Things to think about before you call someone "Bad"

[MoroMurasaki]

Even if your party clears a dungeon/raid, that doesnt mean that everyone in that party did a good job - it might very well mean that 3 people did a damn good job, 2 did okay and the other 3 were deadweight, doing nothing but dying and eating up MP. Yet you still cleared.

This got me thinking about how these situations work.

I'm not trying to toot my own horn here but if I'm compared to the average player of this game I'm quite skilled. I also favor healing and RDM which means I've almost always got the ability to sustain myself, potentially save others and even bring some people back into the fight. This means that most of the parties I'm in have a competent player with some carrying ability in them (internet willing of course) but what about other groups?

Like imagine the worst tank, healer and dps that you've seen in o12n. Now make a party out of that caliber of player and drop them in the same fight. It would be an absolute train wreck.

People are so quick to defend these poor, disenfranchised casuals but has anyone given any thought to the actual consequences of their poor play? I'm not talking about costing me an extra 5 or 10 minutes in expert roulette, clearing things in a timely fashion obviously doesn't matter to some of you, but what about not clearing at all?

At the end of the day it's all a balancing act. A given piece of content requires a certain amount of skill from the party as a whole and specific contribution by specific roles in some cases. When you don't have that you don't clear.

I kind of want to test this out by playing a melee or something. No defensive utility to speak of, find some bad pugs and see where things take us. I bet it isn't pretty.

Complain all you want about raiders and people who actually care about performance but it's the people who care who carry these underperformers through all their content. If we didn't exist they would be back there at Shinryu wondering why this boss was immortal.

[Vidu]

This got me thinking about how these situations work.

I'm not trying to toot my own horn here but if I'm compared to the average player of this game I'm quite skilled. I also favor healing and RDM which means I've almost always got the ability to sustain myself, potentially save others and even bring some people back into the fight. This means that most of the parties I'm in have a competent player with some carrying ability in them (internet willing of course) but what about other groups?

Like imagine the worst tank, healer and dps that you've seen in o12n. Now make a party out of that caliber of player and drop them in the same fight. It would be an absolute train wreck.

People are so quick to defend these poor, disenfranchised casuals but has anyone given any thought to the actual consequences of their poor play? I'm not talking about costing me an extra 5 or 10 minutes in expert roulette, clearing things in a timely fashion obviously doesn't matter to some of you, but what about not clearing at all?

At the end of the day it's all a balancing act. A given piece of content requires a certain amount of skill from the party as a whole and specific contribution by specific roles in some cases. When you don't have that you don't clear.

I kind of want to test this out by playing a melee or something. No defensive utility to speak of, find some bad pugs and see where things take us. I bet it isn't pretty.

Complain all you want about raiders and people who actually care about performance but it's the people who care who carry these underperformers through all their content. If we didn't exist they would be back there at Shinryu wondering why this boss was immortal.

I'm often asking myself the question "If everyone played at the level of this person - would the dungeon be cleared (in time)?" or "If this was a solo-game - would that person beat this boss?" - and if the answer is "No", then I personally find that person and their performance unacceptable and will try to communicate/give advice first, but if that doesnt work, remove the person from the party. Because at that point it doesnt matter to me anymore that the two of us can dou the dungeon.

For me its not about those 5 or 10 minutes either, its about a certain amount of respect and courtesy for your fellow players - and thats whats bugging me the most about those "bad players", that they show a general lack of both self-awareness and respect for the other people in their party.

...I guess you're right with your last part though and I'm guilty of that myself. I cant count of the times I said "Half of those people didnt deserve this clear of A9NM..." - but I also have an intrest to get the stuff done myself, so I wont wipe the group everytime the bard isnt using songs or dots, just to get them out...
Not a fan of carrying people, but at a certain point, I just give up - just how I've almost given up with giving advice, because most of the time its met with such a bad attitude... (and even worse - we have people who are even defending that and are of the opinion that you shouldnt give polite and friendly advice until the person who desperatly needs it, begs you for it!)

So, somedays I might be building the brick wall those people are hitting by kicking them (not that I actually believe that they sit down and think "mmh, maybe I look into my job now after all..."), but somtimes I just cant be bothered and hope that someone else will do that - or that that bard wont bother to many people on their quest of being the worst WoL Eorzea has ever seen...

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I'm often asking myself the question "If everyone played at the level of this person - would the dungeon be cleared (in time)?"

I can answer this question. Last week, I got SMA in Expert. We did your standard greeting, then the DRK charged on ahead, pulling until he couldn't any longer. I kept him alive with literally only Regen and Divine Benison; his CD usgae was sublime. Meanwhile, the DPS were pulling 6,000 apiece, if not higher depending who got their abilities off first. We blitzed the entire dungeon down in roughly 10 minutes or thereabouts. Fastest I have probably completed a dungeon is a 7-8 minute Xelphatol back in Heavensward. It's amazing how quickly things fall over when people know what they're doing. Meanwhile, I have spent over 15 minutes in Guardian Normal—which is five minutes longer than his Savage enrage. Now we should expect that level of play with any regularity, but if people put in even half as much effort, we'd all benefit.

[Nestama]

Meanwhile, I have spent over 15 minutes in Guardian Normal—which is five minutes longer than his Savage enrage. Now we should expect that level of play with any regularity, but if people put in even half as much effort, we'd all benefit.

I've heard horror stories of people spending up to 20 minutes fighting Construct 7 (or any of the bosses) in Ridorana Lighthouse...

[Alrin]

I've heard horror stories of people spending up to 20 minutes fighting Construct 7 (or any of the bosses) in Ridorana Lighthouse...

I was in one last week as a healer. It felt like eternity and I was thinking what the hell is going on. People didnt even had a will to be toxic in the chat.

First loud warning bell ringed when there were a lot of people missing math mechanic. Cmon 12 is not number that is dividable by 5. Nor is 7 or 8... Some people were standing in pulverize... Not stacking up during accelerate ... Running into path of Construct during compress...

I dont even know how we vere able to finish it. I hope that it will never happen again because Ridorana is my favourite Alliance raid

[MoroMurasaki]

I've heard horror stories of people spending up to 20 minutes fighting Construct 7 (or any of the bosses) in Ridorana Lighthouse...

I remember a Construct 7 that I ran with a WHM friend of mine. I wound up not having an enmity CD up for the aggro reset after the add phase because I had to use Diversion during our add phase and I'd used Lucid not long before because I had to help raise and mana shift the healers. The short version is me dying horribly to the tankbuster as a RDM and losing my sweet damage up stacks.

After the next set if math happened and I at least had 2 damage up buffs again I got the stack marker and... virtually no one stacked with me. Dead again, lost the damage up buffs that I had just gained.

We already knew the fight was going rather slowly. My friend had a parser but no overlay. Plenty of deaths and awfulness later we cleared and he checked his parser.

On RDM (before 4.4 buffs) and using the Tsukuyomi Rapier I was still the top dps in the fight by more than 1k dps. Basically no damage up buffs, on what was at the time the lowest potential dps job and far from BiS.

The moral of the story is bads gonna bad and any fight that doesn't have a hard enrage will fall down if you throw enough pixel bodies at it.

[Nestama]

The moral of the story is bads gonna bad and any fight that doesn't have a hard enrage will fall down if you throw enough pixel bodies at it.

I honestly feel the 24-man bosses should have, at minimum, a 13-15 minute enrage timer. Throwing bodies at a boss until you win 20+ minutes later is not good.

Famfrit: A wall of water slowly closing into the middle of the arena. If it reaches the middle, players take continuous damage (like Tidal Wave).
Belias: Maybe have a floor break every 30 seconds (you'll know what will break as it'll use the clock AoE marker).
Construct 7: Math Quiz returns one last time, however your HP does not reset back to what it should be.
Yiazmat: His 10% phase is kind of an enrage. His Rake-around-the-Rosies is almost (if not, guaranteed) a one shot.

[Vahlnir]

I honestly feel the 24-man bosses should have, at minimum, a 13-15 minute enrage timer. Throwing bodies at a boss until you win 20+ minutes later is not good.

Famfrit: A wall of water slowly closing into the middle of the arena. If it reaches the middle, players take continuous damage (like Tidal Wave).
Belias: Maybe have a floor break every 30 seconds (you'll know what will break as it'll use the clock AoE marker).
Construct 7: Math Quiz returns one last time, however your HP does not reset back to what it should be.
Yiazmat: His 10% phase is kind of an enrage. His Rake-around-the-Rosies is almost (if not, guaranteed) a one shot.

These ideas are borderline diabolical.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I honestly feel the 24-man bosses should have, at minimum, a 13-15 minute enrage timer. Throwing bodies at a boss until you win 20+ minutes later is not good.

Famfrit: A wall of water slowly closing into the middle of the arena. If it reaches the middle, players take continuous damage (like Tidal Wave).
Belias: Maybe have a floor break every 30 seconds (you'll know what will break as it'll use the clock AoE marker).
Construct 7: Math Quiz returns one last time, however your HP does not reset back to what it should be.
Yiazmat: His 10% phase is kind of an enrage. His Rake-around-the-Rosies is almost (if not, guaranteed) a one shot.

Death Gaze in Dun Scaith actually does. And it's a wonderful wake up call for people. Not to mention, it puts some responsibility on the DPS whereas now you just throw bodies and eventually win. Sadly, it's this type of design which encourages complacency.

[SenorPatty]

Complain all you want about raiders and people who actually care about performance but it's the people who care who carry these underperformers through all their content. If we didn't exist they would be back there at Shinryu wondering why this boss was immortal.

I'm so glad I'm at home reading this cuz this made laugh so damn hard.