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 Unfortunately, some online guides are still pretty outdated, so I can see how some players may be misled by the information they would find.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.