How to give advice

[ko_]

Knowing the difference between an AoE-spell and a ST-spell is "high competency"?
In my book, its not - its part of the very basic-concept and required knowledge as DPS, just how it is very basic and required knowledge as healer to be aware how your healing-spells work and for a tank to know how to hold aggro and how to use cooldowns.

Learning and practising is okay in leveling dungeons, yes - but please show me that you're doing that or I'll give you the needed hint. If someone is casting Thunder IV on a ST repeatedly, chances are that they either never read the tooltip or forgot what it said, which means they'll most likely never find out that they're doing something wrong their. Its not as if they're trying to figure out wether Thunder IV or Thunder III is the stronger spell. All they're doing right in this moment is practising a wrong rotation, which is gonna bite them in the behind later.

The basic-rotations in this game dont require you to be a genius - and knowing the difference between your AoE and your ST toolkit requires nothing more of you than reading your tooltips.
We're not talking about how to use Convert and an Aether to get more Flares out of your rotation.

Why is it always "Oh, if you're not doing savage, you dont need to know what half your skills do!"?
And how is someone supposed to learn in dungeons if they're not aware that or what they need to work on? Your rotation (specially as DPS) is pretty much muscle memory and thats what you should practise in a dungeon: Using your correct rotation for the situation (AoE vs. ST) blindley. Obviously that requires you to know this rotation before. You're not in a dungeon to figure out what your spells do and to read the tooltips, while the rest of your party patiently waits for your to do your homework in class.
I'll give leeway for the first 4 dungeons though, for people who are really new to the genre, but past that I expect a healer to do more than spam their stromgest healing-skill, a tank to use cooldowns and their aggro-skills and a DPS to know the difference between AoE and ST.

Long story short: Yes, dungeons are training grounds, but you're not learning anything if you train the wrong stuff.
I've never been to a gym, but I would hope that if someone uses some of the equiment there in a wrong way, someone else would come over to tell them "Hey, you're holding this wrong, let me show you!"

Well in your example the person was way nicer then most people tend to be. But that's my point. Noone is going to care if you yell at them or whatever. If you come with respect and welcoming them you'll more likely get the results you want. It's not perfect no. But those who snap for reason are shot anyway.

[Bellsong]

That is the point dear... Advice is welcome, positive and encouraged.
Criticism is not! Just pointless and not appreciated by most of people.
Like imagine in a working environment:
Are you ok if colleague criticise you ? I doubt, probably an healthy advice to improve may be better . You can find people ( or colleagues) the criticise just to diminish you and others that give you advice to improve your OTE, l think we all prefer second kind of people to work with.
Same concept applies in ffxiv

There's lots of instances where criticism is a good thing, it isn't always diminishing either. The biggest problem with criticism is people who don't know how to give it which is what gives people so much anxiety receiving it.
I suppose I could have said "Constructive criticism" but either way I feel my point still stands, if you're going to do something while willfully being unprepared for it you should not be surprised that people may speak up.
Advice and criticism in certain places are very important for growth. And some jobs will require you to take it well, especially artistic jobs.

[Vidu]

Well in your example the person was way nicer then most people tend to be. But that's my point. Noone is going to care if you yell at them or whatever. If you come with respect and welcoming them you'll more likely get the results you want. It's not perfect no. But those who snap for reason are shot anyway.

Yes, but the person didnt ask either, which is all that I'm arguing about: Advice should be given in a polite, friendly and constructive way (personally, I try to present it lightly or as some form of I-message - "I found it very useful to do X, maybe you want to try it too?"), but if someone is doing something wrong and is training the wrong (brain) muscles right now, I dont think it requires asking for permission to correct that.

If the OP would have been "Hey, can we all make sure we give advice without being condescending?" I would have agreed with them in a heartbeat. But thats not what the OP was about. The OP was about "Before you give any advice, ask if you're allowed to". And thats what I dont agree with. As long as your advice is brought for in a polite manner, I consider that question a waste of everyones time, as long as the whole thing is only about something quick like "Please, use skil X instead of skill Y" or "Try to keep your buff up all the time!" or basically just repeating what the tooltip of the skill says - a tooltip that the person in question should have read before entering the dungeon.
The only time asking for permission is warranted in my book is if someone needs a longer explantion - in that case that question is not only for him but for the whole party to answer ("Would you mind waiting?")

Advice should always be given in a polite manner, so that it can (and should) be recived as constructive feedback and not as a personal attack.
But we dont need to walk on eggshells here - we just need to be polite in the way we interact with others. That includes how we phrase advice, but for me it also includes knowing your basics once you've got your jobstone.

[Yenyen]

Just don't give advice at all, help who asks for it because people are way too sensitive.

I've told dragoons they should actually apply chaos thrust, told them they shouldn't spam Jumps like GcD
Told a summoner they shouldn't use a titan pet
Told a white mage they have a regen to make healing easier for themself.
Told a bard they have Dots

All of them mostly give the same response, something along the lines of the games not fun when being told what to do
You can try and give advice and hope they want to listen but just, the second they get defensive drop it and let them continue what they were doing.

[ko_]

Yes, but the person didnt ask either, which is all that I'm arguing about: Advice should be given in a polite, friendly and constructive way (personally, I try to present it lightly or as some form of I-message - "I found it very useful to do X, maybe you want to try it too?"), but if someone is doing something wrong and is training the wrong (brain) muscles right now, I dont think it requires asking for permission to correct that.

If the OP would have been "Hey, can we all make sure we give advice without being condescending?" I would have agreed with them in a heartbeat. But thats not what the OP was about. The OP was about "Before you give any advice, ask if you're allowed to". And thats what I dont agree with. As long as your advice is brought for in a polite manner, I consider that question a waste of everyones time, as long as the whole thing is only about something quick like "Please, use skil X instead of skill Y" or "Try to keep your buff up all the time!" or basically just repeating what the tooltip of the skill says - a tooltip that the person in question should have read before entering the dungeon.
The only time asking for permission is warranted in my book is if someone needs a longer explantion - in that case that question is not only for him but for the whole party to answer ("Would you mind waiting?")

Advice should always be given in a polite manner, so that it can (and should) be recived as constructive feedback and not as a personal attack.
But we dont need to walk on eggshells here - we just need to be polite in the way we interact with others. That includes how we phrase advice, but for me it also includes knowing your basics once you've got your jobstone.

Yeah your example I agree with after reading and understanding your view. Hope that didn't cause stress before that. I know debates can get heated.

[JohnSeal]

Yes I understand, the thread literally is “ How to give advices “ so I was talking about the way people criticise player in not constructive way but in a diminishing one.Some players really help the community but other are just insulting. I give suggestion to people only if I see are doing gigantic errors and they are totally far from understanding how the class work like Ice mages, SMN with no dot, Sams or Rdms with no aoe but I shut up for if I see a BRD with no heavy shot or DRG with no heavy trust stuff like that.

Yes it’s essential to read your skills and practice with it, probably many players are not familiar with this kind of games and how it works.
Unfortunately there are really little instruments of improvement and comparison for low level players to improve and understand many things. I started as BLM back in the days and honestly I never used Fire II till early 50s because seemed useless compared to Fire III that I was spamming (ok feeling silly if I think of it) then I realised how aoe work better on 3+ mobs.
That’s because the requirements in overhall are really low, no DPS checks for examples and player can complete instances easly anyway so they probably think are doing well perfectly but they don’t realise if are missing something but that is how casual contents works.
Most of new player don’t use roles at all because seems useless, especially tanks or some players don’t understand the power of dots. But nobody force them too.
Often skills itself are not fully explained and some effects hidden, like nobody tell you lucid, refresh or tactician reduce enmity or that eye x eye can be spread stuff like that.
Anyway you may be right on the general point still nodoby needs to be surprised if player underperform at the begin

[Vidu]

Yes I understand, the thread literally is “ How to give advices “ so I was talking about the way people criticise player in not constructive way but in a diminishing one.Some players really help the community but other are just insulting. I give suggestion to people only if I see are doing gigantic errors and they are totally far from understanding how the class work like Ice mages, SMN with no dot, Sams or Rdms with no aoe but I shut up for if I see a BRD with no heavy shot or DRG with no heavy trust stuff like that.

Yes it’s essential to read your skills and practice with it, probably many players are not familiar with this kind of games and how it works.
Unfortunately there are really little instruments of improvement and comparison for low level players to improve and understand many things. I started as BLM back in the days and honestly I never used Fire II till early 50s because seemed useless compared to Fire III that I was spamming (ok feeling silly if I think of it) then I realised how aoe work better on 3+ mobs.
That’s because the requirements in overhall are really low, no DPS checks for examples and player can complete instances easly anyway so they probably think are doing well perfectly but they don’t realise if are missing something but that is how casual contents works.
Most of new player don’t use roles at all because seems useless, especially tanks or some players don’t understand the power of dots. But nobody force them too.
Often skills itself are not fully explained and some effects hidden, like nobody tell you lucid, refresh or tactician reduce enmity or that eye x eye can be spread stuff like that.
Anyway you may be right on the general point still nodoby needs to be surprised if player underperform at the begin

And that bolded part is exactly why we, as longterm players, need to give advice and feedback to a new person or even just to someone whos new to the job. And yes, as long as that advice is phrased politely, even without asking for permission first.

I dont think anyone is surprised about players underoperforming within the first few dungeons and no one has an issue with that, as long as they see the person really trying their best.
However... in light of the OP... Thunder IV is the level 64 BLM-skill. Thats way, way past being a new player or new to the job. Its way past the point where someone learns the concept of AoE vs. ST-damage and what to use when.
Personally, my BLM-hotbars are set up with a AoE-section and a ST-section. Each time I get a new skill, I read the tooltip and stick it either to the AoEs or the ST-spells.

And as I mentioned earlier already: what you're practising in dungeons goes to your muscle memory, so that one day you'll be able to play your job half asleep. Whats the point of letting someone learn and parctise something that you know is wrong in a dungeon? I had a bard in Haukke NM once, who wouldnt use DoTs and I kept asking for them, even though the whole run wouldnt have taken much longer without them. But the reason I kept asking for them and reminding him and telling him how important DoTs are is that I main bard as dps and know that the whole core-mechanic of bard - the songs - depend on your DoTs. So you better get used to keeping them all the time and learn how to do that from the start.

You're also making the good point of people not realising that they might be doing something wrong - which again supports giving polite advice, instead of asking for permission, seeing how that permission can denied, because someone is convinced they already know it all.
...and seeing how a question like "Hey, I see you're doing something wrong - might if I tell you how to do it right?" would hurt the feelings of every sensitive little snowflake out there already aswell (because you're telling them they're doing something wrong - even by offering to give advice, you're at least implying that), I really dont see the point of it.

Be polite, be friendly - but give advice when its needed! The game doesnt do it - its up to us.

Yeah your example I agree with after reading and understanding your view. Hope that didn't cause stress before that. I know debates can get heated.

No harm done! ;D
I know that my posts on this matter can come off as a little harsh in tone, but thats mainly because I try to make them as clear as possible. As I said in my first post here... touchy subject. And I would like to avoid this getting heated, by sticking to a neutral tone myself - even if that seems harsh at times! Nothing personal, just trying to get my points across as clear as possible - so I apologise if I cam of rude, that wasnt my intention!

[silverlunarfox]

Warning: I'm venting and this has been said before, but it bares repeating.

So on Friday I'm doing a simple Duty Finder dungeon run. I'm blm, not the best, but I'm learning my rotation. I can get Flare up pretty fast. I tend to use the same basic rotation on both single and group targets. Yes, I should work on that.

Anyways, things are going well and we're all running through it pretty quickly, when someone has a fit that I'm using Thunder 4 on a single target. They then proceed to say "let me school you on blm". This ticked me off beyond compare. A few runs down the line and they post the basic blm rotation.

I get it, I need to work on things, but I am getting better. If this this person had been watching, they'd have seen I was doing most of the rotation. Also, stuff happens, sometimes I lose my place in the rotation due to fight dynamics.

The point? If you want to give advice, ask the other play if they want it. This person's attitude threw my whole game off the rest of the run. I've been in parties where players asked others if they'd like a few tips. Those parties were some of the best I've been in. People start talking and sharing and we have great times. This is why I haven't left Final Fantasy.

Thanks for listening, hope some of you understand.

There's a good way and a bad way to give advice, your encounter with the teammate would fall under bad way.

That being said advice should not be given only if the player accepts to getting it. That's just silly. Let them say their advice, and you take it as you see fit. Either you'll take the advice or you won't.

"let me school you on blm" may make me want to go ice mage at that rate. But some people do it to feed their own egos. let them and move on. You'll learn your class in time. Not everyone starts off perfect, nor does everyone play perfectly 100% of the time. Just take a deep breath and carry on. :3

[Angus]

But he has the opportunity right now to get advice that isn't rude. Just needs to ask.

That would be a positive result of this whole situation. Instead it's just a post attacking someone.

I am actively looking into improving my rotation. I've checked out the DPS forums here and on Reddit. I am upset about the situation, not attacking the player. I could name and shame, but that's a BS move.

[Angus]

I'm gonna come off as a jerk here but so be it.
A: You know there's a difference between a multi target rotation and single target rotation and
B: You clearly know where the forums are.
You're in the wrong for not having done any research at all to establish even the most basic of rotations in a dungeon. The guy shouldn't have to tell you at all not to use or use a skill, you should, out of courtesy know the bare minimum of using your MT versus ST skills. You may be levelling but you're at least past 50 and you haven't figured out a bare minimum MT rotation? On a BLM? 100% the guy giving you unsolicited advice was certainly tired of dragging you through said dungeon and that likely justifiably colored his/her tone. No one expects raid tier dps in dungeons, but sweet ginger deity of your choosing, you're being rude just showing up like that.

There was no dragging going on. We were flying through very quickly.