Mediocrity should NOT be the standard for players in any content.

[Elladie]

Hall of Novice only goes so far and some of it is actually quite weird vs actual experience on how gameplay with OTHER ACTUAL LIVING PEOPLE is. Not to mention why does it matter in an MMO that a SOLO instance is easier? It doesn't affect me in a group. That instance doesn't necessarily teach people how to work with each other, and many of its mechanics can be found in other places anyways.

The whole reason that some of this content (because definitely not all of it) has been "dumbed down" is the fact it's still a COMMUNITY issue. Too many negative Nancys like yourself are actually discouraging players to want to interact with one another. So instead of getting the guidance they should from other community members, people go back to their old "solo play" feeling of a Final Fantasy game.

Now I just mostly see (and I'm guilty of it too). "I don't want to play with randoms" (because we assume them to be the most negative). The longer you play, the more jaded one becomes.

The fact of the matter, is we (the community) lowered the bar, we made out that many players are bad. We as a community didn't bother to find ways to improve the encouragement and how to communicate both ways. We lowered the bar of expectations. It's only reasonable the devs followed suit.

It is definitely a community issue and people like myself have been driven away from doing any kind of group content except with people we know who understand and accept our handicaps. I struggle with fight mechanics mainly because I suffer from directional dyslexia and this is compounded by sheer panic until I've done the fight so many times that I can chill, recognise the tells, and deal with them. I understand people don't want to deal with this in DF so I don't run dungeons any more, i level my jobs solo. But then I get attacked by implication in threads like this which assume I'm lazy and mediocre. I have run Dohn Mheg five times over the last two days with multiple wipes each run on the first two bosses. I am learning BLM - improving slowly so that's great - and also trying to figure out the mechanics. Finally worked out that if I run to a big puddle it's okay. I would not have learned that from a guide or someone explaining it because my brain doesn't retain the information. I have to practice over and over til I get it. Yelling at me to git gud is really unhelpful and on occasions when I've tried to explain - including in threads in this very forum - I get told to stop making excuses for bad players. This community makes me despair

[Melichoir]

It is definitely a community issue and people like myself have been driven away from doing any kind of group content except with people we know who understand and accept our handicaps. I struggle with fight mechanics mainly because I suffer from directional dyslexia and this is compounded by sheer panic until I've done the fight so many times that I can chill, recognise the tells, and deal with them. I understand people don't want to deal with this in DF so I don't run dungeons any more, i level my jobs solo. But then I get attacked by implication in threads like this which assume I'm lazy and mediocre. I have run Dohn Mheg five times over the last two days with multiple wipes each run on the first two bosses. I am learning BLM - improving slowly so that's great - and also trying to figure out the mechanics. Finally worked out that if I run to a big puddle it's okay. I would not have learned that from a guide or someone explaining it because my brain doesn't retain the information. I have to practice over and over til I get it. Yelling at me to git gud is really unhelpful and on occasions when I've tried to explain - including in threads in this very forum - I get told to stop making excuses for bad players. This community makes me despair

There is a difference between those with disabilities vs those who are lazy. If you have a legitimate handicap, most everyone is not gonna fault you. The idea everyone's a jerk who wont see eye to eye with you presupposes the worst intentions and nature of those around you before even interacting with them and does them as big a disservice as those who would get on your case for having trouble beyond your control.

That being said, while you shouldn't be getting flak for doing mid tier content, I wouldnt blame raiders for excluding you from doing Savage with them. They have a goal and if you have difficulty keeping up, even if its not something you cant control, it is unfair to them to be held back. At that point it would be find a raid group who will persevere with you or opt out of that content. I know its not fair or just but thats kind of how it is. Its a crap thing and if there was a good solution Id be all for it.

The bigger point of this thread, however, isnt going after folks such as yourself. It's going after folks who dont give a rat butt about improving and just do the bare minimum effort, expect to be rewarded equally with those who do put in effort and skill, and then complain to SE (and having SE capitulate) to make content easier cause "We're not hardcore". The issue with that is that SE only has so much time and resources so if they make content to easy, they will not have the time for harder content. Top this off with people who take their casual attitude into more difficult content and make a mess of things, yeah, there is a problem. I think the problem is both community and SE. SE should be telling some of these players to 'get gud'. If you cant be bothered to even push buttons and stand in AoEs, you shouldnt be allowed to clear even casual dungeons, let alone EX modes or 24 man Raids. There should be a skill floor. If you have a harder time doing that content because of things beyond your control, then maybe an 'Easy' Mode should be available to you, but that easy mode has restrictions such as less gear and gil and designed that if youre goal is to maximize experience and loot, that it should be far less efficient to clear the easy modes as well, however not inherently more difficult. If were gonna say the current is the easy mode, then maybe SE should (and I shutter to say this) take a leaf from WoW and create 'mythic' dungeons and the like that are tuned specifically to be brutal to complete but reward you a ton for doing so. The community problem is simply holding people to standards. Unless someone makes it clear that they have trouble or are new to the content, people should be kicking bad players out of groups more frequently.

In any case, yeah skill floors need to be a thing. If the game becomes any easier than it is or too casual, you will lose your hardcore base OR split the user base and promote hyper toxicity between the more skilled players and the more casual players. Either situation is bad for the game's health.

[QT_Melon]

I am going against your argument that we need them (solo content as a learning tool) to begin with. We don't. So you moving the goal post doesn't dispute this at all.

Also telling someone to watch a guide in a learning party is also mediocrity. People running to the meta strat instead of teaching your party how to handle a mechanic is lazy. That said its not bad for them to watch one but getting upset at people who don't and are there to learn at a LEARNING party show the other spectrum of subscribing to mediocrity.

I should also mention is again with the higher clear rate in Japan, PFs are learning tools, and DF are clearing tools where this is done in the opposite manner for other areas. It is done this way so people have the time to explain mechanics to execute them correctly so they can handle random queues. Here, people form parties and expect peopld tp have been hand fed the info from their favorite Youtuber.

Keep in mind I am not making arguments against PFs that explain their intention or parties for EX or Savage that state they are past learning phases and would like to clear certain using strategies.

Also the Wander Palace is a bit of an misnomer explaining mechanics because while it WAS one of the few times it may have told you what to handle DOOM the problem was the game had DOOM handled differently and before they finally did a QoL change on what could be cleansed it was a guessing game. Same wirh player marks.

[jameseoakes]

In any case, yeah skill floors need to be a thing. If the game becomes any easier than it is or too casual, you will lose your hardcore base OR split the user base and promote hyper toxicity between the more skilled players and the more casual players. Either situation is bad for the game's health.

I think you massively over state the importance of the games hardcore community, the games base is fairly casual and has been for a long time. The game gains very little from forcing most of it's player base out of it comfort zone purely for the benefit of a small minority of players.

[Melichoir]

I think you massively over state the importance of the games hardcore community, the games base is fairly casual and has been for a long time. The game gains very little from forcing most of it's player base out of it comfort zone purely for the benefit of a small minority of players.

Like any games, its not gonna be a 50/50 split, but rather youre gonna have a core group of players (top 10% lets say) who are gonna be the hardcore types. Theyre gonna want challenge, and will put money, time, and effort into the game to meet those challenges. Those players, with their accomplishments and prestige does a lot to drive newer players to a game and keep them interested. Particularly if there are rewards involved. In the case of MMOs, having the cooler gear and mounts, the stats, etc, is an incentive for players to pursue savage or other difficult content. If it was merely about keeping casuals happy, then making content that is absurdly easy with grind and RNG skinner box methods like mobile games would be all that is necessary.

Youll notice that MMOs broadly dont do that. Even MOBAs like LoL dont (or didnt) do that. There are skill floors and skill ceilings and the games are designed to be easy to get into, hard to master, and rewarded for that mastery. However, if you make the jump from casual and hardcore to much (particularly if its from dropping the skill floor out and keeping it down), you get jealousy and entitlement from the casual base who argue "We're the majority. Cater to our whims and make that gear available to us even if we dont apply ourselves." While I may be overstating the attitude, the concept is about right. You lose your elite group in an online game, and that is gonna hurt your brand image a lot as being 'too casual', or if you schism the two groups to much, you get hyper toxicity.

Keepng a healthy hardcore base requires that there be skill floors and pushing players to improve by creating reasonable hurdles they have to overcome to progress in the game. This helps eliminate the "You dont pay my sub" mentality by forcing lesser skilled players to improve, discuss, and interact with better players by seeking help and advice. You reduce more skilled players getting annoyed with dealing with less skilled players (as the skill disparity is smaller) as well as their annoyance that there hard work is not being rewarded. Theres more to it than this, of course, but it's a start. Everyone benefits from having a skill floor and reasonable skill progression despite how counter intuitive that sounds.

[Paladinleeds]

There is a difference between those with disabilities vs those who are lazy. If you have a legitimate handicap, most everyone is not gonna fault you. The idea everyone's a jerk who wont see eye to eye with you presupposes the worst intentions and nature of those around you before even interacting with them and does them as big a disservice as those who would get on your case for having trouble beyond your control.

That being said, while you shouldn't be getting flak for doing mid tier content, I wouldnt blame raiders for excluding you from doing Savage with them. They have a goal and if you have difficulty keeping up, even if its not something you cant control, it is unfair to them to be held back. At that point it would be find a raid group who will persevere with you or opt out of that content. I know its not fair or just but thats kind of how it is. Its a crap thing and if there was a good solution Id be all for it.

I think it also depends on how difficult your disability affects you. However it seems Elladie says she learns slowly, but can learn it bit by bit. For that, perhaps a more casual group would be a better fit for her? So long as she's open about her issues (of directional dyslexia, which btw I didn't even realise was a thing! So you learn something new every day), I don't see why most casual groups would reject her. Midcore and higher though I can see this being an issue, but at that point there's nothing that can be done. With my ADHD, even I can't run with midcore and higher groups (I tried, and it was a catastrophic failure and I'm glad I went down to casual, since I can do alright as a casual, but can't go beyond that), but I have been able to successfully run in casual groups.

In any case, yeah skill floors need to be a thing. If the game becomes any easier than it is or too casual, you will lose your hardcore base OR split the user base and promote hyper toxicity between the more skilled players and the more casual players. Either situation is bad for the game's health.

It seems we believe in having higher skill floors for similar reasons. Which yeah, I never thought about the toxicity element of it. But it ties in with the difficulty curve issues I think.

[jameseoakes]

Like any games, its not gonna be a 50/50 split, but rather youre gonna have a core group of players (top 10% lets say) who are gonna be the hardcore types. Theyre gonna want challenge, and will put money, time, and effort into the game to meet those challenges. Those players, with their accomplishments and prestige does a lot to drive newer players to a game and keep them interested. Particularly if there are rewards involved. In the case of MMOs, having the cooler gear and mounts, the stats, etc, is an incentive for players to pursue savage or other difficult content. If it was merely about keeping casuals happy, then making content that is absurdly easy with grind and RNG skinner box methods like mobile games would be all that is necessary.

Youll notice that MMOs broadly dont do that. Even MOBAs like LoL dont (or didnt) do that. There are skill floors and skill ceilings and the games are designed to be easy to get into, hard to master, and rewarded for that mastery. However, if you make the jump from casual and hardcore to much (particularly if its from dropping the skill floor out and keeping it down), you get jealousy and entitlement from the casual base who argue "We're the majority. Cater to our whims and make that gear available to us even if we dont apply ourselves." While I may be overstating the attitude, the concept is about right. You lose your elite group in an online game, and that is gonna hurt your brand image a lot as being 'too casual', or if you schism the two groups to much, you get hyper toxicity.

Keepng a healthy hardcore base requires that there be skill floors and pushing players to improve by creating reasonable hurdles they have to overcome to progress in the game. This helps eliminate the "You dont pay my sub" mentality by forcing lesser skilled players to improve, discuss, and interact with better players by seeking help and advice. You reduce more skilled players getting annoyed with dealing with less skilled players (as the skill disparity is smaller) as well as their annoyance that there hard work is not being rewarded. Theres more to it than this, of course, but it's a start. Everyone benefits from having a skill floor and reasonable skill progression despite how counter intuitive that sounds.

Isn't that what the game does with with it's content with Savage and Ultimate? Also I don't see why the small hardcore community is more important than the loyal casual/midcore community. I think your way overstating how important the hardcore raiders are to the game, especially as to make them happy you need to make things a lot worse for large chunks of the community. You've not given a good reason why making everything punishing is a good thing. The game does need a smoother jump from day to day content to the endgame stuff but that needs more content adding in the range which I suspect would not go down well with the Hardcore you say is so important as they will likely not be doing it.

[ForteNightshade]

Isn't that what the game does with with it's content with Savage and Ultimate? Also I don't see why the small hardcore community is more important than the loyal casual/midcore community. I think your way overstating how important the hardcore raiders are to the game, especially as to make them happy you need to make things a lot worse for large chunks of the community. You've not given a good reason why making everything punishing is a good thing. The game does need a smoother jump from day to day content to the endgame stuff but that needs more content adding in the range which I suspect would not go down well with the Hardcore you say is so important as they will likely not be doing it.

That loyal midcore community is also complaining though. It isn't just the hardcore raiders bemoaning how boring healers have become or how utterly trivial content is below Savage. You're also vastly overstating how much worse things would be for casual players. Most hardcore players know dungeons are never going to be intensely hard nor do they necessarily want them to be. What they want is something requiring more than a pulse. When I can collect eight vulnerability stacks on the last boss of Grand Cosmos, why do I care about any mechanic he has? In fact, I routinely stand in AoEs as a tank, DPS or healer because I know they'll never be threatening enough I need to care. When I can literally AFK a normal mode raid because my co-healer friend simply doesn't need me to help... that says everything that needs to be said about how pathetically low outgoing damage is. I'm not kidding either. A friend and I have tested this several times. I can either DPS without looking at my heals or straight up AFK and it doesn't make a lick of difference to how she heals. Normal modes are that laughable.

I don't want them to suddenly be EX Primal difficulty. But they shouldn't be completely brain dead either.

[SturmChurro]

"Mediocrity" shouldn't be, but it is in all multiplayer games, and there is no way to get around this hard truth, unless you play in specific premades; there is nothing that you, or me as the player can ever do to ever change this. Now, I do not think the developers should be nerfing content on the regular to make it easier on themselves to balance it for these players. Players who cannot do content, should work to better themselves to do said content - rather to overcome said content, or not do it at all.

Oh the irony

There is no "irony" that is literally their joke.

[QT_Melon]

That loyal midcore community is also complaining though. It isn't just the hardcore raiders bemoaning how boring healers have become or how utterly trivial content is below Savage. You're also vastly overstating how much worse things would be for casual players. Most hardcore players know dungeons are never going to be intensely hard nor do they necessarily want them to be. What they want is something requiring more than a pulse. When I can collect eight vulnerability stacks on the last boss of Grand Cosmos, why do I care about any mechanic he has? In fact, I routinely stand in AoEs as a tank, DPS or healer because I know they'll never be threatening enough I need to care. When I can literally AFK a normal mode raid because my co-healer friend simply doesn't need me to help... that says everything that needs to be said about how pathetically low outgoing damage is. I'm not kidding either. A friend and I have tested this several times. I can either DPS without looking at my heals or straight up AFK and it doesn't make a lick of difference to how she heals. Normal modes are that laughable.

I don't want them to suddenly be EX Primal difficulty. But they shouldn't be completely brain dead either.

Gordias killed a lot of midcore and I don't think it was ever the same again. The problem with a lot of fights is the scripted aspects so that people feel they can get away with a lot of what you mentioned. Much of the RNG that was there has been taken away. This is the problem with themepark style of MMO. I think the problem is that there is only so much content they can make and I agree what is needed is more midcore content.


There needs to be a reason for people to want to improve, and midcore tends to fit that bill. Hardcore players give other players a goal to achieve in bettering themselves (to one day BE that player) - but only if that representation of them is done right. While I do believe the vast majority of the top players don't try to cause large amounts of strife on the player base, those that hang around them or fanboys may be causing it with memes, and overall being edgelords. I think that problem is what causes so much more dissonance among the player base.

I think social media and social presence need to stop hovering (yeah easier said than done) the snarkiest edgy comment to grab those likes and upvotes but general support from players who can help out others in a general enthusiastic way of improving one another. It's not that there shouldn't be some snark or edgy humor. I like it, but I see so much of it, it's just set people firmly in their camps that it is depressing when topics like this come up and people can't figure out that the problem is less of the devs but how the community treats each other.

This game probably has a lot less "toxic" attitudes than some other mmos, but it is rather noticeable how much dogpiling and echo chambers go on about the same topics.
I don't have an easy solution, and have helped when I could, even though my eyesight isn't the best and my RSI flareup just make it difficult some days to play at my best. But I can at least tell people what methods I have used to deal with mechanics, or resources for people interested in improving or getting better at certain aspects of the game.