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

[Valic]

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.

We do, and that's our differing opinions on it :P.

You are also massively misinterpreting my thread if you're assuming suggesting a player watches a guide briefly is enforcing mediocrity. Not every guide = META I hope you realize. There's in fact many online people follow that aren't the META. I also repeat, no where in this thread am I demanding or asking people should be forced to do the most optimal/perfection possible.

Again, the JP thing isn't an excuse for the NA and it still sounds like you're talking strictly about savage content at this rate.

That QoL change is good though imo, since it encourages learning than guessing.

[QT_Melon]

We do, and that's our differing opinions on it :P.

You are also massively misinterpreting my thread if you're assuming suggesting a player watches a guide briefly is enforcing mediocrity. Not every guide = META I hope you realize. There's in fact many online people follow that aren't the META. I also repeat, no where in this thread am I demanding or asking people should be forced to do the most optimal/perfection possible.

Again, the JP thing isn't an excuse for the NA and it still sounds like you're talking strictly about savage content at this rate.

That QoL change is good though imo, since it encourages learning than guessing.

Massively, is definitely hyperbole.

I did not say that reading or watching a guide was a bad thing. I said that the attitude of a LEARNING party where you just blankly tell someone to watch the video read the guide "we're doing X strat" IS mediocre especially with the "I don't want to bother" kind of attitude. That was exactly what someone in this thread was saying how they're flustered that people don't watch videos before playing the game.

You know how those video guides were able to explain things? It certainly wasn't because someone had a video guide on it. It's because people had to learn what the mechanic did. A lot of those video guides are put out because they're to be expected to be put out by those content creators but your mileage may vary on them. Not to mention become rather outdated and just an overall waste of time depending on what you want to do.

Do you really need to do a video guide on every dungeon? Seriously go in the dungeon, see what happens and learn the mechanic. You fail then you should learn from it or ask what happened so someone can explain. Not..."well did you watch a video before you came here?" If your arguments was about how dumbed down things got, why in the world do we need to depend on a video for regular content that can be communicated to other players?


Also my remark about JP isn't just for Savage weekly lockout content, it's other content as well. They PF then DF.

It still stands to reason this is very much less a problem with JP players than it is in NA and some other countries. The NA just happens to hold the lion's share of the market.

[ForteNightshade]

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.

Savage became the midcore scene hence why they started developing Ultimate. It has long scene recovered from the days of Gordias, which wasn't even an issue of fight design but horrendously poo balancing decisions. Keep in mind, even the very best players in the game couldn't kill A4S because it was mathematically impossible without your weapons and some tome pieces. This occurred only because the dev team used to only test individual mechanics but not the entire fight. Unfortunately, I do think this has led them to be afraid of designing anything remotely hard outside select few Savage fights and Ultimate. I say select few because well, Alte Roite and Chadarnook exist among others.

It isn't a problem with themepark MMOs but how FFXIV designs fights. The devs vastly overestimate how much healing is actually required, don't pay any attention to how the community plays healers and scales around the lowest common denominator. They aren't balancing around midcore or even casual but that White Mage who thinks Cure III is better than Cure II because three is a higher number. That's the problem. And it's why healers keep getting complained about.

And that's just healers.

I do agree though they need a reason to improve. Which is why I think how easy the game has become only did a disservice. Once again, when normal modes do so little damage, it only encourages bad habits. I'm not disengaging from the boss if I know I won't die. So whatever mechanic happens is rendered pointless. I'm going to ignore it every single time because a vulnerability stack in normal modes means nothing.

[Bobkitty]

Instead of raising the difficulty, I would prefer them finding creative ways to reward players who perform better. While it won't change the standards it would at least incentivise some people and those who play well can feel rewarded for their efforts.

[QT_Melon]

Savage became the midcore scene hence why they started developing Ultimate. It has long scene recovered from the days of Gordias, which wasn't even an issue of fight design but horrendously poo balancing decisions. Keep in mind, even the very best players in the game couldn't kill A4S because it was mathematically impossible without your weapons and some tome pieces. This occurred only because the dev team used to only test individual mechanics but not the entire fight. Unfortunately, I do think this has led them to be afraid of designing anything remotely hard outside select few Savage fights and Ultimate. I say select few because well, Alte Roite and Chadarnook exist among others.

While I'm not disagreeing about horrible fight design that A4S had because I remember it stated the way they tested it. It was A3 that was deemed the static breaker in which many players dropped out.

It isn't a problem with themepark MMOs but how FFXIV designs fights. The devs vastly overestimate how much healing is actually required, don't pay any attention to how the community plays healers and scales around the lowest common denominator. They aren't balancing around midcore or even casual but that White Mage who thinks Cure III is better than Cure II because three is a higher number. That's the problem. And it's why healers keep getting complained about.

It's a bit of both since fights are heavily scripted. Players now playing this game for a number of years has gone into a mode of what they can get away with and playing "limbo" how low can a tank/party member go due to how outgoing damage is done. There's also the fact that many fights are designed around various CDs from jobs, where the most use of rotation is in High End content since you have to raid plan what spell is going out at certain times. Where as a dungeon doesn't need it and more than one skill can get what was needed done.

I do agree though they need a reason to improve. Which is why I think how easy the game has become only did a disservice. Once again, when normal modes do so little damage, it only encourages bad habits. I'm not disengaging from the boss if I know I won't die. So whatever mechanic happens is rendered pointless. I'm going to ignore it every single time because a vulnerability stack in normal modes means nothing.

This is where the themepark part of this comes in. While before people had the penalty of death being so severe, you also have the problem of the amount of ramp to get to the point where the mistake occurred. People are more occupied by more than one thing and it's exasperating to go through 5 minutes of a "shortcut" to the dungeon to possibly wipe again. Or having to go through the entire fight again because someone sneezed at the wrong time and missed a GCD heal on a tank. So people's patience have worn very thin - when you experience the game as long as quite a bit have.

Unlike say a game like Monster Hunter, yes you pretty much get 3 carts (lives) and while you can get meal bonuses for extra lives or other skills that would help the prevention of losing all "lives" to start all the way over. They have a system that you can lose the life, but you don't lose progress you made on said monster - but you can get a decrease in rewards. You at least don't have to start all the way over with a Mosnter's HP if you lose a life.

While I can't exactly ask that FFXIV BE Monster Hunter (I mean what would be the point and why have the same identity) I do feel like there's no variance of conditions for the same fight (where you can fight a Larger variant of the same monster "crowns" or the time frame can vary but it affects the amount of rewards).

There's also no real variance in gear sets it's from point A- B - C. Where you can build sets in other games that would make it more fun to re challenge the same content. I mean I get why, with the game engine and all but the closest we kinda got with it was ironically Blue Mage if they didn't limit so much of the content where we could just really goof around in old content. But I am digressing a lot here :P - but only to the fact that if anything I wish FF would do is allow for more variances in their scripting and themeparks to make it more interesting to challenge content in different ways so that a person can click as to why Cure III can be really useful than just "at 5 minutes into the fight, the boss will do an ultimate so we ask our players to cuddle close to each other for cures".

[Mahoukenshi]

Do you really need to do a video guide on every dungeon? Seriously go in the dungeon, see what happens and learn the mechanic. You fail then you should learn from it or ask what happened so someone can explain. Not..."well did you watch a video before you came here?"

For some people, watching dungeon videos (yes, normal MSQ-required dungeons) helps them calm down their nervosity or healer/tank anxiety. That may sound exaggerated to some but is true, even if it does not apply to the majority of the playerbase (fortunautely). It is certainly not required or recommended as it may remove the fun of discovering mechanics for the first time, though.

[Valic]

For some people, watching dungeon videos (yes, normal MSQ-required dungeons) helps them calm down their nervosity or healer/tank anxiety. That may sound exaggerated to some but is true, even if it does not apply to the majority of the playerbase (fortunautely). It is certainly not required or recommended as it may remove the fun of discovering mechanics for the first time, though.

That's my take on it. Personally I don't think any dungeon should need a guide or anything along the base content you do. However that doesn't stop people and there will be those who need it for anxiety reasons or handicaps they may be suffering from. Or the common one, "I'm nervous to tank/heal" type thing. Now, EX's and savage though.... I don't mind those existing for the sake of giving people an idea of how to progress further. Though I'd personally love if savage content became "guideless" and it came down to adaption.... I can't see that being a strong building point going forward for even raiders.

Personally when I recommend looking at a guide or use one myself, I don't go into the idea I'm going to 100% follow their every movement. Rather I like to know what I'm about to be doing or expect to do. Also because one of this game's major flaws is how it telegraphs some aoe's/mechanics.... Like the sohm al t-rex looking thing that baps red/blue slimes... supposedly one is made to stack, one is separate.... but they both use the same marker/indicator and he jumps into that phase without much indication as to which is which. Same thing for a certain final boss that does a mechanic that looks exactly like every other "stand on the meteor mechanic or wipe" concept...

[Elladie]

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'.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.

I would love for you to be right. Unfortunately you are not. People assume I am lazy and bad and that I am making excuses for my laziness/badness. Read the recent thread on parsers to see some examples of this in the last few days.

I dont raid (although I have in the past, cleared first and second coil while it was still relevant content, just took a LONG time) and I don't want to inflict myself on people in DF until I have some measure of competency. But the assumption I generally encounter if I have to play with others outside my friends is that I need to git gud. And that pisses my friends off too

[QT_Melon]

For some people, watching dungeon videos (yes, normal MSQ-required dungeons) helps them calm down their nervosity or healer/tank anxiety. That may sound exaggerated to some but is true, even if it does not apply to the majority of the playerbase (fortunautely). It is certainly not required or recommended as it may remove the fun of discovering mechanics for the first time, though.

That is my point. The necessity of it is heavily diminished and it's not "massively misinterpreting" anything.

[Valic]

That is my point. The necessity of it is heavily diminished and it's not "massively misinterpreting" anything.

I mean... your post really comes off as directed specifically at content that requires you to watch a video and assuming people only go "watch this video and we're doing it this way only". The point of the thread isn't about this at all as is, it's about helping players naturally through the content required to clear to understand base mechanics of both their job and how to function for most basic mechanics as a group. Not why players shouldn't/should be pointing at guides/videos as a source of help. That's the only thing I'm saying you've misinterpreted from my thread/post(s).