Does 14 Promote a Culture of Mediocrity?

[MidnightEquinox]

Some expectations in this sub-section of the FFXIV community seem to a bit strange. Taking a bit of a step back: why are you criticizing people? I've not been doing that in WoW, either. There are very few situations where that doesn't end poorly, and it has nothing to do with the game. Furthermore, often the advice giver is not even better than who they give advice to, if better at all. The thing is, the sort of people who know things worth sharing also know that randomly criticizing people you don't know is a questionable endeavor. The whole issue is when you start feeling entitled to control how another person plays because you think you're better than them due to your difference in skill.

One thing you have to understand: teaching and directing people is hard. It's an actual skill. If done well, it pays huge dividends. You do not gain that skill by being a better than average player. Nor do you gain that skill by acquiring a mentor crown. You gain it through patience, empathy, and understanding the perspective of another. It doesn't take much reading of peoples' complaints to see that that is certainly not happening in most cases. As soon as you are dispensing advice to alleviate your own frustration or to improve your situation you missed the point.

And, by the way, what you're calling coddling is mostly common courtesy. The only environments where that's not expected is the military... and the gaming community.

The game mechanics are probably getting dumber as the OP says. However, the better you play, the more likely you are going to encounter rude, impatient players who are playing for parse number on FFlogs. They are trying to impress strangers with their Internet points.

I've experienced the same and this is the funniest thing. You're never really rewarded for playing well, because you just end up with angry players who demand perfection, and that's not a standard you're going to meet. Why I gave up on serious raiding ages ago, I can't deal with the ego and with the people also not actually being great on top of it, completely refusing to think besides what the latest streamer told them, put your brain in the microwave already if you're so intent on not using it.

Ego ego ego. That's the problem. If it was high skill it wouldn't be a problem, but it's mostly ego.

[Zsolen]

Some expectations in this sub-section of the FFXIV community seem to a bit strange. Taking a bit of a step back: why are you criticizing people? I've not been doing that in WoW, either. There are very few situations where that doesn't end poorly, and it has nothing to do with the game. Furthermore, often the advice giver is not even better than who they give advice to, if better at all. The thing is, the sort of people who know things worth sharing also know that randomly criticizing people you don't know is a questionable endeavor. The whole issue is when you start feeling entitled to control how another person plays because you think you're better than them due to your difference in skill.

One thing you have to understand: teaching and directing people is hard. It's an actual skill. If done well, it pays huge dividends. You do not gain that skill by being a better than average player. Nor do you gain that skill by acquiring a mentor crown. You gain it through patience, empathy, and understanding the perspective of another. It doesn't take much reading of peoples' complaints to see that that is certainly not happening in most cases. As soon as you are dispensing advice to alleviate your own frustration or to improve your situation you missed the point.

And, by the way, what you're calling coddling is mostly common courtesy. The only environments where that's not expected is the military... and the gaming community.

I've experienced the same and this is the funniest thing. You're never really rewarded for playing well, because you just end up with angry players who demand perfection, and that's not a standard you're going to meet. Why I gave up on serious raiding ages ago, I can't deal with the ego and with the people also not actually being great on top of it, completely refusing to think besides what the latest streamer told them, put your brain in the microwave already if you're so intent on not using it.

Ego ego ego. That's the problem. If it was high skill it wouldn't be a problem, but it's mostly ego.

As an actual teacher, what you said is not all that accurate. Anyone can teach. Anyone can learn. None of us stop doing either in our lifetimes.

Someone teaching someone else is not inherently toxic at all. Throwing a fuss, because someone is pointing out your mistakes is.

[Kaurhz]

As an actual teacher, what you said is not all that accurate. Anyone can teach. Anyone can learn. None of us stop doing either in our lifetimes.

Someone teaching someone else is not inherently toxic at all. Throwing a fuss, because someone is pointing out your mistakes is.

Teaching and teaching effectively are 2 entirely different things. Anyone can stand in front of a class and waffle, but ensuring they actually retain the knowledge, and creating an environment that is actually conducive to learning is a skill. Regardless of your own personal feelings on the matter. There's an abundance of teachers and there's also an abundance of teachers that are absolutely appalling.

If people aren't learning from your advice then you should probably look at how you're conveying that advice, equally if people are giving you pushback when you present advice or a criticism of their work then you should probably take a stare in the mirror to see if it's as a result of what you're saying and how you're saying it, rather than just the person complaining because they were simply flawed in their approach. Because I can assure you the former is a fairly common case - "I'm only giving advice, I'm only helping" - Which in many cases was presented in the most vile way possible because people utterly devoid of the ability to reflect on their own action - Yet seemingly have an 'all seeing eye' when it comes to other peoples' actions - and this does apply to both ends of the spectrum.

[Zsolen]

Teaching and teaching effectively are 2 entirely different things. Anyone can stand in front of a class and waffle, but ensuring they actually retain the knowledge, and creating an environment that is actually conducive to learning is a skill. Regardless of your own personal feelings on the matter. There's an abundance of teachers and there's also an abundance of teachers that are absolutely appalling.

If people aren't learning from your advice then you should probably look at how you're conveying that advice, equally if people are giving you pushback when you present advice or a criticism of their work then you should probably take a stare in the mirror to see if it's as a result of what you're saying and how you're saying it, rather than just the person complaining because they were simply flawed in their approach. Because I can assure you the former is a fairly common case - "I'm only giving advice, I'm only helping" - Which in many cases was presented in the most vile way possible because people utterly devoid of the ability to reflect on their own action - Yet seemingly have an 'all seeing eye' when it comes to other peoples' actions - and this does apply to both ends of the spectrum.

Who said people aren't learning? There are plenty of people given advice and learn in this game without issue. I'm merely responding to the individual that said you should not teach. That's a silly notion, because we all teach every day and we all learn every day.

Teaching is a skill everyone has. People just have different skill levels, like they have with everything else. I never made any statement that those that were toxic were teaching properly. While not in 100% of the cases, generally the most toxic people are those that try to AFK/ throw a FL match or have max levels characters and are doing some very basic things wrong like "face pulling."

[Kaurhz]

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Teaching in this game has a singular inherent flaw in that the people that are 'teaching' often are expecting the results to be an immediate process rather than a gradual one. That is the issue with teaching in this game and unless you have the commitment and understanding of this fact then trying to teach in this game is just counterproductive because the likelihood of people actually executing it is going to be fairly negligible. There's practically several posts alone in this very thread that would give credence to this fact and an entire thread created on this - You know people creating the bizarre suggestion that content should have a solo component or option simply because people aren't meeting that expectation. These are all perfectly reasonable cases why most people shouldn't be teaching, really. Some responses in this thread and arguably a myriad of other threads on this forum can be attributed to people acting like children because people didn't learn. - That said we can argue people did eventually learn, but in many cases they certainly didn't to do anything meaningful with it in the presence of the person 'teaching'.

To summarise - I wouldn't dispute everyone is always learning something, but having the patience and commitment to actually follow through with this is where the difficulty comes. People have the expectancy that they'll give advice then the next few pulls will be nigh on perfect in execution, or that they'll present some rotational advice and all subsequent pulls will magically result in said advice being executed when I'm pretty sure you and I know full well that learning is a gradual and not an instantaneous process - and this is not discounting the simple fact that it is very difficult to learn or adopt new muscle memory. Sure, by all means we can preach teach if you like. But please don't bother teaching if it is only at the expense of you being frustrated and expecting immediate results, and failure to do so results in said person throwing a hissy slugfest.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at with this, that much is clear. Teaching is a skill you learn to develop and some (rather many) people simply don't develop to an adequate enough level to where their teaching is meaningful, or productive in the first place. - In fact I would take it a step further and argue that teaching is not a skill, but rather a profession that involves a wider range of skills, be it communication, management, passion and adaptability just to name a few. If we wanted we could argue that you can learn and develop communication and management to a varying degree, but adaptability and passion are things you can only teach the principles of and not the execution of it. If you aren't passionate that will reflect on your ability to communicate the knowledge in a meaningful way. Similarly, if you aren't an individual that is able to adapt then it will only further stagnate your ability to communicate because you'll be approaching different problems using the same methods where said methods might not necessarily apply - This is why people can absolutely be abysmal - Don't get me wrong it's a nice notion but it's just a detractor to a degree from the reality.

That being said, this relates to the thread because many people are simply only using teaching a fight or parts of a job as a means subverting their own frustrations and sooner than later for people this just results in a toxic slugfest for a myriad of reasons. Either fully commit to it or don't bother at all, really.

[Zsolen]

...

I see two main points.

One you continue to assume that those that teach in this game are being passive aggressive, which I had pointed is not the case already. People learn from others in this game all the time and are quite appreciative when they get that advice. There are others still where it is not they are not being taught properly so much as they refuse to adapt. I'm not referencing people that leap to pull vs those that use a ranged attack, which makes little difference most of the time. I'm talking about players face pulling and refusing to accept help. I'm also not doubting there are elitist types but they are a very, very small minority to the point of not even being worth consideration.

You second point focused on how teaching works. It is quite clear you know little about just how impactful even informal teaching is. It is not as diffict as you make it sound. Yes, some are better at it, but you don't have to be college certified to teach someone a mechanic. Anyone is capable of teaching it.

[Kaurhz]

snip.

No my main point was that you just need to be proactive in your approach and that the moment you set the expectancy of the results to be immediate then you have already lost. If you expect all subsequent runs or attempts to be fine then you berate or get angry as a result of this then I'm very sorry but the only way a rational individual is able to see this is that you're going to be interpreted in a not-so-noble light. As for the second part I don't necessarily dispute it, however, in the vast majority of those cases there is a mutual expectancy or similar level of skill where people are learning from each other. As the disparity in that gap grows so does the willingness to actually teach, especially if you aren't already in there with the expectancy you're going to teach. - If you go into a learning party as an adept and experienced individual then some form of implied expectancy is there that you'll be teaching. - Comparatively, if you're going into a clear party, a specific phase-practice party or heaven forbid even a roulette party then there's less of an inclination to 'teach' and more often than not in these latter cases it is done so in an unsolicited fashion with the only concern to speed up the roulette which won't necessarily happen.

To summarise that last point. There's a very big difference in going into an encounter or a piece of content where mutual learning is the intention is entirely different from casually taking a stroll into a piece of content where that implication isn't necessarily expected. In case it was lost on you; this was my point all along. If you're going to teach, commit to it and only do so when you went into the group with the intention of doing so or where said teaching is solicited. If it is not solicited or if you didn't go into the content with the expectation then don't bother at all because ultimately you're giving unsolicited advice in order to benefit your run, which as per the previous argument isn't always going to be an immediate outcome.

Yes my second point focused on how it works because all of those are still embedded even in informal teaching, so if you want to go ahead and undermine it on the premise then it's bordering comedic for me. So let me try this using another approach:

If you explain a mechanic to a person several times and they still fail to understand the mechanic then the probability is; how you're presenting them with that information likely isn't going to work - Yet some people, or many actually will leap to the conclusion that their approach was infallible and thus the only logical conclusion is that they're utterly inept. Try restructuring your advice, or better yet create a little GIF or even go on MS paint and attempt to illustrate the mechanic visually as opposed to writing a wall of descriptive text, upload it to imgur and paste it in the chat. This still underpins how effectively you communicate whether that be in a formal teaching setting or whether you're just teaching someone a mechanic over Discord.

You absolutely don't need a college diploma, no. But if you want to actually be effective in your practice then I would expect you to come at me with something a little better than "It's ez, anyone can do it" - All this is doing is setting the tone that you're stagnating. - Let me be clear here and summarise all of this as simply as possible; If you can't adequately communicate your information then regardless of how much information you have it is going to be a completely pointless because all of it will be lost on the recipient. Regardless of whether you're communicate the Pythagorean theorem, or whether you're teaching Fundamental Synergy, the same still applies. If you can't communicate it? Meaningless. This is why bad teachers exist and this is also why bad guides exist - Because they fail to convey the information properly.

[TaleraRistain]

As an actual teacher, what you said is not all that accurate. Anyone can teach. Anyone can learn. None of us stop doing either in our lifetimes.

Someone teaching someone else is not inherently toxic at all. Throwing a fuss, because someone is pointing out your mistakes is.

But the part you're missing is the environment. I mentor and train at my workplace, too. The difference there with being a teacher or mentor is that the environment has been established that learning will take place and that the students or trainee is there to learn from the teacher or mentor so they are pre-receptive to dialogue on the subject.

That's not the case in an online video game. It is possible to help others in game. But there's a necessary step of offering the help first and setting up that learning environment where someone is open to what someone has to teach. Many people try to shortcut this or consider it "coddling" so of course the person having instruction pushed on them isn't going to be receptive to it. They've done nothing to make sure the person will be.