Does 14 Promote a Culture of Mediocrity?

[Alzinor]

As the title ask, does 14 create and promote a culture of mediocrity within it? I say it has been sliding that way since ShB. The healing and tanking roles have been reduced to dull, hollow shells of what they were in HW and SB. The skill celling and floor no longer exist for these roles. DPS roles are heading in this direction as well with all the flavor and mechanical complexity being slowly striped away. See the removal of synergy and reduction of positionals, and reduction of punishment for rotational screw ups. These issues, however, are nothing compared to how the community and general attitude have shifted toward shielding the bad from valid criticism, and a general apathy towards self improvement. Even the devs have admitted to designing content in this manner. It's all quite disheartening, given 14 was at in time one of the most mechanically engaging MMOs.

I think the lack of difficulty is better for a lot of people, you included.

[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.

[FoxyAreku]

The latter group has a lower skill level but that does not make them "bad"

Oxymoron.

Agree with OP. Game's too easy now, enemies in 99% of content hit like wet noodles, and classes are so braindead a monkey could play most of them.

It's a shame but what can you do?

[AbysmalDuck]

Oxymoron.

Agree with OP. Game's too easy now, enemies in 99% of content hit like wet noodles, and classes are so braindead a monkey could play most of them.

It's a shame but what can you do?

People complain about how easy this game is, but I'd love to see the statistics on how many of these people either copied a rotation from someone else that more than likely used a program to "optimize" or sat down and nailed down a rotation without using any analyzing software/parser.

What I'm saying is, if you find the game too easy, you kind of invited that upon yourself by using tools to do all the thinking for you.

[Rinhi]

This is not one of those tit-for-tat scenarios, just subtract or eject yourself from the environment. - Many people have this bizarre notion that they must make some snarky comment before ejecting.

which is what I do, nowadays - the bolded part, that is

Personally, if I were to be frank but this does come from the same place that is under the impression that presenting some feedback or a criticism could, or would result in a nice 1:1 with a GM upon the next login, so I can't really give much benefit of the doubt that people are 'presenting some constructive feedback in a civil fashion'.

I mean, if I could show you that, aside from once*, I've never given advice from an annoyed or upset/angry angle, I'd be very glad to show you that it's genuinely from me trying to help people and not because they don't play to 'my standards'
I know it's most likely hard to believe, considering how often I vent about topics like these on the forums, but it is what it is and I'm doing it from the position as a player that was once in the same shoes as those players

*which was also my first post on the forums, "funnily" enough, and if you'll look it up I think you'll understand why I was annoyed and how the post I responded to lied about what happened to appear as a good person
still the sole time I've been kicked, too, by a mentor and their cure 1 only healer friend, lmao

[Alzinor]

Not a toxic being but just stating fact,

It is always a joke to see some people complaining about the game difficulty when they only play 30% of the endgame content or worse, kill week 40 with echo.

It is like me complaining about how crafter rotation is too easy when i barely reached lvl 40 with my highest lvled crafting job.

improve your ingame experience before claiming something is easy, otherwise, you just look like pathetic troll.

[Ivtrix]

Not a toxic being but just stating fact,

It is always a joke to see some people complaining about the game difficulty when they only play 30% of the endgame content or worse, kill week 40 with echo.

It is like me complaining about how crafter rotation is too easy when i barely reached lvl 40 with my highest lvled crafting job.

improve your ingame experience before claiming something is easy, otherwise, you just look like pathetic troll.

this homie clears

[LittleImp]

Not a toxic being but just stating fact,

It is always a joke to see some people complaining about the game difficulty when they only play 30% of the endgame content or worse, kill week 40 with echo.

It is like me complaining about how crafter rotation is too easy when i barely reached lvl 40 with my highest lvled crafting job.

improve your in-game experience before claiming something is easy, otherwise, you just look like pathetic troll.

It's funny, isn't it. You'll always find it's mostly middling players who become really fixated on hierarchy. It's like when someone who just made a bit of money desperately tries to emulate what they think a 'rich person' is.

[LisSquid]

It's funny, isn't it. You'll always find it's mostly middling players who become really fixated on hierarchy. It's like when someone who just made a bit of money desperately tries to emulate what they think a 'rich person' is.

Not to contribute to the 1000th iteration of this thread any further, but this makes a lot of sense.

I think of myself as mediocre/middle of the pack. I can clear the fights, but don't usually see purple+ parses until I've got at least 5-6 clears under my belt. This is the great meeting place in PF (and really true for all games) for all kinds of people, and I see more bad and stellar players rubbing shoulders than, say, back when I played super high end in other games. It's just accessible content, and with accessibility comes.. access. You never know what you're going to get, and I think that actually makes the system better overall.

[Caurcas]

Not a toxic being but just stating fact,

It is always a joke to see some people complaining about the game difficulty when they only play 30% of the endgame content or worse, kill week 40 with echo.

It is like me complaining about how crafter rotation is too easy when i barely reached lvl 40 with my highest lvled crafting job.

improve your ingame experience before claiming something is easy, otherwise, you just look like pathetic troll.

I mean where in my post did I bemoan the state of savage? It's actually one of the areas the game has done well since HW. Just wish there was more of it. My post was more on the state of job and role design and content that is not savage and the frustration it can bring. Savage by its nature tends to filter out the less able, and more often than not, the lazy.