Parsing? Drama? ToS? Solution!

[Hyrist]

This is why I said do it going into 6.0, The trust system is optional and should only offer a much more (tame?) experience for those who dont want to be challenged, that'll keep both ends happy. If they can create Baldesion Arsenal, and Ultimate 2 forms of their most successful content, then I imagine they can slightly scale up dungeon difficulty over time.

I'm not opposed to them continuing to use Dungeons as a teaching method, but there's a crux there that prevents it from being useful on the level we'd need them to be. See my above answer for the reasoning.

Again 'difficulty' is relative and we want individual people improving their skills in particular. Generalized group skills are already present and continually developing. I don't think we'll see them buck that trend in the 6.0 dungeons. I just think you won't get your desired level of training from them and still maintain the necessary balance between accessibility and training.

That said, we can brainstorm on what sort of mechanics need more focus on. You'd have to admit some mechanics in this game are overused, but some of them might need even more enforcement. Do you have any ideas as to what mechanics we need to place emphasis on more in dungeons moving forward?

I would love a system like that. But would SE make it Mandatory if they put something like that in?

I don't think so. They could make it enticing enough if it say, dropped currency to improve gear, or other such desired rewards. As far as it needing to be mandatory - if you tie titles to levels of difficulty, you wouldn't need to. Players who were serious about making sure their prospective members knew their stuff could ask to see the respective title associated to what role and difficulty they feel was needed to join.

Sure, it might get some 'elitist' claims, but at least it keeps the recruitment methods more clear cut and honest in terms of expectations.

[Angus-Beef]

I'm not opposed to them continuing to use Dungeons as a teaching method, but there's a crux there that prevents it from being useful on the level we'd need them to be. See my above answer for the reasoning.

Again 'difficulty' is relative and we want individual people improving their skills in particular. Generalized group skills are already present and continually developing. I don't think we'll see them buck that trend in the 6.0 dungeons. I just think you won't get your desired level of training from them and still maintain the necessary balance between accessibility and training.

That said, we can brainstorm on what sort of mechanics need more focus on. You'd have to admit some mechanics in this game are overused, but some of them might need even more enforcement. Do you have any ideas as to what mechanics we need to place emphasis on more in dungeons moving forward?

I don't think so. They could make it enticing enough if it say, dropped currency to improve gear, or other such desired rewards. As far as it needing to be mandatory - if you tie titles to levels of difficulty, you wouldn't need to. Players who were serious about making sure their prospective members knew their stuff could ask to see the respective title associated to what role and difficulty they feel was needed to join.

Sure, it might get some 'elitist' claims, but at least it keeps the recruitment methods more clear cut and honest in terms of expectations.

I would say based on my most recent solo PF and DF runs, Stack mechanics, Boss Tells, and Dps Positioning.

Stacking, I honestly see more people dying to not stacking then anything else in most dungeons. I usually rescue or TBN/Heart of Stone them when I see people running away, its also something people seem to not pay any mine to in EX and Savage runs a lot lately.

Boss Tells, Know what a boss does and why, when and how you should react and how this can be a very varied mechanic type. This is something I see people struggle with Levi in Inundation and Titan in Sephulture. For those who may aspire to doing Savage this is something they'll need to know how to properly react to. I would love more Boss tell based mechanics within content outside Savage and EX.

DPS positioning is self explanatory, I just see a lot of dps getting cleaved then bitching at tank and healers about being dead.

Edit: I would even say add in Cosmetics that usually gets a lot of players as well

[Hyrist]

I would say based on my most recent solo PF and DF runs, Stack mechanics, Boss Tells, and Dps Positioning.

Stacking, I honestly see more people dying to not stacking then anything else in most dungeons. I usually rescue or TBN/Heart of Stone them when I see people running away, its also something people seem to not pay any mine to in EX and Savage runs a lot lately.

Boss Tells, Know what a boss does and why, when and how you should react and how this can be a very varied mechanic type. This is something I see people struggle with Levi in Inundation and Titan in Sephulture. For those who may aspire to doing Savage this is something they'll need to know how to properly react to. I would love more Boss tell based mechanics within content outside Savage and EX.

DPS positioning is self explanatory, I just see a lot of dps getting cleaved then bitching at tank and healers about being dead.

I don't think there's much in a dungeon that can be done about DPS positioning, cleaves on cleaves on cleaves have been there for ever. Having more of them might help remind some people. But as a fellow Dragoon, I'm sure you've felt the sting of a tank turning the mob at the wrong time (either for a positional or for a cleave). I'd say enforcing positional in general might be better served in Extreme Guildhests, where we can isolate and heavily reinforce that matter. (Cleaves that would instant-kill a DPS during said hest and result in failure)

I find stacking so interesting. Just in Holminster Switch we touch on pretty much every stacking mechanic save dual-tank stacking. We also touch on separation mechanics, proximity mechanics, and even a new "Order of attack" mechanic. I definatly think we should have some sort of Play Guide web page to show off these common mechanics and status effects so we have a quick, official reference to direct people to.

Boss tells - we had a subspecies of dragon that was all blind tells (the ones without a ground/sky indicator) that we haven't had in a while, perhaps it would be a good idea to institute a version of those and make them more prominent. The problem, as you say, with Boss Tells is that they're heavily varied. Some of these will be just learn as you go, but we should keep people thinking about watching for them.

I'll admit, I can get tunnel-visioned into my rotations and not see a physical tell sometimes. Usually that's just solve with practice.

Edit: I'm on board for Cosmetics - Glamour is the True Endgame after all.

Anyways, I think we got a good idea at least of some general concepts they could take away. I do think reinforcing mechanical understanding and having a nice place to pratice skills solo for raiding that wasn't just smacking a dummy would be a really good addition. Let's hope SE feels the same in terms of having more, and more difficult teaching opportunities. I could benefit from it as well, even though I'm pretty much retired from endgame for the foreseeable future. I'd just love a place to sharpen my skills on.

[linay]

I think instead we need to focus on building the individual, rather than on Trust/Group content.

They created two easier modes for solo instanced duty in MSQ. There is a possibility that you and the devs are on opposite trajectories in terms of where you want this game to go in this case.

[ForteNightshade]

A group of mean people constantly scrutinizing each other with some software program, and shitting on the ones who doesn't reach a given productivity threeshold which keep getting higher and higher, definitely looks like one of my past irl jobs though XD

Some rotations guide i did see also awfully looks like some automated factory production cycle, aiming at the best productivity threeshold as well.

When you are dealing with this kind of things at work all day, and even see some people becoming burn out by it, you just sometimes dont want to see more of it at home, when you are launching a game to relax yourself.

You do realize people who care about optimization don't behave remotely as you've laid out, yes? At least not the vast majority. You're arguing in extremes.

Expecting people to understand a basic opener, AoE large pulls and deal respectable damage in higher end content is not "constantly scrutinizing". It's expecting a reasonable degree of competency. A lot of people throwing around the "I just wanna relax" type arguments use it as an excuse to essentially do the barest of minimums. I'm sorry, but a Samurai or Black Mage pulling 8,000 in E1S isn't "relaxing," they're downright griefing. If it's in a learning party, okay. They're hopefully going to improve once they learn mechanics but you'll see this in weekly clears. That's when it isn't okay. You've now forced everyone else to compensate for your unwillingness to give a damn, thus making it less fun for them all because you don't care. So... why should they care about you?

When it comes to dungeons, people really don't care. I'm not going to say much of anything because dungeons are brain dead. That being said, I do think you're being selfish if you can't be bothered to AoE, or deal any damage as a healer.

[tdb]

3. We have to keep in mind the expected participation limits when adding this content. Are we expecting to sacrifice potentially 95% of the player base enjoying another piece of casual content for 5%? Is that a wise decision for a company that's already showing strains of development time and manpower to make?

You might be overestimating the tradeoff here. Savage/extreme content is based on normal content. They have to come up with new choreography for the fight and balance it, but that's about it. For another piece of casual content they'd have to make a new playfield, new boss model, potentially new minor enemy models, animate it, and come up with a story for it. I'd wager that for a single new trial you get an entire expansion's worth of savage raids and extreme trials. A single new alliance raid is probably more work than all savage and extreme content so far put together.

They're hopefully going to improve once they learn mechanics but you'll see this in weekly clears. That's when it isn't okay. You've now forced everyone else to compensate for your unwillingness to give a damn, thus making it less fun for them all because you don't care. So... why should they care about you?

This. Your right to have fun does not come at the expense of the seven other people in the group. If your inability to do the fight properly is holding up the entire group and you're not willing to improve, you should stick to easier content where you can be carried.

[Djinnrb]

I have a solution to the ever growing issue, and demand for "parsing" and in game issue of high level players preforming below low level standards.


Solution:

-Instanced striking dummies.

Stone Sky Sea is a good measure, but it does nothing to teach.

Instanced striking dummies, must be level synced, item level synced, must have the same feature that is provided in Deep dungeons (heaven on high, and palace of the dead) "items restricted."

These dummies instances, will remove all buffs, namely food, reset your skills, like any other instance, and then prevent you from using items while inside.

DPS - Must defeat the target in the time allotted
Tanks - Must defeat the target in time allotted while being attacked, utilizing proper defensive skills. If dead before killing the mob, skills were not utilized, within time alloted.
Healers, must keep a target healed, as well as damage the dummy within time alloted.


Finally, you cannot enter savage or extreme trials without completing a specified duty's striking dummy.

The only problem I see is that people can beat those dummies and still suck in the raid because they just arnt trying. The solution while unpopular is to just allow parsers and to straight up tell people that they arnt good enough to do certain content. There is no other way to fix and they need to stop babying people.

[Rilifane]

A group of mean people constantly scrutinizing each other with some software program, and shitting on the ones who doesn't reach a given productivity threeshold which keep getting higher and higher, definitely looks like one of my past irl jobs though XD

Some rotations guide i did see also awfully looks like some automated factory production cycle, aiming at the best productivity threeshold as well.

When you are dealing with this kind of things at work all day, and even see some people becoming burn out by it, you just sometimes dont want to see more of it at home, when you are launching a game to relax yourself.

First off, people refusing to keep someone who is underperforming to a degree that holds the seven other people back in their party isn't mean. It's fair. Seven other people would like to get the kill and pull their weight. One isn't. What do you propose is done instead?

Next, the "productivity treshhold" is getting higher further into a tier in most PF parties because
1) most people had plenty of time to collect gear and practice the fights
2) people are getting real tired of always having to cycle through several sloths who join farm parties while neither playing mechanics well nor having decent dps. Gating behind higher ilvl or even certain log color is the only to somewhat filter the people who join. You sometimes spent a full evening just wiping with one farm party after another while not seeing a single clear because there are always a couple of people who just want to have fun and refuse to put forth some effort because it's a game and not a job and whatnot.
There are still practice parties, mind you. You can still start with the raid tier even now and find enough people who'll also give it a go and learn with you.

And of course rotation guides are about "productivity", namely high dps because after a set a amount of time that boss in front of you is going to wipe the entire raid without a care for your or anyone else's fun. Push your buttons in a way that's most fun for you, only push the buttons that look prettiest to you if you want, relax all you want but if you enter ex or savage, you will need to bring a certain level of gameplay that includes a decent opener, general understanding of your rotation and being able to mostly stick to it while mechanics happen, being able to maintain uptime through most mechanics (some things like turning away earlier than needed from gaze attacks are completely fine) and playing the mechanics correctly once you learned them.
This isn't some unrealistically high expectation, that's what you need to pull your weight and not wipe the raid.

And when it comes to dungeons... nobody cares.
You'd have to play absolutely atrocious to get approached, let alone kicked. Things like single target rotation in aoe pulls as a tank, constantly letting people die from unavoidable damage as a healer or frequently standing around as a dps. As if anyone would look up your parses for a dungeon that's over in no time anyway.

[Siete]

Sorry to break it to you but if your hardware is not up to the task you shouldn't really go into that kind of content either. You don't need a high-end setup but if you regulary deal with lags to the point that it gets you killed, going into endgame content isn't a good idea. Escpecially not via PF. If you static is okay with you regularily failing mechanics and dealing less dps because of lags, that's their choice.
There are enough mechanics out there that get others killed or even wipe the whole raid if you mess them up for whatever reason, wether its lag or brainlag doesn't matter. Dead is dead.
I skipped almost a whole expansion of raids in WoW because my hardware was so outdated I had lags in every single raid after the Legion update. Of course I didn't like it but that's the way it was and I would've been a liability in a raid.

Lag? Hardware?
Lag has nothing to do with hardware, it amazes me most the ammount of likes you have showing how misinformed people are.
Here I am, Ryzen 5 3600 + 5700 XT and I have lag.
Why? Because I live in Argentina, Buenos Aires. I have the best internet provider with Fiber Optic and I still have a ping of over 300ms. Nothing will fix that.
What are you going to do? Kick me out from playing and enjoying the game just because I won't function as you decided I will? I can still do mechanics my own way, I have to dodge stuff 2 seconds into the future but somehow I manage after training.

[tdb]

Lag? Hardware?
Lag has nothing to do with hardware, it amazes me most the ammount of likes you have showing how misinformed people are.

There's more causes for lag than just the network, though that's often the worst offender. Some input devices have lag (particularly wireless ones, though there's good wireless devices too). A poor GPU can cause lag since it takes longer to render frames and you see the results of events from the server later (20 fps can add about 33 ms of lag compared to 60 fps). If you run the game from a HDD instead of an SSD, loading new assets may cause lag spikes.

Why? Because I live in Argentina, Buenos Aires. I have the best internet provider with Fiber Optic and I still have a ping of over 300ms. Nothing will fix that.
What are you going to do? Kick me out from playing and enjoying the game just because I won't function as you decided I will? I can still do mechanics my own way, I have to dodge stuff 2 seconds into the future but somehow I manage after training.

Can you keep up your DPS and meet the requirement for the fight despite having to future-dodge stuff? If you can, then it's fine and I don't have any complaints.