Fan Census: This is embarrassing

[Caoihmin]

i believe O'bama is speaking on this very issue tonight during his Presidential address. Please tune in fellow Americans.

This embarrassment touches us ALL.

TL;DR -- who cares.

[Miitan]

[RANT]

From personal experience:

1. People in the West have no drive.

My first static (which started on SCoB) started as 8 people who, as a complete team, showed up for...1 raid. Seriously, we had 1 raid as a full static before people a.) stopped showing up on time b.) stopped showing up at all c.) gave feeble excuses for why they couldn't attend...the list goes on. Sure, real life does sometimes clash with raid times and you won't be able to make it, but do you really need to see granny every Wednesday, the one day everyone else can make, when you could see her on Thursday instead? Do you really need to get drunk every Friday night and have nothing to show for it but a splitting headache on Saturday morning? Chances are you don't, but people will slack off and play the Real Life card when it suits them. They will turn up when they feel like it and, when the team goes nowhere, they'll just leave and hope to latch onto someone else who'll carry them through the content.

2. The constant reinforcement of the idea that "Nobody gets left behind".

We're brought up with the mindset that we're all special snowflakes and we can do anything! What was that? I can't do something?

"THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH IT!"
"MAKE IT SO I CAN DO IT! I SHOULD BE SPECIAL TOO!"
"I'M GOING TO QUIT!"

If we have to put effort into something, like improving ourselves, it's too much for us. We can't do it. The world should change to accommodate us, we shouldn't have to change. Guess what? When everyone is a special snowflake, everyone is the same. I believe there are very few people who are bad in such an irredeemable way that there's no hope, but you can't get better at something if you refuse to put in the effort and if you don't want to put in the effort? That's fine. That's a valid choice. Just don't complain if you don't make any progress.

[/RANT]

Sure there are exceptions to the above, otherwise all of the NA/EU servers would be on <1%, but it goes a long way to explaining why we trail the JP servers by such a large margin.

tl;dr - People in the West don't care enough to beat the content but do care enough to moan about not being able to beat the content.

[Zohar_Lahar]

The worst part is simply that these hardcore fights lock out a major story arc. Which, considering how I recall the way the "raiding community" in FFXI treated the RotZ story progression, is completely insane and bizarre to me.

[Eidolon]

The worst part is simply that these hardcore fights lock out a major story arc. Which, considering how I recall the way the "raiding community" in FFXI treated the RotZ story progression, is completely insane and bizarre to me.

It's not as major as it seems. It gives answers to what has happened, but it doesn't really hold any baring on anything going forward. Especially since it becomes a "Don't ask, don't tell" story.

[Yukiko]

Interesting, did someone make a connection to lag issues?

1st JP
2nd NA
3rd EU

well, not representative, but still - you should at least consider it a fragment of the problem!

Edit: It is fun if you travel to NA or JP and play FFXIV... the difference is overwhelming...

[Miitan]

Interesting, did someone make a connection to lag issues?

1st JP
2nd NA
3rd EU

well, not representative, but still - you should at least consider it a fragment of the problem!

Edit: It is fun if you travel to NA or JP and play FFXIV... the difference is overwhelming...

Lag is the fallback excuse in 95% of cases when someone has failed to react in time to a mechanic. It's the actual reason the other 5% of times unless your internet currently consists of two cups tied together with string.

PS: I live in the EU and I can count the times I've actually had lag issues without having to resort to my toes.

[Gardes]

JP servers: everyone close to Japan. You know, like Australia and New Zealand, and south-east Asia?
NA servers: everyone close to the US.

Not everyone. I play in Hyperion due to legacy friends even though I'm in asia and my ping is at 300 but I've completed every single fight in the game, dodged landslides, dodged cauterize, dodged divebombs just fine. I don't even consider myself to have better than average reaction time considering I've compared myself to my irl friends and just lose to them when it comes to video games. So I tend to see players blaming having that much latency (the latency I play at) to be a pretty invalid excuse. But that's just me.

[Adire]

Look at more casual friendly games like shooters, particularly ones developed in the West, and you'll see that the best of the best in NA can, and more often than not do, defeat the best of the best Japanese players in direct competitions.

As people have said, people should only be embarrassed (assuming it is even worth getting embarrassed about, which in my opinion it's not) if they are defeated at a personal level. Japan's culture being one that encourages planning and teamwork over one that encourages individualism and the fact that coil takes an investment to complete is why these numbers are as they are. This is not a good example of a competition between players, and if anything only highlights that a culture more about long term devotion to completing a goal succeeds in a challenge that requires as such more than a culture that is not about it.

Trying to get people to feel embarrassed over such a broad, impersonal "loss" like this is silly. That being said though, I would not at all be surprised if the average FFXIV JP player is more skilled at this game than the average NA player. Much like as said before, MMOs in general are an investment, and the average JP player is more willing to invest in them than the average NA player I imagine. Willing to try harder, learn more, etc.

But it is no accurate measure of personal skill potential of the players in either location. JP players just overall put more time and effort into things. It is not a direct competition as such. In a direct competition in a game with a much more even playing field, with less investment and time required to learn content (such as in an FPS), I think you'd see less of a gap between player skill at the game overall. So there's no reason to feel embarrassed.

[Seiryuukishi]

I am sorry but I fail to see the problem. If you're trying to coerce people into doing something you feel is obligatory to gaming in MMOs you've made a grave misstep. Raiding is optional not required.

[Massterchef]

It's a culture difference. A higher majority in Japan play this game to down content. Simple as that. NA players can scapegoat coil sales, a toxic community, or elitism, but the truth is if you were driven to pursue content, these wouldn't matter and you would probably be creating or actively looking for a group that fits your schedule. After-all finding 7 other people with a similar mindset out of a couple thousand on all NA servers doesn't sound like too difficult a task. Not to mention, sales, elitism, and all that exists on JP servers but they're still clearing content on a large scale in comparison to us.