half of those are alts, that's still roughly 100,000 people with unique backgrounds, personalities, ages, and other things you risk playing with when you enter the duty finder.

Now which sounds more plausible to you? Getting 100,000 strangers that, frankly, don't care about you to play to your standards? Or finding an FC that enjoys the same gameplay that you do? That will care about you as a person?

I don't know about you, but the latter sounds like the battle you're going to win.

Yes players should know the basics and be willing to work with others. However I have played this game off and on for years now and I have never ran into ice mages or people who didn't use their job stones on purpose. I'm sure they exist, I'm not saying your experiences aren't valid. But when the same 20-30 people on the forums keep shouting about the same experiences you create an echo chamber that stretches the truth by a heck of a lot. That goes for any community.

Now I have ran into the dps who will pull instead of the tank. I have ran into the tank that will blast off without waiting for heals/buffs/what have you. Do you know what you do with those players? Call them out. Vote kick. Or for heaven's sake you leave. Even as a DPS I've taken the penalty because I didn't want to deal with jerks who didn't want to listen to the party. Sometimes the stress of the run isn't worth it, I'll go do something else in game.

Long post short: yeah, get a static or an FC is valid advice. There's nothing wrong with it. Every single other MMO seems to adopt this concept just fine. This is the first one I've encountered in 11 years where the official forum community had such an aversion to this concept.

You are never going to get 100k+ people to play your way (or even competently). It's impossible. If you can't handle that, play in a static. And yes, that goes for people who play poorly too.

[Yenyen]

Snip~ sorry got this from some 1 else xD

Just from reading the above I can say that I met a crown once who was doing "mentor roullete" whom pretty much wined at everybody why they don't just read guides in advance, I ended up advising the mentor to give advice for the fight, which I'll give it him he gave advice in the end (after a debate)
Shiva ex by the way

[Frizze]

It's hard for me to say as one person whether or not my exposure to the finer things in life has left me more irritable when confronted with the player-equivalent of mac & cheese and hot dogs but I think it's something that bears discussing.

You are unfairly slandering mac & cheese and hot dogs here. I think the better analogy would be something like "mall food court chinese food".

[F_Maximillian]

You are unfairly slandering mac & cheese and hot dogs here. I think the better analogy would be something like "mall food court chinese food".

Some of my favorite chinese food has been from the food court at the mall though. Definitely agree that mac & cheese and hot dogs is being unfairly slandered here. Middle school lunchroom food maybe?

[Jojoya]

Pretty much. I really dislike having to play worse in order to cater to a party that doesn't want to put effort in. It's also pretty depressing seeing the amount of dps in expert roulette who do less damage than the tank and/or healer for the entire run; after the buff to war, I've found that running expert with 4 warriors is typically faster than queuing solo.

And how are people supposed to know how well they're doing compared to others in a game that doesn't provide them with that information?

Most of our problem lies with people who stand in the obvious circle that shouldn't be stood in (aka standing in bad), using single target moves when aoe moves are confirmed better by anyone with two eyes that can read (and a calculator for those less mathematically inclined like myself), and standing around doing nothing as healers or spamming heals on someone who hasn't lost even half of what that heal would restore. Just changing these things is in league with the bare minimum to be considered by most reasonable people (even if they're drunk out of their minds) to be playing the game. Nobody expects random people to be world class players but why is hitting a button that's a few centimeters over from the one you're currently hitting, not standing in very obvious geometry, or just hitting buttons at all considered something so beyond people's capabilities?

Standing in bad I can agree with as a player issue or a PC issue. I have terrible lag so I do end up getting hit by bad I thought I had moved out of in time so I just avoid doing instanced group content instead of being a drag on the rest of the group. Hopefully I can get a new PC before much longer, at which point I'll start doing the instanced group content again.

But if AoE abilities deal more damage in single target situations or even in some situations where there are only 2 targets present, there's a problem with the job design. Single target abilities should deal the most damage to a single target while AoE abilities should deal a lesser amount of damage per target (though greater overall damage if there are multiple targets).

As for healing a target when the target has lost less than half the health the heal will replace, that's another issue with the game design. If I look at a heal and it says potency is 400, how am I to know how much healing it will actually deliver? At a low level, it might deliver 100 healing. At a higher level, it might deliver 2,000. Eventually someone who keeps their eyes plastered to their combat log will figure out that at their unsynced level, it will deal X amount of healing (at least until their gear changes or they level up) but in the meantime their eyes aren't paying attention to what's going on while they figure that out and if they're synced to a lower level, they're still going to be playing a guessing game.

If they heal too soon, they get yelled at for healing too soon instead of DPSing. If they wait too long, they get yelled at for not healing. When no matter what you do when you're trying your best others are going to yell at you for the smallest reasons, people aren't going to perform well. It's even worse when the people doing the yelling are people who are performing just as badly if not worse.

Not everyone is good at critical thinking, nor do they expect to have to be that way in a game being played for fun. Transparency in how the game actually works goes far into creating better players rather than expecting them to keep trying to figure things out through trial and error. The latter appeals to only a small segment of players.

[DreadRabbit]

snip

Which is a real shame because most mentors I've come across do legitimately do their best to help folks. But bad apples like your example tend to paint them in a bad light :/

[Suetan124]

Which is a real shame because most mentors I've come across do legitimately do their best to help folks. But bad apples like your example tend to paint them in a bad light :/

I've run into so many mentors that do nothing but belittle people and make the player base so toxic that (in HW) 2 new players I worked hard to get to join me in this game flat out quit.

We told the "mentor" that we had 2 new people. No response, no explanations, no patience for the new players. When they died, the "mentor" told them to quit playing and shoot themselves in the face.

Ever since then, I've always preferred to avoid playing with mentors as much as possible.