Suggestions to improve the skills of the player base

[conativejj]

Duty rewards tied to meeting a basic minimum performance requirement:

Nothing crazy to meet, but the Devs could set a standard for performance that a decently geared player at that level should be able to achieve. It would be different for each role as follows

TANKS Positive points for damage mitigation, avoiding avoidable damage, and holding aggro. Negative points for the opposite.

HEALERS Positive points for avoiding avoidable damage and healing group damage or shielding appropriately before attacks, clearing debuffs. Receive negative points for overhealing, gaining aggro, letting players die to debuffs (like Doom)

DPS Positive points for damage dealt, maintaining buffs, avoiding avoidable damage. Receive negative points for the opposite or stealing aggro.

[conativejj]

I apologize in advance but this will be somewhat long. I will likely unsub again at the end of my current sub, possibly indefinitely, because of what I see as a constant issue I can no longer put up with. But I feel, being a long time SE fan, that I should provide some constructive feedback for a company that I love and love their products in the hopes that things do improve.

To start off, I do not and have not ever expected my fellow players to play at the "uber elite" level, Lord knows I don't, but I know my role, play it well, and do my part to ensure our group runs go as quickly as possible as we all have more important things to do than spend time wiping in dungeons or otherwise taking much longer than is reasonable at that level.

(cont.)

[conativejj]

So I want to make a few suggestions that I would hope to see implemented in the future to encourage lazy/troll players (not new players, they're not my issue here) to either improve for the benefit of the other 3-7 players or to not bother doing group content at all and ruining the experience for the other 3-7 players.

So as an example, say a run of an EX dungeon, the expectation is 200/200/500 for tank, healer, DPS respectively. Points would be gained much like points are added to the limit bar (and as a side suggestion, this could serve the basis for some future personal limit bar - further providing incentive to gain as many points as possible to have multiple limit bars). If the given player meets the standard, two things could happen (depending if SE would rather go with a carrot or stick):

(cont.)

[conativejj]

A. Players who meet or exceed this will receive full rewards (tomes and gil) those who do not will have their rewards split among the other players for having to carry them, either at a percentage based on their performance, or entirely. So if a DPS only got 200 points, they would either get nothing (my preference) or they would only get 40% of their reward and the other three players would get the 60% split among them.

B. Similar to above but there is an extra chest at the end of the dungeons that reward additional tomes/gil to those players who meet or exceed the minimum standard. Meaning carried players would still get 100% of their reward, but not the extra boost given to the other players who carried them.

(cont.)

[conativejj]

Addressing Concerns:

When I have suggested this on other forums before, one counter argument was that it could be gamed. Say if a player just wanted to be carried and joins up with three friends so that his three friends can quickly get more rewards. This is a possibility certainly, but it would still mean the run would take longer than if all 4-8 players would play at a higher skill level. So for example, say you could do an EX run in 21 minutes if all 4 players do their part, so everyone gets 80 Lore and 50 Scripture. But if they do a carry run and these runs take 35 minutes instead, three players might get up to 100 Lore and 62 Scripture (one player getting nothing).

So tomes per minute works out to:

3.8 Lore vs 2.85 Lore
2.3 Scripture vs 1.77 Scripture

So the incentive would still be there to do the runs quickly with full effort versus slowly carrying one player.

(cont.)

[conativejj]

Ultimate Goal & Conclusion

FFXIV was my first MMO and I've played a few others since then that allow you to do much of the content solo. I am a long time solo RPG player so I do prefer to work alone. But since FFXIV has a larger emphasis on doing group content to progress, I would ideally like to see the Devs encourage players to constantly improve their skills and achieve higher performance, particularly at higher levels where I have seen players doing considerably worse than even new players (not using buffs, not even using rotations, basically auto attacking).

(cont)

[conativejj]

As it stands, I can no longer put up with running dungeons with players putting in little to no effort at level 60, where I feel it's reasonable to expect them to know how to play their role and perform better. I don't mind providing feedback or suggestions in lower level dungeons (though it's usually ignored half of the time - like telling a DRK "Please use Unleash more than once" and I ended up tanking half of the dungeon). But I shouldn't have to tell a level 60 DRG "Can you please use Heavy Thrust and your rotation?"

In short, if I must run group content to progress efficiently, I would like that content to go as quickly and smoothly as possible. That's what I do for my team, I don't feel it is unreasonable to expect the same in return.

(cont)

[conativejj]

Lazy/troll players can ruin the experience for everyone without punishment or disincentive to do so. Our only method of "punishing" them (leaving the duty) only serves to punish us for not wanting to put up with them. Also, lower skilled players that perhaps want to improve have no feedback to determine how well they might be doing. A system like this would serve to punish lazy/troll players as well as help to improve the performance of players that want to get better and hopefully improve the gaming experience for everyone overall.

Thanks for hearing me out and I do hope SE does something, anything, to incentivize an improved player base overall so that I can resub after Stormblood and continue to enjoy the game! Again, I write this not because I hate FFXIV and not because I hate SE. Rather the opposite, I love both and I want to see them get better and better into the future.