Watching content before actually doing it?

[Djeserit]

Man, back in the day when we played Mario on the nes or something I don't remember us watching videos of when the next hole in the ground or monster will freaking pop up. People had a blast increasing their skills to beat hard games. Why ruin the surprise of the video game by having so many pro wannabes say we have to know content or discourage people who haven't run a dungeon. That's the whole point of a game, to have fun on the first runs! Not to watch someone else on youtube have a fun time explaining it.

A) The technology didn't exist back then to easily watch a video or read up on the mechanics of a fight. You had to buy/send off for a magazine/video for that kind of thing.

B) You aren't wasting 3/7/23 other peoples time by not knowing what to do in a single player game. By refusing to look up basic strategy and mechanics you are basically saying that your fun is more important than 3/7/23 other people's time, which is outright rude. If you want to figure it out yourself, then make a group dedicated to doing exactly that. Don't expect others who already have gone through that be willing to wipe because you don't understand something when you easily could.

Honestly this doesn't bother me much in 4mans, but in 8+ man content, you really should at least read about the mechanics so you know what to expect. Even doing that, you aren't likely to pull it off perfectly the first time, so you still get part of the fun of learning from mistakes.

[Imapooonu]

Some of you are foaming at the mouth so bad to try and instill a philosophy of "its wizer to has watched vids furst" that you don't even see the op never said they were "trolling your farm parties". Go read what they said again.

Make a party finder that says, "please watch vid". Take the same advice you're giving to people who don't want to watch a vid first.

Nobody, and I mean nobody is saying watching a vid first doesn’t work better. It’s like a freakin instruction manual. Some people just don’t want/need manuals, that’s it.

And btw I just beat Ultima tonight, second try, watched about 30 seconds of Mr Happy’s vid, and did fine. It was because the people were cool and sacrificed three MINUTES of their time to explain it before I could even watch the vid.

[Anapingofness]

Being new to a fight/dungeon/ect does not mean one is carried by the rest of the group as some suggest.

Yes, some effort should be made by the newbie but I find that the "experienced" players tend to be... well, not very forgiving. People just wanna get their stuff done and move on, forget community building yo- I'm most important! My needs! MY TIME!! MY NEEDS!!!! DON'T YOU NOOBS GET IT?!?!!!11111oneoneoneone

Sarcasm aside, it does cut both ways. Both parties have to make an effort and both parties need to show respect for each others time and the people behind the character.

Personally, I will always ask for highlights of a fight/dungeon or I will at least look it up on wiki. Video guides tend to irritate me so I avoid watching them.
Still, the best teacher is when one enters the fight and actually does it. I usually catch on pretty quickly and am open to suggestions for improvement.

That being said, whenever I'm doing a fight or dungeon for the first time I try to tip the scales in my favor by making a premade group. At the very least I try to fill in as many spots as I can with people who won't mind a wipe or three if need be. That also means that the few pug members that do join my group also need to be prepared for a few wipes or maybe even a rough run without throwing a fit like a petulant child.

[Grailer]

I watched a few guides but TBH you don't really need them as long as people are willing to offer some advice .

But as a tank it is usually better to watch video because you are basically standing nakid for everyone to see you make a fool of yourself failing .

[synaesthetic]

Because it's soul-crushing to wipe dozens of times over and over again because people don't know what the hell they're doing, especially after you've already cleared it.

[Musashidon]

omg this again wasting peoples time on a game which is meant to waste time. the logic i love these so much <3

you can't waste time on something that is suppose to pass and waste time.

[Phaydra]

I hate video guides. I wouldn't mind them so much if people would shut up and get to the point. Plus half the people only make them to get hits on there Youtube page so they can get paid to spam you with useless commercials for crap you will never need. I agree they shouldn't be a requirement to play a video game. I learn much faster by doing then watching.

[Zfz]

I think it's a result of the modern fast-food gaming design. Every action you do in a game is more or less directly tied to some reward.

Those trash packs before bosses? There's no point. Bad design just to waste people's time. We want only bosses. New content that gives lower item level? There's no point. Devs must be out of their minds to expect us to have fun without rewards!

And as game companies bow to players' wishes, now players demand even more. Bosses should be one-shot, or you're wasting time! And this time round, we point our guns at each other, not at the game companies anymore. Stop wasting my time! We exclaim. Hence RNG is taken out of encounters.

Gaming isn't about the process anymore, it's all about the tangible reward at the end.

That is also why we go for the simplest, easiest tactics all the time. Rush tactics. Skipping trash. Enrage tactics. To us, the game consists of just that coffer with the piece of shiny loot. Be damned if you make me move even an inch more than I absolutely have to, to get to open that coffer. Be damned if you waste my time! I wish all of you can be replaced by NPCs who bow to my every wish!

If you want to waste my time, you go back and play your single player games! Multi-player means doing your best to serve my interests!



....sorry, ran out of steam. It's hard to write anything meaningful with an empty stomach it seems.

[Taika]

It really depends on the context. I don't think you should study every single leveling dungeon or story fight beforehand, as those are the kind of content you can beat without preparing for them. However, if you're joining endgame content that has a lot of mechanics to learn, if you aren't prepared it's possible the whole event time is spent on 7 other people teaching you the mechanics instead of making progress and achieving their goal. That's why I think it's courteous to do what you can to prepare for the content so that you're doing what you can to help the group progress.

However the best advice for these situations is to play with others who share the same attitude towards the encounter. Don't join PF groups or FC events that ask you to come prepared, maybe make your own groups for people who want to dive in blind and learn the mechanics by experiencing them. DF of course shouldn't come with any playstyle requirements.

[synaesthetic]

It's the difference between single-player and online RPGs here. Gaming is about the process in a single-player RPG because the game is entirely built around the story, the world and your interactions within it. The journey is the fun part, and you usually only have to do it once per playthrough (some exceptions for older games that required lots of grinding).

In MMOs, this only applies to the first time you've done something, but the developers could not possibly produce enough content that it didn't have to be reused multiple times. So they artificially extend your use of any given bit of content with the whole farming for gear and tokens deal. After you've done a dungeon for the 50th or 100th time, you're not really concerned about the process. You're concerned about getting that piece of gear that you need to move on to the next stage of content that you haven't done 50 or 100 times yet.

It's a vicious cycle.

In regards to this topic, I've beaten Garuda EX several times. The "process" of learning the fight and downing the boss, for me, is over. I had that experience (which, due to her absurdly bloated HP pool, is more of a tedious slog than an exciting battle) but that ring is still an upgrade for me. It will allow me to be more effective in other content. So I keep trying to kill her again and again, but the Random Number God instead wants to shower me with tank and melee rings. At this point, I've already had the experience of killing Garuda Extreme (and even this is recycled content, since I also had the "experience" of killing her during the main storyline, and the "experience" of killing Garuda Hard). I'm not going to do it again for the "experience." I'm doing it for the damn ring.

So yeah. The fight isn't even that fun to begin with and when I throw up Party Finder ads, I'm going to demand that people know what they're doing, that this is a kill group for gear, not for the experience of killing her for the first time.