"Elitism" vs "Casualism"

[ElciaDeiLinus]

At some point, you need to realize and accept that the low average skill level is just people being generally bad at the game and that they have never stopped to ask themselves "could I be doing better at this hobby of mine?" Or the worse side, "I don't care about doing better." Or, finally, "no one should care about doing better since it works out for the stuff I do anyway."

How exactly are players going to get better in group content if even the lowest level of group content is going to get them harshly judged like they just entered a progression premade? You're looking at pug content like its the endgame- it isn't, it's the first steps. There's players that are going to hit their potential, and it might not be high, and they might not ever rise above pug content... which is why they're in pug content. I get why when players try to enter premades without any effort to get carried they'll get chewed out- but when you're entering pug content that's partly there to teach, and partly there to help people gear up, and you're surprised that people aren't geared up and haven't mastered their class?

The majority of the playerbase for any MMO is going to be well below those that do progression content, look up guides/strategies and keep up to date with patch changes- and that's fine, these are games and the casual content is going to be meant for them. Getting mad at average players for being average is an effort in futility and displays a pretty widespread ignorance of what games are. At no point was 'being the best' a requirement for playing games, you can all be as mad as you want about that but you're basically old man yells at cloud material right now.

The better question is- why don't FFXIV elitists do what other mmorpg elitists do and make their own premades so they can shun the casuals they hate so much? Casuals in FFXIV are no different from casuals anywhere else, just wanting to play the game and have fun- so it's kind of comical that elitists here are elite enough to look down on everyone else but not elite enough to put in the effort to min max their play and form a premade.

Which begs the question- you know full well that an optimized premade is going to be, oh how did you put it again... oh right 'good enough to know you've done your best' with? Why settle for a pug that's 'good enough to clear', why not bring your A game and go all out in getting that perfect comp of top notch players. Funny, you seem to have no problem looking down at everyone else who isn't putting in the time and effort to be the best they possibly can, but you're blatantly ignoring the biggest factor of group content- the group.

Let me guess- too much effort and time to make a group that'll be 'good enough to know you've done your best' isn't it?

[Laesha]

90%, what a load of Chocobo dung! Whatever. If it's that high, why would I bother please the measly 10%?

The hyper casuals are annoying, but the elitists are so much worse.

Better get dem orange parses or gtfo my gamuuuuh. s/

[Canadane]

I don't think anyone should draw a line and say they'll stop improving themselves when they get to that arbitrary point.

[Penthea]

I don't think anyone should draw a line and say they'll stop improving themselves when they get to that arbitrary point.

While I agree it is important to note that very often people will not seriously try to improve unless they're put in a position where their options are get better or never complete the content. Normal mode doesn't exactly push players to their limits unless something very wrong is going on.

And well I think casual players have a right to not push themselves so much if they only plan on doing casual content as long as their performance is adequate for what the content demands.

There is a reason why the game has varying difficulties for content. It's because the devs realise many types of players with different goals and skill levels play the game. Some players need to realise this too and stop demanding near flawless performance in content that requires significantly below that.

If a person queues for casual content they shouldn't surprised or offended when they encounter casual players. Exactly the same as when people pug ex and savage they shouldn't be surprised or offended when they encounter players who expect them to perform at ex and savage level. It goes both ways.

[Yeol]

There is a reason why the game has varying difficulties for content. It's because the devs realise many types of players with different goals and skill levels play the game. Some players need to realise this too and stop demanding near flawless performance in content that requires significantly below that. .

People are not demanding near flawless performance. They are complaining because the average FFXIV players are doing less than 50% of that their job is capable of doing. Which in this case is not casual or average, this is below average. This is simply playing badly. Anyone who is coming up with excuses is encouraging bad play rather than face the fact that majority of the players in this game are bad. The dev team also said this themselves. They said that the battle system revamp is mostly to help the average players performance increase, hence why the battle system keep getting simpler and simpler.

[Vahlnir]

People are not demanding near flawless performance. They are complain because the average FFXIV players are doing less than 50% of that their job is capable of doing. Which in this case is not casual or average, this is below average. This is simply playing badly. Anyone who is coming up with excuses is encouraging bad play rather than face the fact that majority of the players in this game are bad. The dev team also said this themselves. They said that the battle system revamp is mostly to help the average players performance increase, hence why the battle system keep getting simpler and simpler.

Some of it doesn't fall on the players themselves though. The game does a very poor job of teaching and encouraging people to improve their performances in any give role, and for the most part people can be carried with little to no consequence from their fellow players from start to finish. Extreme, Savage and Ultimate are the only places where performance really matters. I'm not saying that anything below that doesn't matter, just that there isn't many consequences for poor play before Extreme and up content. I think the normal Eden raids have been a bit of a step up in terms of difficulty, but most of the time players can still win through attrition alone.

[Arngrim_Greyashe]

There's this guy that was in my FC that only would play healers. Every time he ran a dungeon, there'd be a few wipes per boss. I tried to give him some guidance on a few skills and was met with opposition. So I stopped running anything with him. Well, not too long ago he blew up on discord about elitists and how they're trying to tell him how to do his job. Point being, he was bad and refused to learn how to get better, and called anyone who tried to offer guidance an elitist. Some people, like him, refuse to get better. He couldn't even complete his job quests on normal difficulty. He had to bump it down to whatever the easiest available difficulty was.

[Yeol]

Some of it doesn't fall on the players themselves though. The game does a very poor job of teaching and encouraging people to improve their performances in any give role, and for the most part people can be carried with little to no consequence from their fellow players from start to finish. Extreme, Savage and Ultimate are the only places where performance really matters. I'm not saying that anything below that doesn't matter, just that there isn't many consequences for poor play before Extreme and up content. I think the normal Eden raids have been a bit of a step up in terms of difficulty, but most of the time players can still win through attrition alone.

I absolutely agree. People do not know where do they stand in terms of performance and it's not their fault.

[Arngrim_Greyashe]

I absolutely agree. People do not know where do they stand in terms of performance and it's not their fault.

I feel like that's not always the case. As in my example above. If people are offering guidance and there are constant failings which are your fault, you have to know you're not performing up to basic expectation. That's by no means every case, or even many, but there are those out there that prefer to be willfully ignorant to their abilities.

[Penthea]

People are not demanding near flawless performance.

There is an individual in this thread who is, and they're not the only one who I have encountered with this mindset. That said I am happy to say I do not personally encounter these people often. It's mostly in the forums I see this attitude.

They are complain because the average FFXIV players are doing less than 50% of that their job is capable of doing. Which in this case is not casual or average, this is below average. This is simply playing badly. Anyone who is coming up with excuses is encouraging bad play rather than face the fact that majority of the players in this game are bad.

I completely agree with this and have encountered these players myself. When I refer to people who are performing adequately for normal mode content even though it's not amazing performance I am most certainly not referring to people who are doing less than half their role. I don't consider this to be acceptable unless it's a sprout in very very very low lvl content who is clearly a fresh novice who never played a mmorpg before.

If someone is in max lvl content then I have certain expectations of their performance regardless of whether they're casual or not. I do not feel that claiming to be casual is an excuse for doing performance so bad that someone else must very noticeably carry you. I did say in a post that some casuals need to git gud and I meant it. Too many use "casual" as a crutch to do very little contribution and effort in group content.

The dev team also said this themselves. They said that the battle system revamp is mostly to help the average players performance increase, hence why the battle system keep getting simpler and simpler.

I think this is in part due to the game being on console. Button bloat is far more problematic for joypads than keyboard and mouse. While the cross platform aspect of the game covers a niche that has proven to be popular, it does have its drawbacks when it comes to class complexity.

This isn't to say I agree with the degree of the simplification that has been done. I agree that healers shouldn't have a basic dps kit comparable to an actual dps class but I disagree that it should be reduced to the point that while dpsing you're mostly spamming one button. It's boring.