Player skills, gears, mechanics and random thoughts.

[RylaiBluecrow]

(this is gonna be a long post of me talking, so skip if you want.)
Most of which is just me randomly talking about my thinking process.

So couple days ago, I've been hearing someone telling me, hey Ry, you know that xxxxx person? S/He's such a good tank. I said, oh yeah, why'd you think that? The person said, he solo tanked Ramuh.

Now, the Ramuh Ex is just an instance; not necessarily what I'm trying to argue here. What I would wanna talk more is the relationship between player gear and skill and mechanics.

How well can a player performs his or her job depends on all these three things: gears, skills and also mechanics restriction. I think everyone would agree with me on this. Thus with superior gears and profound understanding of a job, one can do a splendid job on whatever s/he is doing, perhaps even beyond the mechanics restriction.


For instance, this Ramuh Ex fight. With good gear and thorough understanding about this fight, a tank can one tank it, with the help of scholar lustrates. Because once tank is overcharged, potency of healing magic will gradually decrease as stacks getting higher. With 3 stacks of overcharge, healing magic will not affect that tank at all.

And it's clear that this trial cannot be done, if using the solo tank method, without scholars. Thus personal skills and gears can only matter so much that it's still part of the game.

Does skills matter? Yes it does. An experienced and skillful player will always maximize his or her performance close or even equal to what the character is able to achieve with the restriction of gears, mechanics and party layout.

I have heard of people blaming others for not "good" enough on their jobs because their gears or restriction of the particular job.

Monks aren't able to clear a huge pull has nothing to do with player skills.
Summoners aren't able to nuke mob has nothing to do with player skills.
A i100 tank can't solo Titan in Titan Ex has nothing to do with player skills.
Miners who just hit 50 with level 45 gears from NPC can't farm 2 star nodes has nothing to do with player skills.
Culinarians can't make armors has nothing to do with player skills.
Etc. etc.

This game, in the end, is powered by computers. Computers are working because of math. Not brainpower.

TL;DR Skills cannot overcome gears, mechanics and other restrictions. Nobody can be superman just because they have good skills.

Thank you for reading, that sure was a long post. Whew.

[Kassiekane]

Yeah, it's called a skill cap.

IMO, this community would be a lot better if people stopped focusing more on the skill of an individual, than the skill of a group. Because it's a group effort to clear content. It doesn't matter how good of tank I am, I can't prevent anyone getting hit by plumes. Alas, all of this is goes right over the common player's head.

[RylaiBluecrow]

It doesn't matter how good of tank I am, I can't prevent anyone getting hit by plumes.

this everytime.

[Garlyle]

Because it's a group effort to clear content. It doesn't matter how good of tank I am, I can't prevent anyone getting hit by plumes. Alas, all of this is goes right over the common player's head.

No matter how good of a healer I am, I can only raise people so much. The most I can do is do my best to conserve MP and raise Piety, but there's a point at which it won't matter how good of a healer I may be, I just can't.

So yeah. Similar thing.

[kyuven]

Yeah, it's called a skill cap.

IMO, this community would be a lot better if people stopped focusing more on the skill of an individual, than the skill of a group. Because it's a group effort to clear content. It doesn't matter how good of tank I am, I can't prevent anyone getting hit by plumes. Alas, all of this is goes right over the common player's head.

Preach.
Just because you have a bard, for example, doesn't mean you have license to go insane with your MP and TP.
My philosophy for content, especially difficult content, has always been than it's less getting the exact right people who are OMGSKILLZ in a group and going, it's more about getting people who can shut up and listen into the same dungeon at the same time consistently.
You don't win fights because your tank or healer are twitch gamers, you win because everyone was able to do their jobs together.
Which is why i get so exasperated at people saying content is "easy." Just because something is easy for you doesn't mean it's easy for everyone. And you matter less than the group's dynamics when it comes to doing group content.

[Crysten]

Yeah, it's called a skill cap.

IMO, this community would be a lot better if people stopped focusing more on the skill of an individual, than the skill of a group. Because it's a group effort to clear content. It doesn't matter how good of tank I am, I can't prevent anyone getting hit by plumes. Alas, all of this is goes right over the common player's head.

Exactly. The majority of fights in this game aren't as much a fight against a particular boss than they are the rest of your party.

Nothing infuriates me more than being in a Titan with a guy who fell off at 80% saying "gg, easy" at the end of it. Even more so if that guy is my co-healer.