Do you know why the average pf player is so bad?

[AmiableApkallu]

I sometimes watch some of my less-skilled friends play, and often when mechanics appear they can either be soaked or the rest of the group is competent enough that the death of one unskilled player doesn't cause a wipe. So the content gets passed, but the mechanic doesn't get learned.

And over time, there's this cumulative effect where more mechanics are added, and the player still doesn't know the old ones, so there are more opportunities to die. And if you die and it doesn't wipe the party, you stay unskilled, and you know you're unskilled, and that's a crappy place to be.

That's talking about unknowledgeable players. It takes only a little willpower and effort to type in Party chat, "Uh, how'd I die?" Or, "What was I supposed to do there?" Or, in this day and age, to find a YouTube video or wiki-site.

Knowledge can be sought out. No one has to wait for it to be presented to them on a silver platter.

[LilimoLimomo]

That's talking about unknowledgeable players. It takes only a little willpower and effort to type in Party chat, "Uh, how'd I die?" Or, "What was I supposed to do there?" Or, in this day and age, to find a YouTube video or wiki-site.

Knowledge can be sought out. No one has to wait for it to be presented to them on a silver platter.

As a game designer, it doesn't really matter what options your casual players have available to them if the statistics show that they won't exercise those options. You can expect your casual players to ask questions or do research until you're blue in the face, but that expectation won't change reality.

Your designs, however, can change things. Game design is all about meeting your players where they're at and strategically designing your game such that it manipulates them into being where you want them to be. If you design your game correctly, you'll statistically turn most of your players from newbies into champions.

For better or worse, CBU3 hasn't invested much into this aspect of design. The results are exactly what you'd expect from a game that does little to teach its players while having an overwhelmingly casual install base.

[AmiableApkallu]

Game design is all about meeting your players where they're at and strategically designing your game such that it manipulates them into being where you want them to be.

It's also about deciding what kinds of players you want engaging with the various parts of your game in the first place.

If you're the sort of gamer who can't help but toss out personal insults left and right because it's a day ending in "y", you're not welcome in any part of FFXIV.

If you're the sort of gamer who's not the least bit curious about anything, can't be bothered to think your way through a problem, and expect to have the game spell everything out to you on a silver platter, maybe you're just not the target for FFXIV's harder content.

For example:

It's wild to me that the game itself doesn't have anything like training facilities where such players can be taught about mechanics: here's what a stack marker means, here's what two stack markers mean, etc.

Experience is a great teacher, if you're open to it.

"I know how one stack marker works. So two stack markers is easy! We stand together! *SPLAT* Well, that didn't work... maybe we should stand in two separate groups? Not sure what else we could do there..." (Conveniently ignore the garbage that is Syrcus Tower, which is a whole 'nother can of worms that needs fixing.)

[LilimoLimomo]

If you're the sort of gamer who's not the least bit curious about anything, can't be bothered to think your way through a problem, and expect to have the game spell everything out to you on a silver platter, maybe you're just not the target for FFXIV's harder content.

It's not outside the realm of possibility that this is true; maybe this is genuinely the aim of CBU3's design. And if so, congrats, it's working! But I also vaguely recall Yoshi-P lamenting about how he'd like players to give harder content a try, and if that's genuinely how he feels, the craft of game design is there with some well-documented tools that his team could use to make that a reality.

Experience is a great teacher, if you're open to it.

"I know how one stack marker works. So two stack markers is easy! We stand together! *SPLAT* Well, that didn't work... maybe we should stand in two separate groups? Not sure what else we could do there..."

Oh I 100% agree. But this goes back to the point I brought up in my original post: these mechanics are often not introduced or repeated in ways that truly test whether every member of a group understands a mechanic. As a designer, you can develop scenarios where it's nearly impossible for players to progress until they have demonstrated that they've learned a concept. But in FF14, if enough of your group has grokked it or gets lucky, then those who didn't figure it out can frequently progress past that content without that moment of learning.

If CBU3 wants to gate off harder content from certain kinds of players, then that's not an issue. But if they want to foster growth in such players, it's a missed opportunity.

[Nadda]

Experience is a great teacher, if you're open to it.

Well said.

However, I believe teaching tools and experience can be one and the same.
The learning curve in normal content needs to be raised if but a fraction this is just a small tweak in number values and we will see very significant results that won't make the game impossible or unapproachable but instill a natural acclimation of difficulty in what the game asks from its players to make the gap between EXs/Unreals less of a wall and more of a hurdle.

I don't believe people need to aspire higher than that.

Though it's important to not only make the highest form of content like Savage and Ultimates the most dynamic but there should be more prestige rewards for clearing the most difficult content.
Those who get a taste of what difficult content can be like to be tempted to make the leap into what should become an almost separate progression system above what you can achieve normally. I believe this incentive is tried and true.
I know for a fact at this moment I'm not up to snuff to be an ultimate raider yet. Its a bit embarrassing that an Ultimate Legend is using essentially the same weapon and gear I have.

It's like that saying "I did x and all I got was a crumby t-shirt" - We all know that the Legend Title hold weight but it's kinda lame when you got to glam over the Relic weapon with your Ultimate weapon because it's not Bis. (it should be though)