What's with the new players today?

[Ehr]

Players being caustic to others who try to help them isn't exactly a new problem and it's not just new players, but I have noticed since the PS4 release that the community has been worse than in the past. This is my first MMO and I've always stayed away from online gaming and really any form of anonymous internet social site for a reason. This game made me remember why. I personally have issues dealing with how rude and ignorant people on the internet can be. I was fortunate enough however to get into this game during the beta phase 3 when the amount of people in the game was a smaller amount and they seemed to be the kinder section of the player-base. I was absolutely terrified the first time I did Sastasha for the very reason I avoided online gaming in the past. I was worried I was a bad player and my party would get mad at me for not knowing what to do and being a bad player. I told my party that this was my first MMO and that this was my first dungeon. They were exceedingly kind and helpful to me and I can't thank them, and really the rest of the community from the beta, for the kindness they showed to new players like me. This is what kept me playing this game because I figured out that the majority of this game's community is relatively kind. Into release the community was very much the same: kind, helpful, and understanding. Until I got to Castrum Meridianum. While there were people who helped me and told me the mechanics, people in the group also started cussing out people who were watching cut-scenes. I was one of the first 50's on my server and thus ended up in with the "elitist" group of people who were all the stereotypes of people who race to get things done first and think that makes them better than everyone else. I leveled fast because I 1) genuinely liked the story, 2) wanted to level a sch after getting my drg to 50, and 3) I wanted to get into coils with my fc who randomly invited me to the fc around lvl 35. Continuing from before, I ran into a similar problem in Praetorium. I told them I was new, they said nothing, and got mad at me when I decided to just watch cut-scenes and they just locked me out of almost every boss.

This issue isn't new and it isn't just a problem with sub-50 dungeons. I've had people doing end-game dungeons, raids, primals, etc. get mad at me for trying to give them advice when it is blatantly obvious they are confused about something, don't know their rotation, etc. For instance, within the last two weeks I did an Ifrit HM for my roulette on my DRG because dps was a needed role. We get healers who appear to be i80+ and one of them starts in cleric stance. I know healers, and have even done it myself on my sch, occasionally come from soloing and don't realize they still have cleric stance on. Because I noticed he had cleric stance on in the middle of the fight I said "(healer's name), cleric stance" (I'm normally more polite, but I prefer surviving in the middle of a primal fight) and the response I get is "FUK U". I had no way of knowing that he was going to just dps and could have just told me that he knows that he has it on and that would have been enough. No need to rage.

The other side of this, however, in 50 dungeons/primals it's less the player's attitude and more their education on/knowledge of fights and how they should be geared. Echo is not an excuse to have sub-40 accessories and a lvl 41 weapon. It will not account for that much of a gap in what gear you have and what you should have. It also doesn't mean you can ignore mechanics. I've had all too many Titan HM's through trial roulette on my sch where we had to abandon because the party wasn't geared enough and the other healer and I couldn't keep up with the healing because of the constant need to raise people and the amount of damage they were taking, mainly from stomps and plumes. I've had a 40% echo buff on this and we still had to abandon. My one slight exception to this is the Titan HM group I had the other day. We won, but not without one of the dps being a carry. The other sch and I seemed to be the only people that were i80+ ( I'm not saying that's what they should have.) (sans maybe one of the tanks, but the other one had below 6k hp) and the dps were all below 4k-hp. We had a drg, mnk, blm, and smn. The blm and smn who have inherently lower hp to melee dps survived better than the melee dps. My issue however is with that drg. The mnk maybe died once to being surrounded by plumes and got hit off by landslide at 25%, but the drg got hit with a landslide pre-heart, survived, was getting hit by plumes, surviving with less than 1k hp, and I was having to waste lustrates to save him. He eventually died to plumes, not once, but twice. He then got hit off by a landslide during heart forcing me to dps while the other healer was in a jail. Upon the end I looked at his gear and what do I find? He's in AF with maybe one or two AF+1 pieces and might've had a darklight piece (enough to push him to the minimum ilvl entry requirement I assume) and all of his accessories are below lvl 45 and his weapon is a NQ Champion's Lance (the lance for the relic quest). What drops? The Lance of Crags. I don't have much of a problem with him getting a better weapon when he needed one. My problem is that I don't feel that he deserved it or really earned it since we practically carried him. I understand there are latency issues, but that doesn't excuse an issue with him taking more damage than he should be.

A case of not knowing the mechanics, but they accepted my advice: I was in an Amdapor Keep on roulette and the group I got was three people who joined because of the PS4 release and had queued together. They were helping their DRG friend clear the place, but at the beginning I noticed his health was low for a drg and was tempted to leave, but I did not. He had a lvl 41 lance and was in AF gear but AK no longer has any hard dps checks. I later found out that the mnk and tank had only ever cleared this place about once before so they were a little confused on boss mechanics and didn't know that there were mobs that are skippable. I told them the mechanics and they listened. We get to Anantaboga and we wipe a few times. I direct the tank where to tank the boss and tell them how they don't need to hide for Imminent Catastrophe. I also politely told the mnk to watch for the purple line so we don't get any Bubonic Clouds placed near us since we got them placed close to us a few times. At the end they all thanked me for my patience and for teaching them the mechanics.

My point is this: I have absolutely no problem with teaching someone mechanics, nor should anyone, but please, please, please, make sure you are geared enough to survive the fight/instance. Not knowing the mechanics is fixable during the instance, not being geared enough is not.

That's 50 stuff. Recently, I have had a lot of issues with low level roulette where I've stopped doing it all-together. Because I main drg, if I run into one that I notice isn't using like Heavy Thrust or should be using some resemblance of the rotation, I politely tell them that they should be using Heavy thrust or whatever their rotation should be and usually put the link to the thread that details the drg rotation in the chat so they have something to look back on if they forget. People usually say thank you but I have had times where, not the drg, but another party member got mad at me for trying to give them advice. That's with drg's. I've had issues when leveling my pld where the healer would cast cure/physick every 5 seconds or spam medica making it difficult for me to hold aggro. I ask them to hold back a little and/or tell them that medica generates a lot of enmity so they shouldn't be casting it continuously. I've been told thank you for letting them know and I've also had people swear at me and sometimes the healer just leaves. I'm not sure why people feel the need to rage at someone who was trying to politely give them advice.

I know I'm more ranting than anything, but there aren't only bad/rude players. There are a lot of new players who are also willing to learn and be kind, but, yes, there are a lot of people who feel the need to be rude and that anyone who gives them advice is a horrible, horrible person.

[faris]

Perhaps they were bots, good to know!

Bumping this because I want to ask people's opinions on something. If SE juggled early main scenario around a little and made more pre-15 guildhests (and made them where you have to actually have a working party in order to clear, rather than just burning something) compulsory, in order to get to the dungeons quests, do you think it'd work? It'd probably do nothing for bots, but it might help people new to functioning as a group far better.

[LukaviMewt]

I actually haven't had any issues. Since I started, I've only ever ran into one issue -- a tank in Copperbell that was a bot.
Generally when I announce that I'm new, or others announce that they are new, I only see them being met with advice and encouragement, and those of us getting the advice take it to heart. It's really sad to see that some of you are experiencing this, though. The main reason I've stuck around is that the community and player base seem so different from other games, that generally greet each other with "FUK U GTFO." :/

[Vahlnir]

They are often bots.

Or have a hard time communicating with the group. Had a "tank" last night in Totorak that took about 10min to respond to any and all questions/advice we were saying in party chat, when I finally asked if they could type something or anything, they said "Yes, sorry", which took them about 2min to type out somehow...I then proceeded to ask them if they had any aggro gaining abilities (They were not tanking at all up to that point) which was answered roughly 2-3min later with "What are aggro gaining abilities"...aside from seemingly not knowing that they were a tank at all, their communication was poor at best. Regardless I left 5 seconds later, but I tried for the better part of 10min to get through to this guy.

[Aegis]

In my first MMORPG (SWG)I spent a couple of mins talking to the NPC that warps you to the planet of your choice. I thought that in these strange new MMORPGs that everyone was a real person, including the NPCs.

For many of the console players this will be their first MMO. Get ready for a lot of stupid shit to go down. They will learn.

[Rennah]

I'm REALLY wondering if some of these are bot/rmt tanks, running through stuff for quick gil. Farmed the first three starter dungeons over 30 times on an alt for the foestriker's skirt, and nearly every tank used nothing but the riot blade combo and no flash, ignored all attempts at communication, and would just rush up to the first mob they saw, spam riot blade, and ignore everything else. Needless to say, those were some pretty rough runs...

[Tashigi]

Our community is a thousand times better than WoW's, even with the occasional...winner, yeah, I'll go with that.

Yeah, not really.
What the OP is illustrating is something common in just about every MMO.

[MirielleLavandre]

After a few conversations while running my low lvl roulette on my PLD, I've found that some PS4 players who are new to the game actually say they have a really hard time typing responses to party chat using the PS4. Maybe a controller issue or something (I'm on PC so not sure). Some have said it gets annoying to them to have to use the gamepad to type responses while trying to focus on playing. So...those 'bots' might not really be bots who can't respond, but maybe new PS4 players who get irritated trying to chat using a gamepad...I know I would hate it [I hate typing my ID and PW into netflix using a TV remote...so, yeah..].

[bonedeaf]

When I use the DF, I expect it be a training session. The first 50 levels; including Amdapor, WP, HM Primals are training. All of us were new at some point and did not know every single strat. Watching a video is a good idea, but you still have to put it into practice. People are sensitive when you point out flaws in their playing knowledge or skills. They can be easily offended and retaliate most of the time. I am not always kind, but I do try to help out and have as much patience as possible.

[Corfish]

So...those 'bots' might not really be bots who can't respond, but maybe new PS4 players who get irritated trying to chat using a gamepad...I know I would hate it [I hate typing my ID and PW into netflix using a TV remote...so, yeah..].

Whenever you run into someone like this, suggest that they get a USB Keyboard. If they're new to MMOs, or an MMO on a console, they may not realize that a USB (or even bluetooth) keyboard can work on the PS4.