[Request] A Mandatory Hall of Excellence training program for all jobs

[Rongway]

Obviously this is also why I didn't name SCH as an example.. because you can (and I did) unlock SCH at high level by playing SMN without ever having touched a healing class.

They really just need to decouple SCH from ACN. It is already a job far removed from ACN; it should be a simple matter of copying all its actions and traits to a "new" SCH job. Set the unlock quest to require ACN30 as normal, but give them their own xp bar from that point on. Grandfather all the current SCHs to their current ACN level so they don't lose anything, but require future SCH to level SCH separately from ACN/SMN.

[Hausti]

Remember the release of Heavensward? All those bad DRKs tanking for theire first time?
Sure it sucked but after a few weeks it settled down. So dont worry. We will survive the new Sage hype too.

[HyperiusUltima]

Sage hype is definitely going to go downhill when people start complaining about "AHHHH SCH 100% BETTER" or some other crap, but back on topic...

I think that if you take a Jump Potion and you're brand new, it should be required to pass said "exam" from Hall of the Novice so that you don't slog a person's group as a healer or tank and never clear content. The Help boxes help a lot with learning the game, but for a new player it's almost overwhelming. In general, the manual is Hall of the Novice - and they should make a Hall of the Intermediate for Lv 60+ that's optional. You don't have to read the manual - but it'd help a lot towards fixing the gap that we tend to find when we get completely new people who literally are dying left and right because they don't understand how to play the game. Why do you think games have tutorials and the like? Why do games have MANUALS that come in the physical box? To teach you how to play it.

TLDR: NOBODY READS THE MANUAL, EVEN WHEN IT'S BENEFICIAL.

[Kaurhz]

No. Simply because putting people through these Hall of Excellence programs may not necessarily translate to people actually incorporating what they've learned in their general play with other players. I have always said and will stand by that I think it's laziness, and just simply sloppiness that results in these rather than sheer incompetence, although some people do break this, shockingly. Like with every expansion, just give players sufficient opportunity to learn and practice their class over the course of their leveling rather than mandating players learn everything right off the bat.

The best they can really feasible do without significant backlash is to have the class we unlock get played during the unlock via an NPC or something where it has a fairly 'interactive' walkthrough of some of the abilities. But it's nothing you won't really grasp through reading the toolkit and then putting it into practice over a couple of dungeons.

[ItMe]

Why do games have MANUALS that come in the physical box? To teach you how to play it.

Because the practice started when games were a few Megabytes big and they literally didn't have room in the floppy/cartridge for tutorial elements.

Now a-days we do have room, but a separate mandatory training camp isn't the way to go. The game should be set up so you learn how to play the game getting through it.
If this isn't being accomplished, SQEX should look at where it can be done better.

But like a manual in a box, the resource should be separated. There for those that want it, that want to learn from it. Because as a public school teacher I quickly found that trying to force someone to learn only makes them resistant to being taught, to try to improve, further down the line.

[Mechnikov_the_Jotunn]

I like how a lot of the replies are "Having this doesn't mean people will do it anyway, because people are lazy". As if we shouldn't try and raise the bar somewhat because some people will opt to not try anyway. I wouldn't be opposed to the hall of excellence, but I think at first I would've liked to have made it so that for EX and Savage fights there was a duty finder option you could checkmark like "Duty Complete" but for Stone, Sky, Sea. At least then you wouldn't get people in EX and Savage who don't know their rotation, and thus were never going to actively contribute to the fight. I think the skill disparity is pretty large in 14 and while I don't think people should have to try if they don't want to, I'd personally not want to run with them in dungeons. If they can choose to play their way, I'd like the choice to not have to carry them.

TLDR: I wouldn't be against more options in DF or PF to ensure that I'm getting players who know what they're doing, and are willing to try for 15 minutes.

[AnotherPerson]

Wow, this blew up.

A flat no.



Again, NO. Duty finder access starts at a very early stage, and this would also be a roadblock to MSQ....be told to do a "mandatory' training course before Sastasha?

So, no. The game runs fine as is and I dont see any need for it. By the way...you didnt say what happens if you dont get through it? You cant play past 60? You cant do MSQ past 60?...or had you forgotten that MSQ 60-80 requires a large number of dungeons?

I did not say it would be a training course before Sastasha. It's something for around level 60/70 because that's when all jobs start getting oGCD actions. Before then, for content up to level 50, most jobs generally have the basic 1,2,3 combo with maybe something extra on the side. Content around that level is not exactly difficult, so the Hall of Novice is still enough for situations like that. However, around level 60/70 there are enough actions where things start changing up very quickly because new mechanics are continuously added, which makes things very difficult to focus on if players don't know the basics to their job ahead of time. If anything, you can treat it as a MSQ for your job in place of a tutorial.

And no, I don't expect people to actually be able to fail it continuously because it is after all, a training course with the intent to teach as its primary focus. The idea is to be instructed in a scenario things you should do and how to do them, then having a light check to see if you can actually do them, such as using [AoE] versus [Single Target], or weaving abilities together by checking if you can press [X], [Y], [Z] in that order and pressed in a certain timeframe to show players what a weave space is. Essentially, the goal is to teach basic combos and tricks, such as RDM using Veraero II -> Scatter -> Contre Sixte as opposed to Hardcast Scatter -> Scatter. For White Mages, it's Aero II -> Assize or Afflatus Solace -> Tetragrammaton. Passing a step by step instruction, they would get to put it into practice on something simple. This is already done in the Hall of Novice, except it's basically dodging and not actually related to how to use your abilities as you only have 1-4 skills around level 15. This would be the next step up to explain how skills and actions work together. Unless you expect people to fail Hall of Novice's training course, this is pretty much in the same category. It's something you do once for a job to get the basics and then you're done - with the Duties beyond that checkpoint unlocked. For players who can't complete a step by step instruction, they may want to reassess how they are playing in the first place because it definitely shows that they will be ill-equipped to handle these duties as they are now.

The reason why I say to make this mandatory is exactly as people have stated - people are lazy or blissfully unaware. Some people will go out of their way to avoid doing storyline quests in order to queue into duty finder - even if said storyline quests have important skills they would need. Lazy by nature means they wouldn't put in the effort to do so unless something was in their way to do so - such as how the MSQ would lock a lot of extra content players may want to do because they haven't progressed far enough to do those yet. Others are just simply unaware they are doing something wrong unless they have an actual guideline that explains to them instead. Everyone is right - players who see something like this and understands their job would be irked by it, but it still holds importance to do exactly for the exact reason for those who don't understand. However, as everyone explained, I understand this approach is still wrong because there isn't any rewards attached to it to incentivize it, nor is everyone comfortable because it isn't optional and rather not be subjected to a mandatory training course.

So I propose the 2nd alternative:

Instead of making the training course mandatory, the training hall is optional; give the player a reward (glamour or level 60/70 gear) and an achievement that acts as a certification for completing that Job's training course. Then in the Duty Finder and Party Finder, there will be an optional feature to queue with players who also have the certification. After all, this is an optional choice for players who went out of their way to certify themselves and have established some baseline of skill. For those who don't want it, they don't need it.

Edit: I do admit having a training course to prepare someone for savage/extreme seems very useful, but I believe that would require a more comprehensive training course beyond a simple explanation of the job. While I'd certainly support this idea, having an extensive training course tailored for each individual job would be very time consuming to infeasible for SE to produce to get players ready for more difficult content since it will require helping the player to get awareness about the boss while doing decent DPS / mitigating attacks / healing through damage - which is essentially making another boss encounter to practice on. However, I do agree it'll be something that would be very much appreciated for anyone who wants to dip into extremes or savage for the first time since we have no content that really prepares the players for this content. That would probably be a step up beyond Excellence and into another hall - like The Hall of Veterans, though if this was implemented, then I hope there would be a certification for specifically this instead.

[ItMe]

I did not say it would be a training course before Sastasha. It's something for around level 60/70 because that's when all jobs start getting oGCD actions.

Specifically you said:

To help all players avoid all of these issues - I would like all jobs complete a mandatory training program once before being allowed to use the Duty Finder.

As Sastasha is the first duty most players unlock... you can understand our confusion.
I'm still not entirely clear when/how you want players to hit this mandatory training program.

If anything, you can treat it as a MSQ for your job in place of a tutorial.

Sounds like what the job quests should(?) be doing...

And no, I don't expect people to actually be able to fail it continuously because it is after all, a training course with the intent to teach as its primary focus. The idea is to be instructed in a scenario things you should do and how to do them, then having a light check to see if you can actually do them, such as using [AoE] versus [Single Target], or weaving abilities together by checking if you can press [X], [Y], [Z] in that order and pressed in a certain timeframe to show players what a weave space is. Essentially, the goal is to teach basic combos and tricks, such as RDM using Veraero II -> Scatter -> Contre Sixte as opposed to Hardcast Scatter -> Scatter. For White Mages, it's Aero II -> Assize or Afflatus Solace -> Tetragrammaton. Passing a step by step instruction, they would get to put it into practice on something simple.

Few problems there

One is the upkeep.
In Hall of the Novice they don't have to remake the challenges or what they're trying to teach you with each expac as your skills and rotation changes. Heck, like with NIN and MNK in ShB sometimes we see this happen mid expac too.
I'd rather the dev resources go to upkeep like this as little as possible.

This also sounds like an obnoxious pain for people who are picking up a new class.
"Yeah game, I know what an AoE is..."
"No game, I don't care. I just need to get these classes to 80 for the Amaro mount..."
"Teaching me how to weave again? Do I really need this?"

And you're also gonna run into other problems when the way the devs envision the class being played is different from how the community decides to play it. Sometimes we've found better / more efficient ways to play a class. Other times what the devs wanted is just dumb and they don't seem to have thought it through well. In either case you're going to extreme pains to teach people how to play a job wrong.

But your first sentence here also confuses me.
If you don't expect people to be able to fail it continuously... will you just pass the people that do?
Will you allow people to skip it after failing so many times?
If it doesn't force one to learn something or stonewall them (oof no), then what's the point of making it mandatory?
Can you elaborate on this?
You just say

For players who can't complete a step by step instruction, they may want to reassess how they are playing in the first place because it definitely shows that they will be ill-equipped to handle these duties as they are now.

So I propose the 2nd alternative:

Instead of making the training course mandatory, the training hall is optional; give the player a reward (glamour or level 60/70 gear) and an achievement that acts as a certification for completing that Job's training course. Then in the Duty Finder and Party Finder, there will be an optional feature to queue with players who also have the certification. After all, this is an optional choice for players who went out of their way to certify themselves and have established some baseline of skill. For those who don't want it, they don't need it.

Skipping any discussion of pros/cons, I don't think this is reasonable.
The devs have said they aren't comfortable doing this with the training dummy for EX and Savages, so there's no way they'd do it for a training hall with MSQ.

[VelKallor]

It's something you do once for a job to get the basics and then you're done - with the Duties beyond that checkpoint unlocked. For players who can't complete a step by step instruction, they may want to reassess how they are playing in the first place because it definitely shows that they will be ill-equipped to handle these duties as they are now.

So you want them to do it for each and every job at 60. There are at present 17 jobs. Add Sage and the new melee dps makes it 19 jobs.

Each player will have to do this 19 times? Once for each job?

While I'd certainly support this idea, having an extensive training course tailored for each individual job would be very time consuming

A flat no.

nor is everyone comfortable because it isn't optional and rather not be subjected to a mandatory training course.

A "mandatory training course" to obtain a "certification".

Uh huh.

It's something you do once for a job to get the basics and then you're done - with the Duties beyond that checkpoint unlocked. For players who can't complete a step by step instruction, they may want to reassess how they are playing in the first place because it definitely shows that they will be ill-equipped to handle these duties as they are now.

And if they dont do it the duties are locked and they cant proceed with MSQ. Locked at 60 until they "sit an exam" to be "certified"?

So , to sum up, you want a mandatory training course at 60 with a pass / fail requirement, that if not completed, will not allow them to proceed beyond 60.

Nah, no thanks.

[AnotherPerson]

Specifically you said:

As Sastasha is the first thing most players use duty finder for... you can understand our confusion.
I'm still not entirely clear when/how you want players to hit this mandatory training program.

Sorry for not clarifying well enough. Initially, I meant Hall of Novice is fine up to around level 50, but by level 60 onwards, most jobs get additional actions that can change up the gameplay very quickly, so there's more to it than just using the basic 1,2,3 combo. Due to the larger amount of skills, players could be doing something outdated from both a technical and rotational standpoint (ex: using Cure 1 to proc Freecure over using their stronger oGCD healing actions that are free first like Tetragrammaton or Benediction instead of holding it for an emergency that would rarely come, then losing additional uses for their oGCD skills which lower their healing output in the long run). Around level 60 or 70 (whenever the new jobs unlocks), I would hope they make another training program to keep it up to date with the dungeon encounter. Usually this involves with using the current actions learned and expanding from that point onwards.

Sounds like what the job quests should(?) be doing...

The problem with job quests is that
1. They're more or less done once and forget. They aren't repeatable immediately if a player wants to figure out how their job works with basic practice. I feel the training course would also help a lot of players who have issues performing under pressure - especially for healers with healing anxiety and tanks with tank anxiety. Even if they aren't the best, if they can get the basics down, there's less chance of failure and panic healing. This can be something they can rerun on their own time would help learning their kit better without the pressure to get it perfect in the first run or an actual run with players.
2. The second problem is that job quests don't actually lock the player from doing a Duty - which means you can have a player who joins a lv 70 Duty without unlocking their lv 35 and above skills. It can surely slow you down when doing the MSQ, but the MSQ does not bar you from lacking those skills. The SMN / SCH sharing the arcanist class is also notorious for this where someone could level up SMN to level 80 but never touch SCH, but then take SCH into a lv 70 dungeon and then realize they only have Physick - since the training Duty will expect you to use more skills, you wouldn't be able to pass the Duty without them since you don't have them. However, you could still join a Lv 70 Duty if there wasn't a training course to check whether you unlocked the skills. This would inevitably be very problematic for most players - as you do not have your full toolkit to play in fairly high level duty.

While I don't think a mandatory training program is the solution anymore to this, this is still a very valid concern for players still taking jobs to a level 70 duty without a majority of their job skills. For a job like SMN which relies on previous skills to be unlocked to access future ones (Dreadwyrm Trance, Summon Bahamut, Enkindle Bahamut), this is pretty detrimental as a whole. I do hope SE does something about that in general, regardless whether they make an extra Hall or not.

Few problems there

One is the upkeep.
In Hall of the Novice they don't have to remake the challenges or what they're trying to teach you with each expac as your skills and rotation changes. Heck, like with NIN and MNK in ShB sometimes we see this happen mid expac too.
I'd rather the dev resources go to upkeep like this as little as possible.

This also sounds like an obnoxious pain for people who are picking up a new class.
"Yeah game, I know what an AoE is..."
"No game, I don't care. I just need to get these classes to 80 for the Amaro mount..."
"Teaching me how to weave again? Do I really need this?"

And you're also gonna run into other problems when the way the devs envision the class being played is different from how the community decides to play it. Sometimes we've found better / more efficient ways to play a class. Other times what the devs wanted is just dumb and they don't seem to have thought it through well. In either case you're going to extreme pains to teach people how to play a job wrong.

But your first sentence here also confuses me.
If you don't expect people to be able to fail it continuously... will you just pass the people that do?
Will you allow people to skip it after failing so many times?
If it doesn't force one to learn something or stonewall them (oof no), then what's the point of making it mandatory?
Can you elaborate on this?

I haven't though much about the upkeep since I figured the devs decided on a direction on how the jobs will advance, but you make many good points here. Every expac the skills and rotation changes, and sometimes players will find better rotations. The only way I can think to combat this would be to teach more technical stuff and do something more akin to a practical assessment instead of a rotational assessment - such as understanding GCD vs oGCD via weaving, use of oGCDs heals first for MP management, and trying to keep one mitigation up, positioning away from the party to avoid cleaves, and light DPS/heal checks under a certain timeframe - which would be passable as long as you were using AoE as opposed to Single Target. Something that's actually testable and applicable to all combat and wouldn't change for majority of the content since the training course is more focused to encounter design. If they do choose to go to this direction and focus on more 'role specific' lessons over job lessons, it's still certainly good to check and certify each individual job to see the technical skills mastered, but at this point it's definitely better to make it optional as everyone else stated with the incentive being a certification and glamour/gear.

I will be honest though, my initial thoughts were that even though I'd be in favor of stonewalling them until they pass the training, I'm pretty sure they'll be stonewalled on their own in the duty if they also were grouped with people who struggled with the same issues. After all, I've seen it happen before, but as others have pointed out, this is certainly not the right choice to make and training courses like these should be optional.

Devs have said they aren't comfortable doing this with EX and Savages behind clearing the dummy.
I don't think we can expect them to do it for a training hall with MSQ.

Training hall doesn't have to be tied to the MSQ then, and can be optional. What I'm proposing doesn't require EX or Savage level skill for the Hall of Excellence since majority of this is still applicable to normal dungeon/trials/raids, but it does make me slightly disappointed to know there we won't be a chance for a training hall designed to help players step into Savage.

...
And if they dont do it the duties are locked and they cant proceed with MSQ. Locked at 60 until they "sit an exam" to be "certified"?

So , to sum up, you want a mandatory training course at 60 with a pass / fail requirement, that if not completed, will not allow them to proceed beyond 60.

Nah, no thanks.

Thanks for selectively reading my post, quoting parts where I said I understood this is the wrong approach, and skipping where I said 'optional' in my alternative after realizing what I proposed initially was infeasible.