Please implement something to teach players how to play

[Kaurhz]

Here some other ideas:

- A dungeon where the groups of mobs respawn if you don't pull and kill them altogether (like that Guildhest no one runs) to teach tanks to do wall to wall pulls
- A boss mechanic like Extreme Caution but that instead explodes if you don't deal X amount of damage in time to encourage people to learn and optimize their rotations
- A mechanic that places X amount of stacks on the Tank. Each time the tank is healed the stack is reduced. If it reaches 0, the tank gets a debuff that turns healing into damage. This will teach healers to use their oGCDs to heal and not overheal spam with GCDs.

- If both the tank and healer are not adequate enough in that they can do wall to wall pulls then you run into the issue wherein that pull cannot be done as it will just spawn, and spawn, and spawn. Stagnating the dungeon progress.

- Learning is a progressive thing, they won't fail it and then magically succeed the following pull. There's a reason people spend a significant amount of time practicing on dummies.

- I hate to be that one guy, but this is on every member of the party as much as it is on the tank or healer. If a group has lower damage, these fights will last longer. Players will need to exhaust more tank cooldowns, when these cooldowns have been exhausted it will be more necessary to use GCDs instead of just oGCDs.

Many of these solutions, or proposals try to get people to learn, at the expense of punishing the others in the group - This is not how this should be done. If you want to encourage this in solo instances throughout the MSQ or want to encourage creative mechanics, or more difficult/stringent checks, then by all means go that route. But you shouldn't be punishing several other people for the inadequacies of other people in the group. I'd much rather just carry them on every single basis than deal with this. If they haven't learned their lesson by Level 66 on a basic class play or functionality, then the incorporation of these isn't going to magically make them succeed. They will still need to learn and that process is not instantaneous.

[Shurrikhan]

- If both the tank and healer are not adequate enough in that they can do wall to wall pulls then you run into the issue wherein that pull cannot be done as it will just spawn, and spawn, and spawn. Stagnating the dungeon progress.

Hard walls to progress, where properly situated, are not necessarily a bad thing.

Done well, they reveal many of the points of potential personal progress (learning opportunities) certain members simply foisted onto others instead of engaging with, thereby revealing exactly how to dismantle that wall.

I'd rather have dungeon progress stagnated briefly for what would become increasingly the rare exception among players than have all dungeon design creativity permanently stagnated by being limited to the lowest denominator among them.

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To be clear, I don't think we need -- nor would I want -- external absolute prerequisites like Proving Grounds or complicators like reward-affecting performance metrics, even if largely just because I do not trust our devs to implement them with remotely sufficient quality. But I am more than happy not to limit our content to what can be face-rolled through on at most the first couple attempts.

[Kaurhz]

Hard walls to progress, where properly situated, are not necessarily a bad thing.

Done well, they reveal many of the points of potential personal progress (learning opportunities) certain members simply foisted onto others instead of engaging with, thereby revealing exactly how to dismantle that wall.

I'd rather have dungeon progress stagnated briefly for what would become increasingly the rare exception among players than have all dungeon design creativity permanently stagnated by being limited to the lowest denominator among them.

Like I said the problem here is that if someone has not learned their basic class, or functionality by Level 66, for example. Then they aren't going to magically learn this within that dungeon. In a very short frame, unless these checks are so drastically under-tuned. - It goes back to the whole process of you can't force someone to learn. If they haven't shown that willingness after a metric tonne of levels, then a mentality change isn't going to happen. More often than not you're dealing with the lack of willingness to learn than you are dealing with someone who just generally misunderstands, especially in the later levels.

I'm not spending my time in a dungeon waiting for someone to potentially be indoctrinated into a new line of thinking if they haven't already adopted said thinking prior. Hence why I said, or at least implied such things belong in solo instances where it has no bearing on people that respect their own time.

Creating the opportunity is one thing, having people seize or take advantage of is entirely separate.

[Shurrikhan]

Like I said the problem here is that if someone has not learned their basic class, or functionality by Level 66, for example. Then they aren't going to magically learn this within that dungeon. In a very short frame, unless these checks are so drastically under-tuned. - It goes back to the whole process of you can't force someone to learn. If they haven't shown that willingness after a metric tonne of levels, then a mentality change isn't going to happen. More often than not you're dealing with the lack of willingness to learn than you are dealing with someone who just generally misunderstands, especially in the later levels.

Consider what goes into that willingness, though.

Or, consider it from the opposite end: What point is there in expending that effort? If I have ostensibly nothing to gain from doing so (assuming, even, the path were clear -- which it usually is not), and the effort itself is not enjoyable... why would I bother?

That's the problem the devs have increasingly set for themselves. They've diminished the rewards, obfuscated the path, and made the early-level combat experience increasingly a slog.

If they want the community to behave differently, then they should give them contexts that warrant different behaviors.

Yes, there is by now a huge sense of inertia, or generalized expectations, they'd have to push back against, but once they get the boulder rolling to turn those expectations around, the community cannot help but snowball the changes the devs will have impelled.

[Kaurhz]

Consider what goes into that willingness, though.

Or, consider it from the opposite end: What point is there in expending that effort? If I have ostensibly nothing to gain from doing so (assuming, even, the path were clear -- which it usually is not), and the effort itself is not enjoyable... why would I bother?

That's the problem the devs have increasingly set for themselves. They've diminished the rewards, obfuscated the path, and made the early-level combat experience increasingly a slog.

If they want the community to behave differently, then they should give them contexts that warrant different behaviors.

Yes, there is by now a huge sense of inertia, or generalized expectations, they'd have to push back against, but once they get the boulder rolling to turn those expectations around, the community cannot help but snowball the changes the devs will have impelled.

Again, incorporate or encourage this process of learning into the solo duties through the creative use of mechanics or systems that help to encourage the process of learning. It should be something that has no bearing on other people, especially if it is something that seemingly does potentially punish other players.

If we want to look into a direction that involves encouraging learning, whilst still incorporating them into the dungeon then a bonus exp/tome checkpoints could be included to help encourage this. E.g. you hit the goal of doing x, y, or z then you get a checkmark that provides bonus exp or tomestones. This could be anything from the execution of an ability a certain amount of time, or a limitation therein. Then you have the point of expanding that effort from a personal perspective without necessarily involving mechanics that seemingly punish players for bad play, but rather rewarding people for good play.

My issue with the suggested list is it wasn't rewarding players for good play, you were effectively punishing them within the duty itself for not performing up to a baseline.

I'm all for a new context that encourages different behavior, but forcing this process, or punishing for not meeting this behavior baseline won't sit well with players. EXP multipliers to individual bosses for correct, proper, or efficient execution of mechanics, be it fight or job mechanics would be a great way to start.

I don't want to have to worry about that healer potentially killing themselves or the tank, just because someone decided that adding a stacking mechanic to GCD heals was a great way to try and force players into something. Especially when more often than not more damage on the bosses will translate to faster kills, which means the boss does fewer mechanics and overall a smaller window for mistakes. So this rides as much on the DPS playing their job correctly in addition to the tank, yet someone wanted to propose the bizarre idea for potentially punishing the healer, or potentially making their life even more difficult for trying to compensate?

[Shurrikhan]

Again, incorporate or encourage this process of learning into the solo duties through the creative use of mechanics or systems that help to encourage the process of learning.

That is of course where it should come into play first, but if those mechanics don't come into the content unlocked down the road from those solo duties, you naturally divorce that learning from the apparent intent of the game.

My issue with the suggested list is it wasn't rewarding players for good play, you were effectively punishing them within the duty itself for not performing up to a baseline.

Again, I share many of your concerns with Lezard's list. I just don't believe the general ideas the list seems to follow are going in a fundamentally wrong direction, so long as the implementations (the individual fight designs or its mechanics) are well situated.