Parsing? Drama? ToS? Solution!

[Mansion]

I would also support gating savage/extreme content behind a test where you can prove you are worthy. However the test should be more than just a passive striking dummy.

Oddly enough, that's roughly the purpose that Fausts used to serve in Alexander tiers. And players asked it away because it was getting tedious. It's difficult to include that kind of system to gameplay I guess.

One step in the good direction would be based on the Hall of Novices and try to get more stages of that content with higher difficulty settings. Like DPS check while dealing with mechanics, or healing checks, that kind of stuff. It does not have to be savage difficulty,but I'd argue than we are now 80 levels in the game and that's still quite common to see people with no basic understanding of combat gameplay in level cap content. We are not asking speedkills of anything really, but people understanding how mechanics and rotations should be the common ground. I don't like tagging in an Expert roulette and see DPS not using AoE skills (or AoE skills on a single target), or healers contributing to nothing DPS-wise, or a tank eating dmg with no CD at all.

Now in the high end scene, I'm not sure gating would work regardless. There are a lot of external factors about why people can be "bad" or why people can be "elitist". I don't think it's up to FFXIV to provide content to shave off those players (and I don't think it's possible). FFXIV can just enforce rules, and people who break them can face sanctions.
What is concerning here is how FFXIV/SE's holy judgement can sometimes feel weird.

[purgatori]

We are not asking speedkills of anything really, but people understanding how mechanics and rotations should be the common ground. I don't like tagging in an Expert roulette and see DPS not using AoE skills (or AoE skills on a single target), or healers contributing to nothing DPS-wise, or a tank eating dmg with no CD at all.

But are the players who haven't got these basics down really putting their hands up for Ex/Savage in the first place? At lot of the players like me who don't consider ourselves ready for Ex/Savage have these basics in our toolkit, but we're not confident about lining up burst windows, tank swapping, knowing fights back to front, and all the other things that confer competence on a high-end hopeful.

[tdb]

But are the players who haven't got these basics down really putting their hands up for Ex/Savage in the first place? At lot of the players like me who don't consider ourselves ready for Ex/Savage have these basics in our toolkit, but we're not confident about lining up burst windows, tank swapping, knowing fights back to front, and all the other things that confer competence on a high-end hopeful.

As someone with the requisite mental capability to memorize a fight as well as the manual dexterity to execute the necessary maneuvers, but with some difficulty committing to the rigid schedules most statics have, I would appreciate having a solo trial as a way of perfecting my skills and hopefully joining random groups in PF without having to fret too much about whether I can perform up to expectations.

[tdb]

Oddly enough, that's roughly the purpose that Fausts used to serve in Alexander tiers. And players asked it away because it was getting tedious. It's difficult to include that kind of system to gameplay I guess.

Interesting. It never occurred to me they could serve that purpose. But then I didn't reach Lv60 until well into the Stormblood era, so I never got to see what Alexander was like with contemporary gear. And there wasn't much incentive to try it on savage.

Now in the high end scene, I'm not sure gating would work regardless. There are a lot of external factors about why people can be "bad" or why people can be "elitist". I don't think it's up to FFXIV to provide content to shave off those players (and I don't think it's possible). FFXIV can just enforce rules, and people who break them can face sanctions.

Savage and extreme content has one hard requirement: you must beat the boss before the enrage timer expires (or shortly after; some enrage mechanics allow pushing quite a bit into the enrage with good enough heals). That gives a minimum total party DPS for a successful clear. And that in turn gives individual player DPS. The different damage output of different roles must of course be accounted for. There will also be some variation between the DPS players, so some of them may have slightly lower than the required DPS and still clear the fight. But it's easier to perfect your DPS in a solo trial, free of distractions caused by other players. So if the trial is based on the bare minimum DPS required, it's probably enough to allow for the variance.

Healers are a bit of a difficult case here since their DPS output depends not only on how well the party avoids mechanics but also on the balancing of heals between the two healers. When I raided Omega savage with a static back in late 4.x, it was typical for me to get a low damage parse but a very high healing parse; for my co-healer this was the other way around.

It doesn't matter if it's your own lack of skill, a potato for computer or a poor Internet connection with high ping - if you can't meet the DPS requirement, you're not pulling your weight. It's regrettable that in some supposedly civilized parts of the world you still can't get decent Internet service, but if it's bad enough that you can't compensate for it with skillful play, the best thing to do is to admit your situation and ask if the group is okay with trying anyway. Demanding to be carried will get you nowhere. Maybe this is my own bit of elitism, living in a country where good Internet service is the norm. But at least I'm trying to be fair and base it on facts rather than a desire to farm the fight as fast as possible.