The general player base needs to improve

[Shurrikhan]

Again, one last time: what you say are only your ideal dream, a scenario that run in your head that completely detached from reality. We are spurred to do what necessary, but rarely beyond that, that's just our nature.

- The reason Optimization only exists in raid because not only of the need to clear, there are a level of competitive exists among the raiding community.
- That's why you don't see optimization in dungeon. Your example about healer DPS is completely superfluos at best. Between taking 1 hit or 3 hit make little difference to healer most of the time, since it'll take them one heal to top you off either way, factor in their OGCD and it's largely irrelevant. Source: I play all 3 healers.
- That's why you don't see optimization in 24 raid. 99% of time, the most accurate word to describe an alliance raid is "lazy". And the reason it's the case because you can be lazy and still clear.

Most people work because they have to afford their life somehow, you're talking as if we'll aspire to work to become a millionaire one day. Yes, some of us are, but most don't. Right now, the game is set up in a away that say "oh the only thing you need to do is to show up for work and put in minimal afford, and you still walk home with the pay". As long as that system exist, there is no reason for the majority to try any harder than minimum afford even if you have co-workers constantly tell them "hey, can you please put in some more afford?" You need the system itself shift to a mode where it raises the expectation that you MUST do better if you want the cake at the end of the day.

I see optimization even in leveling dungeons and exp grinds. The question is who is running it far more than what it is. When people want things done faster, they make the effort to do so, even in the absence of fixed challenges. The question is knowing how.

Fixed needs are not the only creator of improvements. Knowledge of the requisites for improvement, and finding the due efforts worthwhile, are every bit part of the equation.

And, for the third time now, again, I am not recommending that dungeons have such pathetic short-terms benchmarks than any amount of AoEs can just be soaked or where amount of DPS can pass through a boss fight. (Note also that these things didn't use to be case. Even our very first 60 optional dungeon, Amdapor Keep, had hard enrages upon release. Later, Pharos Sirius and even Copperbell HM likewise had borderline hard enrages. I can hardly go 3 posts in any relevant topic without lamenting this fact.)

But there is a difference between information given only upon death, and information given throughout against which that bimodal result can be compared. I am suggesting that the latter also be included.

Just as there is a difference between threat and risk. Threat of death risks nothing, and provides no real learning opportunity, if it is not staked against something that encourges that risk, such as uptime or throughput. Providing just half the picture, as per your suggested AoEs that should invariably force immediate movement due to their risk of one-shotting, with no counterbalance to make that threat and actual risk or danger, does little to force learning on anyone as it would apply to the end-goals of this game. And what possible reason would they have to learn difficulty steps A through F if it is irrelevant to or inverted within all sections further?

You continually mention "the system" or "that system" in a continually negative light, as if such were an opinion you need to impress upon me, and yet how are we (both) defining it?

• Too lacking in danger to force learning opportunities.
• In need of presented necessity of game sense to proceed.

The only parts we seemingly disagree on are these:

• I feel that the calculations we encourage onto players should draw them towards what we expect of them at the highest levels of play. It can take its time, but it should at least consider the whole picture and lead towards an actual benchmark of usage. Apparently I cannot understand your position in this respect; I can only guess that any visible improvement, even if derived from the same internal errors or similarly free of understanding, is a step in the right direction in your opinion. In contrast, I feel that towards the final destination or content group thereof is the only possible right direction.
• I think there should be further support tools. Why should the "Yes"/"No" of a fight's conclusion be the limits of information given? I cannot understand why you think the idea of their being useful to be "detached from reality". But alas, I guess that's just my insanity.