Please implement something to teach players how to play

[Seera1024]

Pretty much what happened in the latest WoW expansion, they decided to pander to the raid or die mentality and all the insecure people whose self worth is based on video game achievements so casual content was completely gutted and worthless.

The best casual gear people can get is literally 226 which is normal raid ilvl that is 26 ilvls below the base mythic that is 252, oh i forgot, you can upgrade that 226 into a 233 3 MONTHS FROM NOW because it unlocked at renown 75 and 233 is still a worthless normal raid ilvl which would again be 26 ilvls below the highest mythic ilvl that is 259. I already have a 252 weapon week 3 of the patch and will mostly have 240+ items from m+ so all that casual content is completely trash for me so any kind of other activity other than m+ or raid is a waste of time so there's nothing else to do.

They are so scared to give casual content that is rewarding because people whose ego depends on video games will no life and whine they are forced to do "dirty inferior casual content" like torghast instead of being allowed to just raidlog and m+ and ignore the rest of the game because the truth is they dont play the game because they like the game design, they play it because their self worth depends on video game achievements, video games designed to be beaten and make you feel that way to begin with but many gamers have never realized that.

I am thankful that SE has consistently ignored elitists in that manner and instead focuses on providing a great experience for all, because we see what happens when devs focus solely on the high end and ignore casual content.

No one's asking SE to focus solely on the high end and ignore the casual.

All people have been asking for in this thread for SE to put something into the game that would encourage players to play better on average.

There may be disagreements on the degree of improvement that's needed or exactly how to put that into the game, but most people don't disagree that SE could do something to increase the average skill level of players.

[Ralph2449]

No one's asking SE to focus solely on the high end and ignore the casual.

All people have been asking for in this thread for SE to put something into the game that would encourage players to play better on average.

There may be disagreements on the degree of improvement that's needed or exactly how to put that into the game, but most people don't disagree that SE could do something to increase the average skill level of players.

The problem is each person's "average" is very very different, elitist think it is average to just roflstomp and quickly do any kind of encounter efficiently and anything below that is "omg noob casuals never improve ultra bad, i am leaving, you are hopeless", that is not average, that is an inflated requirement to get their fast efficient runs certain people seem to be entitled to for some reason.

The devs on the other hand understand that an average is needed so they implement min.ilvl caps since you cant quantify average performance checks, now issue with most mmorpgs is that utility is not taught or needed as much in most of the content since 90% of the content can be done easily even without using utility which leads to people not knowing or not using it often.

The solution to that is simple, you make utility as vital as combat, you make utility needed to be used in all forms of content even at lower end or you either die or if you really feel like that is too much, you are incredibly inconvenienced if you ignore using your utility such as getting stunned for a while, knockback and in other ways have your combat disrupted.

My point about WoW is that the elitist git gud crowd whose ego depends on video game achievements is extremely toxic, and if they start listening to them we get the same situation we see in WoW, it starts friendly and nice like that "we are just trying to help people get better" and leads to them demanding casual content be nerfed because they are "forced" to do it for the rewards which is why I am thankful that it honestly seem SE devs have been studying WoW and know what not to do.

[Seera1024]

The problem is each person's "average" is very very different, elitist think it is average to just roflstomp and quickly do any kind of encounter efficiently and anything below that is "omg noob casuals never improve ultra bad, i am leaving, you are hopeless", that is not average, that is an inflated requirement to get their fast efficient runs certain people seem to be entitled to for some reason.

The devs on the other hand understand that an average is needed so they implement min.ilvl caps since you cant quantify average performance checks, now issue with most mmorpgs is that utility is not taught or needed as much in most of the content since 90% of the content can be done easily even without using utility which leads to people not knowing or not using it often.

And you've missed my point.

My point is that SE could do more to increase the average skill level of players.

Like you assigned a point value to every piece of knowledge about the combat in this game and if you gave points based on that and how well people used said knowledge you'd get the skill level of players.

A brand new just got through the initial cut scene and this is a player's first MMO would have a skill level of 0. They likely know nothing. Someone coming from another MMO would likely have some knowledge of tanking and healing even if they haven't played those roles before. They may start off with a skill level of 10.

A player like Caurcas whose been playing a long time and prefers the harder content would likely have a high score. Because they know a lot about the game.

There's nothing subjective about "do you know about X?" or "do you implement X when appropriate?" You either do or you don't.

The average I'm talking about is if you took all of those skill levels together of say players who have hit max level and average those skills. That's the average I'm talking about.

SE could do more to increase the average skill level of players.

Whether it's something they need to do or should do or how much is needed or how much they should is the purpose of this thread.

This game will not be hurt if SE decides to try to get the average player skill level to increase in and of itself. It all depends on how exactly they go about doing it.

[Krotoan]

most people don't disagree that SE could do something to increase the average skill level of players.

They could, but whether they do it by gating anyone who doesn't meet standards OFF... or making more resources to learn basics more visible is a major point of contention.

Also.. SHOULD they?

Is this supposed population of F rank players that huge that this is even necessary? Or is it being wildly exaggerated and/or including people who are slightly below calibrated thresholds who might slow things down but aren't any more than a minor inconvenience?

[SomeRandomHuman]

They could, but whether they do it by gating anyone who doesn't meet standards OFF... or making more resources to learn basics more visible is a major point of contention.

Also.. SHOULD they?

Is this supposed population of F rank players that huge that this is even necessary? Or is it being wildly exaggerated and/or including people who are slightly below calibrated thresholds who might slow things down but aren't any more than a minor inconvenience?

Would you enjoy playing with a DPS that only uses 1/5th of their skills just because they feel they don't have to do anything else since everyone else in the party will do the rest for them? They're not a huge number, but they're a bigger number than it should be.

[Krotoan]

Would you enjoy playing with a DPS that only uses 1/5th of their skills just because they feel they don't have to do anything else since everyone else in the party will do the rest for them? They're not a huge number, but they're a bigger number than it should be.

For 15 to 20 minutes once every 200 runs? I honestly don't care. You say "they're a bigger number than they should be" ... would your threshold be >0?

[SomeRandomHuman]

For 15 to 20 minutes once every 200 runs? I honestly don't care. You say "they're a bigger number than they should be" ... would your threshold be >0?

Nope. I know it's impossible to weed every single one out. I'd prefer the playerbase population at this abysmal mentality be less than 5% ideally. Given we've needed things like solo trial difficulties to be made easier and for some jobs to be dumbed down to god-awful levels just proves that there's too many people complaining that they have to put a modicum of effort into a video game.

For reference 5% of 22 million is 1.1 million. This is still too many imo, but you gotta start somewhere.

[Krotoan]

Nope. I know it's impossible to weed every single one out. I'd prefer the playerbase population at this abysmal mentality be less than 5% ideally. Given we've needed things like solo trial difficulties to be made easier and for some jobs to be dumbed down to god-awful levels just proves that there's too many people complaining that they have to put a modicum of effort into a video game.

So are you saying you encounter one of these people more than once out of every 20 runs? Careful, before you immediately hammer that out that they're in "soo many DF's" think hard. Negative experiences tend to stand out and we tend not to remember the other 200 runs we did that went smoothly and were just another 12 minute DF.

Maybe it's my data center but I find actual non-contributory people to be incredibly rare and people who don't respond to gentle coaching even rarer.

The simple presence of "easier" roads to endgame don't necessarily mean there is an epidemic of people who want to be carried. There is an overlap with people with actual disabilities, limitations and those who play only for the story and organize their own willing carry parties who you'd NEVER meet in a DF.

For reference 5% of 22 million is 1.1 million. This is still too many imo, but you gotta start somewhere.

Why is that too many just because you increased the number? 5% is 5%. Chances of encountering those people remain the same.

[Shurrikhan]

...

I'd have to disagree with some of the other proponents of additional learning facilitators/checks in that I think this population is nearer to 2 or 3%, rather than a whopping 5%.

Granted, I'm also not even expecting people to use their whole kits, just not cancel their combos, use AoEs as appropriate, and at least cycle... most of their pertinent oGCDs... so if I expected a bit more from others, it might well rise to that 5% or slightly more.

Again, though, I don't think the question ought to be about how large the group that can most benefit from the suggested changes is, but rather how large the positive change, across all players, would likely be. And I think the latter is pretty huge, especially if bundled as it should be with other opportunities for polish, especially across the pre-Shadowbringers experience.

[SomeRandomHuman]

So are you saying you encounter one of these people more than once out of every 20 runs? Careful, before you immediately hammer that out that they're in "soo many DF's" think hard. Negative experiences tend to stand out and we tend not to remember the other 200 runs we did that went smoothly and were just another 12 minute DF.

Maybe it's my data center but I find actual non-contributory people to be incredibly rare and people who don't respond to gentle coaching even rarer.

The simple presence of "easier" roads to endgame don't necessarily mean there is an epidemic of people who want to be carried. There is an overlap with people with actual disabilities, limitations and those who play only for the story and organize their own willing carry parties who you'd NEVER meet in a DF.


Why is that too many just because you increased the number? 5% is 5%. Chances of encountering those people remain the same.

Well for starters 5% is 5% yes, but you're not accounting that said 5% is going to have most of that 5% in the NA datacenters. While their are some in EU and most likely a handful in JPN. I don't have a number of NA accounts to compare that 1.1 million to but I can tell you sure that it's a significantly higher percentage than 5% when compared to the NA account population.

We've all had bad experiences and I know you can't tell you've had no bad experiences in a game this big. Due to all the bad experiences I've dealt with over the years I've become relatively recluse in-game much like I am irl.

Next is the people with disabilities. As someone who is mentally handicapped themselves, I have 0 issues with disabled individuals needing to take things a bit slower-paced. In fact, I've played with an old friend who lost part of one arm in the conflicts in the middle-east. I say old friend since he passed 3 years ago from mental health issues. Let me tell you this though: it took him a few extra minutes to get situated, but once he got comfortable you wouldn't have been able to tell he was only playing with one hand. The only give away I could possibly notice was small delays in repositioning his character.

Being story focused isn't an excuse to cop a nasty attitude to people that genuinely try to help you improve. That's the other big thing and this is what separates those that want to improve and those that just don't care. It's easy to try to be cordial, but if someone decides to take everything as an attack... I think it's clear who's in the wrong.