This game has serious free-rider problems and it's getting worse. A suggestion.

[TaleraRistain]

like, no offence, but why do new players come into threads that's about seasoned players not putting in any kind of effort and think it's about them when there's zero mention of sprouts or new players in the OP or throughout the thread (aside from people strawmanning)? it's weird

Because these countermeasures to handle the "dead weight" would also rope in newer players. You can say that they could be turned off if someone flags as first time in the dungeon, but what about their second time, or their third time? They may take a few tries to become proficient. And if they aren't getting rewards because they're still trying to get things down in those tries, why would they keep trying? If they constantly run into a game that never rewards them, why would they keep playing?

Also, this idea of a bar. For one, it's subjective. Even someone talking about a "basic competency level"...well...by what measure? Some say DPS, so now the healer that has to heal the entire run gets no rewards because they had no chance to DPS. Or those new folks still learning their rotation and attempting it in a live setting instead of just on a dummy gets no rewards. The tank doing an awesome job keeping mobs off people and dodging mechanics but not putting out whatever this measure of DPS is gets no rewards. There is really no set way you can measure success besides the ways the game already provides. Anything else about how a run "should" go are entirely based on someone's opinions.

But let's play devil's advocate a second. Say that magically SE can code in something to fit whatever. And now the "freeloaders" give up and quit the game and they're out of your hair. Do you think it will be wine and roses then? No. People will do what they're doing now. They will find another bar to set. They will find another group to run off who don't fit their standards. This is what happens when a gatekeeping and exclusionary mindset is catered to. Those who judge are always going to find something new to use to keep people out.

SE has given us means to craft a more perfect environment if we want it by Party Finder and allowing premade groups into roulettes. People who haven't been around a long time may not remember this, but roulettes originally weren't runnable with groups. You went solo. But they changed that after feedback and now it's a way to help those who want to maintain a certain playing experience. And they left the random matching option for those who can handle it. I have plenty of runs where I'm making the "whelp this is gonna take a bit" face but since I chose the option that doesn't let me choose who I play with, I consider it a cover charge of DF that I may get some less than stellar players sometimes. I can also count on my hand in 7 years of mostly PUGing how many actual afk or trolling players I encountered. And in those cases since our group was gaining absolutely no benefit, we removed the problem.

Nobody is advocating to keep those types of players in a group. Just lower the bar a bit if you let the game randomly match you. That person who is having issues dodging isn't "afk" and may just be having an off day. If adjusting to the skill and experience levels of random people in Duty Finder is just something someone can't do, they should take the option that SE made available to get the experience they want.

[Ronduwil]

But let's play devil's advocate a second. Say that magically SE can code in something to fit whatever. And now the "freeloaders" give up and quit the game and they're out of your hair. Do you think it will be wine and roses then? No. People will do what they're doing now. They will find another bar to set. They will find another group to run off who don't fit their standards. This is what happens when a gatekeeping and exclusionary mindset is catered to. Those who judge are always going to find something new to use to keep people out.

Exactly. This has already played out in WoW to the point where they've integrated a rating system into the game with a score that you have to exceed in order to upgrade your endgame loot to its potential. For years, they've catered exclusively to the elitists, raising bar upon bar upon bar to the point where hardly anyone even wants to play anymore. And still, the elitists in that game aren't happy. They continue to berate the game's developers for catering too heavily to casuals with "welfare gear" despite the fact that the game has actively driven all its casuals away. You see ridiculous posts on their forums that begin with, "I casually Mythic raid..." or, "I casually push M+ keys..." High end players are already naturally rewarded by clearing content more quickly and easily than everyone else. This problematic mythical "freeloader" is going to take forever to get anything done if their gearing/leveling strategy is seriously, "AFK my way through every fight."

[Awha]

Thing is a general metric based around a persons role would very well not hurt newer players that are trying that much or often. Take dps did the damager dealer do more damage then a tank or healer when it fomes to single target like a boss? Cool max rewards, I have no combed through logs but I am willing to bet that it takes a dps messing up royaly to get out damaged by a tank or healer on single target fights. Just as one example, metrics like that I do not think are unreasonable.

[Ronduwil]

So a player encounters a fight for the first time ever, dies to various mechanics, and gets nothing for his efforts because he didn't alt tab out of the game, google a strategy guide, and memorize every single mechanic for every single boss prior to queueing for the roulette. That's how WoW expects you to do things, but I for one am super glad that this game doesn't force that garbage on you. Learning a fight is part of the fun of the game. If you want to skip over the fun part and instantly cheat via a strategy guide, more power to you. I don't think you should deny others rewards for not wanting to cheat their way through the game, though.

[Shurrikhan]

So a player encounters a fight for the first time ever, dies to various mechanics, and gets nothing for his efforts because he didn't alt tab out of the game, google a strategy guide, and memorize every single mechanic for every single boss prior to queueing for the roulette. That's how WoW expects you to do things, but I for one am super glad that this game doesn't force that garbage on you. Learning a fight is part of the fun of the game. If you want to skip over the fun part and instantly cheat via a strategy guide, more power to you. I don't think you should deny others rewards for not wanting to cheat their way through the game, though.

You're comparing very different things here.

WoW only has roulettes for its lowest difficulties, period. Unlike our mere 2 difficulties, there are 4 different difficulties for WOW raids. Unlike our 1 difficulty for dungeons, there are 17 different difficulties for dungeons before gear rewards cap out, though they technically scale infinitely. (Players are pushing around the 25th difficulty level for dungeons atm, though it'd be higher if not for the difficulty bump with the new season.)

There is little to no expectation to know all the mechanics for each boss in said roulettes (levels 1-2 of 17+ for dungeons; level 1 of 4 for raids). Because dungeons are part of the daily grind loop, most will expect that you know the fights, because chances are you're not new, but since it's still possible that you've not randomed into that particular dungeon until level cap, if someone dies to a mechanic, they may explain how to handle it or they'll just carry and move on.

And that's even with, by default, boss guides available in-game (Shift-J, unless you've changed the keybind). Even then, there is little to no expectation to have already known the fights, only to not make the same mistake twice following a decent explanation.


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Edit (Out of daily posts):

And there is no loot to be had from those, either.

They objectively have loot. And you'd have to have been doing +7s or normal raids prior to the patch's drop to have already outgeared them.

I was comparing the content that players use to collect end game gear currency in FFXIV to the content that players use to collect end game gear currency in WoW.

There is no end-game gear currency in WoW for PvE. Heck, for PvE, there are only two currencies in general. One is dropped from dungeon finder content, and the drops from dailies (much of which can be completed through the dungeon finder and open world) and Mythic+ and is solely used to upgrade Mythic+ drops.

So, what? Were you meaning to constrain the comparison to only what is meant for a specific span of content that XIV doesn't even have?...

There is no longer any comparison between the WoW dungeon finder and the FFXIV duty roulette.

Then why did you make a comparison between them, let alone one based on a falsehood (or, at the least, a very skewed perception)? The expectations WoW holds for players new to a fight are merely the equivalent of knowing the normal mode version of a trial before doing the Extreme version. If you had floor tanked the whole thing previously, they'd expect you to have run it again on your own initiative to at least have some idea what you're doing before adding on to that difficulty.

If this was 2011, you'd have a point, but WoW has gone out of its way to completely devalue the dungeon finder in order to placate the elitists who were angry that players were getting loot without "working" for it. Much like the OP did when he started this thread.

In that regard, WoW remains the same as it has since 2008. Heroic raids drop better loot than Normal raids. Normal raids drop better loot than Heroic dungeons. Heroic dungeons drop better loot than Normal dungeons. As they have done, since 2008, or in essence, since WoW's first raid released.

Yes, it eventually added Mythic raids in at one end and LFR on the other (alongside Mythic+ as premade content and having moved Heroics to the DF), but the gaps between the lowest and highest gear levels available have scarcely changed, proportionately.

Mythic dungeons were added only much later to give those who preferred small-group content a means of progression (while also drawing some hundred times the gameplay hours out of their hours invested in creating dungeons), essentially a more casually accessible alternative to the harder-to-schedule and punishing likes of raiding. Mythic raids were added for further challenge as to granularize the progression from Normal and upwards, but so too was LFR, creating a dungeon-finder accessible raid tier. Every addition outside the dungeon finder has its mirror in an addition to it.

If those changes were solely about "placating elitists" who for whatever reason hated the dungeon finder, why are the additions even to either side, and why have the largest decriers of DF been the predominantly old school casual community -- the kinds who migrated en masse to WoW Classic?

[Ronduwil]

There is little to no expectation to know all the mechanics for each boss in said roulettes (levels 1-2 of 17+ for dungeons; level 1 of 4 for raids).

And there is no loot to be had from those, either. I was comparing the content that players use to collect end game gear currency in FFXIV to the content that players use to collect end game gear currency in WoW. There is no longer any comparison between the WoW dungeon finder and the FFXIV duty roulette. If this was 2011, you'd have a point, but WoW has gone out of its way to completely devalue the dungeon finder in order to placate the elitists who were angry that players were getting loot without "working" for it. Much like the OP did when he started this thread.

[Awha]

So a player encounters a fight for the first time ever, dies to various mechanics, and gets nothing for his efforts because he didn't alt tab out of the game, google a strategy guide, and memorize every single mechanic for every single boss prior to queueing for the roulette. That's how WoW expects you to do things, but I for one am super glad that this game doesn't force that garbage on you. Learning a fight is part of the fun of the game. If you want to skip over the fun part and instantly cheat via a strategy guide, more power to you. I don't think you should deny others rewards for not wanting to cheat their way through the game, though.

Thing is despite what many think failure is also an important part of learning. I cannot speak for others but say if I am learning a fight and I do not perform well I will pass on the loot because I did not feel I earned it.

I get this is my standard, but what I am getting at even while learning fight if for whatever reason your individual progress is slower then the groups and generally your individual impact on the overall success was objectively less we and SE have a means to see this even if people want to pretend they do ot exist. Should said person honestly be entitled to the same rewards as the overall group because they happened to be in the right place at the right time?

In short should we reward the mere existence of a player? Personally I have always felt such game design was flawed since it does not promote growth with ones character at that point the progression becomes expected accompanied by the power spike. This in my view is what lead to the utter devaluation of Dungene experience but it was not to please the elitist but the lazy player.

[Payadopa]

So a player encounters a fight for the first time ever, dies to various mechanics, and gets nothing for his efforts because he didn't alt tab out of the game, google a strategy guide, and memorize every single mechanic for every single boss prior to queueing for the roulette. That's how WoW expects you to do things, but I for one am super glad that this game doesn't force that garbage on you. Learning a fight is part of the fun of the game. If you want to skip over the fun part and instantly cheat via a strategy guide, more power to you. I don't think you should deny others rewards for not wanting to cheat their way through the game, though.

If I'd be forced to play the game like that I'd quit so fast, you have no idea. Learning and wiping is half the fun. It's fun comparing observations and trying out different strats. Watching a guide before even having tried it is a big no no for me. PF fortunately works both ways. ^^

[Ronduwil]

Thing is despite what many think failure is also an important part of learning. I cannot speak for others but say if I am learning a fight and I do not perform well I will pass on the loot because I did not feel I earned it.

I may be in the minority with what I'm about to say, but I suspect that I'm not. Failure itself is punishment enough as is. Floor tanking a fight isn't fun, regardless of how much loot I do or don't get. Every failure already pushes me to want to do better and to wonder what killed me as well as how to avoid it. It already feels bad enough as it is, and the game doesn't need to compound that ill feeling by denying me the fight's reward as well. Missing out on the reward feels like the time spent in the instance was a complete waste. That kind of system seriously feels like it's kicking me when I'm already down. I've seen the way this plays out in the WoW M+ system, and it's not pleasant. Players gatekeep who they do and don't run with to the point that there's now a third party rating system that was created explicitly for that purpose. Players abandon instances mid-run because they don't want to fail the timer and get only half the reward. In contrast, in FFXIV, a wipe is treated like a growth opportunity, and there is rarely any vitriol as a result. I've never seen a player quit in the middle of an instance because it was taking too long. If one players knows more than the others, they share their knowledge and collect commendations for it later. All in all, it's a pleasant environment that I'm happy to be a part of. I don't think that sticking it to a hypothetical AFKer that I've yet to even encounter in this game is worth destroying the positive vibe that we have going right now.

[Awha]

I may be in the minority with what I'm about to say, but I suspect that I'm not. Failure itself is punishment enough as is. Floor tanking a fight isn't fun, regardless of how much loot I do or don't get. Every failure already pushes me to want to do better and to wonder what killed me as well as how to avoid it. It already feels bad enough as it is, and the game doesn't need to compound that ill feeling by denying me the fight's reward as well. Missing out on the reward feels like the time spent in the instance was a complete waste. That kind of system seriously feels like it's kicking me when I'm already down. I've seen the way this plays out in the WoW M+ system, and it's not pleasant. Players gatekeep who they do and don't run with to the point that there's now a third party rating system that was created explicitly for that purpose. Players abandon instances mid-run because they don't want to fail the timer and get only half the reward. In contrast, in FFXIV, a wipe is treated like a growth opportunity, and there is rarely any vitriol as a result. I've never seen a player quit in the middle of an instance because it was taking too long. If one players knows more than the others, they share their knowledge and collect commendations for it later. All in all, it's a pleasant environment that I'm happy to be a part of. I don't think that sticking it to a hypothetical AFKer that I've yet to even encounter in this game is worth destroying the positive vibe that we have going right now.

Question remains why should a person that tanked the floor be eligible for reward simply for existing? What positive "vibe" is worth rewarding someone doing nothing?

Unless you are under the assumption that a person who tanks the floor did aid the group with their meme existence because without said person they would not be able to have access to the LB or some weird thing so they did in fact contribute or if the encounter was cleared despite the floor tank so as such their contributions was irrelevant so what does it matter.

I mean generally I am not one for participation rewards.