Raiders, why do you raid? None riders, why not?

[Dzian]

Like my initial comment about people who think their accomplishments lose all value the moment the masses can do it easier than they did, I find such a mindset toxic to a positive gaming experience..

Really. many people would say the opposite is true. it's been proven that handing awards out to everyone devalues them in the long run... it's the same thing in every aspect of human life. the more common something is the less value it holds... and it's no different in games...

if content maintained it's challenges and rewards then players would rise up to the challenges if they wanted the rewards. the result there would be that the average skill of the player base would likely increase, and that can be seen as a very positive thing for the game and the entire community.

compare that to what we have now. where players can be terrible and still get everything. there's no strive for them to improve and that creates the huge skill gap that Yoshi has expressed concerns about. what the current system does is essentially promote laziness. why rise to the content when we can sit on our ass and let the content drop to us...... that massive skill gap is probably more toxic to a positive gaming environment because it actively rewards bad play and that skill gap is far more damaging to the game than keeping rewards behind a challenge that wouldn't get nerfed over time..

one could then argue that is this current environment that exists has fostered the " toxic no bonus" culture that exists within the game.. because of how large the existing skill gap between players is... and that impacts content on the whole. recent content such as zurvan normal for example is almost impossible to fail...

and because its impossible to fail there's no real satisfaction or reward for clearing it even at story level. and if the game isn't rewarding players won't stay playing.... which is again is not a positive gaming enviroment

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Really. many people would say the opposite is true. it's been proven that handing awards out to everyone devalues them in the long run... it's the same thing in every aspect of human life. the more common something is the less value it holds... and it's no different in games...

if content maintained it's challenges and rewards then players would rise up to the challenges if they wanted the rewards. the result there would be that the average skill of the player base would likely increase, and that can be seen as a very positive thing for the game and the entire community.

compare that to what we have now. where players can be terrible and still get everything. there's no strive for them to improve and that creates the huge skill gap that Yoshi has expressed concerns about. what the current system does is essentially promote laziness. why rise to the content when we can sit on our ass and let the content drop to us...... that massive skill gap is probably more toxic to a positive gaming environment because it actively rewards bad play and that skill gap is far more damaging to the game than keeping rewards behind a challenge that wouldn't get nerfed over time..

one could then argue that is this current environment that has fostered the "no bonus" culture that exists within the game.. because of how large the existing skill gap between players is... and that impacts content on the whole. recent content such as zurvan normal for example is almost impossible to fail...

and because its impossible to fail there's no real satisfaction or reward for clearing it even at story level. and if the game isn't rewarding players won't stay playing.... which is again is not a positive gaming enviroment

This is really well put, and I'm glad you touched on that fact. In order for the community, and thus the game to truly grow, this has to change. I have hopes for Stormblood, but they are admittedly low.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Really. many people would say the opposite is true. it's been proven that handing awards out to everyone devalues them in the long run... it's the same thing in every aspect of human life. the more common something is the less value it holds... and it's no different in games...


if content maintained it's challenges and rewards then players would rise up to the challenges if they wanted the rewards. the result there would be that the average skill of the player base would likely increase, and that can be seen as a very positive thing for the game and the entire community.

compare that to what we have now. where players can be terrible and still get everything. there's no strive for them to improve and that creates the huge skill gap that Yoshi has expressed concerns about. what the current system does is essentially promote laziness. why rise to the content when we can sit on our ass and let the content drop to us...... that massive skill gap is probably more toxic to a positive gaming environment because it actively rewards bad play and that skill gap is far more damaging to the game than keeping rewards behind a challenge that wouldn't get nerfed over time..

one could then argue that is this current environment that exists has fostered the " toxic no bonus" culture that exists within the game.. because of how large the existing skill gap between players is... and that impacts content on the whole. recent content such as zurvan normal for example is almost impossible to fail...

and because its impossible to fail there's no real satisfaction or reward for clearing it even at story level. and if the game isn't rewarding players won't stay playing.... which is again is not a positive gaming enviroment

Maybe I am just weird then cause I just don't agree with this mindset. What might be easy for me may be challenging for someone else, but either way, what I do/accomplish/acquire has nothing to do with anyone else. I don't compare myself to others to determine the worth of my accomplishments. I simply appreciate them for the doing of them.

If you don't find satisfaction from something because its "impossible to fail" I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you're just too good? What's easy to you may be quite difficult for others.

I find satisfaction in all kinds of things, both easy and difficult. I do however tend to shy away from difficult things that are repetitive like weekly savage raiding. When I engage in something difficult its to accomplish a specific goal. Like say getting a mount from an ex primal. Once I have that mount, I'm not going back with any sort of regularity, unless I agreed to help other people get mounts as well. But my satisfaction from accomplishing that goal is not diminished in any way if they make it easier to get later on. My accomplishment is not diminished because what I do has nothing to do with what someone else does. If you let the worth of your accomplishments be dictated by how it compares to others you're basically engaging in a never ending dick measuring contest. I can't live like that.

I do agree that if a game isn't rewarding people won't keep playing... but the same is true if the content is either too difficult for the majority of the population... or even if its just so tedious that most players don't want to be bothered with it. Game developers have to develop the lion's share of content for the average player. Without the "scrubs" to keep the lights on, the elites won't have a game to play at all.

I heal in FFXIV primarily because none of the dps classes are appealing to me... and that stems from the complexity of several of them. I'm good at healing though, good enough to do savage raids if I were so inclined. I just don't want to cause I'm not really interested in that sort of content. As for dps, I can't handle the finger gymnastics many of the dps classes require and positional attacks beyond "be behind the enemy" is just too hectic a playstyle for me (so yea Monk is out of the question). Bard was somewhat appealing until Wanderer's Minuet entered the equation. BLM less so, but became far worse with Enochian, which is thankfully going away in SB. I'm holding out hope that Red Mage might be the dps job for me, but I'm not optimistic. I'm not "skilled" at finger gymnastic/hectic/twitch play. That's why I avoid games with "action" combat like Tera. Where I do have some skill is in my situational awareness and ability to quickly learn encounter mechanics. I may screw up the first time but I rarely repeat a mistake once I've seen how a mechanic works. Maybe there's a lot of people like me that just don't gel well with how many of the dps classes are designed, and since dps is the driving force of encounters in this game, that might be why there's so many "bad" dps out there, not because they are "lazy" and waiting for content to "drop to them".

Maybe you're really good at that sort of gameplay, but not everyone is and not everyone can be. I will never be good at that sort for thing. It's the same reason I could never master playing the piano. I just don't have that type of coordination... and I'm almost certainly not the only person out there like that. That's why I heal. It's something I am good at and I still manage to dps quite a bit while keeping my groups alive. Heck I've even been praised for doing good dps as a healer.

Just to be clear though, players can't "be terrible and get everything"... at least not unless they are being carried by others. "Bad" players can't get savage content down when its current.... and if they go back and do it an xpac later... who gives a flying fart in space? Your accomplishment isn't diminished in the slightest by that and if you think it is I say there's something wrong with the way you think. "Bad" players aren't getting into progression statics, or at least not for very long. Sure "bad" players can get an ilvl approaching that of "good" players but player power is ultimately a goal everyone wants to achieve, and a large gap between those who engage in raid content and those that don't is definitively not healthy for the game. So the "good" players will just have to be satisfied with a slight ilvl advantage, cool mounts, titles and glamours, and getting all that stuff while its current while the "bad" players have to wait till they outlevel and outgear the content and hope that mechanics still don't cockblock them just to get some of that out of date glory.

Again if your sense of accomplishment is predicated on how it compares to others, then you're doing it wrong as far as I'm concerned.

[ToasterMan]

Nowadays? Raiding is just another avenue for spending time with friends. My static is full of friends and if I wasn't in my current group I wouldn't be raiding at all

[Meraii]

I used to raid in WoW.
I don't raid here because:
a) I've yet to reach current content.
b) I don't really know anyone.

[Moomba33]

I don't raid for a few reasons.

1. I don't want to schedule my playtime. I like being able to decide what I want to do each day on a whim.
2. I don't like the idea of content which takes hours and hours to learn in a multiplayer setting. With a single player game I can fail at something for months until I get it down and it's fine. In multiplayer it's horrible to be the slowest learner in a group and knowing that you're holding others back from clearing.
3. I don't care about raid gear/titles/prestige. Faustlet minion is the only loot I'm interested in all of Savage and even that isn't worth trying to trek through the mechanic vomit of A8 Savage.
4.Story is the main reason I tried to get through Coil back in the day. Now that we have normal mode raiding it's a lot easier for me to ignore the hardest stuff which I consider a positive as I don't enjoy the challenge of raiding.

[Khalithar]

The gear is a big part of it. But there's another part of it depending on the game you play.

For example, I raided a lot when I played WoW because blizzard decided the only way to see the end of the storylines in expansions was to raid. If you're really big in to the lore like I am, not being able to see the conclusion of major lore events is a huge deal. So if you didn't raid on WoW you didn't get to see how the storyline in the various expansions ended.

In swtor, some of the most interesting boss design mechanics that I had ever seen (at the time) were there. Playing those really offered a new type of challenge. Especially on the nightmare mode difficulty.

[Kosmos992k]

I don't raid. I honestly don't like the group dynamics that the game's design enforces with static groups and the loot rules. I dislike the enforced schedule of raiding, my personal schedule is so changeable I cannot guarantee to be available, I dislike banging my head off a brick wall until it (the wall) breaks, I dislike stress and drama - which from personal experience are rife in raiding.

Knowing all of this I know that regardless of whether I am good enough, I would still be a poor addition to a raid team. So I wouldn't inflict myself on a raid group anyway. I might PUG some of the older raids, I might run some unsync'd with friends. Really though, I play to relax, and the inherent stress and pressure of 8 people learning the raid content and gearing is not compatible with that IMHO.

Some will say that the reason players don't raid is because they are not good enough. I'd counter by suggesting that perhaps those who choose not to raid are better, and know their limitations.

..oh and I also don't like dealing with people who overuse the term "meta" for everything. It doesn't making video gaming sound scientific or complex- it's just irritating to me. It's become a generic term that gamers throw around because they either hear it used by others they think are "hard core" or they want to sound "hard core".

Or maybe I am just sensitive to it after years of seeing it.

You're being meta sensitive over "meta"....how very meta of you.

**snip**
So, what do you do when you wind up with someone who just can't cut it in your group? If your group is coldly professional, you drop them and get someone else. But then, you're in a coldly professional group, which lacks a lot of the joy you get when you're on a team full of buddies hanging out and having fun. If your group is a bunch of warm buddies having fun, on the other hand, it can be very hard to tell that weakest link that they have to leave. Then there's the rare team of warm buddies that HAS no weakest link - that's the ideal everyone aspires to, but it is so, so rare...

That, I think, is why the raiding community is as small as it is. The bulk of them are all business and there to get the job done, having ruthlessly culled any members that happen to fall short of their expectations, with a scattered few teams of buddy groups who happen to be lucky enough to have a full team of skilled players. Neither set is very keen on the idea of welcoming new members - they have a team that works, and so they're going to stick to it. This means that any new teams have to assemble themselves from the morass of wannabe raiders, and doing so is a long and frustrating process that drives many potentials with legitimate talent to simply give up.

In my opinion this has been the case since at least November 2013, and the raid community has evolved and refined itself in the manner you describe since then. I remember a very impassioned topic here way back then about the negative impact that the static groups of raiding were having on friends, Free companies and other social groupings. I've seen nothing to contradict that old post over the years, and your description of how a raiding community refines itself simply reinforces that. It's not that anyone means for the negative impacts to happen, no one sets out to break friendships over gear drops or failed mechanics, but over time those things can poison relationships and break up friendships.

That said, perhaps that is in the nature of raiding and you're better off not raiding with friends? I don't know, it's harder looking from the outside in. I have several friends who used to raid and burned out, then left the game and I have seen FC members leave for no reason other than their raid group demanded it. So, raiding doesn't have a very good reputation with me.

[Tint]

i have some sort of voice chat anxiety :x i had a non voice chat group back in 2.x and cleared coil, but the group fell apart in 3.0. and since nobody wants to raid without voice chat i am stuck at casual content...

[Alynn]

School

/5char