"Elitism" vs "Casualism"

[Veis_Alveare]

I have read this same story like 7 times already on, so basically you got a bad party once only and that was too much for you.

If you think this sort of thing is in any way infrequent go to r/TalesfromDF and enjoy the seemingly endless catalogue of stories featuring groups just like the one Lucy mentioned.

It is *endless* and we aren't talking about things taking an extra 5 minutes, we're talking about wasting your whole damn afternoon of playing on an instance or two because you happened to get paired with people who play by mushing their face into their keyboard.

[Liam_Harper]

Everyone is forgetting one key thing. You don’t have to use duty finder. Go make an FC and find players that want to play the way you do. If you don’t want sub optimal runs from time to time then don’t use duty finder.

We aren't forgetting that. Quite a few of us wouldn't step foot in a pug DF if paid. We grab our tomes from hunt trains, FC runs or simply don't bother and level in Squads, Trusts, HoH. Why do you think dps queues are so long? There are tons of players out there with a tank or healer leveled but we aren't going near DF if it means a chance of being told to shut up by an Ice Mage, tissue paper tank or a 0 dps "healer" who can't even heal properly. I run maybe one roulette every 2-3 weeks and often regret it. I don't demand they all change, I just keep away from them.

Most of us want to help. We don't want cutting edge performance from sprouts, deaths happen and are fine and as long as tanks aren't afk or st'ing mobs pulling a pack or two less than usual isn't the end of the world. Even if you play poorly, if you're trying then that's brilliant. We just want to pass on advice and help the team.

It's not that players have to learn to play correctly, you can't force them. But if baffles me when they don't want to. That you queue into a team activity, perform at a quarter your potential, know you're doing so and you're fine with it and intend to stay that way permanently. I can't wrap my head around that.

Hall of the Novice also says that Tanks should pull enemies one by one in smaller chunks of groups instead of aggroing them all lest you get overwhelmed.

Your Trust and Squadron healers do dps, Healer class quests often require dps and you have dps abilities in your toolkit. It's just common sense.

What Yoshi is really saying is that new healers shouldn't feel they have to dps and heal at the same time as they start out. He designed everything below Savage with almost no damage checks. But he never said it's optimal at lv80 or that a 0 dps healer is just as valuable as a 10k dps healer. If you don't do any damage at all you're playing terribly. If you're fine with that, that's up to you, but it's still fact.

[Skivvy]

If you think this sort of thing is in any way infrequent go to r/TalesfromDF and enjoy the seemingly endless catalogue of stories featuring groups just like the one Lucy mentioned.

It is *endless* and we aren't talking about things taking an extra 5 minutes, we're talking about wasting your whole damn afternoon of playing on an instance or two because you happened to get paired with people who play by mushing their face into their keyboard.

Tales from DF, while amusing, is not an accurate way to measure how bad most experiences are. That's a very specific thread, and it's use has mostly been to share weird and bad experiences you've had. Now if we had a thread along the lines of "Tell us about each of your smooth runs", and if it were mandatory that we all post there, I'm thinking it would be far larger...just far more boring and mundane.

In my own experience, the overwhelming majority of runs are perfectly OK. Not to say everyone I've run across is necessarily savage-tier ready (myself included there), but it goes smooth and there's nothing to really complain about. If a person is truly finding massive faults in their majority of their DF runs, perhaps they're part of the problem.

[Driavna]

Tales from DF, while amusing, is not an accurate way to measure how bad most experiences are. That's a very specific thread, and it's use has mostly been to share weird and bad experiences you've had. Now if we had a thread along the lines of "Tell us about each of your smooth runs", and if it were mandatory that we all post there, I'm thinking it would be far larger...just far more boring and mundane.

In my own experience, the overwhelming majority of runs are perfectly OK. Not to say everyone I've run across is necessarily savage-tier ready (myself included there), but it goes smooth and there's nothing to really complain about. If a person is truly finding massive faults in their majority of their DF runs, perhaps they're part of the problem.

For me was (and is) the same experience most of the time. However, at expansion releases or mayor content patches, bad runs happen more often.

[Veis_Alveare]

Tales from DF, while amusing, is not an accurate way to measure how bad most experiences are. That's a very specific thread, and it's use has mostly been to share weird and bad experiences you've had. Now if we had a thread along the lines of "Tell us about each of your smooth runs", and if it were mandatory that we all post there, I'm thinking it would be far larger...just far more boring and mundane.

In my own experience, the overwhelming majority of runs are perfectly OK. Not to say everyone I've run across is necessarily savage-tier ready (myself included there), but it goes smooth and there's nothing to really complain about. If a person is truly finding massive faults in their majority of their DF runs, perhaps they're part of the problem.

I'm talking about the subreddit r/TalesfromDF not the thread on the forums.

Neither is a barometer for the average DF run, I was only bringing it up because the post I responded to seemed to say that they believed these bad runs were somehow an infrequent problem. I was countering with s subreddit full of examples.

[Skivvy]

I'm talking about the subreddit r/TalesfromDF not the thread on the forums.

Neither is a barometer for the average DF run, I was only bringing it up because the post I responded to seemed to say that they believed these bad runs were somehow an infrequent problem. I was countering with s subreddit full of examples.

Sorry, I had totally glanced over the "/r" in the original comment, but the point remains the same. As you mentioned, neither that subreddit (or DF thread) can be used to gauge the average DF run, so I guess it just feels a bit wrong to me that you would have pointed them in the direction of the subreddit when trying to show how common bad runs really are.

[Veis_Alveare]

Sorry, I had totally glanced over the "/r" in the original comment, but the point remains the same. As you mentioned, neither that subreddit (or DF thread) can be used to gauge the average DF run, so I guess it just feels a bit wrong to me that you would have pointed them in the direction of the subreddit when trying to show how common bad runs really are.

Well there's definitely a difference between trying to argue that the average DF run is a dumpster fire and that dumpster fire runs happen rather frequently.

I don't expect to be super frustrated any time I use DF but situations in which I am are also not so rare that I'm shocked when I encounter them. The person I responded to tried to take a post about multiple bad runs that someone had and frame it in such a way that claimed they had "one bad run" and couldn't get over it. Reading comprehension aside (as the post literally mentioned it was multiple runs) this is just a trivialization of the depths to which the skill floor has sunk.

It may not be "omg every single person in DF is licking windows" but that also doesn't mean everything is sunshine and rainbows. It isn't an argument of one or the other, rather about where on the spectrum of abysmal to amazing things seem to be. A compilation of awful DF stories certainly seems to serve the purpose of illustrating the point that we are not currently anywhere near consistently acceptable as a playerbase.

[Laesha]

It's a cultural thing I suppose.

To me, using something like Duty Finder is entering a sort of social contract in which we attempt to achieve a shared goal (the dungeon/instance). Because we're operating as a group, it falls on each player to, at the very least, put forth a basic understanding of how their role/class operates and carry their share of the "weight" in the party. It's simply the responsible thing to do. This means things like combos/rotations, CD cycling, DPSing when no healing required, etc.

Anything less than this basic game play shows that you have entered the group with the intent of completing the goal without carrying your share of the effort, and therefore you want to leech off the efforts of others. It shows a severe lack of respect both to the other players and their time.

Sometimes there are players who just don't understand something, and that's fine. If they're willing to learn you can instruct them on the issue(s). But often times they're not and will either ignore any advice or actively deride you for giving it. In this case, the mask comes off and they've shown they don't care about you or your time, you're just a vehicle for them to leech off of till the dungeon is over. And we should not be promoting that kind of behavior in the game. It's no less toxic than the toxicity of elitists, but still there are people that will give it a pass for some reason.

but we both know that there is no contract, despite how you imagine it. You're owed nothing by any player, just as they are owed nothing by you. And in that situation you have a few options. You can try to kick them, leave, or try to complete the instance. That is the extent of what you can do. period. end of story. because you cannot control other people.

If you feel that someone else is not putting in "sufficient" effort for you, then the onus is on you to either withdrawal your own effort, or not. I generally have too much pride to do that, but I wouldn't judge anyone who does. I personally was always raised and taught that giving unsolicited advice is rude. Always. And no, they do not owe you any manner of respect for your time. If they do not and that is unacceptable to you, i would again refer you to the few things that you can do in response. I'm simply of the opinion that the unsolicited advisor is the one who is being more rude and more petulant. It is well within your control to use your vast wells of expendable effort to seek a party that is more in line with your expectations. Because to me, that's the crux of the issue. The person imposing their expectations is the advisor, not the lazy/distracted/sub-optimal player. If you have a problem with someone's play, it is your problem and it is on you to either address it by moving yourself into a different situation, pleading your case to the group for a kick, or not.

[Shalan]

but we both know that there is no contract, despite how you imagine it. You're owed nothing by any player, just as they are owed nothing by you. And in that situation you have a few options. You can try to kick them, leave, or try to complete the instance. That is the extent of what you can do. period. end of story. because you cannot control other people.

If you feel that someone else is not putting in "sufficient" effort for you, then the onus is on you to either withdrawal your own effort, or not. I generally have too much pride to do that, but I wouldn't judge anyone who does. I personally was always raised and taught that giving unsolicited advice is rude. Always. And no, they do not owe you any manner of respect for your time. If they do not and that is unacceptable to you, i would again refer you to the few things that you can do in response. I'm simply of the opinion that the unsolicited advisor is the one who is being more rude and more petulant. It is well within your control to use your vast wells of expendable effort to seek a party that is more in line with your expectations. Because to me, that's the crux of the issue. The person imposing their expectations is the advisor, not the lazy/distracted/sub-optimal player. If you have a problem with someone's play, it is your problem and it is on you to either address it by moving yourself into a different situation, pleading your case to the group for a kick, or not.

You see, there's a reason why I said

It's a cultural thing I suppose.

and more specifically, stated the presence of a social contract. Of course there's no physical or direct contract, but by using the duty finder there's an implied understanding of a mutually shared goal/intent. "We're going to attempt this task together as a group. By operating as a group, we are splitting the responsibilities amongst ourselves in the most fair and equal manner we can."


Obviously I cannot control other people, I never implied otherwise. My intent is simply to encourage others to view the act of shirking responsibilities in a similar fashion as myself so they can take a stand with me against it. Too many people in this game will sit idly by when these bad players simply leech off others, neither saying anything nor voting because they don't wish to cause drama. In doing so they are helping to propagate such activity and effectively say that it's OK and acceptable to ignore their responsibilities and force others to carry their useless weight.

I personally was always raised and taught that giving unsolicited advice is rude. Always.

And therein lies the crux of the issue. To me the person ignoring advice is significantly worse. They're intentionally being a drag on the group and ignoring their responsibility, and me performing my social obligation and attempting to help them being ignored is a significant insult. It is a cultural difference we have, they're so different we're just clashing on basic philosophical understandings. You seem to be more individualist while myself and many others are more collectivist.

[Lucy_Pyre]

I personally was always raised and taught that giving unsolicited advice is rude. Always.

This is some next level amount of cringe. Also reeks suspiciously of GCBTW.