No one argued that higher end content expected competence. The issue here is players drive that threshold unnecessarily through description that varies.
To complete content in this game you don’t have to be the best of the best. You just have to be good enough. It’s the players, who aren’t even the best of the best pretending that you have to be that inevitably gate content for other players when they don’t meet their own personal standard.
It is how it works when players inevitably gate access because they don’t allow suboptimal players to complete in content that you don’t actually have to be the best of the best to complete. You just have to be good enough. You see it all over the forums with people openly talking about logs and trying to shame people for not performing to the max of what a job could be performing. It’s not hard to see the implications of it. It’s on display every day, even in game.
Literally had a party last night that was making fun of a viper last night in a learning party that was doing less damage than the set before I arrived. That’s just a recent example. This eventually gets worse over time and as they lack in performance because “they have too much to pay attention to and business” they feel as though they can’t play the class they want due to them not being able to perform and social perception levels of the job. That is gating but may not be directly. There are places I can go, but where I may not be welcomed. Even though I have access or the ability to be where I want, gating can still happen via social expectations and norms (just an example).
From what I’ve seen, most players are not very forgiving. Though, you are possibly right, “inevitably” is a bit strong, however I’d also say that it is far more common than people would like to think it is. Most players are concerned about their experience, and their experience only. Fair enough, most of these people here are nothing but 1s and 0s showing up on your screen in a game. They mean nothing more to you in most cases. I also see people talk very poorly about other players in game and remove them from parties because they played sub-optimally. It’s never happened to me personally, but I’ve witnessed it a lot.
“Your DPS is too low, I’m kicking you out” or the Sam has lower dps than the RPR so they kicked the sam. All the while I’m running the parse and the biggest contributor to not meeting requirements was unnecessary deaths.
I can see why when you throw a high APM class with “random” actions to press and “double weaving” it could be problematic. I can see it and that’s why I’m not upset about it. In the grand scheme, to me, they removed a timer. It wasn’t hard, it wasn’t game changing, it was something I made little decisions off of before. It was a mini game. Some people found that hard and stressful, others, not so much.
I personally don’t think any of the classes are particularly difficult with practice, but what I find easy, someone else may not. I don’t knock them for it either. Especially when the change doesn’t really affect my own personal enjoyment of the class. Some found NG fun, and good for them (they could have kept it, extended the timer, or did what they did and got rid of it like they did). Not saying you are knocking people either. Just that other feel gated by the class and probably other players and that it does happen in this game, where you don’t have to be “perfect” outside of maybe ultimates.
I also find it weird that people wanted positionals removed, there was a huge outcry against removing positionals… then they remove NG and didn’t touch positionals… and people are even more upset. It’s just weird to me.