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]

So I have to ask some questions here. What level of "tryhard" did you have to expend to keep the tank alive? Are you used to just popping a regen or a shield and not having to do anymore than that? How do you usually heal other tanks? That's some important context here because it establishes what your personal opinion of correct play should be. And it helps measure if you have realistic expectations of others or unrealistic expectations of others.

I had to use every cooldown I had, I had almost no MP by the time we reached the boss, (and I was using Lucid dreaming and everything I could to conserve mana) and I was lucky if I could get a damage spell in. I literally had to spam heal to keep the tank alive because he double pulled with zero mitigation (not even the short cooldowns), and his gear was not great but not horrible either.\

I normally never have trouble healing tanks, even average skilled tanks, but it honestly doesn't matter how much healing I normally give other tanks, I should not have to be a heal bot because my tank is too lazy to use literally ANY mitigation even after I told him how. It's boring and unnecessary when the tank could just do what they are meant to do and use even one of the skills they have. I even told him exactly how to do it as I play all of the tanks and know how to properly mitigate in dungeons with all of them.

After this, if he took my advice to heart, he should have had at least ONE mitigation. I normally do two per mob pull but even one would have been enough. That is the baseline. One mitigation per mob pull. That at least is somewhat helpful. He had zero for the entire dungeon outside of the boss 'tankbusters' that do nothing. I don't see it as unreasonable to expect a tank to press the buttons that they have access to. If the tank doesn't want to mitigate, why don't we just have one healer and three DPS? That would a) kill the dungeon mobs faster and b) be just as hard on the healer as a tank that doesn't mitigate at all.

I can count on one hand in all that time the number of times I've run into a tank that was just impossible to keep alive.

He wasn't impossible to keep him alive. I kept him alive the entire time and he never died. The issue was that I had to put far more effort than is fair to ask for. The tank refused to put in effort and I was forced to pick up the slack and essentially put in two people's worth of effort. That is incredibly unfair to ask of someone to do. I should not be forced to put in effort for two people because my tank refuses to use their skills when they are level 87.

At least one of those was because they were way undergeared.

I've healed tanks with worse gear than this one with far less effort so it was more of a skill issue than his gear.

Those where we're struggling, I don't finger point at them. I explain I'm having some trouble keeping them alive and ask if we can adjust things a little.

That's fine if you want to do it that way but I find it very obnoxious to have to drop hints to the mistakes someone is making. It's convoluted for no reason and only makes things messier in an attempt to spare someone's feelings. All I did was politely give the advice to the tank and didn't call him trash or anything. I just asked if he could use the mitigation on the mobs as it was hard to keep him alive with the way we was doing it. I even promised that if I failed to keep him alive through unmitigated boss tankbusters that he could go back to mitigating them and I wouldn't complain. He ignored me the first time and when I asked again politely, I got told to shut up and that I don't pay his sub.

I suspect your words were not as polite as you're trying to imply they were.

I should have mentioned this in my OP but after we beat Hermes I actually asked both DPS if I was rude when I asked the tank to do proper mitigation, and they both said I was polite, and that the tank overreacted and was the rude one. I would think that if I was the one being rude, they would have told me and probably reported me as they would have the GMs on their side. No offense but I'll be taking their word for it rather than someone who wasn't there. I know it's hard to believe when I can't copy paste the chat logs as this happened yesterday, but I'd ask that you take my word for it, and if not then /shrug.

I specialize in the role you're referring to, and I just don't have the same experiences.

This might be why you have different experiences than me with it. I am not a healer main and thus not a gamer god tier healer. I do not have the skill level to absolutely carry a garbage tier tank with ease. Seeing as you are looking at my character, you can probably see that I am a tank main, not a healer main. As a tank main, when a tank doesn't use mitigation, that sticks out to me like a sore thumb so I notice it more than a healer main would.

However, it doesn't matter if I am a healer main or a tank main, if I was doing that much healing on a tank with proper cooldown usage, I'd be doing so much overhealing that I'd be considered a bad healer and a heal bot. This is a dungeon. I should not have to be using literally every cooldown and then spamming my heal button just to prevent the tank from dying. I should be able to cast a damage spell one time without the tank just dying instantly because I wasn't spamming my healing.

I don't have dungeons that take forever either. And I very rarely feel that I'm having to completely carry everyone else. I may have a time where I use my skills more than others, but I consider that par for the course when the game matches me with people with varying skill and experience levels.

It didn't take forever as I kept the tank alive the entire time. I never said I failed to keep him up, it just wasn't fun whatsoever because I was forced to be a heal bot the entire time. The only time I got to have fun was during the bosses because their damage is so low that I could actually do damage spells. This was also not just a case of 'well he's not perfect'. This tank had no idea what he was doing. He did not know the basics of the job and I'm honestly suprised that he used AOE spells. I know this because I queued up for it again (I was farming glamour gear) and got another tank of the same job and I EASILY kept him alive the whole time. Why? Because this Gunbreaker used his mitigation.

[Breakbeat]

No.

Any video game player base isn't some static thing that gains knowledge after X hours of play or X number of levels.

It gets a bit old explaining infinite cycles to people, but all I can suggest is to think deeply on this: For every expert player that retires from this game, you have one that joins with zero MMO experience. Therefore the player base is constantly morphing into something different. Always.

My dude, modern basketball has been around since something like 1890. Does that mean if you head down to the park right now, all the guys on the court should be pros? Does it even mean that the 30-year-old guy that's been shooting mediocre hoops since he was nine should be any better?

No one can assume with any degree of accuracy how another, random person will perform at any chosen sport, including video games. Not at first glance. You do some research on the person, then maybe. But not at first glance.

[Jeeqbit]

My dude, modern basketball has been around since something like 1890. Does that mean if you head down to the park right now, all the guys on the court should be pros? Does it even mean that the 30-year-old guy that's been shooting mediocre hoops since he was nine should be any better?

That's a great analagy! A lot of veteran MMO players could do with reading this comment.

[Wolwosh]

I remember tanking Sastasha in 2013.
1st dungeon Tanking and even said so and I was bad..
My group was so mean to me, so I learned to get good real fast xD
I'm not even looking at how people play anymore..
If I do I would be annoyed constantly, like why is that WHM Glaring when the Tank pulled 10 mobs etc

[Kuroka]

Yes... just no, after a lv 60, youre no longer a new player. I expect at least SOME basic idea of the game, to not stand in the huge orange area, to maybe follow the other 7 or 7 ppl if they run somewhere, to know stacks, aoe markers... if you dont have any rough idea about the design language of this game after lv 70-80, no one can help you...

Idc how well you play your job as long as you got a rough idea and try and dont wear 20 levels too low gear, idm having to explain actually new stuff or stuff that just happens fast, but some stuff... *sigh*


Just earlier i did a tamtara hard run, 3 others, premade, i asked if all knew the bosses as there was no cutscene or new player warning... no answer, ok... ... ...ofc we wiped on the first boss. So i explained, we clear and carry on.... as we hit the 2nd i explain again only to get a "we already tell him on discord" ...yeah, worked great on the first where all of you were killing adds...


And learn resistant players... when you hit ice/pyretic and ppl still trigger it EVERY time, despite being told, having others do it right AND gettin the consequences for their fail... Or players standing next to tanks, dying on aoe tankbusters...


Theres also a thread at the german forum where someone cant clear the lv 50 msq, the new cape westwind lol

[Themarvin]

You don't get good in your first couple of weeks or first few months playing.

You need to have patience, it is a feature that is difficult to master, patience.

Patience is by far most difficult skill in this game.

[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.

[Saraide]

No.

Any video game player base isn't some static thing that gains knowledge after X hours of play or X number of levels.

It gets a bit old explaining infinite cycles to people, but all I can suggest is to think deeply on this: For every expert player that retires from this game, you have one that joins with zero MMO experience. Therefore the player base is constantly morphing into something different. Always.

My dude, modern basketball has been around since something like 1890. Does that mean if you head down to the park right now, all the guys on the court should be pros? Does it even mean that the 30-year-old guy that's been shooting mediocre hoops since he was nine should be any better?

No one can assume with any degree of accuracy how another, random person will perform at any chosen sport, including video games. Not at first glance. You do some research on the person, then maybe. But not at first glance.

The basketball comparison is horrible. There is a very large difference between throwing a ball in the right way and just pushing buttons. There is no different technique to how you press the buttons on your keyboard or on your controller. You just need to know the which ones you have and which are a good idea. This game is entirely knowledge based and even using a few braincells will tell you that mitigation is good when you expect a lot of damage and that aoe is good when there are a lot of enemies. If you are too dumb to understand that, you shouldnt play in a group setting where it's a miserable time when you cant rely on people.

[Aurikai]

Your assumption is people actually progress through relevant level dungeons as they level, which is most often not the case, it's entirely possible to level in mostly low level content where you won't use a majority of your tool kit. That's the fault of the game for trying to have low queue times.