We Need to Start Expecting Mid-Level Sprouts to Play Better

[Saraide]

Assuming you mean 4 man content, I pray you were booted fast.

You're missing context there, buddy.

[Carin-Eri]

Heres my question: Did you ever look up a guide for any of the jobs that you play or any of the fights you struggle with?

Yes. Very much so.

However, reading guides - some of which actually come across as making it all sound overly complicated - (and watching Youtube examples) doesn't necessarily translate to actually playing the game. I, personally, don't find it easy to remember everything outlined in a guide and I don't play on the level of someone good enough to post a guide video on Youtube.

I've, more or less, gotten to grips with RDM. I still don't really understand Bard - the Songs are confusing and I rarely seem to be able to get Blast Arrow to proc. Aside from dabbling in trying Summoner I haven't really played any other job as have generally put effort into being at least competent at the ones I've already played.

[Yeastyloins]

This is absolutely true. I can count on one hand the number of times I've tanked an 80+ dungeon even though I've been level 90 on PLD for months and do roulettes almost daily. The game thinks that just because I've done them all on a different role (DPS) it means I know what I'm doing when going in as a tank. I once got tossed into the late-game dungeon in Radz, can't recall the name, and had a horrific time tanking; especially the last boss. I did what I could but felt horrible for the group and was extremely embarrassed because I was projecting the attitude of the OP and many others here onto the party members, thinking they must be feeling what the OP's expressed. The worst thing is I couldn't do anything but put my shield up, move forward, do what I could, and hope I didn't get kicked.

People automatically assume just because I'm level 90 and don't trip the "New Player" thing, that I've been tanking higher-level stuff forever, know every mechanic in and out, and know exactly when and where to use each skill for optimal effect. I'd love for there to be a requirement to directly queue and complete each dungeon separately on each role before adding it to the roulette for that role. At least I'd be able to say "This is my first time here" or "I'm inexperienced" without people thinking I'm trolling them.

I, for one, agree. But then I guess I would. As I've said, I'm still not great at the game after eight months of playing. I DO try, but still get flustered trying to understand mechanics and work rotations, I'm still clumsy and slow to react, and it's certainly very rare that I feel that I'm asset to the teams I'm with.

Here's my question to statements like this: Did you ever look up a guide, a video, or check a resource such as the balance for any of the jobs that you play or any of the fights you struggle with after running into issues? Did you ever try to sit and practice rotations in stone, sea, sky to get rotations down then test out doing rotations then put them in practice in a fight you are familiar and comfortable with? Did you ever think to yourself "Im having a hard time tanking and/or healing, maybe I should look up some guides to play those roles" or "I never seem to put up my buffs when everyone else does, maybe I should see what people are doing at the start of a fight/pull for [insert job]"?

This isn't a "Have you tried gitting gud?", but rather a question of when faced with difficulties or problems did you attempt to try and figure out what was going wrong with your gameplay or attempt to adjust what you are doing?

[AmiableApkallu]

Holminster's Switch was a bit of a slap in the face for me - I used mits, but didn't use it correctly. The healer and dps there was *incredibly* patient and gave me advice, was happy to teach me a bit on how to tank so we could get through it. They could tell straight up that while I was mitting and hitting buttons, the way I was doing it was a bit jank and made it slow/hard to get through.

A couple months ago I que'd for a raid with a mate. Got CT, average run so far until we notice we're having regen put on us constantly. Multiple people actually. We found the person who did it. They would only move when the game prompts you to teleport to each boss, then they would cast regen. They were not a bot - they were talking and made a couple of jokes - so my mate quips with, "Wow, that's a lot of regens." Not a single response from anyone, the guy wasn't in our party so we couldn't vote kick him either.

The contrast between these two stories is amusing. The first illustrates a run improving due to reasonable people giving and receiving constructive advice. The second illustrates the uselessness of passive-aggressive snark.

For all the talk of team-based play vs. Trusts in some of the more recent comments, the focus on the "under-performers" is a bit one-sided. I might argue that if you happen to have a bit of constructive advice that would be of significant help in making a run go more smoothly, then you're holding the party back by keeping that advice to yourself. I mean, what's the real difference between being disastrously bad at a mechanic versus being disastrously bad at pushing the buttons for some job? People explain mechanics all the time…

[RyuDragnier]

Me, staring at the Dragoon that's been spamming raw, uncomboed Chaos Thrust into Sonic Thrust for the entire duty, knowing full well if I say anything it's a 50/50 chance the party will either call me a sweaty tryhard and give me the boot, or get rid of the Goon that seemingly has never read a tooltip in their life.

Me: immediately puts up the vote kick on the Dragoon without saying a word and watches it pass

[Merrigan]

The contrast between these two stories is amusing. The first illustrates a run improving due to reasonable people giving and receiving constructive advice. The second illustrates the uselessness of passive-aggressive snark.

For all the talk of team-based play vs. Trusts in some of the more recent comments, the focus on the "under-performers" is a bit one-sided. I might argue that if you happen to have a bit of constructive advice that would be of significant help in making a run go more smoothly, then you're holding the party back by keeping that advice to yourself. I mean, what's the real difference between being disastrously bad at a mechanic versus being disastrously bad at pushing the buttons for some job? People explain mechanics all the time…

I think very sincerely that people are afraid to get the plague if they use chat too much on this game.

[Carin-Eri]

Here's my question to statements like this: Did you ever look up a guide, a video, or check a resource such as the balance for any of the jobs that you play or any of the fights you struggle with after running into issues? Did you ever try to sit and practice rotations in stone, sea, sky to get rotations down then test out doing rotations then put them in practice in a fight you are familiar and comfortable with? Did you ever think to yourself "Im having a hard time tanking and/or healing, maybe I should look up some guides to play those roles" or "I never seem to put up my buffs when everyone else does, maybe I should see what people are doing at the start of a fight/pull for [insert job]"?

This isn't a "Have you tried gitting gud?", but rather a question of when faced with difficulties or problems did you attempt to try and figure out what was going wrong with your gameplay or attempt to adjust what you are doing?

Firstly yes - in fact The Balance is probably the one reason I've gotten mostly to grips with RDM. Sadly, I still can't quite make head nor tails of their advice pertaining to Bard!

Secondly, again yes - in fact, after guides and LOTS of practice, I rarely 'die' when playing what is probably my favorite piece of content, Alzadaal's Legacy (which I know isn't the most difficult, but that's beside the point). However, again, guides can prove a lot to remember for some and I do find it difficult to recall said advice in longer content, such as Aglaia for example.

[Padudu]

snip

LOL I didn't think of it that way - but yeah you've got a point. I will say (we were in VC at the time), we didn't really see the point in speaking up. No one commented on it, it was a silent run for the most part, and they were in a different alliance. We both definitely would have said something had they been in our party, but alas, they were not. We've both had experiences of piping up with "hey, maybe not do that because X" and people snap back very aggressively. The run was going smoothly regardless of regen spammer since it was CT, so in the end we felt like it was just more trouble than it's worth to even start/provoke a fight. People have a tendency in ARaids to bash on the negative nancy being "toxic" towards someone, ESPECIALLY when the run itself is going fine.

I also, FWIW, totally believe that guy didn't care at all and was just using a bot clicker or something to avoid getting kicked/make it look like he's doing something the entire time. Maybe he had friends/enablers or something, idk at the end of the day.

I try to be as patient as I can be with people learning their roles - I get it because I do understand some people have difficulties or whatever. So I do try to prop up with, "hey, maybe use holy instead of single target because of blahblah". Sometimes they take it well, sometimes they hit with: "who asked?". Had a healer one time say they rejoined the game recently and was reading their tooltips, ok whatever, that's fine. This is was some dungeon like mid-MSQ of ShB. They were.. not healing or dpsing at all, just running in circles the entire time. We barely get through the first boss, can't pass the second. We ALL tried helping him, giving him advice, told him to follow the dps so he could at the very least dodge mechanics. Tell him that he had aoe heals, what they did, how to use it, very politely told him he was the reason why we were wiping. We get: "I didn't ask for advice, if I wanted advice I would ask. I'm doing this for the MSQ." Me too, buddy! It doesn't mean I run in circles as a tank. We ended up having to kick the guy in the end, he was just clearly not going to listen or even attempt to improve. Had no idea wtf his deal was to this day other than being a diva.

So anecdotals aside - I do try to give advice when I can reasonably know what I'm talking about. I say it outright because sometimes people just genuinely don't know how to utilize their kit effectively, and I get that. I want to say I'm never a jerk to people, but I probably just word things more bluntly during a run: "hey can u use arm's length pls, it's a good mitigation because 20% slow for 2min cd" or something close to that. But a lot of people just HATE that they're being called out when their mindset is "I've never had problems until you started nitpicking what I'm doing".


In the end I think people just find it's not worth arguing over because people will scream at you for even trying. In my belief this is why the casual content just needs a bit of beefing; I'm not sure how they would do that but forcing people to actually try or think a little would be a good start.

[LeonKeyh]

I think very sincerely that people are afraid to get the plague if they use chat too much on this game.

Or rather, will get banned for being "toxic." Whenever someone spins advice as an insult.

[Toutatis]

Or rather, will get banned for being "toxic." Whenever someone spins advice as an insult.

I am not afraid of a ban. Usually when I give advice in the game people are happy. Never had a single negative comment and it is often followed by comms. The same goes when my friends give advice to randos in dungeons. I usually use a suggestive form like “ have you tried x? It may make it easier to blablabla” , “I think you forgot your tank stance” and not “you’re doing it wrong” , “don’t do that” and some of the passive aggressive comments we often see.