I sincerely cannot believe what I just read.
I don't want to come across as rude, really, but if your kids don't know what clockwise/counterclockwise means, it might be time to take them off of WoW/FFXIV and spend some time teaching them, y'know, words and concepts?
In my current country of residence and my motherland, analog clocks are still everywhere. Please go outside, and look up from your phone for a change while you do.
Don't enable this kind of nonsense.
And while I'm at it, no, we cannot have the developers refuse to do mechanics because some kids out there "didn't grow up with analog clocks and it'd be hard to explain clockwise to them as a result".
Design absolutely does not "need to tread a common ground all can relate to" - I'd argue the exact opposite. If it's a multiplayer game, it's genuinely more fun if it's something not everyone can immediately pick up. That's why Construct 7 is always a joy to witness - because not everyone knows their prime numbers, or is even perceptive enough to figure out the mechanic works on health.
By attempting to cater to something "everyone can understand", you limit your creative freedom and may end up getting funneled into just making the same thing over and over again with nary a difference because it's the only thing you can make at this point.
but then again, that's kind of what FFXIV is already doing and there's plenty of people who seem to prefer it that way, so...
Replying to the comment below:

Originally Posted by
Jojoya
But are schools still teaching that geometric and mechanical knowledge or are they just teaching their students to pass standardized tests to guarantee they continue to get federal funding?
Search google for comments from long time college and university instructors about the state of incoming students. I came across one article focused on how many college students struggle to read and analyze the contents of a book. They're too used to getting quick bites of information and now they're getting a lot of that information from AI, which still has a lot of inaccuracies.
I just left the country, but was an elementary school teacher for a year and a half. My best friend is a high school history teacher. He'd get on my ass, jokingly, about the students coming in that struggle to do... basically anything.
I can tell you, in my country, it's not the schools or the teachers failing. It tends to be complete lack of involvement of the parents, and the screens kids find themselves on constantly. I know for a fact we still teach analog clocks in school here. But they still struggle with that now. Same with reading. We set apart several hours a week for reading and reading comprehension, and it's still a problem.
Some of the damage is the fact that we were forced to make a lot of bad decisions during Covid and had to pass kids who really weren't on level, causing damage for several years worth that we're only just now properly recovering from, but this has been going on for years and it's just a steady decline in their willingness to learn and retain basic skills. I won't be able to go back to teaching for a while since I don't speak the language where I am now, but I don't think I want to go back anyway. It was hell.
And besides that, if the schools aren't teaching these kids basic things, then we might as well try to teach them through games, no? They'll probably remember what clockwise is better if it's tied to ilvl.