This game prepares no one for raid/hard content

[Rongway]

Just for the sake of argument, the stack marker indicator has also changed over time.

It's been consistent since the introduction of the orange arrows, though. Were there any other non-standard marked stack mechanics besides Five-Headed Dragon's (WoD) purple lightning marker, the Avatar's (SCOB3) painting laser for Gaseous Bomb, and Harmachi (ARF)'s imitation of the Avatar? I struggle to recall any others.

[Hasrat]

It's been consistent since the introduction of the orange arrows, though. Were there any other non-standard marked stack mechanics besides Five-Headed Dragon's (WoD) purple lightning marker, the Avatar's (SCOB3) painting laser for Gaseous Bomb, and Harmachi (ARF)'s imitation of the Avatar? I struggle to recall any others.

I may be remembering wrong, but Myath, midboss of Sohm Al, I think uses now-non-standard stack/spread markers. At least, that's always the one that comes to mind for me.

But, taking a step back, and looking at the core of this argument, I'd say there's room for debate on how well the game actually "teaches" players anything. The current-standard stack marker is possibly the only mechanic indicator that I can think of at this moment that seems like it ought to be fairly intuitive. And that's a maybe. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I question how intuitive it is to have that marker try to say "this attack will hurt this player a lot, but the damage can be spread out to other players that stand in proximity."

For context, I'm trying to consider this side of the argument as a completely fresh group of players, completely blind run, no research, no foreknowledge. In order for any of these indicators, not just stack, all of them, to do their job well, that is, to clearly teach players their meaning, I think all of what we have are missing some important elements. I suppose really, they don't all need to immediately visually indicate how the mechanic should be handled. Most of them can't really even do that visually alone, it's up to the player to learn and understand and interpret. So I think part of what would make a well-designed element is how failure of the mechanic will teach players how to handle it in the future. Going back to the stack marker, completely fresh party, does failing the stack mechanic adequately communicate to the players that they handled the mechanic incorrectly, and guide them towards correct behavior (at least in the earliest encounters of the mechanic)? It seems, especially judging from stories I'm sure we all have experienced or heard, that there are some players that see the marker as simply "this player is going to die." It's a giant target, showing where the big attack will land, but doesn't really do much to communicate the shared damage aspect.

I'm picking on the stack marker a lot, but this applies to just about any of them. Surely everyone has popped into some fight or raid that they haven't seen in a while, either been on break, or haven't run the content, or whatever, and they've had that moment of "oh, I have this marker over my head, but I can't actually remember what I'm supposed to do with this mechanic."

Idk. Late night thoughts. Just wondering, how much of what this game "teaches" might rely heavily on the experienced players passing on their knowledge, rather than the game using the tools needed to communicate new elements to players in a fashion that can lead to intuitive learning.

Gaming psychology is actually kinda fascinating to dig into, I think.