Going to the same route as WoW. The game is TOO easy

[Eli85]

Unsure if you are aware but in FF14 expecting people to have a basic understanding of their class and skills along with an alright rotation is elitism.

Pay less attention to hyperbolic talking heads and exaggerated buzzwords. No one but the most ridiculous would endorse your statement, and it's more likely than not that they're trolling. 'Cause Internet.

[Crystal_Raven]

Pay less attention to hyperbolic talking heads and exaggerated buzzwords. No one but the most ridiculous would endorse your statement, and it's more likely than not that they're trolling. 'Cause Internet.

You say that and yet I still encounter max level players that have no idea how to play their class or position properly or do half-competent rotations. On a daily basis.

[Eli85]

You say that and yet I still encounter max level players that have no idea how to play their class or position properly or do half-competent rotations.

My claim and yours do not conflict each other. You see that because the game allows players to play terribly and still progress, until end game. If a previous suggestion like strict enrage timers were implemented earlier in the game, this issue would be reduced to the point where it likely wouldn't exist anymore. Further, even in those situations, only the uneducated would claim a repulsion to that as "elitist," and why would we heed what such individuals have to say?

[Nariel]

My claim and yours do not conflict each other. You see that because the game allows players to play terribly and still progress, until end game. If a previous suggestion like strict enrage timers were implemented earlier in the game, this issue would be reduced to the point where it likely wouldn't exist anymore. Further, even in those situations, only the uneducated would claim a repulsion to that as "elitist," and why would we heed what such individuals have to say?

Its nice and all until the game has do go the F2P trashgame road because too many player dropped the game early out of frustration.

I know trash tier player aren't fun but its not that often you can't win a casual intended fight or you're all very unlucky and should consider flee elsewhere.

[Eli85]

Its nice and all until the game has do go the F2P trashgame road because too many player dropped the game early out of frustration.

I know trash tier player aren't fun but its not that often you can't win a casual intended fight or you're all very unlucky and should consider flee elsewhere.

Considering how easy it is to do respectable damage, I doubt the player shedding would be substantial. You're just getting rid of the afkers and auto-attackers and one-skill warriors. If that took the game into F2P territory, then quite frankly the game deserves it. Not that I think it would happen.

[Melichoir]

Its nice and all until the game has do go the F2P trashgame road because too many player dropped the game early out of frustration.

I know trash tier player aren't fun but its not that often you can't win a casual intended fight or you're all very unlucky and should consider flee elsewhere.

I think the enrage timer does come down to a matter of telling people "Hey, if youre geared for this, you should be able to pull out this much dps. If not, then something is up."

Granted this isnt a one answer solution. If youre gonna have enrage timers, then there needs to be an ilvl minimum for the content, which then means the enrage must be beatable with the minimum ilvl, and with a moderate ilvl you can do it without issue (so long as in both cases players are performing averagely). The other side to this is actually ramping up dungeon difficulty. Boss mechanics get more difficult the higher you get into content, and I mean substantially. If it doesnt feel any harder running a lvl 35 dungeon from a lvl 55 dungeon from a lvl 70 dungeon, then the dungeons arent ramping up correctly.

This also means that SE would have to expand or provide more incentive for lower and middle level players to visit the novice hall place (the name eludes me right this minute), and information there has to be more robust and focusing on training players to do rotations while handling boss mechanics.

As long as players feel like there is some place they can go to get the basics explained to them and why it's important, you wont see people rage quit cause of difficulty. People only do that if they feel 'cheated' by boss encounters. If they die to something and know exactly why it happened, they may get frustrated or annoyed, but theyl likely plug back into it and seek to try and avoid the error.

[Shurrikhan]

Further, even in those situations, only the uneducated would claim a repulsion to that as "elitist," and why would we heed what such individuals have to say?

Because they kick you when you dare to speak otherwise in any way that may somehow offend? Because, however unfortunate it may be, they have legitimate power -- as does any other stratum, fold, or opinion of player -- when a majority of a given group? That's their right, and thus one may say that that result is everything working as intended, but it's hard to believe the chasm that would lead to these conflicts is likewise intended or a result of well-functioning designs.

I've more than several times been kicked for merely asking my (other) DPS to "Please use your AoE skills when we're fighting 4 or more mobs at a time, or at least attack the same target as <the other DPS or myself>." About the same number have occurred from asking, as a healer, my DPS to dodge or the tank not to cleave the melee. Having played several MMOs each with significant skill gap and poor player learning support tools (apart, in most cases, from a better difficulty curve), I don't think I've ever seen an MMO where kicks so often occur, especially from poorer performing players onto those encouraging, shepherding, or pushing more optimal play rather than more competent players declining to make use of a player who is not yet prepared for the stratum of content they'd queued for.

Yes, we can avoid players not of our own skill level or with whom we do not share gameplay habits, and -- as in the above examples -- it will often time out such that being kicked from such a poorly performing group, even including the next queue time, may still lead to a faster clear if you random in with a better group next time. But this ignores a more crucial point.

By the time you have these kinds of conflicts to worry about, you have a significantly sized group that identifies largely antithetically (anything we don't do must be "them" and anything "they" do must be something we don't do) and antipathically ("Damn those elitists!"), causing significant polarization that only adds unto itself given (even fairly reasonable) reactions from those they then exclude. All this, when we should ideally instead be seeing a desire to improve and see others improve and ideally be open to whatever different means of enjoying the game where they do not have to be in conflict (as I would argue that enjoying RPG aspects of the game and its mathematical optimizations need not be)...

To a large group of people, improvement towards mastery is itself gameplay and content worth experiencing for its sheer enjoyment. To another, it's not that great in itself, but certainly extrinsically enjoyable in that it allows you access to so much more content, which the externally increases the size of the playerbase within any given tier or stratum of content. To the last, it's a distraction which stands in conflict with other activities that can be gleaned from the game. But while that may be three groups, one ultimately treats optimization (even in the vaguest sort of way) very, very differently from the other two, such that you end up with two (essentially boolean) stances. It's like if you took all values between 1 and 100 and then those under, say, 20 decided to treat all numbers higher as an irreconcilable monolith. And that number will of course shift. In later Ex primal content, maybe that's up to 35 or whatever, but the point is how much resistance we face for going, or more importantly suggesting that others go, those few numbers higher, since however small or tall the order, or how easily a significant improvement can be made, one is all too often called the same thing.