DPS: Why is it so dang taboo?

[SnugglesD]

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First, that's not treating a person like a human being. That's treating them like a deranged individual that could end your life if they get the impression that you don't think the world revolves around them. Carefully guarding every word you say takes way more effort than just being honest. Not everyone can be president or a professional athlete and no one born outside of a royal family is a princess. Its OK to say that.

And to your other point, in all my experience in the year and a half ive played this game, the best I've seen someone take positive, constructive critisism from someone they didn't already know was "lol k." It doesn't matter how nicely try and give advice, you'll most likely be met with yhe most common thing I've seen: " stfu I know my fucking job."

[Ilitsa]

First, that's not treating a person like a human being. That's treating them like a deranged individual that could end your life if they get the impression that you don't think the world revolves around them. Carefully guarding every word you say takes way more effort than just being honest. Not everyone can be president or a professional athlete and no one born outside of a royal family is a princess. Its OK to say that.

And to your other point, in all my experience in the year and a half ive played this game, the best I've seen someone take positive, constructive critisism from someone they didn't already know was "lol k." It doesn't matter how nicely try and give advice, you'll most likely be met with yhe most common thing I've seen: " stfu I know my fucking job."

I'm not saying people should walk on eggshells or anything, I'm talking about manners, politeness, things expected of an adult individual in the real world. I don't know about you, but I treat and carry myself online the same way I do irl. I was raised to not go out of my way to be crass towards people, to treat them with respect until they've proven to not deserve it, and to treat people the way I wish to be treated. I say please, and thank you, and I don't find the general "trolling" to be appropriate human behavior. There's a LARGE leap from being respectful, and mindful that you're interacting with another human being and what you're implying.

As for the other point, I did say I know not EVERYONE acts the way I said, so I don't know what you're trying to point out with that, sorry.

[Nagrom]

Honestly the answer is complicated, and I mostly see this asked from people who are dedicated tanks or healers. You notice bad dps cause each party gets 2-4 of them, and as the aforementioned classes you very rarely outside leveling/full party run into another tank or healer.

Now that's out of the way, we can unpack the answer to the question. Dps have no tools to know how much dps they are doing cause SE is more worried about feelings than results. Since dps always come in 2-4 per group, it means the slacking dps may not even know they are bad cause the other 1-3 dps provide the results needed to get through all but the toughest dps checks. It's akin to someone being moved up grades without being taught anything, then slapping them with the unfeeling hand of reality when their professor reads aloud their essay that sounds like a 5th grader wrote it while high on cough syrup to the thunderous laughter of their peers.

The above is enough, but frankly it gets better. Most dps have a chip on their shoulder, placed there by the fact the game makes it crystal clear they are replaceable low value resources. The bonus for a duty is almost never for dps, commendations hardly fall your way, and if a group is awful you often grit your teeth cause 30mins for leaving on top of the 10-30mins you'll wait to get in another one means you wasted most of your playtime for the day.

Now mix those two together and you have the witch's brew that answers your question.

[tjw]

The above is enough, but frankly it gets better. Most dps have a chip on their shoulder, placed there by the fact the game makes it crystal clear they are replaceable low value resources. The bonus for a duty is almost never for dps, commendations hardly fall your way, and if a group is awful you often grit your teeth cause 30mins for leaving on top of the 10-30mins you'll wait to get in another one means you wasted most of your playtime for the day.

If that's the case, then shouldn't DPS be even MORE motivated to improve their damage so they don't have to spend as much time in that duty as possible?

[KaijinRhada]

If there's one thing I know, some people accept advice with good graces (and better if you're courteous about it), but on the other hand no matter how polite a person can be, there is a chance you'll be faced with a prickly pear (and I've seen that happen more than a handful of times). There's no actual built in measure of how well your DPS does (don't bring up the aggro meter, it is an inaccurate metric to use), so it falls to paying attention to what DPS do, which then falls apart if you don't really know that DPS class well in the first place. I miss having Skada. ~_~

If that's the case, then shouldn't DPS be even MORE motivated to improve their damage so they don't have to spend as much time in that duty as possible?

If taking a long time in an instance on a regular basis is normal, while doing it in approximately twenty minutes is rare, then their usual clear time would just be the norm. It just falls under the fact they may not know better and keep on going as they are, be it that they see no need to improve, can't be bothered, or don't know how.

[Nagrom]

If that's the case, then shouldn't DPS be even MORE motivated to improve their damage so they don't have to spend as much time in that duty as possible?

If you asked me when I was six who the fastest person on the planet was, I would have told you it was me. I ran like the wind and I knew it, and when you run without a stop watch or against other people you take it as fact. It wasn't until my first track meet as a kid that I found out maybe I could improve, mostly cause coming in third and seeing the backs of two other people ahead of you makes it rather obvious. We don't have that in XIV, cause outside a third party tool we are racing ourselves and winning to the surprise of none. The game needs a way to tell people their results, even if it's a score card handed out by the server after exiting the dungeon.

Motivation doesn't mean much if you already think you're at the top of your game. What we have now thanks to a lack of feedback from the system is a bunch of people thinking they are a carpenter, but they are putting in screws with a hammer.

[Alahra]

Motivation doesn't mean much if you already think you're at the top of your game. What we have now thanks to a lack of feedback from the system is a bunch of people thinking they are a carpenter, but they are putting in screws with a hammer.

This is what it comes down to. I've known several poor or mediocre DPS who frequently complained about long dungeon runs—fully convinced that they were getting paired with "bad" DPS because there's no way for them to really know it's the other person carrying them when they get a faster run.

[Genaxx]

If you asked me when I was six who the fastest person on the planet was, I would have told you it was me. I ran like the wind and I knew it, and when you run without a stop watch or against other people you take it as fact. It wasn't until my first track meet as a kid that I found out maybe I could improve, mostly cause coming in third and seeing the backs of two other people ahead of you makes it rather obvious. We don't have that in XIV, cause outside a third party tool we are racing ourselves and winning to the surprise of none. The game needs a way to tell people their results, even if it's a score card handed out by the server after exiting the dungeon.

Motivation doesn't mean much if you already think you're at the top of your game. What we have now thanks to a lack of feedback from the system is a bunch of people thinking they are a carpenter, but they are putting in screws with a hammer.

I believe this is the real issue, lack of feedback from the game. No one has ever been shown that they are performing badly whether that be from parsers, a grade at the end of a dungeon, based on the current party or the server average. It's the mentality of 'well i've never been told I was a bad player so theres nothing wrong'.

They need to see hard facts from the game, not people they're paired up with in the DF otherwise its just seen as an attack. You never hear scoreboards being toxic or elitest do you?

Im sure if anyone run dungeons and saw at the end of almost every run;
'Average DPS rank for your class: B'
'Your DPS rank: E'

They would start to think wow it wasn't people just being nasty, i'm doing quite badly compared to everyone else, I should step up my game.

And I believe that this shouldn't be something optional like S3. It should be private to the player at the end of every instance based on your job, level, ilvl and the server/data center average.

[Revenant9]

I think something XI really did right and viewing the constant complaints over these situations it's really made me appreciate how vital that gameplay was to teamwork.

Basically outside of BST ( which you needed to have 30 anyway just to unlock ) back in the day, XI forced players to LEARN their job or simply not hit cap, now I'm sure a lot of hardcore casuals will be against this, and that's fine I fully endorse games having options for BOTH kinds of players, but the reality is XI literally forced 99% of the sub base to learn their job, learn it well otherwise they would not hit the level cap or even get the majority of the gear they would want.

The most important thing here as to WHY this was a good thing, comes down to WHY we see constant complaining in "modern" ( ie wow clones ) mmo's, it really started with WOW as it was the first mmo to really let you hit cap easily and solo. Most mmo's have followed this since.

Where this creates the core of the problem is, yes we understand not everyone can play for 3-4 hours a day or 24/7, but it creates a major problem in almost all mmo's for end game, this problem is that anyone can literally level up to cap fast, but play around that of a lvl 5-10.

With XI I fully admit that the xp grind was absurdly over the top, but because of being forced to xp with real people, because of facing punishments if you played stupid, and because you had to xp for so long, a massive portion of XI population played their jobs well, they knew their jobs, and they knew and prepared themselves for end game content, sure we had the odd "server feels sorry for this player" who made it to 75 ( I'm talking pre treasures here ok ) but this was a very rare thing.

What we face today is everyone being able to easily make it to cap in a few days while never really understanding mechanics, party roles and playing their job well. I love XIV and think it's a great game but it suffers issues like 99% of modern mmo's when it comes to end game situations.

The most ironic thing of all is that mmo's have become very ANTI social due to how their heavy solo emphasis is, let's be honest XIV and most mmo's might as well be ultra extended long solo rpg's, with a repetitive end game online and patch tacked on every few months, that's what mmo's are for the most part today and why we continue to see the same complaint threads week after week.

The community of XIV may indeed be "nice" compared to many mmo's today, but vs XI community in the golden age even it pales in comparison, DF is a prime example of anti social mmo behavior, I can still remember wandering around almost any location in XI and total strangers being VERY pleasant and willing to take time out to help strangers, to organize and do social things EVERY day or week with lots and lots of people, the closest thing we even see like that is perhaps some savage static content.

How many times do we hop on a df dungeon and at most there is a hello at the start ? the most social interaction I think I've seen is on raids where people rage or joke with eachother, that's the kind of social environment most mmo's have turned into, so it's no wonder with the model these games have turned into since wow that thing remain how they are, people talk about rose tinted glasses I will be the first to admit that XI was not perfect but it certainly DID create a good strong social and skilled player base, and that is something that should exist in these games still but never will as long as players are given a faceroll time to end game and not preparing them and then people screaming at them for sucking, well blame the model these games use now that the heart of the problem.