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.

[Delorean]

Maybe they were a Warrior. Maybe they didn't have Provoke. Because they didn't want to play Gladiator. Maybe they didn't know what "Taunt" was or what Provoke does.

You don't even need Provoke until Coil/Extreme Primals anyway.

But it's the same in every game, what can you do about it? You can't really expect new players to get any better at playing a game in a community that won't even give them a chance to play the game that they want them to get better at playing.

It's not like they even have a training simulation to practice mechanics with or anything.

[Sarlazzar]

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.

maybe you should have asked him to voke it, the skill is called provoke, maybe he didn't know what taunt is

[Royze]

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.

Maybe you should have used game terminology that is actually in the game, and not a remnant of wow - the word is Provoke!

[Zarzak]

Maybe you should have used game terminology that is actually in the game, and not a remnant of wow - the word is Provoke!

if your going to try and sound smart.. At least do it right and don't pretend WoW invented MMOs.

Taunt has been around LONG LONG LONG before the abomination that is WoW ever saw the internet

[Ishmachiah]

Taunt has been around LONG LONG LONG before the abomination that is WoW ever saw the internet

Haterz gonna hate.

[Lyrro]

Haterz gonna hate.

Love the irony of that statement, given your signature. Both heretic and unclean are words often used by self righteous religious figures to discriminate against people who are of other religions or non religious, and the word mutant is often used negatively even though mutations are often natural and progressive for evolution. I dunno, maybe I just needed a good laugh today given the night I had last night, but this struck me as hilarious.

People will quote WoW, you might as well accept it. WoW is considered one of the Shakespeares of MMOs (holy crap, someone who knows who Shakespeare is), and for better or worse, people will be quoting it for years to come. Debating over lingo will not prove your point nor disprove your opposite, and as long as both people know what the definition of "provoke" and "taunt" are you're not going to misunderstand each other. That's like two people fighting because their accents are different, they can still clearly understand each other because they're able argue which leads to the suggestion that they're arguing for the sake of argument. Misquoting, now that's something else entirely.

You're point is valid, Illuminapanic, but what you seem to fail to understand is that a higher ilvl allows parties to make mistakes that they could not afford at lower levels. Where I once had issues healing people because of them being one-shot, I now have the chance to heal that person because they will often survive with a sliver of health. This allows us to make it further into the fight which, in return, allows us to get more practice for those parts that we couldn't otherwise reach successively enough to practice. Take titan hm for example, back when it was still fresh. People were constantly getting killed by plumes and it was exceedingly rare (still is rather rare) to make it past the heart phase because it was very common to have at least one dps die in the heart phase. Once my fc started running titan, with people who were all adequately geared, we were able to practice post heart combat and we can now four man phase 5. Ilvl has nothing to do with skill, I agree full heartedly, but it does help counter lack of skill by giving a small cusion which can often save a party from a wipe.

[Hardware_Hank]

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.

there is nothing more annoying in this game than when you explain the fight, they acknowledge that and then they still avoid of even trying what you just told them to do.

[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.