Do you know why the average pf player is so bad?

[Jeeqbit]

It 100% comes down to the fact I am fighting my body and mind to react to mechanics and that doesn't give me much time to react to things. Usually, I just avoid those types of duties/raids but sometimes you just have to take what the roulette gives you.

Being a tank can be useful if you are handicapped, because tanks can survive mechanics that other players can't. They can usually just rack up at least 4 vuln stacks without any problem. Whereas other roles will die to those mechanics. Of course, the tanks should do mechanics, but frankly they are fine if they don't a lot of the time.

I'm not sure how niche the handicapped audience is

It's not as niche as you think. In fact, most people (at least older people) probably have one. It's just not necessarily severe enough that it affects them in a noticeable way. For example, they might be color blind or get pain in their hand or arm from playing too long or suffer from an injury, while for others it's more severe like limited hand movement, not being able to keep their hands still, only having one arm, or memory disabilities.

[TaleraRistain]

It's a hindrance, because in standard you have to slowly turn your player around with the mouse, which takes about 1 second. Then you can start running forwards out of the aoe. By the time you have done that, it has been 2 seconds. Casts are typically 3 seconds, and some of that is taken up by ping, so you are just barely avoiding it.

In contrast, while in legacy, you just press "S" to run out of the aoe. You can do it one-handed in 1 second. Because you have 2 seconds left, you can delay it for uptime and move out at the last moment.

It makes the game significantly easier on a keyboard/mouse. A large part of the difficulty for most keyboard/mouse players is created by being in standard mode tbh.

There are some people that find standard better but they seem like a minority, because anyone I teach about legacy usually finds it transformative to their gameplay.

It's really only a hindrance if you aren't used to it. I've played MMOs for over 20 years now using standard. My issue in XIV is legacy turns my character left or right when I am trying to strafe while still facing the boss (or away from the boss). I also use both WASD and mouse for movement so the time to turn is just as quick as with legacy.

I think people should certainly try it out and see if it works, but shouldn't feel bad (or at times be mocked or degraded by others) if it just doesn't jive with them. I've never subscribed to the idea of "you must do x or y" with controls because a setup that works for one person won't always work for others and people should find what is going to work best for their unique situation.

[Deceptus]

Yeah, I agree.
The game could do a better job of teaching players.
However, our overall niceness has also atrophied players brains.

Like an over-nurturing parent.

It's not that being a jerk is something that should be tolerated... but being too nice isn't helpful either.
What doesn't help is the game doesn't create many points of adversity for player growth and when it does try even a little bit we coddle people.

We're like Eulmore! Everyone is fat dimwitted miquotes with too much money sitting in their night clubs while the world is dying around us.

My personal stance is anything over lvl 70 the gloves should be off. It used to be 60, but they keep increasing the level of the free trial edition. If you can't even do a basic rotation at lvl 90 or ignore Aoe completely? Yeah, I personally consider you a bad player. But that's just my opinion man.

[Jojoya]

If you can't even do a basic rotation at lvl 90 or ignore Aoe completely? Yeah, I personally consider you a bad player. But that's just my opinion man.

So you consider them a bad player.

Okay. What then? Being a bad player doesn't exclude anyone from playing through the MSQ or normal content. That is supposed to be content available to all regardless of skill.

[Jeeqbit]

legacy turns my character left or right when I am trying to strafe while still facing the boss (or away from the boss). I also use both WASD and mouse for movement so the time to turn is just as quick as with legacy.

There are two keybinds for this:
Move Left / Right (turns your character left/right and runs in that direction).
Strafe Left / Right (doesn't turn your character left/right, but moves left/right anyway).

I don't personally care, so I mostly just move left/right, but I have Strafe left/right set on Q and E in case I want it.

[Saraide]

It's a hindrance, because in standard you have to slowly turn your player around with the mouse, which takes about 1 second. Then you can start running forwards out of the aoe. By the time you have done that, it has been 2 seconds. Casts are typically 3 seconds, and some of that is taken up by ping, so you are just barely avoiding it.

In contrast, while in legacy, you just press "S" to run out of the aoe. You can do it one-handed in 1 second. Because you have 2 seconds left, you can delay it for uptime and move out at the last moment.

It makes the game significantly easier on a keyboard/mouse. A large part of the difficulty for most keyboard/mouse players is created by being in standard mode tbh.

There are some people that find standard better but they seem like a minority, because anyone I teach about legacy usually finds it transformative to their gameplay.

I've tried legacy but it doesnt really mesh well with how i play. Legacy is obviously best if you move with WASD but I dont do that. I do all my movement exclusively with holding mouse buttons and for that case only standard movement is better in my experience.

[Merrigan]

It's exactly what I described. With standard movement, the direction of your character is tied to the camera, so mouse movement controls the direction your character faces and therefore you have to move the mouse or slowly turn around, before you can begin running out of an AoE.

With legacy movement, the direction of your character is not tied to the camera, so if you press backwards, instead of slowly walking back, your character immediately turns around and runs out of the AoE. It makes the game significantly easier. It's such an advantage that it trivializes mechanics compared to standard.

I was helping some people with P10S recently and saw a few of them were struggling to avoid the chains and getting Doom. We explained about legacy and it transformed the game for them. Just an example.

(It's in Character Configuration, under Control Settings and General. I personally disable auto-fly/auto-dive)

But does it affect your dps? I mean, as a melee there are plenty of moments where you can get out while sticking to the mob; using movement as you describe it is a dead loss, compared to using the mouse (which I always keep down anyway, personally)?

And turning your character completely, if you need to get away from something very quickly, doesn't take "a second". It's immediate with camera movement + straff to the side.

... I swear, I'm not trying to be sarcastic, it's just that I don't understand the point of losing such a practical bind as the "s" (= backward on my keyboard) when you can simply hold down the right mouse button at any time to have better control .

[Jeeqbit]

But does it affect your dps?

If you die to a mechanic or get a damage down due to struggling to avoid mechanics, yes! Also means you can greed for longer because it takes less time to navigate out of an AoE.

I mean, as a melee there are plenty of moments where you can get out while sticking to the mob; using movement as you describe it is a dead loss, compared to using the mouse (which I always keep down anyway, personally)?

I don't personally agree. I used to do Savage in Heavensward with standard and I could do all the mechanics, but I was just barely achieving them all and it was very last moment stuff, very tense. It's comparatively braindead with legacy and not really tense at all.

And turning your character completely, if you need to get away from something very quickly, doesn't take "a second". It's immediate with camera movement + straff to the side.

Well it's good you found a workaround. Like I said, some people prefer it or find a way to make it work.

[Merrigan]

If you die to a mechanic or get a damage down due to struggling to avoid mechanics, yes! Also means you can greed for longer because it takes less time to navigate out of an AoE.

I don't personally agree. I used to do Savage in Heavensward with standard and I could do all the mechanics, but I was just barely achieving them all and it was very last moment stuff, very tense. It's comparatively braindead with legacy and not really tense at all.

Well it's good you found a workaround. Like I said, some people prefer it or find a way to make it work.

I honestly don't see how you can struggle to avoid mecanics with the straffing method (< this is not ironic, once again), but indeed : if it works for you, then it's better to do it this way.

[strawberrycake]

ANother reason why a lot of PF players are bad is due to them learning the strats for fights over the fights themselves, it then leads to not being able to keep up when things change slightly.