The general player base needs to improve

[KaivaC]

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.

Eh...depends on the content. Truth be told, I have more of a bad experience in Savage than good, but that has no bearing or reflection on my thread. Savage is a different beast and I sort of expect most runs to have a wipe due to how punishing they are. I myself tend to do a lot of things blind on patch week. Unfortunately, some online guides are still pretty outdated, so I can see how some players may be misled by the information they would find.

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.

I think the difficulty curve of the 2.x series was alright...3.x also felt pretty good, difficulty wise, while I was coming up through it. I didn't get that same feeling in 4.x, though. Maybe because Shinryu was the epitome of difficulty, but nothing really prepared me for fighting him - a lot of the things he used, you had to have fought some of the primals to have experienced it, and even then, Tidal Wave here acts differently than what Leviathan throws at you. Diamond Dust as well. Jump potions are the biggest ones who would've missed out on those early game experiences, and thus, when they run smack into Shinryu, this probably would've been all-new mechanics for them to deal with.

[Kazgrel]

Here we have this thread on the front page, and until I made this post, 2 threads below it was "remove EX primals from mentor roulette".

[Mirch]

Yes, player base should improve. No. Wait. Improving hurts someone's feelings, it's not good.

[Khanscott]

Press 1, 2, 3 and apply occam's razor to determine where to not stand and you have the means to do every piece of content that isn't Savage. Some people aren't even capable of this. Though, if they have the mental faculties to continue sucking air into their bodies, they have the means to accomplish this much. Ergo, their lack of performance is nothing more than laziness and they shouldn't be inconveniencing people with their lack of standards. Yes, on the other side of the spectrum you will have people that will chastise them with baseless subjective crap while not knowing what a percentile is or how statistics work. But, these people are the selfsame that don't seem to realize the lack of correlation between basic intelligence and being able to press 4, 5, and 6. Personally, people in general should consider it a blessing to have someone who doens't know how to die while providing some degree of usefulness when doing PUGs.

[Minako_Nightsong]

Press 1, 2, 3 and apply occam's razor to determine where to not stand and you have the means to do every piece of content that isn't Savage. Some people aren't even capable of this. Though, if they have the mental faculties to continue sucking air into their bodies, they have the means to accomplish this much. Ergo, their lack of performance is nothing more than laziness and they shouldn't be inconveniencing people with their lack of standards. Yes, on the other side of the spectrum you will have people that will chastise them with baseless subjective crap while not knowing what a percentile is or how statistics work. But, these people are the selfsame that don't seem to realize the lack of correlation between basic intelligence and being able to press 4, 5, and 6. Personally, people in general should consider it a blessing to have someone who doens't know how to die while providing some degree of usefulness when doing PUGs.

1 is Heavy Shot
2 is Straight Shot
3 is Bloodletter

I will take your advice and I will use all three of my buttons in every run tomorrow. I will also dodge every single mechanic since I won't be needing to track anything but Straight Shot. I will only run regular roulette.
If you allow me 4-6 as well I could probably get away with it in some groups. Those give me Empryian Arrow, Wanderer's Minuet, and Iron Jaws.(useless)

I will report some of the more colourful comments I receive and I will also report on if I actually wasn't kicked from every single group. I doubt if I make it through more than one.

[Transient_Shadow]

everyone learns at their own pace. I don't see how it people should 'belong' in any category of play style. This borders on elitist. Not everyone will be as grand a player as you. Nor should they be expected to be

[KaivaC]

This borders on elitist.

And there it is. I knew eventually, someone was going to say this line here. Define elitist for me, ya? Because I myself am not this so-called GRAND PLAYER that you've called me. I struggle with DRG. I haven't cleared O7S. I used to die quite often to leg sweep in Byakko Ex. And yet, I'm still able to pick up my own slack, learn from my mistakes, and keep on. Is it elitist to ask for players to play a tad bit better in relevant content like Rabanastre and Primals?

Is it elitist to turn to the community and ask for suggestions and open discussion on what we can do?

For as many folks who have come here looking for an argument, not a single one of those detractors provided any way to help improve our player base when I directly asked them about it. Instead, they take a white-knight position and reject any concept of discussion, wanting to sit here and argue instead. I've never asked for players to be anywhere close to savage level experts. Barring computer issues and disabilities, how is asking how to improve the community being elitist? When I ask for players to go from below-average to average, that's the concept of elitism? Really?

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

This borders on elitist.

No, it doesn't. And just as much as the general playerbase needs to improve, people need to stop throwing that word around improperly.

An elitist wouldn't be open to discussing the matter; they'd simply write everyone off as bad by their own standards and leave it at that. An elitist wouldn't offer any advice nor be receptive to it. The OP wants for more players to be capable of the reasonable standard, not their standard. When I say reasonable standard, I mean a standard generally agreed to be normal and viable for most sub-Savage content; a standard that doesn't require the devs to have to attempt to simplify the game or hold back ideas so as not to overwhelm players. An elitist would simply set fire to this thread and give no care or concern to any responses, and that's not what the OP did at all.

Stop using "elitist" as the catch all term for someone that can identify when people are performing sub-standard and speaks up about it. That just doesn't apply here.

[Transient_Shadow]

I apologize if you take offense but I'm simply stating that not everyone will be on par with players who have had more time to master their classes. Sprouts can reach SB content fairly quickly and we have jump potions now. its to be expected to have a level of play gap. I'm not saying people shouldn't improve. I'm saying they shouldn't improve at your pace

[KaivaC]

I apologize if you take offense but I'm simply stating that not everyone will be on par with players who have had more time to master their classes. Sprouts can reach SB content fairly quickly and we have jump potions now. its to be expected to have a level of play gap. I'm not saying people shouldn't improve. I'm saying they shouldn't improve at your pace

No offense taken. I'm simply stating my point. Bluntly, yes, but I usually don't speak indirectly. This isn't about mastering a job...like I said above, I struggle myself with DRG, but I will carry my weight. Again, I have to point this out, my original post isn't talking about regular leveling roulettes, MSQ dungeons, or even the lvl 50/60 dungeons. Most of the time, you can get away with using the basic 1-2-3 combo if you're not throwing out AOEs. Nor have I suggested that players should go 100% at all times. I don't even do that in these dungeons. What I am saying is that when content like Rabanastre, which was released in October, still sees full out alliance wipes, and a vast number of the players in it have farmed this place for the coins, I view that as an issue on the player base.

Yes, it is true that all it takes is one player to wipe out an entire alliance in Rabanastre with double stack markers, but that doesn't account for the other stuff happening in it, like tanks that will not pick up their adds, players ignoring the first set of adds on Mateus which in turn creates a snowball effect when Blizzard is cast by the boss, DPS who focus down the boss instead of taking care of their alliance's adds...stuff like that. Basically, level 70 content.

I could even dial it back and say, how it is possible when, after being told not to take any action whatsoever on the second boss in Baelsar's Wall when it does the cast for motion sensor, players still move around, DPS'ing/healing away, and wonder how, after two wipes, they still died. Of course, this is one of those uncommon occurrences and I won't touch on that.

Regardless of jump potions, there is enough from Sirensong Sea to Ala Mhigo, not to mention the various story battles that you engage in, that you have to have some competency in order to clear through them - at the very least, the story battles that you are in. Even job battles will require you to put in some effort in order to clear them - from the ones I've experienced up to 70, you cannot get by simply from cheesing the fight...you actually do have to pay attention.

To close this response, it is not elitist to expect some average play from who you are playing with in the casual instanced content. If I were to come out and say the entire player base needs to be capable of clearing Savage - then that is truly elitism. I don't believe the whole player base should want to be capable of Savage-level gameplay - Savage is meant for a select group of players. Before anybody else comes out and says I'm being elitist, maybe hear out exactly what I'm saying. And then actually get involved in this discussion instead of being ready to get offended on behalf of other players, some of whom have agreed with my postings.

This is not a 'git gud' thread. This is a thread bringing my thoughts to the forefront, one that I am openly willing to have a discussion with from alternate points of views. Talking about how to raise the player base from below-average to average does not equate 'git gud'/elitism.