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

[purgatori]

OP doesn't understand what the word 'mediocre' means.

[Kanitezz]

How will I KNOW if i'm mediocre though? I don't really have friends who run instances with me often enough to tell me if i'm bad or not and randoms don't really talk in instances i'm in. Do I need to just expect a callout towards me when I'm doing bad? If that's the case since nobody has been saying anything I guess I've been doing alright.

A semi-irrelevant side note. I've played with a few people who are old and don't have the reaction times or flexibility in their hands to be able to perform on a level that would not be considered "mediocre". They really did try their best but they were either physically unable to perform better or they just had a hard time comprehending the unwritten/unofficial (whatever you want to call it) rules and guidelines set up by the community itself. Partly due to them not paying attention to chat, forums, videos, or the like. They still really enjoyed the game though... Don't know how long that lasted...

[0xReki]

Just to illustrate how bad things have become: some 24 man raids are faster with a Party Finder Group that does non-standard runs, like no-jobs or minimum Item Level, than with what you get in Duty Finder. But then, those people know they're in for a challenge.

Though I'd rather blame the fact the ItemLevel sync for some content is just so bad. People can't learn content if they get carried through the content and can't even see the mechanics that got skipped due to the excessive damage that bad itemlevel sync gets you.

EDIT: About old people: even they are willing to try to improve if you tell them. I've seen some of them being even more hardcore players (and better players) than some that aren't even a third of their age!

[Liam_Harper]

How will I KNOW if i'm mediocre though? I don't really have friends who run instances with me often enough to tell me if i'm bad or not and randoms don't really talk in instances i'm in. Do I need to just expect a callout towards me when I'm doing bad?

No, callouts towards you can actually net that player a ban, so pugs will tend to be silent. If you aren't being kicked, you're not doing terrible but there aren't many legal means to judge self-performance.

[0xReki]

Acutally, we need to start to be like japanese, praise good players by telling them they have a great playstyle. praise bad players by telling them they look nice.

Your milage my vary one what good players are.

[Dogempire]

How will I KNOW if i'm mediocre though? I don't really have friends who run instances with me often enough to tell me if i'm bad or not and randoms don't really talk in instances i'm in. Do I need to just expect a callout towards me when I'm doing bad? If that's the case since nobody has been saying anything I guess I've been doing alright.

A semi-irrelevant side note. I've played with a few people who are old and don't have the reaction times or flexibility in their hands to be able to perform on a level that would not be considered "mediocre". They really did try their best but they were either physically unable to perform better or they just had a hard time comprehending the unwritten/unofficial (whatever you want to call it) rules and guidelines set up by the community itself. Partly due to them not paying attention to chat, forums, videos, or the like. They still really enjoyed the game though... Don't know how long that lasted...

Honestly, general rule is that if you read all of your skills, know how all of them work, and can keep up a coherent rotation without dropping things like enochain or your dots too often, you're doing better than like 80% of the playerbase.

A vast majority of people are only really decent at their jobs, which means they know how all their skills work but they can't really keep up a good rotation and make a lot of mistakes while leaving OGCDs on cooldown for decently long periods of time.

[Dzian]

Just to illustrate how bad things have become: some 24 man raids are faster with a Party Finder Group

This has been true for a long time. Even back in heavensward when people needed to run the crystal tower raids weekly for animal weapon Arther Oils. A premade pf group of 24 players could clear all 3 of them in about half hour.

Last boss in labyrinth ignore pads. Boss will be dead before even the first ancient flare goes off.

Sycus tower. Done in under 7 minutes...

Last boss in world of darkness ignore the clouds just beat her down. she'll be dead before the sequence is over.

Back then and even in 4.0 There was a bit of a thing on reddit for 24 man speed runs and it shows just how low the content really is tuned. When a full group of decent players can absolutely break entire alliance raids. 4.0 alliance raids got a lot of flak because premade groups were trouncing bosses and breaking mechanics on patch days.

[Nestama]

No, callouts towards you can actually net that player a ban, so pugs will tend to be silent. If you aren't being kicked, you're not doing terrible but there aren't many legal means to judge self-performance.

The most I'll do now is ask "what level do you learn X at?" if I notice the player isn't using a skill they should know by now. Like yesterday had a BLM who didn't use AoE's (especially not Flare), Enochian and Fire IV. So I casually asked them what level Fire IV was learned at.

They didn't do anything for a bit, but they started to use Fire IV (so they were probably putting it on their bar)... not a whole lot, but they used it (as well as Enochian). I wanted to mention AoE's, but I worried that if I kept pestering them I'd get reported :/

[SturmChurro]

The most I'll do now is ask "what level do you learn X at?" if I notice the player isn't using a skill they should know by now. Like yesterday had a BLM who didn't use AoE's (especially not Flare), Enochian and Fire IV. So I casually asked them what level Fire IV was learned at.

They didn't do anything for a bit, but they started to use Fire IV (so they were probably putting it on their bar)... not a whole lot, but they used it (as well as Enochian). I wanted to mention AoE's, but I worried that if I kept pestering them I'd get reported :/

Yeah, I hate this. I was talking about this earlier in some other thread. I talk around the issue just like that as well, just so if I want to say something I can't get banned for something so dumb.

[Elladie]

This is @ Melichoir mainly

Just wanted to say how much I appreciated your post, you'd clearly gone away and considered my points and come back with a genuine attempt to engage with me. It was great! You single handedly restored my faith in human nature.

I definitely agree that our differences on challenge are semantics really. Setting myself writing targets every week isn't a challenge, it's what I do, but I can see how they would be viewed as such. To me it's just a motivational thing. Same in game. I work daily on trying to improve my knowledge of the ShB dungeons by running them over and over, I don't see it as a challenge but it's definitely aimed at getting more familiar with mechanics.

Real nice to engage with someone who listens and is looking for a helpful dialogue. So thanks a bunch. You get my comm!