Why people are bad at the game, and why they never learn to play it.

[AllenThyl]

Alliance Raids are super casual so I expect casuals, I expect players who play like they're playing a party game. I'm not expecting players to learn the rotation of their Job, I just expect them to have fun first.

I understand, I really really do. But fundamentally, this is an action combat game. The overwhelming amount of content in the game itself is combat. And I find it very much a legit question, why there are so many people playing an action combat game, when their definition of "fun at the game" always translates to "being an absolute slacker in combat content", never to "I making an effort in this combat game that I pay for". We aren't talking about savage level performance. We are talking about people with all classes at lvl 100, not using AoEs in ShB+ dungeons. Who then legit get defensive when asked to AoE. This isn't about a bard overcapping their arrow charge a few times, or using the AoE version instead of the single target version, or some ninja accidently fat fingering their mudras and using doton on a boss once or twice. We are talking about people who do it constantly. Who have 70% uptime not because they are legit afk from the game, but because they don't press buttons sometimes during a fight. And none of this has to do with the difficulty of the content. It's an attitude thing. And no amount of game design can fix attitude.

The thing is, this kind of argument doesn't fly in basically every other activity people engage in. If you join a tennis club, but are fundamentally not interested in playing tennis, people will rightly see that as a bad thing. Probably condemn this behavior, possibly even kicking this person out of the club. This isn't even about the skill level, as it is generally accepted and expected that different people will have different skill levels. But when someone is categorically unable to participate in tennis itself (disabilities of any kind, too slow reflexes, any reason really), it is not expected that the others bend around backwards to accommodate this individual. But in FF14, if someone is legit afk in Frontline, and you ask the alliance to kick them, you will get more pushback for asking that, than this person gets for afking. It just cannot be understated the stupidity you will experience in chat. There are players who will tell you to "shut up and just play the game" while there is an afker literally not playing the game.

I actually advocate for casual content being casual as someone who enjoys more difficult content, I will say I haven't -quite- dipped my toes into Ultimate but Extreme and Savage I've enjoyed. After a long day at work or a stressful week I actually appreciate the option to have causal modes that I can fat finger my way through.

Here is the thing though, this isn't a single player game. The moment you get grouped with other people, it's not just your own time anymore. And then it basically becomes a cultural question, of whether or not it is acceptable to impose upon others by playing the game badly. Generally, in the Western hemisphere, the answer is "of course it is, what do I care about other people? I just want to have 'fun' however I want!". That's how you get so many leechers and afkers in PvP, and a community that at large enables and defends this behavior despite it being against the ToS. That's how you get all the drunk and high people in dungeons who die to the most obvious and telegraphed AoE. That's how you get tanks who don't mitigate, DPS that don't AoE, healers that cure1 fish, Samurais that don't even use the purple part of their rotation, or don't use the dot. If someone doesn't think that imposing on others by being bad at the game they play is something bad, then they don't see anything wrong in the first place. No amount of tutorials can fix this cultural attitude.