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

[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.