why so mean?

[Niwashi]

Because a lot of "noobs" don't listen to the advice given. So we've become jaded about giving wasted advice.

I don't think that's true. While rude players are a minority, rude newcomers or those who won't try to take advice are such a minuscule minority it would be unlikely you'd ever meet two of them. The problem is that a lot of experienced players say things they may intend as "advice" but which are completely meaningless to an actual newcomer. If you give someone advanced high-level instructions when they're still trying to work out the most basic aspects of controlling their character, they aren't going to suddenly be able to play as though they've been playing MMOs for years and have run this specific content a hundred times. Too many players regard that inability to accumulate years of experience in a couple seconds as meaning the newcomer "doesn't listen", and then they get mad at being "ignored" by someone who never had a chance to do anything else.

Of course, part of the difficulty lies in the fact that the person giving the advice likely has no idea what experience level the newcomer is actually at. That same advice that's complete gibberish to one new player may be just the piece that another new player needs to bring together a lot of half-understood information. The result (from the advice-giver's perspective): One player was told this and got better, another player was told this and nothing changed. So clearly the one that didn't change must be ignoring me. It's taking the only pieces of information available and forming an erroneous conclusion from them.

[SeraviEdalborez]

The problem is that a lot of experienced players say things they may intend as "advice" but which are completely meaningless to an actual newcomer. If you give someone advanced high-level instructions when they're still trying to work out the most basic aspects of controlling their character, they aren't going to suddenly be able to play as though they've been playing MMOs for years and have run this specific content a hundred times. Too many players regard that inability to accumulate years of experience in a couple seconds as meaning the newcomer "doesn't listen", and then they get mad at being "ignored" by someone who never had a chance to do anything else.

Of course, part of the difficulty lies in the fact that the person giving the advice likely has no idea what experience level the newcomer is actually at. That same advice that's complete gibberish to one new player may be just the piece that another new player needs to bring together a lot of half-understood information. The result (from the advice-giver's perspective): One player was told this and got better, another player was told this and nothing changed. So clearly the one that didn't change must be ignoring me. It's taking the only pieces of information available and forming an erroneous conclusion from them.

To give very specific examples: over the past few months I have seen dozens of Black Mages and Dragoons doing... very sub-optimal things in level 50 dungeons (Dragoons doing Full Thrust combo only, no Heavy Thrust; BLMs doing single-target rotation [sometimes using Fire 3 only] where AoE would be preferred). In full i90, or nearly full i100. These cannot be "new" players. They must have at least SOME semblance of how to play.

Almost verbatim I open with "Hey (name), not meaning to be rude but can I offer some advice? You should try (rotation). It will work better." They either say nothing or otherwise do not make any effort to reciprocate. I can recall maybe 1 in 50 cases where they actually took the advice and improved on the spot.

I wouldn't get upset with low level players unless they were exceptionally disruptive. But this, I don't think, is an unreasonable standard.

[Niwashi]

Almost verbatim I open with "Hey (name), not meaning to be rude but can I offer some advice? You should try (rotation). It will work better." They either say nothing or otherwise do not make any effort to reciprocate. I can recall maybe 1 in 50 cases where they actually took the advice and improved on the spot.

Yes, that's just the sort of thing I mean. The advice may be useful, but players who can take such advice immediately and improve on the spot are extremely rare. Most players would have to take the advice and later after the dungeon is over re-check how the skills work together and try it out on some overworld mobs until they get the hang of it. Then maybe in their next run they'll be able to do better, but you won't see it in the run where you gave them the advice. Whenever you give advice, you should assume it's advice for how to do better on their next run. You should never expect immediate changes in a player's capabilities just because they've gotten some advice, even if the advice itself is good.

As to whether they say anything in reply, was the group stopped there long enough they'd have a chance to? I can't count the number of times I've started to type out a reply to something but then the group took off and I had to abandon that message to grab my controller so I could go with them.

[SeraviEdalborez]

Whenever you give advice, you should assume it's advice for how to do better on their next run. You should never expect immediate changes in a player's capabilities just because they've gotten some advice, even if the advice itself is good.

As to whether they say anything in reply, was the group stopped there long enough they'd have a chance to? I can't count the number of times I've started to type out a reply to something but then the group took off and I had to abandon that message to grab my controller so I could go with them.

I don't understand though why it's unreasonable for them to try out the new advice mid-run (or rather why it is acceptable that they can do it "next time"). Because the standards are lower? Because it's not (say) First Coil or Titan HM?

Yes, it was at breaks between bosses or pulls in most cases. In some rare cases the party stopped while we addressed this.

[Kloe]

Almost verbatim I open with "Hey (name), not meaning to be rude but can I offer some advice? You should try (rotation). It will work better." They either say nothing or otherwise do not make any effort to reciprocate. I can recall maybe 1 in 50 cases where they actually took the advice and improved on the spot.

The example message you send to players "Hey (name), not meaning to be rude but..." is not as nice as you think it is. This may be why you have such a high rate of people ignoring you and not following your advice. I think the tone of that message is very similar to the saying "i'm not racists, but..." where you say something that actually is racist and think it's ok just because you said you're not racist. The truth is you are being kind of rude even if your intentions are good. The way you're saying it will come off as "you are bad at your job, so do this". Which is not going to make anyone feel good and want to follow advice. A better approach would be to simply ask them if they are new to the dungeon, then based off of their answer of "yes" you could say something like "since you are new to the dungeon, would you like some tips on ABC". If their answer is "no", then you could say something like "i've noticed you're having trouble with ABC, would you be open to some advice?". If they say no then you know what kind of person you're dealing with and either carry on with them not doing things correctly, or find a new group if it's causing big problems. You have to be careful how you word things. It may sound good in your head, but it might not sound as good to someone else. I don't want to spark a debate over this subject, I just simply wanted to let you be aware of this so that you can try something new next time and hopefully have a better experience.

[Jarvix]

To Kloe

ROFLMAO--- Call a Spade a Spade and stop with the touchy feely babble. He is not talking about a new player. I have seen plenty of those lvl 50's myself. They are the ones that keep gold spammers in buisness getting their toons Power Leveled.

[Enkidoh]

Redmoontaby, those people are not worth worrying about - unfortunately as Seravi mentioned a lot of stupid players have bred a high amount of cynicism in high level players, to the point they now mostly unjustly regard all 'newbies' (that is, new players like you who are still learning and are trying their best) as 'noobs' (players who just like to cause problems for everyone and refuse to listen to anything anyone tells them.). Luckily though, we're not all like that! Sadly you just had a bad experience with the less-desirable side of the game. But don't despair! There are plenty of kind and considerate people in the game as well - you just have to take the bad with the good.

Also, don't feel bad about not understanding the vast amount of terms and abbreviations used in the game - it can be very impenetrable to a player new to MMOs such as yourself. A very good resource for learning 'the lingo' so to speak used in the game however can be found here: http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Di...%20and%20Slang

[redmoontabby]

thank you i appreciate your comments and thank you for the dictionary i was having trouble finding one for this game.

[Eye_Gore]

This being my first also I did run into some d-bags. But for the most part I have run into more helpful people.. Heck I made it all the way to Halitali before I knew what a tank was. That was where the d-bags were. Once I started to figure out what I was suppose to be doing things were going better. When I made it to Stine Vigil at first I knew I had to watch for the roaming Aevis but I couldn't tell which one it was. When I pulled a whole mob of them, we were able to kill them, but at the next one the healer just stopped healing me and let me die. Then I get, "hey have you ever tanked this dungeon before?". So I said no. Then came all the "omg!" "oh wtf".

So I guess some people just skip their first time into a dungeon and proceed right to having doing it multiple times. Of course I could have flipped out on them and started tearing them a new a-hole. But I kept my composure and pressed on. They proceeded to give advice but in a very condescending rash way. I try to just take it all with a grain of salt.

Luckily the real d-bags for me anyways have been very few. Some people just don't realize that there are people playing a game of this type for the first time, and if you are not up to their standards then you are trash, because again they all forget that they were new once.

Its a fun game, its fun to play, don't let the d-bags ruin it for you. Don't worry about the terms either, I still don't know what most of them are and I have 3 classes over lvl 45, and 2 over 40, and still no clue about alot of things.

[Moqi]

Ignore them, really. I generally help out if the other player's receptive (a lot has to do with attitude). Fortunately most people aren't like that. There are a lot of linkshell for new players with friendly people. You could try joining a couple if you don't feel like using DF.