Is progressive content or the community to blame for player skill gap?

[bswpayton]

So I ask this question, because for instance lets say your playing an rpg well in that rpg pretty much to get to that journey everyone has to take the same path to get to said destination. And I believe this gives you time to go at your own pace learn and develop at your own skill level.

In a game such as this you are expected to at least according to the forums to be on a skill level of people that who have been playing far longer than yourself. That being said while skipping many of the challenging themes along the path to get to the most current challenging content. For instance how this game is set up you have these options for everything pre hw, put up a party in pf, run unsync , or competently skip any of the old challenging content. Which means no raids before Alexander realistically nobody does binding coils if they do ,its unsync, or said player would have to have patience to wait hours to get it in a duty finder. No prior experience with 24 main raids, unless you que up on a Sunday and get lucky. And no real legitimate experience with any type of primals in the Arr series if all ran unsync unless you include hard moods which is a far cry from extremes. The only real challenge before hw for someone that doesnt go out of their way to do these alternative content options would be aurum vale and then that isnt even required either. So that being said I just wonder how the community expects someone who skipped all this content , to be good when they get to ravana, or they get to any of the other primals. You are essentially going from cake walk content into something that's suppose to be challenging although according to the forums everything in the game is easy.

I mention the rpg because for instance ff 15 I havent finished it yet but essentially everyone has the same path there with no skip routes there are no other routes, you have to progress from boss to boss learning from each. I just wanted to somewhat defend players that haven't been around that long and just how they get constantly ragged on. Yea its players that never use fire 3, or tanks that don't hold arggo, but I think this is more rare than the ones who actually want to learn how to play the game. And if I read these forums before I started I prob wouldn't have joined the game because it seems as tho people don't really care about new players are if they want to play this game step by step. If you want people to get on your level then remember how long it took you to get to said level, or that maybe you didnt come to the game when their was content that was considered irrelevant and you had time to do and practice all of it to the point you are at in the game now. Ive played my part to running people through unsync stuff but its literally the only way for trials, rushing dungeons for new players, I actually feel bad about this sometimes. Not speaking up when I could asking why a player isnt using their aoes, and things of that nature. But I dont leave duties I've never cussed anyone out, I have always given people a chance and Id like to think that makes better players. Instead of telling people how they suck and that every piece of content in the game your playing is easy and if they dont catch on then they are just horrible.

To be a good sports player you practice, to make good grades in college you study, to be a good parent you work on it, so the same goes here you cant expect people to skip so much content and then be a good player and this isnt a jump potion thread. I'm actually for jump potions because I know whats gona happen to hw when new stuff comes out anyone who wants to go through that content will be left in the dust because its not the current thing to do. Sorry for the long rant people prob want even read all of this but its just simply a call to not be so quick to judge, and not always look through content from your own eyes alone.

[Chronons]

I think you raise some interesting points. I played the game a little when it first launched on console, and stopped playing until a couple of months before Heavensward released. When I came back I determined that I was going to do all of the content up to that point as close to how other players had originally experienced it. Meaning I wasn't going to unsync anything for my first run of it. My personal experience was that many others didn't get this mentality nor were they really interested in helping with it. I couldn't even get members of large FCs to run Ramuh Ex synced with me. I ended up spending two weeks in DF (waiting forever for ques) running it until a group of us in DF -that had met a few times trying to do it (from different servers)- finally cleared it.

I have thus far tanked everything in the game synced barring parts of savage Coil and Alex. I would love to tackle those, but college and working eat up a lot of my time unfortunately. I am however what I deem as a competent tank, who can clear content, stance dance dps very well, use the meta tank rotations, and solo old EX primals.

My point being that running the original content as intended WILL UNDOUBTEDLY make you a better player in the game. The problem is that veteran players are largely uninterested in running old content synced and that there is not a large enough new player base to make this activities viable. The reality is they only way to fix it is to remove the ability to unsync content or highly incentivise running it synced. Both of which are extremely unpopular with the largely casual player base. Therefore, the problem resides both within the community and in the progression models.

[bswpayton]

I think you raise some interesting points. I played the game a little when it first launched on console, and stopped playing until a couple of months n .

Its a double headed monster , I totally get why people dont like to run this content, but at the same time by not running it or running it and quiting after one mistake. I feel like its a disservice to those whom want to gain more kill in the game, where as judging from youtube some players had 20 - 30 plus goes on a titan extreme or a ramuh something of the sort before they even clear. Players today are lucky to even get 2 to 3 chances at a sync run. And this will only get much worse once storm blood comes out , many will not get their first legit challenge until the expansion. I for one knowing this I would take this into account before I left a trail or went on about how horrible someone else was for not grasping on but thats just me.

[zcrash970]

To answer your question, it is because of the game and the community that there is a massive skill gap. The game practically teaches you very little when it comes class/job and mechanics. There's also the massive learning curve when it comes to this game. Just doing the MSQ does not even come close to preparing you for ex primals, not to mention savage raids. It sorta prepares you for normal 8-man and 24-man raids. You literally can get away with spamming one or two skills for the msq and class/job story.

As for the community, the fault belong belong with the top players and the low skill players. You're right when many of the top tier players doesn't want to deal with or give the bottom tier players a chance, but let's face facts, many of those low skill players just plain out do not want to learn or just cannot think for themselves or just figure out the basics. Do you want to know how many times I see a DRG not using heavy thrust or chaos thrust combo or how many times I have tell a tank to use a stance? Or how many times I see someone fail the same mechanic over and over again. Most players would instantly get better if they read their jobs' freaking tooltips.

I agree with you where you said that the higher skill players should offer newer players help and show them the ropes, but you can't honestly believe everyone is going to be that nice. This is a game. A lot of people aren't going to waste their time on somebody that they never met before or probably will never see again. Besides it isn't like the more experience players do not help the community. There are countless of online guides for every single aspect of this game. The top tier players wrote/film them to help people figure their jobs and mechanics. Do you know how many hours it takes to write a good guide? It takes hours of experimenting, filming, editing, and researching. They can help more people by making guides than by teaching someone in game.

Honestly, this game is not hard to be good at as long as you think and have common sense.

[Jpec07]

There's a skill gap and there's an experience gap. I think a lot of people tend to confuse the two (especially here), and that the skill gap isn't nearly as wide as most people think.

The experience gap is caused by impatient players who can't be bothered to teach others how to get through content, and who leave at the first sign of trouble. This causes a situation where PF is filled with parties that require experience to get in. This leads to a situation where the only way to get experience is to have experience, which leaves new players who don't have connections in the dust.

I do think the skill gap is fed by the experience gap, and that the perception of the skill gap is amplified by it as well. People see others fail to mechanics they failed to explain (but that were explained to them only after they themselves failed), and assume the person who failed is bad--when in fact, they just didn't know what to look for. Many people also forget that raid awareness is a learned and practiced skill, and that we were all n00bz at one point.

[Kosmos992k]

There's a skill gap and there's an experience gap. I think a lot of people tend to confuse the two (especially here), and that the skill gap isn't nearly as wide as most people think.**snip** People see others fail to mechanics they failed to explain (but that were explained to them only after they themselves failed), and assume the person who failed is bad--when in fact, they just didn't know what to look for. Many people also forget that raid awareness is a learned and practiced skill, and that we were all n00bz at one point.

Indeed.

I think the problem with these gaps are community based. It is the community that deems it OK to demand that all players view online videos prior to actually playing the game, and then castigates those who do not. For me, at least 90% of learning mechanics and boss fights in general happens during play, and at best 10% comes from reading about it or watching a video.

If more people learned mechanics by doing them, instead of memorizing the content of a how to video, we'd have better players in general. But the prevailing attitude in the community goes against that, calling you a 'bad' if you fail to watch some video or another.

[Miste]

Indeed.

I think the problem with these gaps are community based. It is the community that deems it OK to demand that all players view online videos prior to actually playing the game, and then castigates those who do not.

Are you sure most of the community feels that way though? I think most people agree that people need time to learn and I don't see tooooo many people say things like you have to watch a video prior to doing the content nor do I agree with that. People should be able to try the content blind if they want to.




As for topic...both sides of the community have bad apples. We have some people impatient and not willing to give new players time to learn, but we also have some new players who insult people who try to give them help or advice and don't actually try to learn. So I just don't know about making it out to be one side is the only one at fault for some players lack of skill.

In general blaming our peers for our own lack of knowledge or skill just doesn't work. If someone felt they were not getting taught properly usually it would fall to the teacher not your fellow peers right? The teacher is the one with the obligation to teach you, not your classmates.

So if mentors aren't helping then yeah they signed up to help they should be helping, but normal other players...they don't actually have any obligation to spend the time trying to teach others anything really.

Despite all that though insulting people for playing not up to your personal standards is definitely wrong, but so is insulting people who offer help or advice (unless they are throwing out insulting words in their advice). I've seen both happen so I don't agree it is only the knowledgeable/skilled players who are causing problems.

[Tarta]

IGud

That. +1

I come from old school MMO era. Everquest - good luck finding proper kill videos that weren't complete trash or weren't swamped with a dozen player characters swamping the screen.
You had to do a fight to learn a fight.
Just do it.
Keep doing it.
Eventually you learn it.
Once you learn it you improve the fight, you access shortcuts once you reach phases faster. You make the fight yours.
Lots of people don't have the time to do this anymore. I sure don't. I used to, but now...not sure.
So instead you use kill videos to skip 12-15 hours of wipes and learning and get into a particular strat to kill the boss. It's a shortcut. It doesn't breed better players however. It can over long periods of time, but it won't off the bat.

[bswpayton]

There's a skill gap and there's an experience gap. I think a lot t.

So where does that leave us this summer, when for instance binding coil is a no go now will be then, people dont even like Alexander now, so I can actually see it becoming even worse to try and do that binding coil is now because at least binding coil had a good story. All primals below storm blood with be the same challenge as they are now gettin in a sync party to do them and some people just want deal with the hassle.

So will have people who the hardest actual content they would have done is dungeons thrust into whatever crazy primals or raids are in storm blood with little experience with those type mechanics

[SendohJin]

So will have people who the hardest actual content they would have done is dungeons thrust into whatever crazy primals or raids are in storm blood with little experience with those type mechanics

they won't be thrust into EX Primals and Omega Savage, they don't have to do those. they can still do Omega Normal mode and just do the Primals in the story mode.