Quote Originally Posted by Ath192 View Post
I disagree, and the problem is one and the same, what I consider engagement is people focused on the fight doing their job well. I am not sure what you mean by actively playing if its not the same as me, since bad performance is correlated with just playing, disengaged and not really active. Dangling a carrot does work in my opinion, in the same way relics are dangling carrots for people to grind old content, and they do with great success. Some people may complain about it but I still am of the mind it would help rather than detract from gameplay.
To me engaged means they aren't AFK and are playing. They may not be caring at the moment about how well they are playing - not all play with a group of random players - but they're playing.

A player with a disability that means that they can't get gold but is doing the best they can is engaged with the game.

A new player who hasn't learned a fight well enough to not get hit by enough mechanics and still do decent DPS is engaged with the game.

A player who in their group of friends is with permission of all in the group role playing an ice mage in a dungeon is engaged with the game. He's not doing great DPS, but he's engaged with the game.

A player who has a low or medium skill level but no desire to currently improve but is able to complete DPS checks in the content they play but not get enough DPS to get gold is engaged with the game.

Yea, it gets players to play the content, but that doesn't mean they are improving. It doesn't mean that if the skill level necessary to earn the reward is higher than their current level that they won't complain.

And as others have mentioned, it's more apt to bring out the negative in others than it would the positive as players who want the gold medals will be less forgiving of players making mistakes. Because the more mistakes are made, the longer a fight goes on giving more time for others to make mistakes that end up costing the players gold medals. The medals will increase the chances of players with different goals for the content getting into the same group. When goals differ enough, it can cause problems for groups. Players looking for efficiency in order to get gold are less likely to be forgiving of mistakes than of someone looking to full clear a dungeon.