Define a good player

[BluexBird]

I think it's not just a matter of being able to clear something or not. You have to take into account that every single person that manages to clear ANY Savage raid, had to spend a considerable amount of time learning the mechanics, how avoid dying, etc. Watching a video helps, but things like timing and muscle memory can only be obtained by messing up.

I'd say the difference between good and bad players might lie in how long it takes for them to be able to successfully reach that stage of "encounter mastery", where they know every little detail of the fight. Beyond that, I'd say doing whatever it takes to maximize your damage will set you apart from most other players as well. But obviously, before you're able to do that, you first need to learn the fight.

[Baingoleth]

I am not concerned with the difficulty of content that a player can clear when I consider attributes that a good player displays. Players who make the effort to work as a team are good players. There is more involved with teamwork than just skill.

Skill is important and players who don't make the attempt to know their jobs are difficult to have in a party. I think it shows a lack of respect to not make the effort to understand how your skills work. In the same way, players who don't know what their role should be in a party or who refuse to do their role in a party are not good players. Dps players who consistently run ahead of the tank and pull mobs come to mind. That said, I am very patient with players who are learning their job or their role in a party. I'll happily run the same content wipe after wipe with players who are making the effort to learn. You never know; the player who is struggling but getting better in your party might turn out to be the next great raid leader after some practice. The important part here is that a good player is making the effort to improve because they want to contribute their fair share to the party.

Another important element to being a good player is being able to play well with others. Some people treat group content like single player content and that mentality makes for frustrating and difficult runs for the whole group. Some other very skilled players expect all random duty finder players to be as skilled as they are and get rude when party members are still learning their jobs or are familiarizing themselves with some new content. I don't like to be in parties with either of these two types of players. I love being in parties with players who treat the other party members as people and not as NPCs and with players who allow for the less experienced to learn.

There are good and bad players at all skill levels. To me, what matters more is teamwork and a willingness to grow as a player. A friendly demeanor goes a long way also.

Good players are excellent to each other.

[thegreatonemal]

A good player is consistent. Consistent damage consistent proper handling of mechanics this is a game that requires you to do the same things at the same time every single time so you should be consistent.

[RiyahArp]

There's no point. Everyone is just saying what they happen to like or dislike. Kaiva thinks a good player is one who beats the hardest content in the game. Others think a good player is mechanically proficient and doesn't waste other people's time. Others think that a good player is kind, and easy to get along with. All it does is says something about the person who defines it.

Just play the game and have fun.

[Sigma-Astra]

There's no point. Everyone is just saying what they happen to like or dislike. Kaiva thinks a good player is one who beats the hardest content in the game. Others think a good player is mechanically proficient and doesn't waste other people's time. Others think that a good player is kind, and easy to get along with. All it does is says something about the person who defines it.

Just play the game and have fun.

.....If there's no point, then what was the point of your post besides making snide and subtle rebukes about everyone posting in the thread? The whole point of this thread was to get different perspectives of what a collective and broad range of people define what a good player is in their eyes and to see if others may or may not agree with them. That was the point.

We're not a hive mind, we're not all going to have the same opinions about what defines a good player so, of course, it's what one individual happens to like or dislike over the next person. I don't know what else you'd be expecting from a thread like this unfortunately.

[Tridus]

There's no point. Everyone is just saying what they happen to like or dislike. Kaiva thinks a good player is one who beats the hardest content in the game. Others think a good player is mechanically proficient and doesn't waste other people's time. Others think that a good player is kind, and easy to get along with. All it does is says something about the person who defines it.

And Riyah thinks a good player is someone who can't answer the question in the thread but feels compelled to complain about it instead.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

Just play the game and have fun.

Arguably, this is actually a miraculous feat in and of it's own as the developers have gone out of their way to suck the fun out of as many things as humanly possible this expansion.

[RiyahArp]

There's no point because ultimately caring about good or bad in this sense is letting other people define your own conduct by what other people like. I think Kaiva themself suffered from that when they fell into the trap of believing a good player has a high parse on savage content. People tend to care about good or bad because they want people to externally validate what they do, but it's never enough; if you get good at casual content, someone will look down on you for not doing savage. if someone clears savage they won't think you are good unless you can farm it. If you farm it, then people will think you aren't good if you have a low parse. If you do PvP, there's a whole ranking system you can use to look down on people or look up to them, from bronze wolf to top 100.

If you allow others to set these standards you're always going to fail them, but setting "good and bad" standards isn't as much for yourself as you think, it's because you want people to say "oh, he's such a great player!" or don't want them to say "oh, he's bad!" You shift the aspect of playing a game a bit to fulfilling other players ideas of how you should play a game, and that's a bad aspect of gamer culture. Good or bad is dumb, it's whether or not you have fun or enjoy the game. You can be good by someone's standards, and hate every second of it, or be bad and have a great time.

So much of this is just players desire to control and erect status monuments. It's not enough to play a game and have fun in it (especially in one as forgiving in casual content as this), you have to win worship by satisfying whatever crowd you aspire to's conditions of being a good player. Kaiva would just have a lot more fun if they didn't worry about what others said; if mastery of a game is fun, you don't need other players to tell you how good you are; the journey itself is fun. But all of this said here is just how fragmented that idea is; some people will think you bad if you are patient with bad players, some people think you are good if you mentor them, some people think being nice is better than being skilled, some people think its better to be mean if it spurs people to git gud...what's the point of asking? Everyone will ask you to be all things at all times.

[Sigma-Astra]

There's no point because ultimately caring about good or bad in this sense is letting other people define your own conduct by what other people like. I think Kaiva themself suffered from that when they fell into the trap of believing a good player has a high parse on savage content. People tend to care about good or bad because they want people to externally validate what they do, but it's never enough; if you get good at casual content, someone will look down on you for not doing savage. if someone clears savage they won't think you are good unless you can farm it. If you farm it, then people will think you aren't good if you have a low parse.

...And what's wrong with Kaiva's viewpoint? What is it with you and this "hate boner" you have for people who do Savage content...? Like seriously, any time it's brought up, you're on a warpath with it lately I've noticed.

Good or bad is dumb, it's whether or not you have fun or enjoy the game. You can be good by someone's standards, and hate every second of it, or be bad and have a great time.

I don't know, I don't really enjoy the game that much when I have a bunch of bad players in Weeping City or Rabanastre that consecutively die to the same thing five times in a row and I have to keep Manashifting the healers to raise them on BLM. That's not really fun, in my opinion, just saying. I'm glad though that the other person lying on the floor five times in a row is having a great time, while I'm thinking that I need to play a different game for a few hours or quit the raid entirely. You see how much of a double edge sword that is?

[RiyahArp]

...And what's wrong with Kaiva's viewpoint? What is it with you and this "hate boner" you have for people who do Savage content...?

Nothing I said in that was savage was bad; the point was rather that no matter how you define "good" there's always a higher step defined by other people. I used the progression there to show that even as you fulfill "good" conditions, there's always something people can use to look down on you.

I don't know, I don't really enjoy the game that much when I have a bunch of bad players in Weeping City or Rabanastre that consecutively die to the same thing five times in a row and I have to keep Manashifting the healers to raise them on BLM.

Then you can structure the game so you have fun; only play with friends, leave bad runs, vote kick the bad players, etc. Obsessing about them being bad does what?

Arguably, this is actually a miraculous feat in and of it's own as the developers have gone out of their way to suck the fun out of as many things as humanly possible this expansion.

Hah, well, yeah it's a bit of a bad time for them right now. Too much repetition doesn't help I guess, and a lot of the good/bad stuff probably happens when there isn't that much to occupy us.