Tactful ways to inform people that they're playing badly?

[Raldo]

Every week or two, I come across some really bad players in a dungeon. Usually not enough to prevent completion of the duty, but enough that I feel like, if I was performing as badly as they were, I'd want to know about it. It took me from 70~74SMN to realize that I had completely missed putting Egi Assault 1 & 2 on my hotbars. If someone had noted to me that I never got the Further Ruin buff, that would've been helpful to me.

If it's a simple one-line fix, then that's easy. "WHM, Holy is an AOE centered around you. You're not hitting anything casting it back there." But often times the explanation is too involved to squeeze in-between/during pulls.

I usually wait until after the final boss to say something along the lines of "[Job] you should look up a guide, because your rotation is reeeeally bad". I'm not using any personal insults, but I'm not dumb, I know this still comes across as condescending/bitchy. I'm not exactly in a position to explain what they're doing mid-dungeon, but I'm hoping to at least say something that will make them improve themselves.

Has anyone mastered a tactful way to tell someone that they're severely under-performing when you're going through a dungeon, and there's not a whole bunch of downtime to write a whole essay on how to properly play a certain job?



Clarification:
- Generally, I'm referring to Lv60+ content here. I'm not going to hound some newbie for not playing their job wrong (though if I had a tactful way to get the point across, maybe I would).
- By "really bad players," I mean people that are either excluding large chunks of their job (i.e. a SMN not using their trances), or people that fundamentally don't understand how to use their job properly (i.e. a BLM casting the wrong spells during their fire/ice stances).



I realize that the answer to this is probably hidden somewhere in the DF complaint thread, but that sucker is huge.

[hynaku]

I came across very bad ones today in Heaven on High. On last floor standing in opened teleportal and one decides to use magicite when there is no monsters left on the floor and waiting on them to get in portal to go to the boss fight. Best thing say that not going to put up with it and just leave the party and take the 30 minute penalty. Its better than dealing with them.

[Tint]

It is nearly impossible. Even when you find the kindest words, you are still calling out someone for bad play in front of a group. You have to do that in private, but you can't use /tell inside a dungeon.

[DynnDiablos]

"I've noticed your rotation isn't optimal for your role, may I offer a few suggestions?" Some people are open to feedback, some aren't. Many players don't care at all if they are bad players because they truly play for story and other reasons. It's a mixed bag and can be a slippery slope in terms of feedback.

[Ilenya]

"Hey [Name], mind if I give you a few suggestions?"

If they say no, I just keep going. I rarely find people unwilling to listen, though. Whether they do anything with it or not is a whole different story, but I can't control that.

[Hash_Browns]

Kick them (in +50 content)

I understand not waning to kick players who are generally new to the game, but in +50 content, if your skill is so lacking that you can't even grasp the basics, then I'm afraid those players don't actually want to improve - they want a carry. Kicking them is the most effective way of teaching them hat they aren't going to be tolerated.

[Raldo]

"I've noticed your rotation isn't optimal for your role, may I offer a few suggestions?"

Hmm, I'll have to give that a shot. I was trying to avoid that though, since it leads to needing write up an absolute wall of text on how to play a job. I had a BLM last night that was just making all sorts of terrible decisions (Lv65 dungeon: hardcasting T4 twice in a row with half-mp in fire stance; I saw them cast Bliz 1 on more than one occasion; transposing INTO fire stance while we were fighting; rarely casting tier-4 spells; casting F2 a lot; zero Flares), and I'm not even sure where I'd start with them.

Kick them (in +50 content)

Agreed, however most people aren't paying enough attention to know why I'm initiating a vote kick, and it usually fails (or worse, backfires horribly if someone starts addressing it in chat).

[Makeda]

I think the real problem is obsessing over how other people in PUGs are doing... if you keep hyper focusing on ither people’s bad, they’re going to seem worse and worse...

For all the toxicity I saw in WoW before I left it, I just didn’t see all of this day in and day out like I do here...

Folks just figured, I won’t see that PUGly again, stuff is getting done, just gonna ride this bus to my stop and get off.
- yeah they would insult over race, gender, and be nasty in other ways... but they just farmed the PUGs in quiet for the most part, fail or win.

The closest to harassment you might see was that the guy who was #1 on the DPS meter would ask if anyone had a DPS meter in half my PUGs... and that wasn’t harassment, it was more like the fool who walks around with his shoulders stretched out too look manly while wearing an anime t-shirt...

I think you could just... get over it...

In your static... take time out to train people and make them better... but stop stressing over PUGmates and just ride the bus...

[Edax]

Tactful ways to inform people that they're playing badly?

lol @ people thinking being able to buy gil is P2W. What are you even buying with your gil that's making you "win"? I'm sitting on over 200Mil because I have nothing to spend it on.

I wouldn't mind seeing an item on the Mogstation that you could sell in-game, similar to the WoW tokens. I'd never spend real money on stuff off the mog station, but I'd gladly spend in-game money for tokens that someone else bought to get some of the Mogstation crap.

Don't lol @ people or brag about yourself.

That is factually wrong. It ruins the economy when there's no point in putting in effort.

By... making crafting materials more expensive? Maybe the finished gear more expensive? Things that no one actually needs to buy? Yeah, try again.

Avoid using a non sequitur as a rebuttal. No one would want to engage with you if you don't engage with them.

[Soupa]

I just type what they’re supposed to do