The general player base needs to improve

[Worldofwarcraft]

Do you honestly believe that a forum post is going to change the behavior of the player base?

[KaivaC]

Do you honestly believe that a forum post is going to change the behavior of the player base?

If that were the case, do you believe anything on these forums at all is gonna really change the general player base? This, like many others, is posted up for the sole purpose of discussion. And let's not be wrong, sometimes a dev looks through the forums, and the GMs definitely watch the forums. You never know what might happen just by having these discussions.

Besides, isn't the point of a discussion board to have discussions?

[CorbinDallas]

I still see people run away with stack markers or continue to be hit by gaze attacks, when the indicators have been in the game since 3.1 and used liberally in almost every encounter.

[Bernkastelx]

I still see people run away with stack markers or continue to be hit by gaze attacks, when the indicators have been in the game since 3.1 and used liberally in almost every encounter.

Yep literally at the time they implemented the visual indicator I was thinking "Great now they think we are to dumb to know what gaze means.".

[Maighdlin]

But I dunno about that. It's been said before, but we really need a new hall of novice.

I would really love to see more added to the Hall of Novice. I personally found what was there to be really useful when I returned to the game.

Can't say everyone else actually learned anything from it... But I'll dream lol

[Maighdlin]

Just wanna put this out there before I head to bed...

We need more FCs and groups focused around teaching with decent, patient people doing the teaching. Actual mentors and not just random people who managed to fulfill the coded requirement to get a special badge.

When I returned, I specifically searched for such an FC. With my anxiety issues, I knew I needed good friends and talented mentors who would be willing to help me learn to tank again because if one more person in a PUG told me to "git gud" or kicked me for some stupid reason, I'd probably just cancel my sub again. (Only happened once but I was so sensitive back then lol)

[Jojoya]

We need more FCs and groups focused around teaching with decent, patient people doing the teaching. Actual mentors and not just random people who managed to fulfill the coded requirement to get a special badge.

So then who is responsible for forming and leading these FCs, or spending the time to hold teaching groups?

It's really easy to say "someone should be doing those things as long as that someone isn't me because I'm just here to play.". We're all just here to play.

Not everyone is cut out to be a leader or a teacher. Not everyone is willing to give up part of the time they have available to play to help others.

I do agree with the point about the current mentor system. I blocked invites to the Novice Network because the channel was filled with "mentors" bragging about how awesome they were while ignoring requests for information from the new players they were presumably there to help.

[Altena]

SE have been fighting this issue since release.

The issue is that they are trying to keep their game accessible to a wide audience to maximise business profits, while meeting the demands of players screaming "give us harder content".
It's only natural that a little (read: a lot) from column A, find themselves sneaking over into column B.

I am all for people trying as much of the game's content as they can.. However they should also recognise when they are the ones causing problems in the party and try and iron out those problems.

[KaivaC]

I would really love to see more added to the Hall of Novice. I personally found what was there to be really useful when I returned to the game.

Can't say everyone else actually learned anything from it... But I'll dream lol

I can say for sure that I still use the lessons that I've learned from the Hall of Novice today. Maybe not so much with picking one mob at a time because that meta has changed, but a lot of things in the Hall are still useful. Obviously with jump potions, there's a chance that players enter Susano not knowing what a stack marker is (which baffles me, because the Sirensong Sea dungeon hits you with these from the first boss. That needs to change.

snip

+1

I whole-heartedly agree with you on this.

I cannot stress this enough, my comments aren't really directed at learning parties - I mean, that's why these types of parties exist. But if, for example, after wiping on Hashmal for the first time, a player is told to stick with their alliance, they fail to ask any questions (even in the event that they are called out by name), and they are the reasons why one alliance keeps getting double stack markers, I'm talking about them. I don't mind FFXIV being casual...but there are still a whole bunch of players in even casual content who don't even do good at playing their chosen job.

When those individuals who fail to recognize their own mistakes within the game see my threads and get mad at me for saying this, I'm the elitist for pointing out that they are bad (not all, obviously, but a lot), then they go right out and become the sole reason why a group cannot clear a dungeon, or they continually die to the same thing over and over.

[Kamatsu]

I have to agree that I wish they would add more to the Hall of Novice to teach more about different types of AoE abilities to dodge, direction of attacks, etc. Another thing - is the Hall of Novice required to do before Satasha or just talk to the npc there? Because if it's just talk to the npc, changing it to be mandatory to do all Novice quest's prior to Satasha might help somewhat.

And yes, like others I've also seen ppl with the stack marker running away from the group (even with the alliance telling them to stop and run to people), I've seen ppl get the marker which indicated a 'aoe that follows you' and run right through ppl (and told by alliance to run away from ppl if they get that marker), etc. I've also seen my fair share of ppl who just stand in AoE's and then cry when they die.

PS Not saying I'm perfect, I've messed up mechanics before... but I learn and try not to do the same thing twice if possible.

Also I'd love to see more emphasis done with the Stone, sea, earth addidtion they did at the end of HW. This was done as a side-quest and I'm sure a lot of ppl don't even know about it. I think this, or something similar, could be very useful in helping people practive against target dummies whose health match's various boss fights. Can also set them up to simulate mechanics where possible (ie the aoe's that happen in a boss fight, moving aoe's, the follow-you aoe's, etc) to help ppl learn/practice these mechanics.

Have access to this early on and make it easy to get to - say an NPC in each Grand Company area that can port you there, an NPC in the Foundation, Idylsville, Kugane, etc. Add being directed to go use these facilities before every major known Trial type fight (ie Ifrit, Garuda) andor other major MSQ / side-quest boss fights. By directing people there multiple times, it'll get more use and show that it can simulate more than just a 'smack this post for X damage" type of situation.
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On the whole I'd support trying to make the optional dungeons & trials harder via better ilvl/lvl syncing and tweaking the hp/damage/mechanics of the trash and boss fights. Heck, I'd even suggest that some of the optional dungeons should be completely revamped so that the AoE spray'n'pray tactic that works now doesn't - ie less mobs in the trash, mobs that can't just be pulled enmasse into a big ball of AoE death, etc.

However in the end, the truth is that no matter how much 'learning' facilities that are put into the game... there will always be those who refuse to learn, who don't want to learn, and who will continue playing however they do. It is something that has to be accepted, but it also doesn't mean there aren't ways ingame for SE to improve the ability to learn for those who do want to learn and/or are willing to learn.

And yes, it does have to be in-game... because most players never visit third party sites, or even official sites, forums, reddit, etc. So guides, video's, etc located out-of-the-game will do nothing for them. How many PS4 players for instance don't have a computer to look up guides, or have limited data limit's on their mobiles so can't/won't waste that searching for guides, video's, etc - just using PS4 players as an example, same applies to PC players... many of who likely have little idea how to find guides, video's, etc on the we. (Believe it or not, this is true. Having done 6+ years of ISP tech support, I would be super wealthy if I had a dollar for every customer I spoke to who basically only knew how to install & run programs, and had little idea how to search the web for anything... and age was irrelevant to this).

Something that SE could do is maybe do a series of video's demonstrating different AoE's that bosses do and how to avoid them, showing different kinds of mechanics, etc... and then link to these pages via a message sent to all characters mail box upon creation. This way more information on aoe's, mechanics, etc (even if pretty basic ones showing the different types of icons commonly used in fights for stacking, 'follow you aoe' coming, etc) is more readily available to players... and because it comes from SE, more players would be trusting to actually go there (and yes, trust is an issue... seen many ppl refuse to go to videos, guides, etc in various MMO's due to not trusting them).

Just my 2 cents.