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

[Bonkleberry]

This is an MMO. Just like any other MMO, content does not teach players how to play the game. Motivation, practice, and organization are all that any player needs to succeed. Forcing players through filler content for "practice" just kills motivation and does not provide proper practice in the first place.

[Leigaon]

Why do we need to blame anything?

Some people like to point fingers but hate taking blame for themselves so it makes them feel better? Then again maybe I've had just bad experiences watching people.

The issue seems to be everything in the production line with this game is to blame, to a certain point. The game, the players both new and old. There's way too many factors to get rid of it 100%. Nothing is really 100% in these things, there's always going to be some sort of probability that when you add something, something else is taken away. A constant balance...

The game has pros and cons. The tooltips do help players, guildhests help players, those "kill x mob" quests help. Then the dungeons, do not. They do not require you to perform. I had a scholar under geared in AV that couldn't keep the heals up and it was his first time saying he needed to consider his gear because his fair always did all the work. That's a long ways to go without really caring what MND / ilv does. I say this as someone who has less than 3 mmos under his belt and takes constant breaks.

The veterans have their pros and cons. Some are rather kind and give advise as they see fit. They have a range of hand holding to general information to help you get by. There are others who rant, yell and scream for simple mistakes. They don't start with "meteors back and to the left" the go with "what?! how is it some idiot doesn't know this yet?! It's. not. that. hard!!!"

The new players same deal, some new people come in and have every intention of learning. They take advise such as "you're under geared" so they would accept it and we would address whether they should leave. Others do not even take time to learn, they spam their final skill in a combo chain thinking it's the best. They tell veterans to shut up when they tell them about using flash. How is someone who is trying to help you able to stay kind when every response is mean and negative?

You are right it's like going to school, some people do not care and will get C's..or that one jerk who sleeps and gets A's. Like being a parent, you need to take time with your children. But how many parents would tolerate them saying "Go %$% yourself" when you say "you need to brush your teeth."? Then again, how many would say "Brush your teeth you #$$, I shouldn't have to tell you this every night. It's. not. that. hard!"

Though I think the their best solution to minimize things is to make the content harder in general. That would force them to not be able to perform then they either get upset and leave or they go try to learn. Can't patch players, but you can adjust the environment. For the sake of it, when I'm in Thousand Maws, low level, I know I don't have to esuna that poison most of the time. The mobs die quickly then you regenerate health and the debuff doesn't last that long. I figured why not try to keep it off, what if it did do massive HP damage? I actually had MP that was being used up.

As for the jump potions. The more I think about it the more I realize that the type of players that will be using them are either people who most likely know MMO's and can grasp it, or know people and want to catch up and they will help. For a new player that isn't as experienced, it's all very overwhelming. You also level up so fast, then if you're a lore hound you get sucked into the story. Sure you might use the jump potion on your second job or even after you hit 50 to jump to 60...there's a lot of variations out there.