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

[AwesomeJr44]

No.

Yes.

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

True, but if you need more practice than the average, you need to go practice if you're going to enter a team environment.

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?

Here's a better analogy for what I am talking about. There is a basketball player who does not hit most of his shots. He throws the ball in a bad way and thus misses the hoop completely. He sees an ad for a basketball team signup where he will be teamed with 3 random people. It is made clear that this is for intermediate players. In addition, he is given the option to play in a game with a bunch of robots, where he can practice without needing to care about making his team pick up any dead weight. Now let's be fair and assume that this player doesn't know that he is very bad. The player signs up for the match with other people. He is thrown into the match and when he misses multiple shots, someone asks if he can try throwing the ball a different way so he can make some goals. The basketball player gets angry that someone dare not approve of his style of throwing the ball and claims that the person asking for him to contribute more to the team is toxic. This is not ok as he is not only expecting a carry, but getting mad when asked to help the team. This is obviously not a good thing for someone to do, but some people in the crowd demand that the team just accept that he is bad and pick up the slack. The referee (GMs) agree and say that the team is forced to play with this person and if they refuse they will be banned from playing the game for 30 minutes.

This situation seems very unfair to the three people matched with this person, but for some reason it's ok when it's in FFXIV.

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.

I can see his buff bar when healing him. I know when he's using mitigation as I have played tanks before. (Look at my main class) If he is not normally this bad, then he can take my criticism and not do what he did next time. However, having seen the tank's reaction, I'd imagine that he is not just having a bad run or he would have realized that he wasn't using mitigation when I pointed it out and started using it.

[Stanazolol]

If a tank is saving mitigations for bosses, he must not be wall pulling. If he knows enough to wall pull and still doesn't use cds, something is wrong because there's no way he's surviving much of that. If a tank single pulls and is never told differently, they may in fact save cds for bosses though, as that seems logical to a noob and the healer can easily mask how much damage they are taking. And mid level tanks casually playing the main story might not know how to play the role optimally, since ARR dungeons are so awkward to wall pull much of the time, fewer people are gonna tell them to do it until HW. It's not unreasonable to think a level 60 tank playing casually might not fully know these things. If they know all of this stuff and still don't do it, they're basically saying they're bad players without saying they're bad players.

[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.

[MilkieTea]

A tank not using mitigation on trash mobs and then outright refusing to do so when asked is toxic. That's not a problem with "being new."
That's a problem with being a team player. If you can't be a team player, then I'm sorry but you shouldn't be playing with a team. Play on your own.

[Seera1024]

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.

Yea, I've got bad tankxiety so I've been leveling my tank in Duty Support. I picked Gunbreaker, but there's no trusts between levels 60 and 71 so I've been doing the level 50 cap dungeons to level. It's been great as I've been getting tomestones to buy the level 70 gear. I have, however, been using my mitigation during trash and the Duty Support AI can heal W2W pulls there. Hopefully Urianger, G'raha Tia, and Alphinaud will be able to do the same when I get to the Trust dungeons.

[AnimaAnimus]

I just come to a full stop, do nothing and wait for the pull to be done, then leave the instance. It is just way too easy to get reported for giving advice, no matter how helpful or positive you are trying to be. Just look at these forums alone when you dare mention someone should be able to pull w2w in a story dungeon by HW or SB with ease if they even gave half a try. The uber casual I-don't-want-to-even-try crowd is toxic af and very pervasive in this game.

SE is the one who will come down just as hard on someone helpful and encouraging as they do someone trolling, usually more so, which makes it pointless to even try to be helpful like we used to be in mmos. So I just walk away, every-single-time. Sorry sprouts but I am not having my legacy account banned because I made the mistake of trying to be helpful to someone who prefers to be carried through everything and has the report button on shortcut because they cannot take criticism, even if it's constructive. I just wish I could be there when those ppl actually enter the work force, cause oh boy lol.

[Lustre]

True. People don't even try in comparison to other games. I think because the base skill floor required for normal content is extremely low, players are never forced into doing anything that requires improvement more or less. I think they should either make the base difficulty level of normal content a bit higher, or introduce a new tier of content between normal and extreme. Cause I've done Ex fights at release with people who only do half of their rotation. Comes in with no materia, 123123123 on a loop and wonders why we can't clear enrage.

[Stanazolol]

Yea, I've got bad tankxiety so I've been leveling my tank in Duty Support. I picked Gunbreaker, but there's no trusts between levels 60 and 71 so I've been doing the level 50 cap dungeons to level. It's been great as I've been getting tomestones to buy the level 70 gear. I have, however, been using my mitigation during trash and the Duty Support AI can heal W2W pulls there. Hopefully Urianger, G'raha Tia, and Alphinaud will be able to do the same when I get to the Trust dungeons.

Don't have anxiety man, I rarely if ever see a toxic group. I don't know who these people are playing with, but the vast majority of people I play with are patient. And if they aren't, to hell with them.

[Stanazolol]

True. People don't even try in comparison to other games. I think because the base skill floor required for normal content is extremely low, players are never forced into doing anything that requires improvement more or less. I think they should either make the base difficulty level of normal content a bit higher, or introduce a new tier of content between normal and extreme. Cause I've done Ex fights at release with people who only do half of their rotation. Comes in with no materia, 123123123 on a loop and wonders why we can't clear enrage.

Reminds me of Urth's Fount back in the day. I used to queue for that and get my popcorn ready.

[NekoMataMata]

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 party of their friends that defend this behavior. They're rarely the ones that deal with the consequences.