"Elitism" vs "Casualism"

[Doozer]

If you're good at something then it's not a gigantic leap in logic to be able to tell someone else how to be good at it too.

Except there's a much larger leap between being able to "tell someone else how to be good at it too" and actually teaching someone. I had teachers in school that were god awful at actually explaining things to us. I remember struggling with math in grade 9 because I just didn't get the way the teacher was explaining how to do it (didn't help that I also suck at math anyway, but...). Then I asked my sister who was two years older than me how to do it, and she explained it better and I was able to understand.

Knowing something doesn't make you qualified to be able to teach others on it. The fact that threads like this keep getting traction is at least somewhat proof of that. There's a lot more to teaching than "I know this, and I'm now telling you how to do it."

[Lucy_Pyre]

Except there's a much larger leap between being able to "tell someone else how to be good at it too" and actually teaching someone. I had teachers in school that were god awful at actually explaining things to us. I remember struggling with math in grade 9 because I just didn't get the way the teacher was explaining how to do it (didn't help that I also suck at math anyway, but...). Then I asked my sister who was two years older than me how to do it, and she explained it better and I was able to understand.

Knowing something doesn't make you qualified to be able to teach others on it. The fact that threads like this keep getting traction is at least somewhat proof of that. There's a lot more to teaching than "I know this, and I'm now telling you how to do it."

You don't have to be a licensed professor to explain how to do a single ability rotation or how to use an oGCD or two in this game.

[Vyrerus]

You don't have to be a licensed professor to explain how to do a single ability rotation or how to use an oGCD or two in this game.

It's not really about how, it's about the why, and motivating them to care about that.

[Lucy_Pyre]

It's not really about how, it's about the why, and motivating them to care about that.

If someone is determined to not care and to be a detriment to the party you can't change that. On the flip side, that doesn't mean you can't still try to give them advice to try and help them improve.

[Iscah]

You don't have to be a licensed professor to explain how to do a single ability rotation or how to use an oGCD or two in this game.

No, but like a licensed professor, just because you understand a fact doesn't mean you are automatically able to explain it in a way that the other person will understand.

It isn't a reason to not try with good intentions, but there's more to successful communication than just knowing the fact to be communicated.

[Doozer]

You don't have to be a licensed professor to explain how to do a single ability rotation or how to use an oGCD or two in this game.

Did you read literally any of what I typed, or what. I even said that I learned better from my sister than I did from my teacher because of how she explained it. That specific teacher was actually very mean and patronizing, whereas my sister was patient and considerate. Weird that one actually taught me something and the other just made me upset and also didn't teach me anything. Wonder what the difference is.

It's not really about how, it's about the why, and motivating them to care about that.

It's this, in case you were expecting me to outline it for you in more detail. Pretty simple concept.

[Daibunnie]

Did you read literally any of what I typed, or what. I even said that I learned better from my sister than I did from my teacher because of how she explained it. That specific teacher was actually very mean and patronizing, whereas my sister was patient and considerate. Weird that one actually taught me something and the other just made me upset and also didn't teach me anything. Wonder what the difference is.

Your anecdote doesn't represent the pugs on DF who choose to be ignorant/lazy. Not to mention, the average player just want to finish their dailies in a timely manner rather than continue to stay in the duty to explain how to use the skills your hotbar.

[Doozer]

Your anecdote doesn't represent the pugs on DF who choose to be ignorant/lazy. Not to mention, the average player just want to finish their dailies in a timely manner rather than continue to stay in the duty to explain how to use the skills your hotbar.

Most anecdotes don't cover every single possible outcome, but it doesn't make what I said any less true when it comes to people who may be receptive to advice but get talked down to instead. If you're going to take the time to explain something to someone, you can't be rude and expect them to listen.

And most people who post here seem to be very willing to kick people for even the smallest thing, so if the person is being such a nuisance for not listening, just kick for 'difference in playstyle' or whatever defence people use for that. Or leave.

Like, what's your solution for people who don't want to listen even if you're nice? Because saying my story doesn't apply to them doesn't actually solve that issue. You just want me to be wrong instead of coming up with something to fix that scenario.

[Veis_Alveare]

With the direction the conversation has taken I think it would be good to summarize a few points from what I see as the loose grouping of people on 'my side' as it were. It's by no mean me claiming unilateral endorsement of these ideas from everyone who favors advice and improvement, if I'm misrepresenting anything please call it out, but I'm seeing the same few objections from detractors.

Primarily I see the frequency with which any one player might encounter play poor enough to warrant advice brought up; the "don't let one bad experience color your thoughts on players as a whole" argument. I'd say this misrepresents my own experience at the very least and I see it said specifically in response to anyone bringing up a specific story of a time someone underperformed.

Instances of someone performing badly enough for me to offer advice happen maybe once every day or two, outside of EX+ content. These are usually the gaping holes in competence, things like cure spammers who do no dps and truly freestyle dps or tanks who seem to just be pressing buttons randomly or with no care. My Shield Lob PLD in Copied Factory comes to mind.

To be clear there are many, many more times people are also doing just awfully but there just isn't a chance to actually try to help. The number of times as a tank or healer that I end trial or normal raid roulette above some dps who haven't died... it's really frequent and it shouldn't be. Those instances are too short to generally get out much in the way of help though.

Secondly I see the "rudeness" argument, primarily championed by Goji. While I don't think anything anyone could say would get even close to changing his mind (and clearly people have tried) I would say that intent matters and that it's being entirely dismissed here.

If you speak to someone with the desire to cause them distress and embarrassment that's bad. If you speak to someone with the genuine desire to help and someone gets embarrassed as a consequence you need to weigh whether or not the advice you gave was worth it. I'm not going to nitpick every little bit of someone's play in casual content, if a tank wants to pop CDs as he finishes a big pull rather than waiting for some Holy stun mitigation that isn't the end of the world. If DPS aren't banking resources to destroy big trash pulls and instead popping it all on bosses that's fine, we'll still be moving apace.

The issue needs to be great enough for me to think the potential embarrassment or annoyance (or even maybe being kicked on my part, you never know who's in an oversensitive premade) is worth it on the off chance that the advice penetrates and helps that person do better in the future. This is delicate but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

That kind of touches on the last point that I've seen brought up less frequently but still pops up now and then - the actual standard to be held to in order for advice to make sense to me.

For anyone if there ignoring a big part of their kit I think it's worth pointing out. You never know what button might not have made it onto a hot bar.

For tanks they should be able to hold threat 100% barring a dps getting dumb and bursting on a single mob during a big pull or something. They should be using all their CDs potebtially aside from their immunity because I know getting good use of LD/Holm during dungeons can be weird. AoE on trash, use ST combos on bosses, pull big.

For healers they should be using their ogcd heals frequently and filling in the gaps with the appropriate ST/AoE nuke. Spamming heals on people with full hp or something is bad. They also dont get to stand around doing nothing. I realize sometimes they do this because of MP, those same healers usually have Lucid ready and waiting until they're at like 2k MP. I think I tell more healers about lucid than I do about doing dps.

For dps it can vary but it boils down to AoEing when appropriate and doing enough of what would be their single target rotation to at least keep pace with the tank/healer. If I'm on a support role I should not outdps you, period. Standing in too much bad or, as ranged, being out in the middle of nowhere and thus out of range for heals is also notable.

So there we go. If you think those standards are too high have at it. I am about as immovable as Goji is on this. Clearly my standards for content with enrages are very different but if I meet someone in casual content I'd expect them to be able to do this much and if they can't (and if I'm able to) I'm going to give advice. It isn't rude or toxic, it's trying to get people to be better for both their sake and the sanity of their future parties.

[ElciaDeiLinus]

If you're good at something then it's not a gigantic leap in logic to be able to tell someone else how to be good at it too.

I've been in numerous server top 5 guilds, and even a top 50 world guild in WoW raiding- playing with excellent players that know their class inside out, the raids inside out and ways to excel, many of whom parse constantly in the 95-99 range. Want to know how most of them give advice to pugs that are bad or trial raiders that mess something up? 'Uninstall and kill yourself'. Toxicity and elitism go hand in hand. There's some of them that can be relied on to explain how to do mechanics or play a class well and give detailed feedback after raids- others that despite being very good generally respond to mistakes with swearing and telling people they suck (albeit in a considerably less pleasant way)- and after saying something like that when the target leaves group or gquits they're always shocked that their polite 'advice' upset the target. In my current guild I've seen at least a dozen decent players leave in the past year solely due to a single mistake that resulted in a stream of 'polite advice' that other members of the guild couldn't believe could offend someone.

And it's the norm in big guilds and top players, it's basically the systemic toxic culture that has become how elitists simply act in video games. Passing off insults, threats and the such as 'polite advice'.

So it actually is a gigantic leap in logic to assume anyone good at the game both can explain within the few minutes of a pug run to someone who they know nothing about how to be better, and that they will do so in a way that's helpful and polite. Perhaps if I hadn't spent over a decade playing MMOs where so called 'helpful advice' is nothing but insults almost all the time, resulting in groups breaking up, players leaving guilds or quickly escalating fights breaking out- I might be inclined to believe the army of good players that claim they only ever give polite constructive criticism. But for every time I've seen someone give good, polite advice in a group, I've seen a hundred players tell someone they suck and to delete their game. That's what makes it such a leap- it's not something backed up by what actually happens in online games.

If you want to give good advice and can do so, by all means go ahead- but if you're in a situation where you're constantly finding players consider you rude, maybe you just aren't as good at giving polite, constructive criticism as you think you are. Or perhaps it's the fact that players can see right through you and that your elitist way of looking down on others makes it very clear you have no intent of actually helping them and use 'polite advice' as an excuse to show your disdain for those you consider sub-par.