When do the training wheels come off?

[xbahax92]

I have noticed in dungeons lately that there are much less players willing to teach. I used to see it more often in Heavensward when I admit I am new to a dungeon, but it doesn't seem to happen as often now.

As a side note, I do try my best to briefly explain what the mechanics are. If the dungeon says someone is new here, I may mention if something unusual and different pops up that could mess them up if ignored.

After getting told "I know what to do, you dont have to tell me this/that, you dont pay my sub", even veterans lose the interest to teach others. Beside, if you were to teach every bad player in your daily roulettes, you wouldnt manage to finish your dailies. And sorry - but someone who works and has a rl and only a few hours spare time, this cant be done with everyone. Beside there are friends and FC mates/newbies that need the same help, why would you help randoms which will disappear after the dungeon clear or actually ignore your messages in the chat?

And the problem isnt really about explaining boss mechanics, everyone got their own pace and learning those patterns/puzzles is pretty easy, mechanics are the less evil here.
But I believe some really think, teaching roles/jobs can be done between the pulls, and thats really naive. There are many things new players dont know, even more if they never played a MMO before. Damage mitigation with buffs, healing over time, damage over time effects... AoE potency scaling up at 2+ mobs already, weaving your OGCD skills between every GCD skill... All these things take more time than "hey I will bomb you with information now and you'll definetly get better after!".

This information has to be in the game first. If new players still have questions or struggle with stuff, they still have the chance to ask other players/friends/FC members.

[Forever_Learning]

I played this game originally in ARR, raided coil, and then left when my raid team feel apart. I cam back six months ago, and the amount of content available is a bit overwhelming, so I really appreciate the novice network being there for questions.


I have a sprout symbol, I always tell people when I'm new somewhere; however, I find other players in the game just view me as stupid at times, rather than learning, or realize I'm making dumb new player mistakes that I'll later laugh about.

For example, I only recently began using plates and gear swap macros for my various jobs, but before I wasn't sure how to do that, and I was scared of making a mistake, so I relied a lot on the recommended gear slot (blissfully unaware of its drawbacks)

About a month or two ago, I qued up for leviathan, switched jobs, and when it popped, I equipped my weapon to change jobs (cause I wasnt doing plate macros yet, nor do most new people), and then clicked the recommended gear button to get into the instance as fast as I could because I was already late responding.

I entered the trial thinking everything was fine, but then it began:

-OMG, how stupid can you be
-Please delete your account, why are your bothering us?
-Well, level 50 and still a conjurer - guess that's one way to play.

To my shock and horror, the recommend gear button had left out my job stone. I think "ok, I'll just equip it now" - but I can't.

However, the ridicule continued against me, and I just kept getting insult after insult.

Was that truly deserved? Did people really think I had chosen to never do a job quest or had no idea that I needed to equip the stone?

Sometimes, people make mistakes, we correct them, and we move on.

Point being, people are quick to judge.

When I returned from the trial, I explained what happened to the novice network, and they were able to figure out it was due to the recommended gear button, so I've never made that mistake again. In contrast, when I ask people for help for advice in a dungeon, all I get is silence or a "don't die."

There is so much in this game that isn't explained within the game. I keep watching videos and reading guides, but as it is with everything in life, there is no substitute for experience, asking questions is typical, and mistakes when you are learning is NORMAL.

[Forever_Learning]

Well on ARR initial release the training wheels pretty much were fully off by Hauke Manor and Brayflox Longstop. 28-36ish if remember right. The mechanics in those two tended to weed out the lazier ones a bit, and required knowing job basics and such then.

With all the rebalances and expansions, I'm not sure where it moved to. Depends on how far vets are just willing to carry people.

I'm getting the impression that there's a general consensus that things were more difficult in ARR?

I played during that time and I don't remember it being harder.

Things were sometimes harder for the WRONG reasons - like the fact our cooldowns didn't reset after a wipe!

My team and I spent most of the night chatting frankly since the time between pulls was always a couple minutes.

People also weren't exactly sure how to play their job back then - healers were hitting enemies with their books (that's stopped, right?)

Rather than the current mantra to avoid macros, they were being used all over the place.

There were also teams reporting they were having an easier time because their healer did a lot of DPS (with their books), while other teams said healers priotizing DPS was silly . . . some things never change.

Hauke - people maybe wiped at the last boss due to the lamps, but that still happens. People unaware they should click return after the second boss was a bigger issues, and remains so. The ease of brayflox largely depended on how much your tank wanted to pull, which I think remains the case.

I always felt the only difficult dungeon pre-50 was Stone Vigil. The challenge with level 50 dungeons like Wanderer's palace was trying to get it done in under 10 minutes.

I don't know if anyone was carrying anyone back then, but there wasn't much communication, and it was mostly just wiping over and over, which also happens now.

If you have been playing consistently since ARR, the increase level of experience may make those dungeons seem really easy now, or they seemed really hard in ARR, because you were new.

As someone who played and raided in ARR, I haven't seen this disparity in difficulty level that I often see mentioned.

We also lacked the third party programs that "help with your rotation" nor the ones telling us when certain actions happened. Dive bombs, you just counted in your head and hoped for no lag!

It reminds me of Classic WoW, which people said it was so much more difficult because it took so much longer to complete, but now that they have released the original content, people are realizing that they were hard for reasons unrelated to the game and that outside Naxrammas, they are possibly the easiest and most casual-friendly raids in WoW ever created.

At any rate, that's my memory of ARR.

P.S. People were totally pugging coil and beating it. I saw someone post that no pug was ever able to beat Coil, which is very far from the truth.

[Insertcoins]

Not really related but I'm leveling an alt on balmung and I just hit 45 and finished a dungeon.... I did NOT get loot at the end. I'm guessing this only happens in stormblood and shadows cause leveling under 60 I have NOT gotten gear thur the dungeons like you do at max. So thats a thing. And ofcourse gear on the market board cost too freakign much for a new player with no gil. I've been stuck with 20k for 15 levels. And buck those crafters selling rings you can't get at venders between the 30's and 50's being over a mil gill each >:O. I can see how new players aren't geared if they are running into gear issues like I am. Lucky enough I had to BEG a friend of mine to loan me some gil so I can buy the stuff off the MB. But yeah.. I knew I wasn't crazy.

[AngelCheese77]

1) You get boosted EXP like crazy now, level 50 stuff is still newbie stuff now days.

Sadly this is true. My sister came to Siren when the Road to 60 was still active, and she hit level 34 so fast. She couldn't change to BRD yet as she wasn't there in the MSQ. I've had it happen on my character as well, duing stuff over level 30 where one "should" have their job class then.

[Hash_Browns]

I'm stuggling to understand why you would expect someone doing an MSQ quest and not even level 50 yet to play the game to your strict requirements. Really all I can suggest is to get over yourself.

I really love that the "strict requirements" are:

1) Holding aggro
2) Having decent gear for your class
3) Having a job stone equipped

The very basics of gameplay.

[Forever_Learning]

I really love that the "strict requirements" are:

1) Holding aggro
2) Having decent gear for your class
3) Having a job stone equipped

The very basics of gameplay.

Hold Aggro - ok.

Decent gear - when you are low level, spamming dungeons, you can often move up several levels and discover your gear is less than optimal, but sufficient anyway, you just move on.

Are you seriously saying I should spam something like the vault until I upgrade all my gear, and only then move onto great gubal library?

No one does this - you spam the vault a couple times to reach level 58, then you spam library, and whatever gear you get along the way is bonus.

You also do this because you are clearing the dungeon rather than wiping, so the gear equipped is sufficient, meaning there's little incentive for seeking out much better gear.

Regarding the job stone being equipped, see my earlier post. It can be a mistake related to being unaware of problems with the recommended gear button.

For several minutes I had people massively harass me due to this mistake, novice network explained what I did wrong in under 30 seconds - who do you think was helping me be a better player?

Sadly this is true. My sister came to Siren when the Road to 60 was still active, and she hit level 34 so fast. She couldn't change to BRD yet as she wasn't there in the MSQ. I've had it happen on my character as well, duing stuff over level 30 where one "should" have their job class then.

When I first saw the comment that level 44 was high, my first reaction was the same: No, it isn't.

You can do almost nothing and reach level 44 - I think just four times in PotD will do it.

[Silver-Strider]

So what you're saying is that you were able to successfully handle the basics of the game because past experience had prepared you for it.

Did you ever consider that not everyone has that past experience?

Speaking as someone that NEVER played an MMO game before FFXIV, this excuse only carries you so far and does not excuse you from being ill equip for content. I still remember my newbie days constantly going to my Grand Company to see if I could upgrade any of my gear to make sure I was as properly geared as I could be going into any new content. This wasn't explained to me, there wasn't a Hall of Novice or Novice Network feeding me information by the handful and no real friends to speak of at the time, it was stuff that I learned pretty quickly on my own as it only seemed logical that higher level gear with bigger numerical stats was better gear in general. It took me forever to even earn my 1st 100k as I was always buying better gear whenever I could to fill out whatever I couldn't get from my Grand Company and it served me well in my career. It was a painful experience but I don't think that's an excuse for not learning how to play the game at even the early stages.

[Azbroolah]

Decent gear - when you are low level, spamming dungeons, you can often move up several levels and discover your gear is less than optimal, but sufficient anyway, you just move on.

Are you seriously saying I should spam something like the vault until I upgrade all my gear, and only then move onto great gubal library?

No one does this - you spam the vault a couple times to reach level 58, then you spam library, and whatever gear you get along the way is bonus.

You're moving the goalposts here. The tank in question was using a level 15 shield in a level 44 instance, not gear from the previous dungeon. There is no excuse besides deliberate laziness for using gear that is almost 30 levels too low.

[Hash_Browns]

Hold Aggro - ok.

Decent gear - when you are low level, spamming dungeons, you can often move up several levels and discover your gear is less than optimal, but sufficient anyway, you just move on.

Are you seriously saying I should spam something like the vault until I upgrade all my gear, and only then move onto great gubal library?

Having full poetics gear isn't comparable to having a mix of +10 levels under gear that's a mix of caster/DPS/tank gear for a 4 man trial.