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

[Supersnow845]

Where in my quoted post did you say that?

I mean that comes back to the idea of how much should you need to sugarcoat explanations of absolutely fundamental topics

If someone is spamming cure 1 there is only so many nice ways to tell them that they have no idea how to to play the game

Is my post you quoted, I never once said that I would say in game they suck at healing, at most I said they have no idea how to play the game which if you are cure 1 spamming in kistis hyperboa I stand by

[hagare]

I mean that comes back to the idea of how much should you need to sugarcoat explanations of absolutely fundamental topics

If someone is spamming cure 1 there is only so many nice ways to tell them that they have no idea how to to play the game

Is my post you quoted, I never once said that I would say in game they suck at healing, at most I said they have no idea how to play the game which if you are cure 1 spamming in kistis hyperboa I stand by

Sureeeeeeeeeee.
I guess that's why you posted what you posted.

[Supersnow845]

Sureeeeeeeeeee.
I guess that's why you posted what you posted.

Yep, I posted what I posted, maybe next time read the post you quote before you just pretend like I said something completely different, almost as much as that other poster who apparently read the same post and said I was going on screaming tirades at innocent sprouts

[LeonKeyh]

1/2:


I feel like people are seeing this as some sort of way to kick or insult sprouts that aren't playing well but that's not the case at all.

Most games have an overall difficulty curve that plays well with mechanisms that teach you how to play (some of those are explicit like tutorials, others are implicit like bosses/enemies that require that you use a certain ability to defeat).

A great game will marry the explicit/implicit tutorials with the difficulty curve to foster the growth/mastery of the player. This is not one of those games unfortunately. The first and last explicit tutorial for handling yourself in group content is the Hall of the Novice. While there are various implicit tutorials with game mechanisms within boss fights growing more and more complex, there are a few issues with it:

1. There are no implicit or explicit tutorials teaching someone how to play their job, or rather, there are but there are also essentially ways to "skip" them. Solo duties sort of fill the role of implicit tutorials to teach you your job. It "tests" you to see if you understand your job well enough. The problem? "Easy" and "Very Easy" options for solo duties. After 1 failure it "gives up" on you as the player and lets you take the easy (or very easy) way out.

2. Group content is under tuned to the point where 2 people (hell, 1 in some cases) could carry the entire group. As hinted at in my first point, FAILING in video games triggers you as a player to rethink what you've been doing and ultimately improve. With group content being so easy, you can continuously fail without necessarily realizing it because you're continuing to progress in the game. If a really casual player never fails, they're never going to sit and rethink how they've been playing. Thus, the difficulty actually perpetuates "bare minimum" gameplay from players. People complained about the ability to do trusts, but Dungeons with trusts FORCE you to actually learn boss mechanisms. I have known people in NN to ask if someone can run them through a dungeon because they can't complete it with Trusts.

3. There is a lack of explicit tutorials in later levels. Implicit tutorials are great for simple stuff (i.e. this is a knockback, you'll want to be near the center; this is bad, don't step in it) but for complex ideas like group synergies and job rotations, explicit tutorials would do a much better job. IMO, they should have a job-based tutorial at 50/60/70/80/90 that goes through and teaches you how your abilities interact with each other and then TESTS you to make sure you understand it. Also, Hall of the Novice was a good idea (not executed too great, but still) and I think that it could be cleaned up and augmented with Hall of the Intermediate, Hall of the Advanced, Hall of the Master, etc to go over various group/role dynamic things that people likely don't understand (Addle/Feint, Group mitigation buffs, Tank mitigation buffs, etc, etc)

[LeonKeyh]

2/2:


IMO, the fact that players get as far as they do without knowing/understanding the game is MORE of a failure of the game than the player (the player isn't innocent, but the game should do a better job). Without the game being there to help foster player skill and improvement, the community would need to step in to do so.

The problem is the postmodernist hate of criticism. There's ultimately 3 issues with players that make this very difficult to overcome:

1. Players believe that advice is criticism and believe that criticism is an insult of how they play. This causes people to shut down when given advice and just see the person giving it as an "elitist"

2. Players believe that failure is some big deal. While this isn't an issue with the more difficult content, players in "normal" content seem to believe that failure is some horrible thing, and that's why normal content is so under tuned. It's also why people are so against wall 2 wall pulling because "What if we wipe?" You're not going to die in real life, you respawn and go again.

3. Players don't want to improve, they don't want to put effort in, they just want to jump in and "have fun." The problem is that you're in a game with other people and there's an expectation for you to perform for those other people. You can't leech.

[Wanzzo]

2/2:


IMO, the fact that players get as far as they do without knowing/understanding the game is MORE of a failure of the game than the player (the player isn't innocent, but the game should do a better job). Without the game being there to help foster player skill and improvement, the community would need to step in to do so.

The problem is the postmodernist hate of criticism. There's ultimately 3 issues with players that make this very difficult to overcome:

1. Players believe that advice is criticism and believe that criticism is an insult of how they play. This causes people to shut down when given advice and just see the person giving it as an "elitist"

2. Players believe that failure is some big deal. While this isn't an issue with the more difficult content, players in "normal" content seem to believe that failure is some horrible thing, and that's why normal content is so under tuned. It's also why people are so against wall 2 wall pulling because "What if we wipe?" You're not going to die in real life, you respawn and go again.

3. Players don't want to improve, they don't want to put effort in, they just want to jump in and "have fun." The problem is that you're in a game with other people and there's an expectation for you to perform for those other people. You can't leech.

(Before the numbers): i agree with this. The game is made with a different amount of exp given as each expansion comes. So, mid content (which was "last top content" in the past) gives more exp than before allowing the char to level faster than before. This leads to a reduced amount of repeatable content (mid content speaking). Like, how often you go t0 lv50 hard dungeons outside roulettes? How often you did that before expansions?

So, some mechanics tends to be in a blur area in ours memories leading to mistakes.

1- Like someone said, this can be aliviated choosing your words better. I always talks about what people can do to pass a mechanic or play their role better. No matter the risks. And I almost never got harsh insults but had myslef ignored at most. So, being kind is a strong weapon here

2- that's soooo true! Some take mid content like endgaming tryhard 20hs raiding stuff... xD Again, if we work on them, we can put things in a better mood...

3- yep, that's true. In this case, we have to adapt.

See? In pretty much all cases WE can do better to improve teams performance. And I go for that instead of just point fingers

[Padudu]

snip

Thank you for wording this more eloquently than I ever could! I rejoined the game a couple months before the release of EW, I had to go through ARR -- there is, at no point, up until ShB, where you are genuinely challenged or have hard steps. Yes solo duties can be difficult, but slap it on very easy and you will breeze through it. I've done it before just wanting to get through the MSQ. In duties, you can literally feel like you're contributing to your group without contributing to the group and that is the problem.

Of course there's obvious cases where you are performing so badly it affects the group. But for the most part? If you have even just one or two competent party members, you will get carried. Most of the time, no one says anything to you if you're playing suboptimally or downright wrong, so you think you're doing fine. Then finally when you get into content that you're struggling with, when someone says something for the first time, it's seen as an attack. "I've gotten through the MSQ and other duties fine up until this point, so what gives this NEET the right to yell at me for playing correctly?" sort of attitude can kick in.

I had the same issue up until Holminster's Switch. Holminster's Switch was a bit of a slap in the face for me - I used mits, but didn't use it correctly. The healer and dps there was *incredibly* patient and gave me advice, was happy to teach me a bit on how to tank so we could get through it. They could tell straight up that while I was mitting and hitting buttons, the way I was doing it was a bit jank and made it slow/hard to get through. I never knew I was even playing wrong until then and it spurred me to look up guides on how to properly play PLD and tank. I won't say I'm the best player now (because I'm not), but I'm suuuper grateful for those two people lol.

Another example of how easy difficulty drives complacency since people don't notice: A couple months ago I que'd for ARaid with a mate. Got CT, average run so far until we notice we're having regen put on us constantly. Multiple people actually. We found the person who did it. They would only move when the game prompts you to teleport to each boss, then they would cast regen. They were not a bot - they were talking and made a couple of jokes - so my mate quips with, "Wow, that's a lot of regens." Not a single response from anyone, the guy wasn't in our party so we couldn't vote kick him either.

End of the duty we check and he ended up casting regen like.. something like 500?? times I want to say, maybe 300 and casted stone like 40 times. The entire time lol.. and no one noticed at all, or if they did, didn't say a thing, because the content is just so easy to breeze through people would rather carry people like this and get through the snoozefest than say something.

[AmiableApkallu]

Holminster's Switch was a bit of a slap in the face for me - I used mits, but didn't use it correctly. The healer and dps there was *incredibly* patient and gave me advice, was happy to teach me a bit on how to tank so we could get through it. They could tell straight up that while I was mitting and hitting buttons, the way I was doing it was a bit jank and made it slow/hard to get through.

A couple months ago I que'd for a raid with a mate. Got CT, average run so far until we notice we're having regen put on us constantly. Multiple people actually. We found the person who did it. They would only move when the game prompts you to teleport to each boss, then they would cast regen. They were not a bot - they were talking and made a couple of jokes - so my mate quips with, "Wow, that's a lot of regens." Not a single response from anyone, the guy wasn't in our party so we couldn't vote kick him either.

The contrast between these two stories is amusing. The first illustrates a run improving due to reasonable people giving and receiving constructive advice. The second illustrates the uselessness of passive-aggressive snark.

For all the talk of team-based play vs. Trusts in some of the more recent comments, the focus on the "under-performers" is a bit one-sided. I might argue that if you happen to have a bit of constructive advice that would be of significant help in making a run go more smoothly, then you're holding the party back by keeping that advice to yourself. I mean, what's the real difference between being disastrously bad at a mechanic versus being disastrously bad at pushing the buttons for some job? People explain mechanics all the time…

[UkcsAlias]

If someone is spamming cure 1 there is only so many nice ways to tell them that they have no idea how to to play the game

The problem is at multiple parts here.

- If you can still easily beat the content, it essentialy didnt matter much that you spammed cure 1. You have beaten it quickly which is still the most important measurement. (and before you think. but you could have used cure 2. plenty of times you could have used panic heals to enable more dps. but you saved these instead. while a smaller dps loss, its still a loss. and therefor a similar argument)
- For any other class, abilities were either useless from the start, or they improved. Cure 1 never improved far enough to be worth it. Its an ability that becomes useless later on. This fails a very basic design aspect in which every tool you have should have its use. (even though sleep is generaly useless, it still has its feature to be able to reduce aggro by disabling a target from the fight for a moment. which is mostly just for msq though)
- Freecure promotes cure 1 usage above cure 2 usage. It gives players false information on the proper playstyle.
- Other abilities also upgrade on the WHM, yet cure 1 doesnt, which again is an indication that its usefull on its own.

Cure 1 is an abomination in its current style. And while some suggest removing it, i personaly would still prefer to see a diffirent upgrade to it. Just so there is diffirences in casting the 2 (and therefor have variety in casting there. otherwise cure 2 just becomes the new stone, but then for healing).

(also, i never use cure 1 when cure 2 is available)

[Supersnow845]

The problem is at multiple parts here.

- If you can still easily beat the content, it essentialy didnt matter much that you spammed cure 1. You have beaten it quickly which is still the most important measurement. (and before you think. but you could have used cure 2. plenty of times you could have used panic heals to enable more dps. but you saved these instead. while a smaller dps loss, its still a loss. and therefor a similar argument)
- For any other class, abilities were either useless from the start, or they improved. Cure 1 never improved far enough to be worth it. Its an ability that becomes useless later on. This fails a very basic design aspect in which every tool you have should have its use. (even though sleep is generaly useless, it still has its feature to be able to reduce aggro by disabling a target from the fight for a moment. which is mostly just for msq though)
- Freecure promotes cure 1 usage above cure 2 usage. It gives players false information on the proper playstyle.
- Other abilities also upgrade on the WHM, yet cure 1 doesnt, which again is an indication that its usefull on its own.

Cure 1 is an abomination in its current style. And while some suggest removing it, i personaly would still prefer to see a diffirent upgrade to it. Just so there is diffirences in casting the 2 (and therefor have variety in casting there. otherwise cure 2 just becomes the new stone, but then for healing).

(also, i never use cure 1 when cure 2 is available)

I don’t deny cure 1 is badly designed but that isn’t really the problem here, the problem is if you can sit in a high level dungeon and see every skill you have access to as a WHM and still think cure 1 spam is the correct way to engage with the content then it’s not cure 1’s bad design that is the problem here