Square Enix slowing killing the fun.

[Rilifane]

unoptimal means longer times in dungeons or fights, which majority of players seem to not have the patience for. You either 'git gud' or they vote kick you or they themselves leave. a no win situation when trying to progress.

I've been playing since ARR beta and I can say with absolute certainty that I have never, not once, in all these years seen someone get votekicked for playing suboptimal and making the run take a few minutes longer. And I mean suboptimal, not so bad that it's griefing like a tank not putting on stance and ignoring any requests to do so. Or a dps afking until a boss fight and waiting to get ported in, afking after the boss again.
Single pulling tanks, no dps healers, no aoe dps, auto attacking melees. I've seen it all and none of them got kicked. Ever. Mentioning dps in any way is prohibited and is risking a ban. Kicking someone out of nowhere because they are neither griefing, afking, offline or verbally abusing someone is also reportable.

Yes, many people don't like seeing a tank single pull past a certain level because any dps, including 'squishy casters', can tank a single pull so a tank going this slow is nothing but a gimped dps.
Yes, many people don't like seeing a healer that doesn't dps because even in wall to walls you have plenty of downtime and not dpsing means standing around doing nothing while everyone else is pushing buttons. It's even worse in boss fights.
Yes, many people don't like seeing a dps not using aoe because they all get it during ARR and it should be common sense to use them in a big pull.
There is no good excuse to do any of it because if someone has a good reason, they're welcome to communicate. Like "haven't tanked in forever, I'll go slower for now" or "broke my hand, I'll stick to healing".
You don't go into a dungeon and assume everyone is physically and mentally disabled, hasn't slept for 3 nights, hasn't played in months, is old enough to be your grandma and plays on a toaster far away from their physical DC.

You're just taking stories from the TfDF thread and assuming everyone that was mentioned for their poor gameplay got insulted and kicked. People even silently grit their teeth when someone only uses ARR CNJ skills in current Savage.

So... yes, you are absolutely welcome to play suboptimal. The option is there. If it doesn't feel nice and fluffy for you, that's 100% a you problem.
You have the option to play poorly and still clear every normal content so everyone else should also have the option to play well and have a skill ceiling. Forcing everyone to play at a level that is meant for physically disabled people is nothing short of egoistic. Not to mention extremely disrespectful because contrary to what you might think many of them are not fond of people suggesting that everything needs to be brought down to baby level gameplay so they don't feel stressed and pressured. It's insulting.

From the reactions to "Then just set priorities and ignore skill X for now if it's too complex for you", I'd wager that it has much more to do with people not liking the thought of not playing well but don't want to find ways to play at a level that feels nice for them.
But since saying "But I don't want to knowingly play below average, so please nerf everything that my current gameplay level is considered 'good'" doesn't sound as nice as "Won't someone think of the disabled???", they go with the latter.
Or call everyone a tryhard elitist hardore minority raider.

[Lauront]

I've been playing since ARR beta and I can say with absolute certainty that I have never, not once, in all these years seen someone get votekicked for playing suboptimal and making the run take a few minutes longer. And I mean suboptimal, not so bad that it's griefing like a tank not putting on stance and ignoring any requests to do so. Or a dps afking until a boss fight and waiting to get ported in, afking after the boss again.

Agreed - in all my time playing the game, it's exceedingly rare that I've seen people votekicked, and usually it's for reasons like afk or griefing. Never have I seen it happen due to suboptimal performance, and that's even after some tips were given and not followed. As you say, its reportable anyway.

You have the option to play poorly and still clear every normal content so everyone else should also have the option to play well and have a skill ceiling. Forcing everyone to play at a level that is meant for physically disabled people is nothing short of egoistic. Not to mention extremely disrespectful because contrary to what you might think many of them are not fond of people suggesting that everything needs to be brought down to baby level gameplay so they don't feel stressed and pressured. It's insulting.

From the reactions to "Then just set priorities and ignore skill X for now if it's too complex for you", I'd wager that it has much more to do with people not liking the thought of not playing well but don't want to find ways to play at a level that feels nice for them.
But since saying "But I don't want to knowingly play below average, so please nerf everything that my current gameplay level is considered 'good'" doesn't sound as nice as "Won't someone think of the disabled???", they go with the latter.
Or call everyone a tryhard elitist hardore minority raider.

Well said.

[TaleraRistain]

I've been playing since ARR beta and I can say with absolute certainty that I have never, not once, in all these years seen someone get votekicked for playing suboptimal and making the run take a few minutes longer.

The thing is, they'd open up to being reported if they said anything in chat. I've definitely had times where the other two people in a party kicked a third without warning and when there were no issues. There was no chat in party, we hadn't wiped, and we were going through the pulls at what seemed a decent pace to me. Yet they still kicked. Usually didn't say anything when I asked either. Nobody ever admitted it was due to dps and they never will. It's not always the reason. There are people here on the forums who admit they will kick because they don't like someone's glam. But I don't know how you can say you've never seen someone kicked for suboptimal play because no one doing it would ever mention it. They would just wrap it up in some other reason. I usually see "afk" used when the person absolutely is in no way afk and is actively participating in every fight.