We Need to Start Expecting Mid-Level Sprouts to Play Better

[Jeeqbit]

tank wasn’t using mitigation abilities on any of the dungeon mobs and was using them on the dungeon bosses.

Common mistake. Most dungeon tanks are new or casual tanks that don't main the role, so there has always been a prevalent belief that mitigation should be used on bosses. I had always found it more effective on trash, but I tested it one time in Sastasha and dungeon bosses did the same auto-attack damage as 2 trash enemies. If you have fought 2 trash enemies before they are nothing and the healer probably isn't even needed.

the amount of people who have no idea what they are doing in high level dungeons or trials is completely unacceptable.

It's completely acceptable because it's story content and they are just trying to enjoy the story or level an alt. If they were trying to be good they would be doing content that requires you to be good such as extreme, savage or ultimate.

This needs to stop. We need to stop telling sprouts in mid-level content that poor play is ‘good enough’ as long as they clear.

It is good enough. SE designed it to be good enough intentionally. They wanted to design a game where bad players would be obvious but where good players could shine and carry them. Their design was a success. This was explained in the noclip documentary (not with these exact words, but with words of the same effect).

Being expected to do anything, or to be good, comes across demanding, toxic and rude and that's what drove new players away from WoW for most of it's existence. SE understands this is rude so it can be reported.

[AwesomeJr44]

You're mistake is assuming they don't know what they're doing. Trust me, they know exactly what they're doing and you're just expected to pick up the slack for them. Whether they're doing it to incite a reaction or because of sheer laziness is the only thing that's up for debate.

Anyway, enjoy the multiplayer experience! It is what it is.

True. There are lots of people who just do not try and expect others to carry them, and it's not ok. I think it's mostly the latter group, where they are just lazy and wanting others to get them free EXP or tomes, but there is definitely a group of people who just troll.

Common mistake. Most dungeon tanks are new or casual tanks that don't main the role, so there has always been a prevalent belief that mitigation should be used on bosses. I had always found it more effective on trash, but I tested it one time in Sastasha and dungeon bosses did the same auto-attack damage as 2 trash enemies. If you have fought 2 trash enemies before they are nothing and the healer probably isn't even needed.

I don't consider being in the level 87 dungeon to be 'new'. And if you skipped, I don't care, you need to play at the skill level you should be at, or you need practice in lower level dungeons. If you buy a story skip and a level skip and assume you'll have enough knowledge to just jump into Tower of Zot as soon as you unlock it, without any practice, you are kidding yourself and you are doing nothing but trolling whichever poor souls you get matched with. It is not hard to learn jobs in this game to an acceptable level outside of Black Mage. (which is only still complex and hard because Yoshi P plays it lol) Go play a level 60 dungeon once you've read your tooltips. When you are comfortable, go do a level 70 dungeon. Then go to an 80 dungeon. Then go do Zot or whatever 80+ dungeon you're looking to do. If you do not have the game knowledge to use even one mitigation on mobs by the time you reach Ktisis, it's because you did not put in the effort to learn it earlier. There is no excuse for having the same knowledge as a level 30 tank when you're in Kitisis.

It's completely acceptable because it's story content and they are just trying to enjoy the story or level an alt. If they were trying to be good they would be doing content that requires you to be good such as extreme, savage or ultimate.

No. Just no. 'It's story content' is a stupid excuse. You're not a level 30 tank anymore. You should not be playing like one in a level 87 dungeon. And I'm not looking for Extreme level gameplay. I just want people to play at a skill level where they are doing their fair share. The tank should be mitigating. The healer should be doing healing and damage when they can. The DPS should be AOE'ing when there are more than 2 enemies. If they are not, they are bad at the game and need to improve. Don't use Extreme or Savage as an excuse. There needs to be standards in story content. Not super high standards, but there is currently no standard whatsoever. If you play a single player Final Fantasy game, and you do not have the skill to beat a boss, you do not get a skip so that you can experience the story. You are told to go improve your strategies or skills. Then you can beat the boss and progress. The only difference is that in this game you can be lazy and get carried by other people. That is not ok to ask of randoms you meet in Duty Finder. Using your standard, if we ever meet in a duty, I'll be sure to not be heal, mitigating or AOE and just let you carry me. After all, it's just story content so why should I be bothered to care about putting in my fair share?

It is good enough. SE designed it to be good enough intentionally. They wanted to design a game where bad players would be obvious but where good players could shine and carry them. Their design was a success.

Despite you saying the contrary, this is not good design. The only reason it works is because you are punished for deciding not to carry people. If I decide that I want my team to get off my back and start putting in their fair share, I'm the bad guy according to this system. All this does is breed animosity between the two groups. The hyper casuals hate being told to actually do something, and the people putting in effort are just told to suck it up and carry them because apparently we're just unpaid labor now. We're supposed to be a team. But this is the equivalent of a four student group where one kid runs off and does whatever while the other three actually works on the project and gets them all an A. Just because the game is functional like this, doesn't mean it's even close to ideal. I am being forced to play the game for you or I don't get to play for 30m.

Bad players should be encouraged to become better. This makes it so that the veterans can help the sprouts become better at the game, and then in turn, they can teach the next generation of sprouts. This is the ideal. You want people to improve. You want people to get better at the game and go into Extreme or Savage. But with the current system, all we are encouraging is standing on the shoulders of giants and claiming you're tall.

Being expected to do anything, or to be good, comes across demanding, toxic and rude and that's what drove new players away from WoW for most of it's existence. SE understands this is rude so it can be reported.

I don't care. I literally could not care less if you think its toxic. You are wrong. It is not toxic and if you think it is, you are misinterpreting what people are saying and the only person responsible for that is you. I can only control what I say, not how you take it. If I tell you the truth and you do not like the truth, that is your issue. Yes, having a super elitist community is bad. That's why you need to foster a community that encourages getting better and helping people that need it. We have the opposite problem. Instead of calling people bad for being bad which at least causes some people to get better to prove them wrong, we are encouraging them to stay bad because its apparently good to be bad at the game. I do not care what you say, you will never convince me that intentionally not learning the game so you can get carried is a good thing to have in any video game. If you don't want to hear that you are bad without putting in the work to not be bad, you need to play a game like Candy Crush. In that game you don't have to worry about being dead weight for someone else to carry.

[Jeeqbit]

I don't consider being in the level 87 dungeon to be 'new'.

Your problem. You can be in the 87 dungeon and still be new enough to not know how to tank properly. Learning to tank well is something that takes people years.

The guides and videos that exist now are great. They didn't really exist when I started. But they probably still don't make most people great tanks over night.

No. Just no. 'It's story content' is a stupid excuse.

How is it a stupid excuse? Many people login to the game to do the story. Then they logout until the next story patch. Why should they expect you to be rude to them for being a casual player that doesn't remember how to play properly?

Despite you saying the contrary, this is not good design.

I said that it was good enough, not that it was a good design. I said that it was an intentional design and that it was a successful design. Whether it is a good design is up for debate and is going to depend on opinion.

I don't care. I literally could not care less if you think its toxic. You are wrong.

If I'm wrong, then why does it drive people away from WoW and why does SE punish people for it? It's because it's rude and being rude to another human being is unacceptable.

[AwesomeJr44]

Learning to tank well is something that takes people years. If I'm wrong, then why does it drive people away from WoW and why does SE punish people for it? It's because it's rude and being rude to another human being is unacceptable.

Because people want to be coddled and told that they are good enough even if they are not. But telling them that they are good enough is not toxic, especially if you don't go out of your way to call them trash, and you give them tips on how to not be bad. Calling anyone who demands basic competency toxic is why we have level 90 players who only cast ice spells and stand in telegraphed AOEs. It is not rude, you just take it as rude, and probably will take anything I say as rude unless it is "you're amazing, are perfect in every way, and do not need to improve whatsoever", so I do not care if I offend you as it is literally impossible to not offend people unless you pretend that they are are perfect and not being carried. The toxic casuals in this game literally think I want people to play at an ultimate level. I just want people to play at a skill level where they can contribute their fair share. This is literally the most basic take of all time. If you disagree with the idea of everyone giving their fair share, you are probably one of the people looking for carries.

I also find not contributing to be more rude than people who ask others to give their fair share. So if not contributing is rude, why is it not punished? Because SE caters to hyper casuals and does not care about the people who are forced to carry them.

And no, learning to tank at an average level does not take years. Keep in mind that I am not expecting people in Duty Finder to be gamer gods. I just want people to use one mitigation on mob packs, or at least do so when I ask them to. But the problem is, that people do not want to improve, and the system in place encourages bad play. I can literally go into Expert right now and do my basic 1-2-3 and I'm technically 'participating'

There's a limit. Someone else said it but after level 60 you don't get to be ignorant anymore.

Chances are though it's all the people that run roulettes with a full part of their friends that defend this behavior. They're rarely the ones that deal with the consequences.

^ This. You are not a noob past level 60. If you are in Stormblood, you have the experience of ARR and Heavensward. You are not an idiot. If you need more practice, go back to Heavensward dungeons and get the practice. Even if it takes you more time, it is the right thing to do. And I agree with the second point too. The people defending this are literally defending people being lazy and having others do everything for them. Are these people Vauthry's accounts?

[Saraide]

Learning to tank well is something that takes people years.

No, it doesnt. Tanking is not that deep. Not in dungeons. Hitting aoes and using mitigation is not something that takes years. The problem in that case is the player just being toxic and arrogant.

[Jeeqbit]

No, it doesnt. Tanking is not that deep. Not in dungeons. Hitting aoes and using mitigation is not something that takes years. The problem in that case is the player just being toxic and arrogant.

Tanking is easy. Being a good tank with good positioning, minimizing movement, not rotating the boss, being able to use aoe mitigation and normal mitigation at the right times, protecting a party member who is about to die, speedrunning efficiently, understanding enmity to grab stray yellows, being confident is another thing entirely.

From my perspective as a tank, I could say that being a DPS is easy because you just press your attacks. Being a good DPS that does good damage, hits positionals, maintains dots and doesn't die to everything is another thing entirely otherwise "seeing damage" and enrages wouldn't be a thing.

Everyone learns at a different pace as well. You can teach the same things to two different people and one of them will take a week and one of them will take months/years. So just because you learn fast doesn't mean that every single sprout does.

You have to remember that many of them play with sub-optimal default settings.

I also find not contributing to be more rude than people who ask others to give their fair share. So if not contributing is rude, why is it not punished? Because SE caters to hyper casuals and does not care about the people who are forced to carry them.

What makes you think they are not trying to contribute? Most of the people who die to every aoe are just new to the content or returning to the game, or they don't know better.

There is nothing wrong with giving them advice, if they are happy to receive it, but it's hard to gain their trust and assess if they want the advice in a dungeon setting. If you have a casual conversation with them after the dungeon and they explain they are returning to the game, you might reach a point in the conversation where giving some friendly advice is the natural response. If you, a complete stranger, just blurt it out mid-pull, it comes across rude.

[Saraide]

Tanking is easy. Being a good tank with good positioning, minimizing movement, not rotating the boss, being able to use aoe mitigation and normal mitigation at the right times, protecting a party member who is about to die, speedrunning efficiently, understanding enmity to grab stray yellows, being confident is another thing entirely.

From my perspective as a tank, I could say that being a DPS is easy because you just press your attacks. Being a good DPS that does good damage, hits positionals, maintains dots and doesn't die to everything is another thing entirely otherwise "seeing damage" and enrages wouldn't be a thing.

Everyone learns at a different pace as well. You can teach the same things to two different people and one of them will take a week and one of them will take months/years. So just because you learn fast doesn't mean that every single sprout does.

You have to remember that many of them play with sub-optimal default settings.

What makes you think they are not trying to contribute? Most of the people who die to every aoe are just new to the content or returning to the game, or they don't know better.

There is nothing wrong with giving them advice, if they are happy to receive it, but it's hard to gain their trust and assess if they want the advice in a dungeon setting. If you have a casual conversation with them after the dungeon and they explain they are returning to the game, you might reach a point in the conversation where giving some friendly advice is the natural response. If you, a complete stranger, just blurt it out mid-pull, it comes across rude.

Why do you always act like we expect everyone to be a god tier player?

[Nizzi]

Learning to tank well is something that takes people years.

[gotaname1]

Learning to tank well is something that takes people years.

This is so backwards, that I think I have found my new signature.

[LeonKeyh]

Your problem. You can be in the 87 dungeon and still be new enough to not know how to tank properly. Learning to tank well is something that takes people years.

In my opinion this is tanking "well":

1. Hit all of the enemies to keep aggro
2. Use mitigation then use another if it runs out and there are still a decent number of enemies left
3. Pull everything you can


That's it. That is "tanking well" for most people (or at least me when I'm healing). Not a perfect rotation, not knowing that using 2 mitigations at the same time is bad because it's multiplicative, not knowing which mitigation is "best" for what situation, not knowing how/when to tank swap, not being able to line up your burst window with other people, not using your invuln to make a pull easier on the healer, not using your group mitigation during a party-wide attack, not understanding how the aggro system works, not understanding other jobs. Just pull everything, do at least 10% of the damage of the highest damage dealer, and press a mitigation, then when that runs out, press another one.

Maybe that's the problem, that people think something else is expected of tanks in dungeon content. Most people don't care if a tank presses the wrong attack, or the "wrong" mitigation, or doubles up on mitigation accidentally. Just pull everything, keep them on you, and make the healer's job easier by using mitigation.