The general player base needs to improve

[RiyahArp]

This was actually 2 days after I cleared it, in Stormblood's first week, so I maybe had 1 or 2 i300 dungeon pieces.

Also you're not implying gear = skill, are you?

We all know gear trivializes content, especially if Ilvl isn't capped relatively low. Surviving the center aoe if you are in it, for example, or being able to last long enough with hellfire to be rescued. Shinryu was a healer's fight to win or lose, and if you had a smooth ride, chances are it was because your healers stayed up first, and your tanks second. If any of those four struggled, especially at min ilvl, it was wipe city, and for a while healers struggled till they learned the mechanics of the fight. DPS simply don't impact that fight past the add phase, and it takes 2 or 3 of them being down repeatedly to impact things.

Some players are better than other players. That's how someone can go in and clear him with no issues while others struggle. For story level content, Shinryu was damn hard at launch. He hit hard, he had lots of things to keep track of, was not forgiving of mistakes, and most of the playerbase didn't know the fight. These days people largely do know the fight and there's no item level sync, so successful clear rates have gone up massively. That doesn't take away from the challenge at the time.

This is the problem with forum discussions on this stuff. The average forum goer is not the average player. Lots of players who have a significantly lower skill level and find this stuff difficult are barely represented here at all, while the high end skill level is vastly over represented. That skews things towards "everything is easy and everyone's bad!" when maybe the real answer is "it's not as easy as you think, and you're better than you think you are."

I get too frustrated over this for my own good. I shouldn't, but it's exactly like you said; people vary in skill and ability. What I worry about is that the people who are good will shift the game like they did with HW again, which was a lot worse for medium to lower skilled people, and even high end people too.

[Tridus]

I get too frustrated over this for my own good. I shouldn't, but it's exactly like you said; people vary in skill and ability. What I worry about is that the people who are good will shift the game like they did with HW again, which was a lot worse for medium to lower skilled people, and even high end people too.

It shows. My advice is to not stress over it a whole lot. It's good to have a discussion, but not good to stress.

SE seems to be trying to cater to a pretty diverse audience now, and I don't think that's going to change because of any threads on the forum. Experienced devs all know that only a segment of the playerbase is represented here.

I tend to think there's room to tune things upward without making it horribly punishing, and I also think some people are overstating it when they talk about everything being easy. If you're in the top 25% of players, of course everything seems easy. People need to not lose sight of the fact that not everyone is at that level, and the skillset required to remember, react, and execute everything varies tremendously amongst the whole playerbase.

[LandricFrey]

There is only one solution, just one:

Don't play with randoms.

Seriously, that's it.

People who don't care/take game as serious as you will not change because you say so. You're just wasting your own time here, OP.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

There is only one solution, just one:

Don't play with randoms.

Seriously, that's it.

People who don't care/take game as serious as you will not change because you say so. You're just wasting your own time here, OP.

Okay, let's play that card. Do you know what that leads to?

People are forced to join FCs and linkshells or they're just left out in the cold. It becomes the haves and have nots. It creates an opportunity for exclusion. . . And let's turn it up now! Sure we've got cross server PF now, and that's great, but as you start spending more time running things with people you know (and perhaps might befriend), you'll eventually want to server transfer. . . Oh look! Now people are leaving X server for Y server because there's a higher percentage of clears or capable players on Y server, and none of the X server FCs/LSes are letting people in. . . OH LOOK! Y server's now locked, and X is a "preferred world". . .

As someone from Goblin, that is, if you were originally from Goblin before Stormblood, you should know how hard we got hit by things like this in the past.

[LandricFrey]

Okay, let's play that card. Do you know what that leads to?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but think about it. You can't change people who don't want to change. That's why you must make friends who value the game similar to yourself. Yup, convenience of PUG's are nice, but you have to accept the fact that you're going to get these people. Coming to the forums and demanding people git gud is pointless.

[KaivaC]

There is only one solution, just one:

Don't play with randoms.

Seriously, that's it.

People who don't care/take game as serious as you will not change because you say so. You're just wasting your own time here, OP.

Am I really wasting my time here, though? Randoms will always be a factor because at some point, you're gonna play with them. Not to mention the many new players that come into the game with little to no guidance. Shall I stick solely to my discord pals and my FC, and avoid those new players as well - thus missing the chance to help them improve?

[Ayer2015]

28 pages of people who feel everyone must meet their standards and play the way they deem appropriate. Just because you want something to be a universal standard will never make it so, no matter how much you rationalize your position. People who play the game super casually, just playing a game to relax during their down time have just as much of a right to exist as the min maxers who want a real challenge. just come to terms that people get enjoyment out of games in different ways and move on.... no one is going suddenly to change

[KaivaC]

snip

Did i ever say I wanted anyone to play to my standards? Did anybody else? No, I don't believe so. It's fine to go into something like a leveling or trial roulette and take it easy. The discussion pertains to content that requires some level of competency. At present, the only current casual content this applies to is Rabanastre, Shinryu, and Byakko, possibly even the first three sigmascape runs and Fractal Hard I don't impose my standards on anybody. Neither has anyone else, really, so I'm not sure what you are talking about.

[SavageCipher]

I'm sure you're not polling this OP, but good weighed against bad, I'm pretty sure you've had more good runs then bad ones. Humans just tend to notice the faults in anything before acknowledging the good. Do people suck? Yes, its an MMO, you're gonna run into every type of player. Is it ever really as bad as we make it? Case by case, but generally never so bad.

Though keep in mind that I'm not defending awful players, especially not in this current age of technology wherein you can look up anything...with videos. Ultimately I really can't sympathize with someone, if they found out how to install, pay for, and run an MMO, but have no idea how to use a search engine, or happen to be too lazy to do so.

[RayneBoemir]

I think SE does a good job of having a difficulty curve. I mean it starts brain dead and later mechanics are introduced. I just think the mechanics aren’t punishing enough and healing is so high people just ignore mechanics and expect the healer to cover the cost. Also some people expect others to do the mechanic for them and are just outright lazy.