The trouble with telling tanks W2W pulls are a mandatory norm.

[Nishira]

but my issue is that many people are willingly defending people who either do not want to learn, who are set in their ways to do the least amount of effort they need to do to pass something, even if it takes double or triple the time an average run takes, all just to appear as nice and helpful to the rest of the community

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I perceive it very differently. I think the game itself is extremely welcoming and friendly to anyone. It does not discriminate when it comes to ability, motivation etc. If content is too hard for you, they'll make it easier for you one way or another. So in essence, the game itself promotes a relaxed mindset, personally I find that refreshing. If you want a real challenge, you have to go look for it and find likeminded people, which imo is an elegant solution.

Not everyone can improve. Not everyone wants to improve. Some are new. Some have returned after a long break. Some people will burn all that motivation on their job already and just want to log on and not get more hassle thrown their way. Some are a bit older and don't have the best reflexes (anymore). Some are tired cause they have small children, a demanding job, a migraine. Some suffer from anxiety, depression, you name it, and are not feeling at their best. Applying more pressure isn't necessarily going to help, isn't always going to magically improve their performance. They may be perfectly comfortable with where they are at. And the game respects this, very much. So if players defend the right to play at your comfort level, whether it's for themselves or others, I simply see them respecting the spirit of the game.

Expecting, demanding, pushing, complaining when players are not playing to the full potential of a class or role seems off to me. You can offer help, you can respectfully nudge once or twice but you can't and shouldn't make people play the way you want them to if that's uncomfortable to them. Which "You're not paying my sub" is pretty much the logical response to because it's so true. Instead of being frustrated with or exasperated about that attitude, understand what triggers it and respect the limitations of others. Everyone has them, and there's no rule book that says we have to overcome all of them. When someone logs on to relax a bit, that may just not be the right time to expect that haha.

[Rinhi]

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I perceive it very differently. I think the game itself is extremely welcoming and friendly to anyone. It does not discriminate when it comes to ability, motivation etc. If content is too hard for you, they'll make it easier for you one way or another. So in essence, the game itself promotes a relaxed mindset, personally I find that refreshing. If you want a real challenge, you have to go look for it and find likeminded people, which imo is an elegant solution.

I both agree and disagree there, I do like that the game pretty much promotes a relaxed playstyle, but I disagree about the bolded part
The game doesn't really do anything like that, it pushes it onto the other 3-7-23 people to carry that person, which inherently isn't a bad thing per se as everyone can have a bad day, but it goes at the expense of everyone else where some people will be more vocal, some will be less vocal, some of them won't care about someone wasting their time, either on purpose or not while others do care about their time investment
personally, and people might be surprised considering I've been called a tryhard elitist raider before, I don't really want challenging content, maybe for the first few runs, sure, but after that I love that it becomes a face roll if you know the basics of your class

Not everyone can improve. Not everyone wants to improve. Some are new. Some have returned after a long break. Some people will burn all that motivation on their job already and just want to log on and not get more hassle thrown their way. Some are a bit older and don't have the best reflexes (anymore). Some are tired cause they have small children, a demanding job, a migraine. Some suffer from anxiety, depression, you name it, and are not feeling at their best. Applying more pressure isn't necessarily going to help, isn't always going to magically improve their performance. They may be perfectly comfortable with where they are at. And the game respects this, very much. So if players defend the right to play at your comfort level, whether it's for themselves or others, I simply see them respecting the spirit of the game.

sure, some of these are valid reasons and excuses if true, but they're also used to handwave bad players away far more often than they are used legitimately, at least in my experience
as an example, a troll thread about disability had someone make almost that exact post but used disability as an excuse to 'win' that discussion, while completely ignoring or invalidating the posters that disagreed with their statement - the person making that post neither knew anyone with one, nor did they have one themselves and yet they used disability as an excuse to basically "force" people to accept bad players, and in my eyes you're doing the same here, no offence to you and how valid some of them are
in addition to that, some of those, like people suffering from migraine for example, shouldn't be playing a game when they're having an attack and honestly, neither should someone tank if even single pulling or even playing with real people gives them an anxiety attack
believe it or not (I wouldn't, considering it's the internet and stuff and I destroy my own argument/point of view before even posting it :P), but I suffer from clinical depression, generalised anxiety disorder and heavy migraine attacks and the first two have not kept me from playing and enjoying the game, or improving, I know this is highly anecdotal and I certainly don't speak for other people who suffer from the same illnesses, but to me, feeling like a burden, playing badly in a group setting, is the absolute worst feeling I have in this game and the few people who I know who suffer from anxiety would say the very same thing, that being carried or being bad is worse than feeling anxious over playing with others, though maybe that's why some people react with vitriol if you give them advice - they feel like this as well but refuse to accept it

Expecting, demanding, pushing, complaining when players are not playing to the full potential of a class or role seems off to me. You can offer help, you can respectfully nudge once or twice but you can't and shouldn't make people play the way you want them to if that's uncomfortable to them. Which "You're not paying my sub" is pretty much the logical response to because it's so true. Instead of being frustrated with or exasperated about that attitude, understand what triggers it and respect the limitations of others. Everyone has them, and there's no rule book that says we have to overcome all of them. When someone logs on to relax a bit, that may just not be the right time to expect that haha.

again, no offence, and while I'll say that some players might come across like this on the forum sometimes, it doesn't really happen in the game, while the "you don't pay my sub" response gets used quite often, no matter how nicely packaged the advice is
I know this will get the usual "maybe you don't sound as nice as you think you do" or "if you keep running into them, you're the issue" posts from certain posters because that way, they can pretend it's on the people posting about it or the people giving advice, but that's a lot of bull.
many of the times I've encountered that type of response (or worse), I wasn't even the one giving it, but of course that gets ignored or you get called a liar for saying that because it absolutely can't be the bad players that are toxic, it must be the ones trying to help, and that I find pretty effing annoying on these forums, if I'm honest

[Nishira]

I hate quoting on this forum Rinhi, so I'll just respond this way I didn't mean dungeons or raids with making things easier, I meant duties you fail, or trials with the.. echoes mechanic? The game itself is helpful if you stumble. It wants you to succeed, to continue with the story. It's not out to make it super challenging in the content that is designed for everyone. So for better or worse, the game is ok with people not playing optimally.

Funnily enough I do have strong anxiety, struggled with depression a long time and suffer from migraines, lots of them. Whatever I do doesn't impact the migraine usually, so in the end I raided and led healer teams with migraines. And sometimes I was not 100% brilliant at moments like that. I try to avoid doing dungeons when I have them, but I have them so often that it would stall everything I do so much of the time, that I proceed anyway at times. People live, we make it, it could be worse.. well you get the idea. So yes, sometimes people will feel rather crappy and still play. And sometimes whatever is causing it will impact your reaction or processing speed. Sometimes anxiety can make me freeze up (fun on unexpected big pulls and my brain goes EEEEEE), which is something I've heard more often from fellow healers.

I personally think it is so much better if a community is accepting of non-optimal. If it's not a big deal. Because effectively you enlarge people's comfort zone that way, instead of restricting it. People stop playing tanks and healers because they are scared to screw up. They are scared to make people upset and angry with them. And to then say "Good riddance, you were apparently not cut out for it" is a *beep* reaction which I do see happening. It's just a game, support people, have fun with them, laugh with them, forgive mistakes, forgive limitations, let it revolve around the people and the shared fun instead of the clock and 'optimal this' and 'optimal that', and efficiency and all that crap. Bleh.

I greatly dislike being a burden to a group, so I will always try my best, try be prepared etc. But I'd rather the atmosphere is such that at times you get people who blissfully unaware waltz in and have no clue, and that that is ok, part of the random 'no idea what I'm signing up for, yolo', than that everyone can only join in if they perform up to standards other players set. If you do that in your FC, in PF, in your raids obviously that is fine. But we're talking DF here afaik. And then it should be ok for people to play at their comfort levels, instead of yours.

[Xirean]

I personally think it is so much better if a community is accepting of non-optimal. If it's not a big deal. Because effectively you enlarge people's comfort zone that way, instead of restricting it. People stop playing tanks and healers because they are scared to screw up. They are scared to make people upset and angry with them. And to then say "Good riddance, you were apparently not cut out for it" is a *beep* reaction which I do see happening. It's just a game, support people, have fun with them, laugh with them, forgive mistakes, forgive limitations, let it revolve around the people and the shared fun instead of the clock and 'optimal this' and 'optimal that', and efficiency and all that crap. Bleh.

I greatly dislike being a burden to a group, so I will always try my best, try be prepared etc. But I'd rather the atmosphere is such that at times you get people who blissfully unaware waltz in and have no clue, and that that is ok, part of the random 'no idea what I'm signing up for, yolo', than that everyone can only join in if they perform up to standards other players set. If you do that in your FC, in PF, in your raids obviously that is fine. But we're talking DF here afaik. And then it should be ok for people to play at their comfort levels, instead of yours.

Again I ask if that is really so common? The appeal I see people making is a baseline standard of basic proficiency. Now that line may mean something different to different people, but every time I see this argument brought it, it often comes off as expecting people to know how to play the game at all is unacceptable. Also as far as toxicity goes, expecting perfection is mirrored by expecting mediocrity. I've straight up had a healer refuse to heal a tank because they tried to do a double pull once. They didn't even try. On the flip side I've seen healers rescue tanks into adds or throw a dot on a pac to get bigger pulls.

People are trying to figure out what baseline is acceptable and in my overall experience that tends towards mostly larger pulls.

[Rinhi]

I hate quoting on this forum Rinhi, so I'll just respond this way I didn't mean dungeons or raids with making things easier, I meant duties you fail, or trials with the.. echoes mechanic? The game itself is helpful if you stumble. It wants you to succeed, to continue with the story. It's not out to make it super challenging in the content that is designed for everyone. So for better or worse, the game is ok with people not playing optimally.

I personally think it is so much better if a community is accepting of non-optimal. If it's not a big deal. Because effectively you enlarge people's comfort zone that way, instead of restricting it. People stop playing tanks and healers because they are scared to screw up. They are scared to make people upset and angry with them. And to then say "Good riddance, you were apparently not cut out for it" is a *beep* reaction which I do see happening. It's just a game, support people, have fun with them, laugh with them, forgive mistakes, forgive limitations, let it revolve around the people and the shared fun instead of the clock and 'optimal this' and 'optimal that', and efficiency and all that crap. Bleh.

I greatly dislike being a burden to a group, so I will always try my best, try be prepared etc. But I'd rather the atmosphere is such that at times you get people who blissfully unaware waltz in and have no clue, and that that is ok, part of the random 'no idea what I'm signing up for, yolo', than that everyone can only join in if they perform up to standards other players set. If you do that in your FC, in PF, in your raids obviously that is fine. But we're talking DF here afaik. And then it should be ok for people to play at their comfort levels, instead of yours.

I feel you with the quoting, sadly the forum software is archaic and annoying to use and it's missing important features like PMs
I know you meant the Echoes mechanic, but that also furthers my point; instead of trying to teach the player to play at a higher level, the game just lowers it's difficulty, in content that should NOT be lowered in difficulty because it's already very easy

the community IS accepting of non-optimal play, even the 'tryhard raiders' this forum loves to endlessly rag on (not you, just saying in general), but what """"we"""" don't like is people making excuses for people they don't know and haven't played with just because "they have to", because those 'tryhard raiders' are bad and from WoW and toxic and all that, even when all they do is give out advice and complain on the forums about someone being toxic in return and just continue to do the dungeon/raid/trial with the person that was toxic to them without a word

as I said before, I'd say go look for the threads that were created around similar topics and see how the discussion usually always resulted in a certain group of people needlessly attacking the other group because the latter wants people to get better and actually tries to help people get better, but the forum search is downright abhorrent so I wouldn't blame you for not doing that! (though you could find some of them if you go through my post history, but that's 450 messages or so :P)

like, when I started out, I was one of those bad players I "complain" about now, I didn't know the rotation of monk and didn't care, I spammed cure 2 and medica 2 even if everyone was at full health and never used my OCGDs and guess what? I got tons of commendations for playing like that, even if it was objectively bad, so I thought I was the greatest in the world until my friends showed me just how bad I was doing, sometimes even less DPS than the healer or tank in dungeons where I really shouldn't be doing less damage than either (unless GNB because that's broken between 60 and 70)

I never got any advice from anyone, even if I did 0 damage as a healer and that was after I had already maxed out a class, no idea how many dungeons I made take wayyyyy longer than they needed to be by doing that - and the community enables this, no, forces this by hiding behind this fake niceness towards bad players as it can be seen on the forums, where you get attacked for wanting people to put in some effort to learn their class, something which I didn't do

"Because effectively you enlarge people's comfort zone that way, instead of restricting it"

but that's exactly what enabling single pulling in leveling dungeons is, those tanks will just learn bad habits that way, the same way single pulling will form bad habits in healers and dpses as well. enlarging your comfort zone would entail that those players would actually try to pull bigger, but once they feel comfortable, you know very well that they won't change because 'it worked before so it will work now' until they get a reality check and will most likely blame everyone but themselves because those bad habits have formed over dozens of hours of playtime, enforced by a dozen of other players who either formed the same habits or who are too scared to speak up

tanking was so easy that, even though I didn't know how to play either a dps or healer 'properly', I could immediately pick up and after the first few big pulls I made turned out fine, the "tankxiety" went away and was replaced with feeling indestructible - but those tankxious players don't usually even attempt to pull big, nor do they use cooldowns, in my experience

edit: I apologize again for my word salad, I don't know what the enter button does and sometimes go off on a tangent when trying to make a point, so please bear with that

[Illmaeran]

Not everyone can improve. Not everyone wants to improve. Some are new. Some have returned after a long break. Some people will burn all that motivation on their job already and just want to log on and not get more hassle thrown their way. Some are a bit older and don't have the best reflexes (anymore). Some are tired cause they have small children, a demanding job, a migraine. Some suffer from anxiety, depression, you name it, and are not feeling at their best. Applying more pressure isn't necessarily going to help, isn't always going to magically improve their performance. They may be perfectly comfortable with where they are at. And the game respects this, very much. So if players defend the right to play at your comfort level, whether it's for themselves or others, I simply see them respecting the spirit of the game.

Agreed! I quit the game back in early Stormblood because I was going through seriously intense chemotherapy and couldn't get past the SOLO DUTY in the Azim Steppes. I just simply couldn't physically or mentally do it, period. After weeks of trying, and trying to enjoy the other things the game offers for solo players, I gave up and quit; realizing I wouldn't be able to make any more meaningful progress due to some significant limitations outside of my control. There was absolutely no way in hell I was going to try doing group content and deal with the backlash.

Was I eventually able to get past that point at a later date? Yeah, two years later when ShB dropped. I still have reflex and "slow brain" issues so most group content is out pretty much for good. Do I want to improve? Yes! Will I be able to improve? To a point, yes, but I know it won't be to a level that most people expect a "good" player to be at. What's the most sad thing is I'll never be able to play my WHM or PLD jobs again, or level up another healer/tank job due to the backlash I'd get.





You're not a sprout and your returnee flower's gone? You've got a level 60+ and 80? Your PLD and WHM are at 50+? WTF aren't you W2W pulling or keeping the whole party alive through it? *Because I haven't played a tank or healer since late 2015*. Level doesn't mean everything nor does it indicate a player's ability; especially in an older game like this one.

You don't like that your tank isn't pulling everything and is taking up too much of your time? Feel free to leave the duty and find another group. Don't want to leave and get a penalty? Be quiet and finish the run. General Consumption content in this game was intentionally designed to be less intense than in other games. That's just how it is and how it will be. "Good" is relative and if someone isn't "good" enough for you, find a static, lS, or PF group that does things the way you prefer.

[Xirean]

Agreed! I quit the game back in early Stormblood because I was going through seriously intense chemotherapy and couldn't get past the SOLO DUTY in the Azim Steppes. I just simply couldn't physically or mentally do it, period. After weeks of trying, and trying to enjoy the other things the game offers for solo players, I gave up and quit; realizing I wouldn't be able to make any more meaningful progress due to some significant limitations outside of my control. There was absolutely no way in hell I was going to try doing group content and deal with the backlash.

Was I eventually able to get past that point at a later date? Yeah, two years later when ShB dropped. I still have reflex and "slow brain" issues so most group content is out pretty much for good. Do I want to improve? Yes! Will I be able to improve? To a point, yes, but I know it won't be to a level that most people expect a "good" player to be at. What's the most sad thing is I'll never be able to play my WHM or PLD jobs again, or level up another healer/tank job due to the backlash I'd get.





You're not a sprout and your returnee flower's gone? You've got a level 60+ and 80? Your PLD and WHM are at 50+? WTF aren't you W2W pulling or keeping the whole party alive through it? *Because I haven't played a tank or healer since late 2015*. Level doesn't mean everything nor does it indicate a player's ability; especially in an older game like this one.

You don't like that your tank isn't pulling everything and is taking up too much of your time? Feel free to leave the duty and find another group. Don't want to leave and get a penalty? Be quiet and finish the run. General Consumption content in this game was intentionally designed to be less intense than in other games. That's just how it is and how it will be. "Good" is relative and if someone isn't "good" enough for you, find a static, lS, or PF group that does things the way you prefer.

You could also just try telling your party that you need to go slow. Hell you could tell every party that you are returning or new or whatever and most of the time they will just accept that.

If you popped into my party and requested in chat to go slow for nearly any reason, I would. Because it was stated and not assumed.

[Nyxs]

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I perceive it very differently. I think the game itself is extremely welcoming and friendly to anyone. It does not discriminate when it comes to ability, motivation etc. If content is too hard for you, they'll make it easier for you one way or another. So in essence, the game itself promotes a relaxed mindset, personally I find that refreshing. If you want a real challenge, you have to go look for it and find likeminded people, which imo is an elegant solution.

Not everyone can improve. Not everyone wants to improve. Some are new. Some have returned after a long break. Some people will burn all that motivation on their job already and just want to log on and not get more hassle thrown their way. Some are a bit older and don't have the best reflexes (anymore). Some are tired cause they have small children, a demanding job, a migraine. Some suffer from anxiety, depression, you name it, and are not feeling at their best.

If people are not feeling up for playing or have a RL issue which is impeding on them being able to perform in group content then they should logoff instead of slowing down the party. People may not pay other’s sub but they pay their own and want to be able to play with the time they can.

[TaleraRistain]

If people are not feeling up for playing or have a RL issue which is impeding on them being able to perform in group content then they should logoff instead of slowing down the party. People may not pay other’s sub but they pay their own and want to be able to play with the time they can.

If time is that limited, then why aren't they taking measures to make sure they can control all the factors to preserve that time by forming a premade group? Then there is nothing unexpected that may happen to eat into that time.

Unexpected things happen in Duty Finder. I had someone the other night who had to afk for a few minutes because their child had a nightmare. We went on to finish the dungeon with just a small delay. I had another where our tank DC'd right before a final boss and it took time to get a new one. Not to mention the possibility of new people who could slow things down with inexperience. There's no way to predict or control what might happen in a random matching system. Not everyone will have access to a premade, but at that point the person using Duty Finder should be aware of the potential for completely unexpected circumstances.