/Accuse @ the devs: have you set us up to fail...?

[Iscah]

Noone is asking for you to be perfect, especially not in story content. What we'd like to see is simply a level of challenge in dungeons, that require you to actually use your skills. For example as a Sch I can play entire dungeons without casting a single heal, that shouldn't be the case.

I think part of the problem is that the dungeon has to be "generic" enough for players to get through with any combination of classes. You can't put in things that need a specific skill if it's possible that nobody will have that skill available.

On the other hand, solo job quests can and should be designed to require use of a specific skill set.

Also, I'd really like the job quests to be more relevant for the class, as in teaching you how to work your skills. There used to be a Blm quest dedicated entirely to teach you the use only sleep and Pld got one that he would only beat if he managed to keep hate off the squishy npc. But after ARR that suddenly stopped and now it's just button spamming with barely a chance of losing.

That sounds fantastic. Were they in 1.0? If not then I failed to pick up on the Sleep tutorial because I've got BLM to 50 and I admit I've never used the spell.

The way the game works now, with gifting you your new abilities at the end of each job quest, is basically the opposite of what you actually need for learning how to use your new skills. Occasionally they work around it by giving you a short first quest basically to give you the skill for the real task (eg. Rogue quest introducing stealth ability) and those are great. There needs to be more of that.

I think if you're not forced to use those new skills, it can be a natural instinct to fall back to the other ones that have served perfectly well thus far, instead of trying to use this new one that you don't understand. (Also I think some of the tooltips aren't that well written and seem confusing when the actual use is quite simple. I do read them all but sometimes need to go over them a few times to actually understand what they're saying.)

The Lv50 healer quests are the only ones I can think of that really make you put some effort into exploring your other skills to try to keep your NPC companion alive.

What Lelila38 said, may I ask what made you assume the worst? People are not asking for it to drag on more or to add HP to monsters to make it "harder" we just want something where you actually have to do more then hitting one button, or like Lelila said, queue as SCH, afk follow the whole run. (it is really possible to do that in level 17- 3... 33?)

Hey completing the duty is all that matters right?

Completing the duty the best that I can is what matters to me. I do press more than one button. I perform as best as I can, I try to make use of all my skills, and that's good enough for story content - but I go pretty awful in the few extreme-level challenges I've tried so far.

Reading through all the topics on this board - not just this one, but all the other ones where the definition of a 'bad player' seems to slide from "someone who doesn't know their basic skills and/or isn't trying" to "someone who clears the dungeon in 30 minutes instead of 20" and it's disheartening. (Arguably a reason for them to bring in a parse/rating/whatever, because I don't know if I'm good or bad compared to the 'average' player or what standard I should be held to, but I hate to think I'm failing and not be able to know it.)

The other thing is, how do you give the healer more to do? Honest question, because I don't know what you're picturing. What is there other than making enemies hit harder so the healer has more work?

And in the case of Scholar, it could be just that they haven't been properly balanced to function in a low-level dungeon. If they can only get away with it up to the low 30s, that's the point at which Scholar properly exists and isn't being modified for a level below their 'starting point'. Plus I imagine it depends on the skill level of the rest of the party.

Anyway the correct answer is, not needing to heal doesn't mean you can go AFK but gives you more time to support the party by DPSing, casting Esuna, etc. and keeping an eye on everyone's HP. Things can always go wrong.

[Vstarstruck]

Reading through all the topics on this board - not just this one, but all the other ones where the definition of a 'bad player' seems to slide from "someone who doesn't knowtheir basic skills and/or isn't trying" to "someone who clears the dungeon in 30 minutes instead of 20" and it's disheartening. (Arguably a reason for them to bring in a parse/rating/whatever, because I don't know if I'm good or bad compared to the 'average' player or what standard I should be held to, but I hate to think I'm failing and not be able to know it.)

The other thing is, how do you give the healer more to do? Honest question, because I don't know what you're picturing. What is there other than making enemies hit harder so the healer has more work?

And in the case of Scholar, it could be just that they haven't been properly balanced to function in a low-level dungeon. If they can only get away with it up to the low 30s, that's the point at which Scholar properly exists and isn't being modified for a level below their 'starting point'. Plus I imagine it depends on the skill level of the rest of the party.

Anyway the correct answer is, not needing to heal doesn't mean you can go AFK but gives you more time to support the party by DPSing, casting Esuna, etc. and keeping an eye on everyone's HP. Things can always go wrong.

I think the issue here is you do not know how to see what we are talking about in other players. For example, do you find it fair that someone can cheat the ilevel requirement to enter a place that requests ilevel 300 average, bringing a 285 weapon when you are given a 290 weapon from the job quest at 70? Also the job quest gives an important ability to most. In the case this is referenced to, it was BLM, who NEEDS foul to be effective to clear AoE trash in a timely matter and still important on bosses to help with up time because server tics can screw you over. Can you understand why people might be upset seeing a player set foot in the last 4 man dungeon and not have your level 70 ability?

We are not talking about YOU being bad or not trying hard enough. We are talking about people that LITERALLY press 1 button throughout the run, people that use pure ST when there are 5 monsters or more in a group, among other very low bar expectations. There are some dungeons a SCH can literally AFK a whole run and not do anything, though people that care just dps. if you are fining yourself at a 25+ minute run with you trying, it is likely you are running into DPS that we are talking about. Even if ONE DPS is salvage pushing buttons like a mad woman, it still will be a 20-30 min run if the co dps is what we are talking about. In fact, a few people i know stopped solo queuing as healer for this very reason, meeting 2 bad dps is too much of a risk. For them waiting for queue as they do other things and have a 14-20 min runs is better then 20-30. That is another reason why experienced players can see it so easily. You can say this logic takes place:

"HMMM I WONDER whos fault it is, if i can get in run A, do 14 min run, then run B see a 30 minute run while the blm is only using ice spells. It is very easy to see without a parser."

For your last thing we know that but most people do not put in that effort that you meet randomly using the duty finder.

No idea where Elemental data center is, but shame I do not know anyone there. I def know people that can have a general idea how you are doing without a parser though.

[Iscah]

I think the issue here is you do not know how to see what we are talking about in other players. For example, do you find it fair that someone can cheat the ilevel requirement to enter a place that requests ilevel 300 average, bringing a 285 weapon when you are given a 290 weapon from the job quest at 70?

That's a loaded question, I think - if the game lets you do it, it's not cheating, and it's up to the devs to set different minimum requirements if that player shouldn't be there. Otherwise you'll get new people coming in with that equipment by honest mistake, having no idea there is a higher standard expected of them by other players than what the game itself has set.

I honestly haven't even paid attention to how long dungeons take. And I only notice other people doing strange things if it's out of combat (tank casting Convalescence at the start of the encounter when I'm healing; DPS running ahead when I'm tanking) or it's affecting me directly (debuffs not getting Esuna'd; tank makes the boss move unnecessarily while I try to melee it). In combat I'm too busy concentrating on my own actions to notice others' - and generally if I do, that means I'm not paying attention and my own performance is suffering, or I forgot to pay attention to something more important like my own HP bar. I'm only just getting the hang of watching the enemy's cast bar and not just looking for floor AoE markers.

No idea where Elemental data center is, but shame I do not know anyone there. I def know people that can have a general idea how you are doing without a parser though.

Elemental data centre is in Japan. (I'm from Australia.) I guess I could see if some of my FC friends are using parsers.

Also I only thought of it after my previous post, but I'm leveling astrologian currently, and when I get low-level dungeons with that I'm probably playing 90% DPS outside of boss battles. So Scholar's faerie just fills in that little gap. (And I guess Tam-Tara in particular doesn't really have mid-dungeon boss battles? Just those imp mobs and then the Soulcounters which aren't that tough.) Ultimately those early dungeons are built for the difficulty level of someone who could have not even played a game before, or only started this one yesterday, and it's fair enough that a practiced player can do it with minimal effort by comparison.