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

[Mirateski]

Who had higher iLvL ?

There was an approximately 300 hp difference between the two bards. I had the same ilv as the higher dps bard. I'd say the other bard was probably in like, 255? 250 maybe at worst? And the other bard and I were 258.

On the topic of confusing markers, though - I've lost count of the number of people I've had to tell in WoD that the lightning is a stack, because that exact same marker is used as a spread in EVERY OTHER ENCOUNTER IT'S EVER FEATURED IN. Confusing much?

And usually they still die because I type slow. >>

[viewtyjoe]

In my experience, it's a player issue. A large chunk of the player base has no desire to learn how to be good and wants no expectations on their performance, and is unwilling to change. Dungeons, 24-mans, and story versions of raids and primals are built for them. If someone wants to learn, they will seek knowledge from other players or outside resources and learn, and they will join the serious players in being good at their job. The players who have no desire to learn their job will always be problems.

[Judge_Xero]

In my experience, it's a player issue. A large chunk of the player base has no desire to learn how to be good and wants no expectations on their performance, and is unwilling to change. Dungeons, 24-mans, and story versions of raids and primals are built for them. If someone wants to learn, they will seek knowledge from other players or outside resources and learn, and they will join the serious players in being good at their job. The players who have no desire to learn their job will always be problems.

This is exactly my feeling on the subject.

For the argument of "The Game does not teach you how to play"
- As you level up you gain small parts of a skillset in a linear order of how they are applied in a fight. All the skills have a reasonable description of what they do
Example
Straight Shot - Increases Crit Hit Rate by 10%
Venom Bite - Additional Effect: When damage over time is critical, there is a 50% chance Bloodletter and Rain of Death recast time will reset
Wind Bite - Additional Effect: When damage over time is critical, there is a 50% chance Bloodletter and Rain of Death recast time will reset

The game is not to blame for not teaching Bards that they should keep up Straight Shot and their DOTs to maintain a respectable amount of DPS to clear content, and yet somehow there are players that spam Heavy Shot and only use Bloodletter after it's manual CD Timer, even though BRD has it's basic DPS structure by the time you hit Level 12.

This is true for most classes in the game.

DRG - Heavy Thrust Level 12 -> SE saying that between level 12 and 38 we are only going to make you worry about keeping up Heavy Thrust and learn to weave in oGCD skills. See many Dragoons that don't use Heavy Thrust?

BLM - For 34 Levels between level 4 and level 38 we are going to let you learn the difference between Astral Fire and Umbral Ice. Since there isn't a great description on what the differences are that should be enough time to figure it out, "Right Ice Mages?"


I mean, that's just getting a skill and reading the description of it which is pretty straight forward. Then we have "The Hall of the Novice"!!!!! which actually holds your hand, step by step and explains to you what to do. This game literally force feeds you on how to play.

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As far as fights getting outdated and unavailable to new players, while that is somewhat of an issue of getting to experience those mechanics it is not a game breaker. A lot of the same mechanics appear in different areas of the game including Dungeons. So while they are dubbed down compared to their Savage counterparts or Extreme Primals, they are present and in a lot nicer learning environment for new players.

[bswpayton]

This is exactly my feeling on the subject.

For the argument of "The Game does not teach you how to play"
- As you level up you gain small parts of a skillset in a linear order of how they are

As I gave an example on the whm I had in aurum vale I think some people tend to get a lil confused, and just the comprehension isnt always gona click like it does for some. For instance that whm probably thought well the tool tips say that cure two heals for more than cure 1 so I'm going to use that one instead, its just like a driving test just because you read what the manual says doesnt mean that you are now officially an expert driver or that your going to past the test. The fact that people think tool tips is the number one answer alone just doesnt make sense to me, its helpful but it doesnt take someone from a 2 week skill level to all of a sudden they are a master of the job.

I remember when I first started blm I made my own mistake, with astral fire , I thought sense it dealt more damage that I was suppose to trade it out for fire 1. It wasnt until someone explained to me that it was better to have it up and then go back to using your basic fire 1 that I fixed my mistake. And also learning an ability and working with mechanics are two totally separate things, the reason why dungeons are so much easier is because adds dont have mechanics. Its the mechanics from what I have seen that give people the most trouble and all hall of novice pretty much does is tell you how to avoid the big orange circle so I dont understand how something that is meant for a novice to do can be compared to the harder content. On Ifrit extreme does the hall of novice teach u how to dodge a mechanic that takes up the whole entire circle aside from two tiny little patches of space, or the same with titan his huge aoe that covers up the whole entire platform aside from 4 tiny little cut out plots of land. Are dealing with a charmed type of ability like in ramuh extreme the only way to learn this type of stuff is to actually doing it , and if people arent doing it then more than likely most people will never learn it. With how the game is set up and how content grows old so fast then for those whom want to do any challenge content , if they skipped over all things before it to play catch up then chances are they arent gona be very good at it, not everyone some people will be great but others wont.

I notice when I look at guides now like sophia extreme, that they have fewer and fewer views, I think apart of this is because fewer and fewer people are doing the extremes as they come out probably due to the bad experiences of rude and frustrated players making them not even wana try any longer. Because tool tips, hall of novice and all of that dont really show you how to deal with mechanics in this game nor does a video , videos give a general idea, but just like with everything else to get good as people say takes practice there is no other replacement for this.

[Judge_Xero]

As I gave an example on the whm I had in aurum vale I think some people tend to get a lil confused, and just the comprehension isnt always gona click like it does for some. For instance that whm probably thought well the tool tips say that cure two heals for more than cure 1 so I'm going to use that one instead, its just like a driving test just because you read what the manual says doesnt mean that you are now officially an expert driver or that your going to past the test. The fact that people think tool tips is the number one answer alone just doesnt make sense to me, its helpful but it doesnt take someone from a 2 week skill level to all of a sudden they are a master of the job.

Haha well it should be the time you hit 50 and then 60. Also there's nothing wrong with using Cure 2, but since all the spells use MP it should be obvious that Cure 2 uses more than Cure. I'd hope all spell casters are able to learn after a couple levels that their spells use MP. No the tooltips alone don't make you a Master of the Job. But just like after reading your drivers manual and then practicing driving through 50-60 levels, I'd hope people learn that their car runs of gas and it doesn't just magically fill itself in the driveway.

I remember when I first started blm I made my own mistake, with astral fire , I thought sense it dealt more damage that I was suppose to trade it out for fire 1. It wasnt until someone explained to me that it was better to have it up and then go back to using your basic fire 1 that I fixed my mistake.

I've never tried just casting Astral Fire. Will have to give that a try.

And also learning an ability and working with mechanics are two totally separate things, the reason why dungeons are so much easier is because adds dont have mechanics. Its the mechanics from what I have seen that give people the most trouble and all hall of novice pretty much does is tell you how to avoid the big orange circle so I dont understand how something that is meant for a novice to do can be compared to the harder content. On Ifrit extreme does the hall of novice teach u how to dodge a mechanic that takes up the whole entire circle aside from two tiny little patches of space, or the same with titan his huge aoe that covers up the whole entire platform aside from 4 tiny little cut out plots of land. Are dealing with a charmed type of ability like in ramuh extreme the only way to learn this type of stuff is to actually doing it , and if people arent doing it then more than likely most people will never learn it. With how the game is set up and how content grows old so fast then for those whom want to do any challenge content , if they skipped over all things before it to play catch up then chances are they arent gona be very good at it, not everyone some people will be great but others wont.

I agree with you here 100%, that's why I didn't mention anything about playing your class in conjunction with performing mechanics (other than that most mechanics are showing up in Dungeons as well). Because at the very basic level where the divide between player gap is the majority of people have no idea to play their class to begin with and playing your class terribly while performing mechanics is still just terrible.

[PArcher]

There are a lot of players out there who want to put in the minimum amount of effort but get the same rewards as those who put in a ton of time and effort into getting them. Why bother learning the fight when you can join a clear party and just barely squeak by, then join farm parties and get carried to your rewards?

Most of the time, its a player issue, not necessarily a game issue (some things could be shown better by the game, and the Novice Hall is a step in the right direction). Those who want to learn, to get better, will. They will find people to ask questions, find others to run content with. Look up guides and fights and try to do their best so they aren't carried. Make friends with good players and learn from them. Funnily enough, the really good players often will stop and answer questions and help people who genuinely want to learn if they can at the moment, or will suggest other people they can ask for help if they can't help with a specific problem or are too busy right then. I know if someone comes and asks me for advice on a fight, or with general job questions, I'll try to help out.

Those who don't want to learn, don't want to put the effort into the game, won't. They will barely push buttons in a dungeon run, stand in AoEs, barely care about their gear, and then whine that no one is helping (read: carrying) them. I meet a ton of these people every day; any suggestions to better themselves, asking to not stand in AoEs, to do mechanics properly (and explaining exactly how to do them right), rotation suggestions and so on are ignored, or you receive hate for suggesting they are not perfect as they think they are ("its my sub and I can play as I want!" Hate these people)

There are people who genuinely try, but just aren't good enough. Not everyone is going to be good at everything. Sometimes lag happens too. I can't blame people in these situations unless they keep making the same mistake(s) over and over and over again (then its clear they just aren't "getting" it and need a suggestion on a different way to approach it, or are just being stubbornly bad). But people here usually know their faults an apologize for them, or are plainly trying to get better.

[Jayjohn]

This game hand holds you on how to do mechanics. People should actually do Guildhests and read the actual message that pops up because the literally tells you to move out of stuff. A large majority of the mechanics in this game usually reused and given an extra twists (How many divebomb iterations have we had so far?)

Reading tooltips on abilities literally tell you what they do and how they combo off. Character leveling is so mind numbingly boring in the early levels because you are pressing one button, by the time you get your next ability people should be like "OH what does this do? How does this work with my other abilities?"

[bswpayton]

I really dont understand the references to some of the normal mood references to titan or ifrit you may see similar animations but thats about it the extreme versions are 50 times different challenge wise, the only possible way to die in ifrit is if you forget to tell someone that doesnt no to hit the nail

[Kirhs]

There are a lot of mechanics that the game does not prepare you for when you start trying harder content.

Just look at the number of varying icons that can land on top of a players head that give no indication of what is about to happen until the effect fires, and even then what happens may not be particularly clear the first time it occurs to a new person.

Once you have the experienced a fight's mechanics they can become almost trivial and I see many people fall into the trap of saying "You suck" due to someone's inexperience. Just look at the tales from the duty finder thread for all kinds of examples.

I am not smart enough to know what the real solution for this is from a design standpoint but from a player standpoint when I find myself starting to point the finger: I try and remember how many could have been pointing back at me when I had issues with the content.

[Gemina]

I place little blame on the content when something like Hall of Novice teaches you imperative fundamentals to group play that goes with you from the moment you graduate HoN all the way until you play your last raid. The little blame I do place is because HoN remains optional. The other thing about progressive content is no middle ground. The closest we have is probably HM primals, but even these instances... The synced iLv is ridiculously high. A tank of this iLv can survive all three of Ifrit HM charges without a heal, so why exactly should he move from them? Especially when a sole regen will patch him right up?

I blame the community for anything other than rapid progression to be unorthodox. Despite the fact that there is no middle ground of difficulty, I still believe the casual stuff punishes players enough that they should learn to obey mechanics. But being carried through content, running it unsynced, or skipping it is going to stunt any kind of skill progression until the player no longer accomplishes things in such a way.

The way I feel is each player needs to be accountable for their own skill. How do we as humans get good at anything? It's through countless hours of practice. We practice to get better at what we are good at; we practice to get good at what we're bad at; we practice to maintain the skill we have acquired. Jump potions, starting jobs @50, rushing through content... not a whole lot of practicing going on if you ask me. Ultimately the largest skill gaps are between players that want to be best from the players that want to be the rest.