Does the average XIV player know how to play their jobs?

[Arrius]

Leveling Black Mages could need a extra lesson or two when it comes to working their rotations.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

The first point imo strikes too broadly, considering different content demands a different level of gameplay. Most people do know how to play X job in dungeons—good enough to clear. But once you throw them into Extreme & above, many starts to falter from the pressure to keep their GCD running or cooldowns rolling at the face of Y amount of mechanics happening.

They could improve hall of novice; they could add a continuation to that series, or they could probably add something more in depth for each role but the fact that the game rarely demands you to do more than just have a pulse & breathing in casual content makes it hard to bridge that gap between the low end to even a midcore content.

[NanaWiloh]

I run strictly roulette and have seen it all. Tanks not using Defensives, Healers who only dps, DPS who constantly stand in stupid, players who afk most of a raid dungeon. You can educate the clueless and unaware but you cant fix the lazy give no effort players.
Player range:

Ultimate savage player
Savage/ex player
Average player
new player
Lazy and stupid player

[DPZ2]

With all the talk of Addons/Parsers, somebody today asked what my thoughts were on the average casual player actually knowing how to play their job correctly.

This all depends on context. Are we talking about casual players in normal 8 and 24 person Raids? In dungeon or trial leveling instances? Are we talking about casual players at level 50? 70? 90? 15? Are we talking about that one player who your found infuriating in the level 50/60/70/80/90 queue last week?

How many other players have you been exposed to over the last year of playtime? 100? 1000? 10,000? None of those numbers begins to cover what might be average.

What do you consider your own level of play? Beginner? Leveling beginner? Intermediate? "Average"? Expert?

This bought up a second question: What can the game do, to TEACH people to play properly.

You know, a quick scan through these forums over the last 10 years would produce any number of deprecating-but-well-meaning-maybe players asking the same question over and over, complete with what I consider poorly thought-through suggestions.

I have never found an MMORPG that teaches players to play "properly", aside from tutorials at early levels.

There is a reason for this. Tutorials are fixed in time. Every job would require a set of tutorials for "Openers", as an example. Every time there is a new expansion, those tutorials would have to be rewritten. One only has to imagine learning a Heavensward Opener from a tutorial during Stormblood. Think about how useless that would be.

[Atelier-Bagur]

This all depends on context. Are we talking about casual players in normal 8 and 24 person Raids? In dungeon or trial leveling instances? Are we talking about casual players at level 50? 70? 90? 15? Are we talking about that one player who your found infuriating in the level 50/60/70/80/90 queue last week?

How many other players have you been exposed to over the last year of playtime? 100? 1000? 10,000? None of those numbers begins to cover what might be average.

What do you consider your own level of play? Beginner? Leveling beginner? Intermediate? "Average"? Expert?



You know, a quick scan through these forums over the last 10 years would produce any number of deprecating-but-well-meaning-maybe players asking the same question over and over, complete with what I consider poorly thought-through suggestions.

I have never found an MMORPG that teaches players to play "properly", aside from tutorials at early levels.

There is a reason for this. Tutorials are fixed in time. Every job would require a set of tutorials for "Openers", as an example. Every time there is a new expansion, those tutorials would have to be rewritten. One only has to imagine learning a Heavensward Opener from a tutorial during Stormblood. Think about how useless that would be.

Thats a valid point but I think the bigger reason why class tutorials are slim is to drive players to communicate and learn from each other due to it being a social MMO

[MirielleLavandre]

What FFXIV needs is Maat challenges in order to progress past a certain level - those were some hardcore roadblocks for some back in the day >.> (I kid, I kid - things like that would never fly in 14) ^^ However, something like that would be a kind of litmus test to make sure people knew the basics of their job and thus ensure a modicum of expertise, at least.

For those who don't know, in order to be able to level cap in FFXI, you had to farm testimonies in order to fight Maat, an NPC. He played as your own job and also had your 1 hour (biggest skill). You also were not allowed a sub job so were at a bit of disadvantage. However, if you saw people at 75 you knew they beat Maat and had at least a good handle on the job they beat him at.

[Lieri]

Anyone who plays through 1 to 90 on a specific job they main is at least going to be decent. Thats why I always recommend newbies to main one class before juggling multiple classes at the same time. They should only drop a class if they dont like it to pick another to main.

[Lium]

Just a question that came up today.

With all the talk of Addons/Parsers, somebody today asked what my thoughts were on the average casual player actually knowing how to play their job correctly.

Immediately i said no, the average player most likely does not realize that they are holding back groups by playing badly.

This is just based on experience in Dungeons/PF, but some people are completely clueless when it comes to actually PLAYING the game..

This bought up a second question: What can the game do, to TEACH people to play properly.

Should the game teach people about Melding Gear, Rotations, Openers and other things that will help them in the Endgame?

Any thoughts?

I'll bite.

As others have said, yes, the majority of players know how to play the game, and in the five years I've been playing it, I've only encountered maybe a handful of bad players, which I would define as not playing their role at all. And it's usually in low level dungeons.

I want to emphasize how I define "bad players". Again, it is someone not playing the role they've queued up as. Like healers who are curebots and not doing anything else. No regens, no cleanses, no DPSing, nada. Or tanks not really tanking, DPS only spamming one skill, etc.

I don't define bad players as people who make mistakes. Because those are called human beings. And this sort of thing happens a lot to humans. If it's a normal dungeon which is designed for - as the OP put it - average casual players, then someone messing up may add a grand total of five minutes to your dungeon run. This also includes tanks who single pull. I know that's just egregious in this day and age.

Second, regardless of what the game may teach new players, it is largely irrelevant and moot by the time they get to high level dungeons or endgame because everyone is at max ilevel gear and stuff dies so fast. BLMs have a fairly long ramp-up time before they start unleashing serious damage. A fresh 90 BLM won't have time to do all their setup stuff before the mobs are halfway dead, and the BLM is sitting at 4 on the aggro chart, which makes them look bad. It can be deceiving.

So, no, the game can't really do anything different. Some players will be really good, some will be really bad, and the vast majority will be somewhere in between. That's why it's called the average.

[Anienai]

What FFXIV needs is Maat challenges in order to progress past a certain level

Poor RDMs.

[Deceptus]

I run pretty much most of the Duty Roulettes daily.

I'd say it's 60/40. 60% have a decent idea of what they're doing and 40% just simply don't. Healers who think everyone has to be 100% at all times, tanks who don't know what a mitigation is (or that Arm's Length is a Dungeon Defensive CD), DPS who don't know what AoE is. When I heal, I frequently out aggro the DPS despite mostly doing DPS.

The higher end players just simply don't do roulettes much, they have no reason to.

• Hall of the intermediate needs to be implemented ASAP (basic rotations, tank mitigation practice etc, a fight where a healer has to heal and kill things at the same time), Hall of the Expert needs implemented at some point (Similar to Stone Sea Skye a legitimate DPS check).
• SSS needs to be mandatory to enter every Extreme to include ARR. If you can't pass the DPS check on a stationary target, there's no way possible you're going to be able to do it with mechanics flying around.
• Basic jobs need to be removed from every weapon after level 35.