Shadowbringers - How can we fix this?

[Xieldras]

New players and difficult game

But that's the thing about games: you learn and get better.
Did I fail hard when I started playing FF14? Of course I did. But I learned, actually read my tooltips and job quests, watched videos of rotations, asked questions to other players and got a better understanding of what to do. I came from another MMO called Eden Eternal and, while it's true that FF14 has more stuff going on, I ultimately adjusted.

While I commend the way harder fights are designed (Normal mode teaching you the basic mechanics of the EX fight and additional mechanics throughout the fight itself), the way the game teaches you falls apart when it comes to basic mechanics you see throughout the game and how to play a class or role. It doesn't help either that people can use Jump Potions to skip to current content without learning anything.
I still see people fail stack markers or stack when they should spread at current level and that is not good in any multiplayer game where people have to work together to clear content.

I think that when it comes to difficulty in the game, people are not asking for Ultimate or Savage level of MSQ. Usually they're asking for a reasonable level of difficulty where you have to actually use your head to clear the content and not clear while watching Netflix on the side (or you know, having a real hard time to clear while watching Netflix).

Another thing of worthy mention is the attitude of the community. The community is cool (mostly), but there is a prevalent problem of "You don't pay my sub so you can't tell me what to do" going around. People play for themselves while ignoring the way their performance affects the group: no job crystal, gear too low to clear, bad rotations where the healer or tank does more damage than you, placing mechanics in a way that hurts or wipes the team, etc. You only have to read the venting thread in General Discussion to see what I mean.
Now, if they are new I easily forgive and move on but if they do not ask for help or tips on how to do things then I have less patience. What I have no tolerance for is players expecting a carry or being dead weight for laziness' sake.
And players trying to help those people can get snapped at or reported for Harassment (and play style differences count as Harassment now if I remember). Even kicking a bad player carries a risk now.

Rewarding the lowest effort possible is bad MMO design in my opinion because it causes a too great disparity between low and higher skilled players. And those play style differences cause problems when going into more mid-core and harder difficulties, which is usually end-game-till-new-patch content.

*Edit : NPCs in dungeons now do mechanics as well so that is a nice touch from S-E's part.