Why are standards seen as a crime in this game?

[Alaray]

I understand you'd like to make this game as hard as complex as EVE online, but unfortunately for you, FFXIV is a MMO for everyone, not just hardcore players. And MSQ progression duties really should be more on the easy side, rather than a serious challenge. Original Steps of Faith was a big mistake, that fortunately got fixed.

Having some more complexity in the game in other non-raid areas, such as being punished if you don't, for example, use a defensive ability on a heavy hit in a dungeon... wouldn't be bad. Or even putting an enrage on a boss, even if it's long, so you can't just afk-solo it. Or sit on a Construct 7 attempt for 20+ minutes.

As it stands, as a tank in this example, I can pretty much survive and solo the second boss of Ghimlyt Dark. I don't feel that should be possible in situations where it's intended to be group content, as it means you can stand still and auto attack the boss and move out of an occasional AoE and win (And yes, I can take the stack marker on that fight alone). That's a bit far down the extreme side of easy-to-complete content, since you don't even have to play the videogame to win.

It'd be more interesting to have fights that'll actually punish you for mistakes, rather than being able to shrug off and ignore them the entire time. Doesn't have to be overly cryptically complicated or overly punishing, since there's other avenues for that, but at least requiring some... semblance of needing to play the game.

Though, maybe having a desire to play the game in dungeons is a little much to ask.

At least I can pull wall to wall and shrug it off to get it over with faster.

[VirusOnline]

word count

What would you suggest to happen then ? Because the quote you give is simply not the reality of what will happen in any mmo in my experience.
Also I'm not referring to only guides, right now I can google blm 50 rotation and find it. Same for 60. Same for 70. The most basic rotations can be found - this is what I'm talking about, the basics can be found quite easily outside of the game whether be it a guide or a reddit post. I'm a bit confused though, as people play their classes they overtime become acquainted with ability icons/names. If there were an in game guide it would use exactly those two things in order to guide you as well so I see no issue there.

Also you can't assume that these issues are happening purely because of tooltips. Maybe a person has not taken the time to really sit down and really grasp what they're reading. Maybe they don't really care to read the tooltips. Also this is where the community around us starts to tell us things such as : Hey drk, why don't you have grit on ? Or hey blm, you can transpose. A person can take that information and use it, consider it, or altogether ignore it. No MMO in my experience will ever give you a length paragraph of the situations of when what is better and when to use what.

But stick with me just for a moment here ...
If we read the tooltip for SCH's Adloquium it says it creates a shield equaling the amount of hp restored. When Adlo crits, the shield amount is doubled.
If we read Deployment Tactics it says that shield effects are extended to members nearby the target that currently has that adlo shield.
We also have a castable aoe - Succor, and it only gives a shield equaling 150% of the heal amount.

You cannot call this zero information.
The inference is that : Adlo is a probably a better shield since you can crit it, create a doubled shield amount, and then spread it to the entire party.
This information can be inferred from what the tooltip gives you. This is worthwhile information - this is where it comes in that "Deployment tactics can only be used every 120s, so maybe only save it for for big aoe damage" comes about.

If you're having a hard time, then ask someone. I've seen many people in game collaborate in order to help someone learn their class or the basic rotations.
But we're getting muddled here. A casual player, a moderate player, a progressive player, a midcore, a hardcore, what be it may - how you want to play will affect what level of learning you want to acquire. There exists tooltips. There exists a community in the game to help. There exists resources outside of the game. Utilize what you can to the level of play that you want to be able to do. This is the reality.

[AnnaRosa]

What I find curious is the (compared to pretty much every other MMO I've played) relatively high amount of players who come unprepared but don't mention that they're unprepared.
If you're new to a dungeon/ trial and have absolutely no clue what to do here... why not say so?
Why not write a simple "hey, first time here. any mechanics I need to pay attention to?".
I don't expect people to watch or read a thorough guide before every duty, though I welcome it if they do. Brownie points for coming prepared!
But at least tell others that you have no idea what to expect. That's common curtesy and has nothing to do with elitism. There's always someone who knows his stuff and can help, but silently hoping nobody notices that you don't know what to do is imo really thoughtless.
Even below 50 there are a couple of dungeons with mechanics that can cause wipe after wipe if ignored, like Qarn 1st boss, Chimera's skills in Cutter's Cry, Fruits in AV etc.
Yet when I wiped with a group and asked "hey, XY, do you know about the mechanics here?" I often get no response at all and quick explanations are being ignored. Just got out of another trial with people like that. Shiva really isn't terribly complicated. Lots of people watching cutscene, lots of early 50ish people. Asked "anybody here doesn't know what to do? ". No response.
Followed by four wipes because people died from standing in stuff, getting frozen etc, but ignored the offer from a RDM and me to lead them to safe spots aswell as the quick overview we gave.
5 people obviously didn't know a thing about this fight (which is fine) but didn't speak up (which is NOT fine).
The party chat is there for a reason.
I've met these kinds of people in every MMO but never to the extend as in FFXIV.

Play this game around 4 years with pauses of 3 months extend in between those years due to external factors.

During one year did made the roulette's every week some weeks 5 days a week with no exaggeration ALL PLAYERS who came across with during all this time warned when they were learning the mechanics and asked for help to know, when there was 1st time players understood and didn't adopt any condescending behavior over those who did not knew the mechanics.

All along players in their majority knew how to play their roles with the exception of a really, really like 1% few healers who would only heal, but even that didn't bother the team that much.

If there were wipes in raids it was not object for detrimental rage much less delinquent behavior towards others, on cases that were understood there were friends playing with friends and messing with them just for fun other players would leave duty without any dumb comment because like myself understood there were parties made of real life friends playing together and having fun with each other they were not there to waste anyone's time they were just having fun.

So not sure if have been lucky with the players who meet with or if you are making a generalization of the few different cases you have found.

So if you please can cut the B.S. it would be great.

[Crystal_Raven]

Most guides (In fact, all guides I've come across) are entirely focused on end-game raiding.

The "Basic knowledge of rotations" I often actually had to look up what skills they were even talking about because they wouldn't even mention the actual name of the skill (Either using an abbreviation or just the ability icon) as well as they often provide multiple different rotations for different team compositions or buffs that are active.

Which aren't exactly the most simple thing if you're brand new and suddenly are being told 3+ different rotations.

As far as tooltips go?

They aren't going to tell you anything worthwhile.

Tooltips are why we get Ice Mages.

Tooltips are why we get DRK's running around without Darkside active.

(Since they read "Can't regenerate MP" on DS/AF and think it's a bad thing)

Tooltips lead a number of BLM's to try spamming Flare at level 50 when they unlock it (Since the tooltip says it does more damage than Fire I or Fire III, so I should just spam it right?)

Even with tooltips, I've had to personally do the math about many jobs rotations, factoring in cast time, potency, re-use, ability to weave, damage per resource etc. None of this was presented in the actual tooltip. Nowhere in the tooltip does it say "Upheaval is better damage per Beast Gauge than Fell Cleave as long as you're above 60% health"

This is no information.

This is like that time I had to do a physics exam and literally hadn't been taught anything by my teacher at that point. I was handed a sheet with a bunch of formulae on but it didn't help because I didn't have the fundamental understanding of how and when to use them.

Please stop comparing an MMO with something like a physics exam. One requires a few minutes of gameplay and observation, the other requires likely years of studying.

First time I played BLM, which I level skipped to 60 mind you, I read all of the skill descriptions and understood most of them. Then I hopped in POTD and I noticed that attacking with fire deals more damage and lowers my MP, while attacking with ice deals less damage but immediately restores my MP. This whole thing took about 1 minute to observe and act on it to increase my damage output. The only thing that I didn't understand about BLM was how was i supposed to keep my MP up for damage, the usage is insane. Which was immediately answered by just playing for a minute, fighting ONE enemy and observing the differences between the 2 attack types.

There is absolutely NOTHING to prevent anyone else from doing the same. If I can figure out that quickly, so can you, so can another person, so can everyone else. The only difference is probably that I don't want to be a detriment to my team. For most people this seems to be acceptable.

As for the Upheaval vs Fell Cleave, I have a warrior at 70, don't mind that it says my main is Paladin, it's actually warrior, I never bothered to change it. All you need is a bit of critical thinking to figure out that Upheaval will do more damage if you are at high HP simply because of it's tooltip, it doesn't really take longer than a few minutes to find out why it deals more damage if you just stop and think about it.

The tooltip does give you all the information you need, the problem is that most players don't read it or choose to ignore it. It probably can be explained better, however it doesn't change the fact that the information is in front of you.

I have a feeling your criticisms are less than tactful. Just a feeling.
"i'm new so i'm entitled to wiping raids because im learning"?

I've never heard this, just "sorry I'm new".

If someone in a DF gives attitude or balks at trying to improve in the face of tactful, helpful criticism.. I leave or finish despite them. It's really not a huge deal. You can't control others, you can just do your best and offer helpful advice.

The "I'm new so I'm entitled to wiping raids because im learning" is embellishment. What usually gets said is "I'm new", the embellishment is mostly there to point out how unbelievably disgusting and entitled that sounds. Being a max level player and having purchased the game recently doesn't entitle you to wiping raids and wasting everyones time because you are new. State you are new, so people can help you. I meet a lot of sprouts in lvl 70 content and I ask who is new and doesn't know what to do, naturally, nobody says anything. And then we wipe. Again. And again. And again. And again.

This is not acceptable. You being new does not entitle you to wiping a raid repeatedly because you are learning. No, you were OFFERED the chance to learn from someone who knows more than you do, you were ASKED if you are new so people can help you. You decide to stay quiet and wipe the raid. How some people in this community consider this type of behaviour acceptable is far beyond me. If you do this type of stuff in other MMOs you would likely get hit over the face and immediately kicked from the majority of dungeons/raids because people will spread the word that you are a time waster and someone who refuses to learn. In FF14 i've seen this behaviour encouraged way more than I've seen it punished. Which is something that needs to stop.

I understand you'd like to make this game as hard as complex as EVE online, but unfortunately for you, FFXIV is a MMO for everyone, not just hardcore players. And MSQ progression duties really should be more on the easy side, rather than a serious challenge. Original Steps of Faith was a big mistake, that fortunately got fixed.

No one wants a game as hard and complex as EVE, really, no one wants that. It would immediately slaughter the majority of the players. EVE difficulty is taking it way too far with this community. However, SE was gone way too far in the casual side. Normal content shouldn't e balanced around the players who smash their face in the keyboard and hope something good will happen.

Having more difficulty to force players to learn however, would be very helpful. Minimum ilvl requirements on all dungeons would be a start, I've met quite a lot of people with lvl 50 gear on the left and lvl 1 gear on the right show up in a lvl 60+ dungeon and be completely useless because their gear is utterly inadequate. This shouldn't happen in the first place.

Another thing good are punishing mechanics in dungeons. If the boss does a heavy hit in a dungeon on the tank and he does nothing to mitigate it, either outright kill him or give him a heavy debuff to let him know that he is supposed to mitigate that and not just sit there like a plant. Bosses could also use enrage, all of them. So you can't sit there for an hour hitting away at a boss. You either get good and kill it faster, or you give up and don't. There's quite a few dungeon bosses that you can solo, and that's meant to be group content. This is mind boggling. Why can we solo content meant for GROUPS? That defeats it's whole purpose.

For example, the other day I ran Ridorana Lighthouse, it took over 30 minutes to kill Farmfrit. The ONLY reason we didn't fail is because I was playing with a few friends and between the 4 of us along with 2 others from a different alliance we were able to save the raid from the wipe mechanic.

The game needs a lot more difficulty as it currently stands, content should NOT be a faceroll.

[Ilan]

There's an issue with something like this though.

It requires using 3rd party sites in order to actually utilize.

Many players don't use 3rd party sites to play games, nor should they be expected to.

The game itself should provide the basic and intermediate levels of knowledge needed.

It should teach people about how to use their rotations, how much benefit each stat gives, what the breakpoints of stats are, how much DPS someone is doing (Also, how much effective HPS and overhealing someone is doing too)

But alas, this is not the case in FFXIV. Where, even stats are only listed as arbitrary "Ratings" that need to be tested (Or looked up on a 3rd party site made by someone who's already tested them) to see how much Crit gives 1% crit chance.

Where even certain parts of the game (Notably, Eureka) are heavily dependent on the use of 3rd party sites to function properly (To check NM cooldowns as well as weather timings)

It's this kind of hands off approach that leads to many people not knowing that they're underperforming because the game tells them absolutely nothing.

In fact, the only way they'd be able to tell they're underperforming is if they used a 3rd party program to parse their damage and then compared themselves to others on a 3rd party site and then saw the discrepancy.

Which, when you think about it... Is kind of crazy.

There is no issue with informing yourself about the game you are playing on 3rd party sides because 3rd party sides are always used in mmo's for guides like certain fights and gathering/crafting. Sure Se could integrate a little boss infor for every dungeon like there is in WoW but that still wouldn't cover everything and would be less help than the guides that other players made to help people.

The only thing someone should be expected to look up is savage raids and ex primals so they don't screw over their party. Obviously not when something is new because everyone has to learn it then.

Sure the game could also teach people their rotations but without a tool that shows why this rotation is usefull it won't be of much use.

You might think its crazy that you have to rely on third party tools and sides for games but thats how it is with every single mmo that i've ever played and that was a lot, the only ones that had some little helpers were WoW with a little overview what the bosses do and BnS with the build in damagemeter for bosses. I think there is nothing crazy about it that players are expected to inform themselfs about a game, but i would say that there are some things that SE could change to teach people how to play their role and give people a tool that shows them their damage.

[Physic]

I see this often, and personally I find this whole thing rather disgusting and obnoxious.

Having standards for players seems to a crime among this community and you will only be met with insults and overall terrible and toxic behaviour.
For example, it's rather standard to expect a level 70 tank player to understand Enmity and how it works. Yet I meet an insane amount of level 70 tank only players that do not understand the basics of enmity and how to hold aggro.

Another example is with the AoE mechanics aka the orange markers. I encounter many people that stand in them at levels 50+ because they don't realize that orange marker = bad.

It's completely mind boggling that this is considered acceptable by a large part of the community.

Those same people, if you criticize their actions because they don't understand basic game mechanics at pretty high levels if not max level itself, respond with insults, toxicity, "you don't pay my sub", "i'm new so i'm entitled to wiping raids because im learning", "i play how i want to", "you don't control my account" and so on.

And if you don't say anything to them, you get called a toxic elitist for choosing not to help them.

In the vast majority of other MMOs, if you are a bad player, you will be called a bad player, people will try to help, you are given the opportunity to improve and stop being a bad player.

In FF14, if you are a bad player, you cannot be criticized because the other person can report you for harassment and you'll probably get a warning under the new rules they implemented, and if you don't help them you get called a toxic elitist anyway.

Why is it such a crime to have actual STANDARDS in this game? No one is asking anyone to be the top 1%, or outright the top player in the world, however I would say it should be a very normal and common thing to expect high level players to understand at least the BASICS of combat and their class. Currently this fact is treated by the community like you just committed a war crime.

Why are standards a crime? Why do people think it's acceptable to waste everyone's time by wiping a raid repeatedly and when offered advice they respond with toxicity? This is a pretty common thing, and i find it mind boggling.

first off, based on what you wrote here, you are not good at communicating, and not good a criticism. How you say something matters, if your intent is to actually improve the player. Starting off any criticism with anything in the tone of you are a bad player will make it highly unlikely someone will accept whatever comes after.

explaining a mechanic or tactic is fine.

also recognize you have no actual right to force a player to listen to you. I can advise someone how to play, but beyond that it does become somewhat harassment. Keep in mind, what content you are doing, and how you got into the content matters.

if you made a party finder, with specific requirements and asked for highly skilled players, you have a different understandable expectation than if you queued in randomly into a daily roulette, for example.


Lastly what a reasonable demand is has to do with penalty of failure as well difficulty of execution, standing in orange, if you can take the hit, and have virtually no chance of death, isnt as big a deal. Standing in orange while you are trying to pull off a long rotation, in a certain position, and avoiding other attacks may not be optimal, but be understandable.

also note that, latency in this game varies greatly from player to player, and what you see on your screen doesnt always line up with what they see, or how long they they have to react to it.

[Kalise]

What would you suggest to happen then ? Because the quote you give is simply not the reality of what will happen in any mmo in my experience.

Actually, in Mists of Pandaria, WoW actually did lock the LFG tool behind completing Silver difficulty in a set of solo trials for each role you wished to use.

Where Bronze was so simple that it was basically checking that you had the game installed.

Silver was still pretty simple and was checking if you had an IQ with a positive integer.

While Gold was sort of challenging and required a little bit of thought (But was ultimately not necessary)

Though, this ended up being scrapped because it turned out that the majority of the playerbase was complete trash and found it too hard to beat Silver trials, because concepts like "Hit the bad guy" and "Don't stand in the fire" are too complex...

Blade and Soul also had its own version of player tutoring, with a training room that would get you to use your abilities either in a rotation of sorts, or stuff like reacting to certain enemy skills (Such as interrupting an AoE cast or defending against a high damage skill etc) though while these were optional, they gave some nice gear for completing them whilst teaching you quite a lot about how to actually play your class in different situations.

Heck, even FFXIV does have a slight nod towards this style of teaching, with one of the early Pugilist class quests requiring you to use Snap Punch on some targets, with the game telling you about how to use Bootshine > True Strike in order to get into the Coeurl Stance to be able to use Snap Punch. Or how a NIN is taught how to access their Ninjutsu and asked to use Fuma Shuriken, Raiton and Katon.

It's not impossible for MMO's to actually teach players. Nor is it necessary to give people a paragraph of text about how to use their skills. Simply, it needs just put people into a position where they get to use their skills in appropriate situations.

The most logical place in XIV would be during job quests. Where instead of just auto-leveling into a skill and ignoring it or getting the skill after the quest... You instead have to use said skill during the quest and it teaches you about its use and function. Or if not a skill directly, something about the base gameplay - For example, a BLM might be taught about using Blizzard III and Fire III to swap between Astral Fire and Umbral Ice. Or a SAM being taught how to build their Sen to utilize all 3 of their Iaijutsu etc.

Of course you can also then provide the knowledge of roles by having solo trials to overcome with each role. So Tanks have to protect a Healer and DPS NPC by getting aggro and facing any boss they encounter away from them to stop cleaves hitting them. DPS would have to kill enemies before their Tank NPC dies, utilizing both AoE and ST damage rotations. Healers would have to heal up a Tank and DPS NPC ensuring they react to Tankbusters and Raidbusters that deal spikes of damage to a target(s)

It's not out of the realms of possibility for an MMO to actually teach players up to an intermediate level of play. So that even casuals will actually pick up the knowledge to not only be able to utilize their class effectively, but also learn how each role works within a standard dungeon.

With further progression beyond this point being based on personal research, where you'd find Tanks pushing out more DPS by using DPS stances and combos, Healers pushing out DPS 80% of the time and relying on oGCD's for healing, DPS perfecting their rotations and positioning for maximum uptime, and utilizing Limit Breaks where necessary.

[Tlachtga]

This game promotes laziness; the majority of the community is fiercely defensive over the fact that they can get almost every reward the game has to offer with the lowest amount of effort and literally zero competence required.

You're asking people to not be lazy; of course its going to be met with hostility and resistance.

[Physic]

This game promotes laziness; the majority of the community is fiercely defensive over the fact that they can get almost every reward the game has to offer with the lowest amount of effort and literally zero competence required.

You're asking people to not be lazy; of course its going to be met with hostility and resistance.

if you want optimal play, use PF, or make guilds and linkshells of like minded people, expecting that as the minimum bar is a bit ridiculous. And feeling you have the right to be rude to people who dont line up to your personal standards is also questionable.

also speaking of how content is rewarded is a totally different discussion.

i think people should have measured expectations of dungeon duty finder players, that doesnt mean i think low skilled players should be able to complete all content or get all rewards

[AnnaRosa]

This game promotes laziness; the majority of the community is fiercely defensive over the fact that they can get almost every reward the game has to offer with the lowest amount of effort and literally zero competence required.

You're asking people to not be lazy; of course its going to be met with hostility and resistance.

No one is promoting laziness but some are using ad hominem insults towards others that are experiencing either the game for the 1st time either the content for the 1st time.

Comprehensive behavior much less aggressive behavior from entitled knowing all content players would be appreciated in both mentioned situations, to keep the recently joined players and to maintain the casual players.

If SE were to build a game exclusively to knowing all content players, the perfects, the paladins of the MMO absolute content this MMO wouldn't have space neither to survive or grow.