DPS: Why is it so dang taboo?

[Tyrn]

Why is everyone so touchy about their dps when they're told to step it up?

Because everyone is a winner, that means they're always a winner and winners are never wrong, seeing something that might make their ineptitude apparent would break the delusion of always getting gold stars. They would rather stay ignorant and let the other people who get grouped with them put more effort in to make up for their shortcomings than come to terms with the idea that spending a few minutes on their class forums and 30 minutes on a dummy could give them a lot more power than what they got from weeks of grinding their relic and tomestones. Using the softest kid gloves on the planet still won't change how most people react to even the slightest suggestion of them being wrong which is their mind telling themselves "he's calling me dumb isn't he" and getting defensive. /rant

[AlphaFox]

I kinda have to agree, in a generation where you have to walk on eggshells to avoid offending anyone, at least in the US. People will find any reason to get mad, but I also can see it being in the way it is brought up to the person. I will gladly take advice and often ask for it but only if its done in a polite way and not one where I am being attacked.

[Ironos]

I kinda have to agree, in a generation where you have to walk on eggshells to avoid offending anyone, at least in the US.

I love how people act like this phenomena is new, and people love even more to blame "this generation." This isn't new, it's been around forever. It is impossible to not offend everyone, it's just much more obvious nowadays. Let's not forget the ages of when people were outright executed for "offending" certain people. The claims in this thread of so many people being coddled and "everyone is a winner mentality" seem kind of baseless too, unless they can provide objective proof of people in the world being so coddled. Also, connotation and tone are conveyed very, very poorly through text. Something that is meant politely might be read by the other person as offensive. The statement "Could you AoE please?" for example, can be read as either snide or polite.

[Darkstride]

We live in a world where people are empowered to feel a sense of entitlement. When anyone threatens to take away this security blanket of "it's my game, I'll play how I want", they get defensive.

Not everyone responds the same way, but it does seem to be a common issue as far as people underpeforming and being unwilling to improve or accept criticism (constructive or otherwise). It seems they would rather remain ignorant to the fact that they actively affect how others are able to experience the game in a group setting.

[Vele]

Depends on how the criticism is presented, the individual in question, and the content. I've resigned myself to babysitting or carrying bad players in roulettes without protest. No matter how nicely I've tried asking bards why they don't use minuet in lv60 content, or why "ice mages" don't use their fire skills, or why tanks try to do the entire dungeon in their dps stance, it's always met with very aggressive resistance, "this is how I do things", "don't tell me how to play", "you don't know what you're talking about", etc.

Hell I have a friend I've known for a couple years, she plays summoner, but one day I noticed she was leaving her garuda on sic. I kindly suggested she put it on obey so she can control when it uses contagion, and she immediately snipped at me that it's hard to control pets on ps4 and "I don't tell you how to play your job so don't tell me how to play mine".

I just stay quiet unless I'm actually asked to teach things, any advice I try to give (even if it comes complete with ":3" or "\o/" to seem more friendly) or any mention on playstyle is taken as a personal attack.

What are you supposed to do with this "I'm always right" mentality that so many players seem to have? It's especially detrimental in end-game raid progressions, I've seen a lot of groups disband once they hit the a3s wall because some people would rather throw a fit and blame everyone else than admit they made a mistake.

[Urthdigger]

Unfortunately, a lot of people pick DPS classes because they feel it's low responsibility, that they can slack off and nobody will even notice, let alone call them out on it. The trick is to treat DPS exactly the way they want to be treated, which is as useless, replaceable peons that nobody would notice if they were missing. It's a low responsibility tool that's easily replaceable, so don't worry about them getting offended, and if they continue to mouth off then just get a new one.

[Artemiz]

The main problem I see is that people are often unaware of just how bad they are at something, sometimes it's their role, sometimes it's giving advice. I mean, if someone spoke to me with this attitude

Unfortunately, a lot of people pick DPS classes because they feel it's low responsibility, that they can slack off and nobody will even notice, let alone call them out on it. The trick is to treat DPS exactly the way they want to be treated, which is as useless, replaceable peons that nobody would notice if they were missing. It's a low responsibility tool that's easily replaceable, so don't worry about them getting offended, and if they continue to mouth off then just get a new one.

They'd get told to **** off, plain and simple. I don't care if I was parsing lower than others, they'd still get told to **** off. Constructive criticism is an artform that few people actually have yet everyone thinks they do. It's not about an entitled generation or special snowflakes just basic human interaction. We're not talking about the migrant crisis or ISIS here, I can understand why people refuse to bow to political correctness when it comes to the greatest challenges of our time. For the most part we're talking about why that Stone Vigil run took longer than expected or why we wiped to a simple boss. A lot of the people I see giving "advice" are dicks about it, they come across as condecending, patronising, self-righteous dicks who would cry from the highest building if anyone spoke to them the way they speak to others.

If you're trying to put together an end game static then sure, that DPS who is holding everyone back either needs to shape up or go, it's the law of the jungle at that point and most can't take passengers in EG content, or have no desire too which is fair enough. These threads pop up though and usually have a nice screen cap which shows everyone behaving like little kids and the OP holding his hands up saying "I din do nuffin!!" during a 60 roulette run or something. I'm not trying to be a bad player apologist or anything, I'm just old enough to realise that moaning and insulting poeple won't suddenly change a casual player base into A4S clearing superstars. Some people are good at games, some aren't and we all mix together in the melting pot that is DF, learn to deal with it.

[autumn]

If you're trying to put together an end game static then sure, that DPS who is holding everyone back either needs to shape up or go, it's the law of the jungle at that point and most can't take passengers in EG content, or have no desire too which is fair enough. These threads pop up though and usually have a nice screen cap which shows everyone behaving like little kids and the OP holding his hands up saying "I din do nuffin!!" during a 60 roulette run or something. I'm not trying to be a bad player apologist or anything, I'm just old enough to realise that moaning and insulting poeple won't suddenly change a casual player base into A4S clearing superstars. Some people are good at games, some aren't and we all mix together in the melting pot that is DF, learn to deal with it.

Well said Artemiz!

[Taika]

Unfortunately, a lot of people pick DPS classes because they feel it's low responsibility, that they can slack off and nobody will even notice, let alone call them out on it.

It's strange this indeed seems to be the case, because from my perspective playing a DD job well in this game requires much more effort and focus than playing a healer or tank job well. A tank or healer not playing their absolute top game in Savage are much less likely to make the group lose the fight than if the DDs do the same, and very rare DD players are able to do actual good numbers in any difficult fight.

[Evangela]

Because nobody knows who's doing bad damage unless you use 3rd pt parser and want to get suspended by using its results to point out bad DPS.