Is anyone else bothered by the lack of incentive for mediocre players to improve?

[Yenn]

There's basically none. If they continue with their mediocrity (really, sub-mediocrity in most cases), they'll eventually be handed the gear they couldn't normally attain, without making an effort to improve themselves.

Further, the developers' stance on 'strategies' like the Turn 2 enrage garbage makes it seem like they have no intention of challenging these players to improve; every turn of Bahamut's Coil, excluding Twintania, can be powered through just by having enough gear, which is handed out for free in Turn 1 and Turn 2.

This degrades the sense of accomplishment for everyone, both the skilled players who worked hard to down the bosses, and the bad players who are just whacking loot pinatas and patting themselves on the back.

I hate to bring in World of Warcraft as a comparison, but I think they did it right, with the three sets of gear (Raid Finder, Normal, and Heroic). If you're a sub-par player who wants to whack a loot pinata, you get sub-par gear for it. Those who want to challenge themselves get regular gear, and those who want to really push the encounters get higher tier gear.

There's no way this is healthy for the game in the long term.

[Yenn]

A prime example.

I just attempted to kill Ultima on my tank.
An i88 tank said 'first time here, what do i have to do,' to which I responded 'Just taunt off me at 3 stacks and move out of things. Don't touch the glowing balls when they spawn,' and he said 'xD ok'
I start tanking, I get to 3 stacks, I said 'Okay take it.' He just keeps comboing, no attempt at taunting. Four stacks, I start spamming 'Taunt him' with sound effects. Nope. Five stacks, I Hallowed Ground and continue spamming. Nope. I die and then he moves into place, eats every ability, and dies.

This player should not have been able to obtain that much i90 gear, but it could, because you can get a full set just by logging in every week.

[Miburo]

Nope.

If I bench 1 ton and someone uses a crane to lift 1 ton that doesn't "degrade my sense of accomplishment" at all. In any way. Same concept applies here.

And besides, it's a video game with a 2.5 second GCD where you fight scripted AI bosses. You're already setting the bar extremely low if you're going to use this game to boost your self-esteem. Stop comparing yourself to others and just play the game, ffs. This stuff is embarrassing.

[Ryuko]

I wish there were more mechanics that made it literally impossible to just 'leech' a fight. That way, mediocre players wouldn't be able to get past the harder content by simply buying it. Now don't get me wrong... I'm not talking about the 'morality' of selling or buying wins. I'm talking about the 'skill check' these fights are supposed to provide. The harder fights are supposed to force the mediocre players to learn to be better... but if you can just buy the fights, there is NOTHING forcing you to be better. I would argue that Twintania's DPS checks and mechanics are so tight that you can't leech it (has anyone sold Twintania wins?), but Turn 5 is going to get nerfed with the next patch, so there really is nothing to force mediocre players to learn.

[Yenn]

I would argue that Twintania's DPS checks and mechanics are so tight that you can't leech it (has anyone sold Twintania wins?), but Turn 5 is going to get nerfed with the next patch, so there really is nothing to force mediocre players to learn.

I'm certain we could sell Twintania if we were so inclined. Before we stopped raiding last month, we had a minute to spare in a regular 2/2/4 group. Dropping one tank for a random would have been fine, but I'm not sure if it would be worth the effort.

[Subucnimorning]

I would argue that Twintania's DPS checks and mechanics are so tight that you can't leech it (has anyone sold Twintania wins?), but Turn 5 is going to get nerfed with the next patch, so there really is nothing to force mediocre players to learn.

Definitely not the case. We had a DPS in our FC disconnect on engage and we failed the enrage at the end by about 2-3% (this was about a month ago if not a bit longer). I would argue that it is very possible to 7 man quite easily now.

[Ryuko]

Perhaps it's possible, but I've never seen anyone sell it. I see a lot of extreme/hard primal win advertisements, though.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

As a different way of looking at it, you could say that if they're good enough to get the tomes required to get the gear, why then don't they deserve it? I mean, if I work hard to be able buy something I'm going to need in order to TRY to face a harder challenge, then how can you say I didn't earn it? Yes, tomes are easier to get now, but remember when they weren't? How monotonous did spamming WP and AK all day get? You could even say neither of those dungeons were even a challenge anymore by then, so why then would the people who did it deserve their gear? Gear isn't a substitute for skill, period. That doesn't mean people with less skill deserve lesser gear. No, that would create a player gap. A huge wall that most won't be able to or even bother trying to climb. Imagine having to do Coil in i55 gear (because you don't DESERVE anything better until you can beat Coil). Would you still want to try? Lacking the skill/knowledge of the dungeon AND lacking gear to keep you alive?

[Yenn]

As a different way of looking at it, you could say that if they're good enough to get the tomes required to get the gear, why then don't they deserve it? I mean, if I work hard to be able buy something I'm going to need in order to TRY to face a harder challenge, then how can you say I didn't earn it? Yes, tomes are easier to get now, but remember when they weren't? How monotonous did spamming WP and AK all day get? You could even say neither of those dungeons were even a challenge anymore by then, so why then would the people who did it deserve their gear? Gear isn't a substitute for skill, period. That doesn't mean people with less skill deserve lesser gear. No, that would create a player gap. A huge wall that most won't be able to or even bother trying to climb. Imagine having to do Coil in i55 gear (because you don't DESERVE anything better until you can beat Coil). Would you still want to try? Lacking the skill/knowledge of the dungeon AND lacking gear to keep you alive?

Gear should be available from myth, but not an entire set of the highest level gear. Maybe half of the pieces?
There needs to be some sort of reward for skilled players, and some sort of goal for the unskilled players to try to improve themselves and work towards.
This is currently missing, so the unskilled players just wallow around and cry that they deserve all of the gear without having to try to play well to obtain it (as is apparent if you read half of the threads in this cesspool of a forum).

With full i90, most of the encounters turn into loot pinatas. Nobody deserves to down an end game boss by outgearing it on their first attempts.

As an side, we did Turn 1 and 2 in a mixture of i55 and i70 gear, and Turn 4 in i70 gear. It is possible. Also, that entire sentence was borderline retarded, because my issue is that they get a full set of the highest level gear without displaying any modicum of skill. There should be lower level gear to bridge the gap (i.e. i80) available for everyone to take on content at a fair level, but not to outgear it.

[Yenn]

Nope.

If I bench 1 ton and someone uses a crane to lift 1 ton that doesn't "degrade my sense of accomplishment" at all. In any way. Same concept applies here.

And besides, it's a video game with a 2.5 second GCD where you fight scripted AI bosses. You're already setting the bar extremely low if you're going to use this game to boost your self-esteem. Stop comparing yourself to others and just play the game, ffs. This stuff is embarrassing.

Except this makes zero sense.
A better analogy would be you bench one ton and get a trophy for it, and then someone uses a crane to lift it and gets the same trophy.
The fact that the person with the crane was granted the same reward that you worked hard for, without putting in any effort, degrades the work you put towards the goal.

Yes, it's a video game with a 2.5 second GCD where you fight scripted AI bosses and 95% of players are failing at it and not improving at all. This is the entire problem.
I don't even want to guess at what percentage of players have downed Twintania, which became a trivial encounter after the Twister fixes.

And this is where someone comes in with 'hurrdurr the person with the crane did it smarter plz giv me free loot to help wipe on titan hm'