Parsing? Drama? ToS? Solution!

[Jojoya]

"YoU dOn'T pAy My SuB."

Yeah, I'll pass.

Not everyone does that, though. It's only a small percentage of the player base that does.

The majority of players are willing to work together as long as discussion about problems is polite and constructive. If you run into one of the "you don't pay my sub" types that doesn't want to cooperate, the group has the right to remove that player from the group.

So remove them, get a replacement and let the group continue progressing. So much can be so easily resolved when people are willing to communicate and listen instead of slamming up a wall.

[purgatori]

Not everyone does that, though. It's only a small percentage of the player base that does.

The majority of players are willing to work together as long as discussion about problems is polite and constructive. If you run into one of the "you don't pay my sub" types that doesn't want to cooperate, the group has the right to remove that player from the group.

So remove them, get a replacement and let the group continue progressing. So much can be so easily resolved when people are willing to communicate and listen instead of slamming up a wall.

Yeah, to be honest, I have only ever seen the "you don't pay my sub" stuff on these forums and Reddit, never in game. There have been plenty of times when I have had discussions with other players about what's going wrong or things they could be doing better, and they have either been receptive, or they have ignored me lol

The other day I was tanking for a run of Wanderer's Palace (Hard) and the party kept wiping on Manxome Molaa Ja Ja. I could see straight away that the main reasons were that they were a) standing too far away from the boss and getting hit by the cone AOE when he turned around, and b) not taking down the idols. Only one of these players was a sprout, so you could argue that they really shouldn't have been making basic mistakes like these, but instead of giving them an earful I took a "let's figure out what's going wrong with the fight approach."

They didn't figure out what was wrong—they attributed our wipes to the healer of focusing too much on the DPS health gauges—but that was okay: I offered my proposed solutions, and when the ones they offered didn't prevent another wipe, they were happy to implement them lol At no point where any hard feelings or defensiveness occurred. So it's certainly possible to avoid these things, if you take the right approach—though it does demand a fair amount of patience that one might not always have in reserve (I certainly don't). But I have way more patience for players who merely don't know stuff, than I do for the ones who think they know it at all and run into content with a hardcore mentality, e.g.: tanks pulling wall to wall and then expecting that the DPS will be able to save the party from a wipe with a LB (I recently had a tank wipe the party twice this way), or DPS rushing ahead to pull additional packs of trash mobs. It's pretty rare that you can reach players like that, so that's where the kick button comes in handy.

[Axxion]

Now for the whole you don't pay my sub comment. I have seen it more then once in game.

•PLD in the ravel never used Requiescat and holy circle. MCH suggests to use it. AST in our party "you don't pay her sub"

•PVP DRG trying to solo get killed a lot. A member on my team asked do you mind staying with the group. DRG "you don't pay my sub"

These are the only ones that i can recall at this moment. Trust its even in game.

[Aurida]

"you don't pay my sub"

Just hit 'em with the 'I wish you didn't either' until morale improves

[Eli85]

So, PS4 player here without a friend who feeds me information on my parsing. When I'm playing poorly, I know it. You do not need a parser to tell you that. You just know it.

So, yes, the game doesn't do a good job of pointing out that your DPS is mediocre, but players know when they are playing poorly, and still don't improve. All the Proving Grounds experiment did in WoW is highlight the larger subset of players who a) know they're playing poorly and b) do not have any desire to improve. You can communicate in the clearest possible terms that the player needs to do better, but these subsets will not improve because they do not want to.

Yes, the reality is sad and sobering, but it is what it is; and S-E, rightly so, doesn't want to force these players to quit, and any difficulty increase in non-end game content will do that. Other developers have admitted that, from their data, they find that when players hit an obstacle they can't overcome, they often play something else instead of trying to improve.

:| That's the western gaming audience for you.

[Liam_Harper]

So, PS4 player here without a friend who feeds me information on my parsing. When I'm playing poorly, I know it. You do not need a parser to tell you that. You just know it.

Surprisingly more untrue than you'd think.

This is something I learned back in SB when I got curious and checked fflogs for the first time to see if anyone had uploaded any of the EX runs I'd been pugging, so I could actually see my performance. Up to that point I'd always thought I'd been doing sufficiently well. I got most of my rotation right and sure I had to move away from the boss for mechanics but doesn't everyone? I geared correctly, looked up rotations online, beaten SSS and was fairly sure I was at least doing decently.

How was I really doing? Terribly. Grey parses. It was a bit of a shock, what was I doing wrong? It turns out that without any way to gauge performance over the last year or two, I'd become lenient. I wasn't pushing myself. Dodging mechanics while doing a great rotation at the same time seemed really hard so I assumed most players didn't get that perfect. I had no one to compare to, no standard to set for myself. All I had was assumptions, not solid facts and stats.

It was only after that, that I really started looking at how to raise my gameplay. I learned how vital uptime is, how to maximize it. I pushed my rotations until they became muscle memory. And in the end, while I'm not an incredible player, I improved significantly. And it even made me enjoy the game that much more, because I had goals to strive for and room to learn and improve.

But you just can't gauge performance accurately over a feeling.

[linay]

no standard to set for myself

Well, there is a standard: beat the fight before enrage with minimal deaths for a clear or no death for a farm.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

Ahhh. Another 'get gud' solution post. The problem with your solution of further gaiting content behind instanced dummies and attempting inform players of underpeforming is that THERE IS NO OFFICIAL APPROVED SE WAY TO PLAY FFXIV. All of the optimized rotations that you can look up online were all developed BY PLAYERS. As far as the developers are concerned, if you que at the appropriate level/ilvl and do mash-button damage you will likely clear the content in the allotted time.

Savage/Extreme is the exception and the difficulty is it's own gate. Locking out people who want to try or learn by using level synced dummies (which already exist. See: Stone, Sky, Sea) do not prepare the player for the ridiculous mechanics that are prevalent throughout Savage level content. This is the equivalent to SE adding iLevel caps to leveling content. It's a bandaid. To ensure minium requirements are met. This will not improve anything. It will just ensure that people who might want to get into high-end have more hurdles to face than over-critical statics and salty pugs that kick you if you die.

What you really want is better pug groups. Because statics actually require proof of skill through FF logs or parsed runs and are very picky about who they accept. For regular content? Welcome to gaming with the general public. It ain't for snowflakes.

Expecting SE to further divide the skill gap is not only hilarious its also futile. But thanks for the post. I enjoyed it.

[Eli85]

Surprisingly more untrue than you'd think.

This is something I learned back in SB when I got curious and checked fflogs for the first time to see if anyone had uploaded any of the EX runs I'd been pugging, so I could actually see my performance. Up to that point I'd always thought I'd been doing sufficiently well. I got most of my rotation right and sure I had to move away from the boss for mechanics but doesn't everyone? I geared correctly, looked up rotations online, beaten SSS and was fairly sure I was at least doing decently.

How was I really doing? Terribly. Grey parses. It was a bit of a shock, what was I doing wrong? It turns out that without any way to gauge performance over the last year or two, I'd become lenient. I wasn't pushing myself. Dodging mechanics while doing a great rotation at the same time seemed really hard so I assumed most players didn't get that perfect. I had no one to compare to, no standard to set for myself. All I had was assumptions, not solid facts and stats.

It was only after that, that I really started looking at how to raise my gameplay. I learned how vital uptime is, how to maximize it. I pushed my rotations until they became muscle memory. And in the end, while I'm not an incredible player, I improved significantly. And it even made me enjoy the game that much more, because I had goals to strive for and room to learn and improve.

But you just can't gauge performance accurately over a feeling.

This may be your experience, but it is not everyone's, and certainly not my own. On every job I play competitively, I research the optimal DPS rotation. I then master that rotation. When I'm doing a fight, I know when I'm doing that rotation well or poorly, ergo that feeling can inform if I'm doing good or bad.

Really easy.

[Hash_Browns]

This may be your experience, but it is not everyone's, and certainly not my own. On every job I play competitively, I research the optimal DPS rotation. I then master that rotation. When I'm doing a fight, I know when I'm doing that rotation well or poorly, ergo that feeling can inform if I'm doing good or bad.

Really easy.

Quick question then - how well do you think you do?