Counter to Elitism

[Reynhart]

Let's say you have a PLD backed by a WHM. Despite the WHM's best efforts, sustaining the PLD becomes impossible. Too much healing rapidly depletes MP. The PLD finally eats dirt and the mob goes on a rampage, wiping the party.

The system says the WHM should be punished--

But wait.

...

Sorry, your post is a bit too long for me to quote it entirely, but you made a good point...except...you're only seeing the punishment side.
In your case, everybody died, there's already a penalty for the group. In fact a wipe is everyone's fault, even if Curing can be a major problem.

But let's say everyone starts with 0 points. Punishment is not an issue if we don't do negative values.

But wait !
The DRG dealt a great DPS, so he can get a better reward (There's no need to be a "minimum value for reward")

But wait !
The BLM also deat a lot of damage without being first on hate list, so he should be rewarded too.

But wait !
The BRD buffed the party accordingly (Ballad on mages, Paeon on DD, etc...) so he should be rewarded too.

But wait !
The PLD used damage mitigation well and lost only a few Hp per second, while staying up on the hate list. He should be rewarded too.

The system don't need to be overly precise, and shouldn't focus on punishment mainly. Encourage people to play their job wisely, and they will learn to do it.

And you can keep an hamlet-type scoring to reward a good party as a whole.

But wait !
You should have invited a MNK. I think dungeons should offer a little bonus if you avoid stacking jobs (The moreso when we'll have more jobs to play)

[Azzi]

Also, someone with better gear is likely to put out more damage meaning they'd get more points than someone with not-so-great gear. Meaning the casuals would still suffer. This kind of reminds me of the levelling system 1.0 had when it first launched.

[carlosx]

they must add a drop item from Kihimera each time you complete one of the raids soo you can exchance for piece of armor
like Pimal weapons this will turn Elitism outside down

[Eekiki]

Unfortunately their current direction is more focused on getting more people to play than making them stay longer...

People need to play before they can continue playing. We haven't quite mastered the art of bending the laws of time and space to our will yet.

[carlosx]

soo everyone on full Darklight everyone happys... i prosed a motion to do it like 20 (Kihimera Nails) Tentative.... for a single piece of Darklight and body for 30
this will make people work his ass off on dugenon for awaile and everyone will be happy cos no need speedruns to get things done also open oportuninty to new people just have done few runs and get his desair items....
making every single dugenon colective points will just make everyones happy

[moriandrio]

Why not give the gear right away to the ppl without any dungeon, whats wrong about working on gear....

[KaiTBF]

We could force everyone to use content finder, then all the elitists could do is scream to the heavens about how bad their luck in matchmaking is! mwahahahahaha!

But in all seriousness I don't think trying to stomp out elitism will do anything but hurt the game in the long run.

Also I think a distinction should be made between an elitist and a hardcore player, because there is a difference. A hardcore player is someone who spends more time and effort on a game than is the norm, while an elitist is someone who thinks anyone who isn't as leet as them doesn't deserve their time. You can have a hardcore player who's willing to help casuals and new players learn the ropes in a fight, but you typically won't find an elitist having anything to do with a casual or new player.
In other words even though elitists usually are (they damn well better be) hardcore players, being a hardcore player doesn't mean you're an elitist. It's all about the attitude. (Think rectangles and squares.)

[Almalexia]

Even accounting for the positive side, a system of measuring performance vs. reward would be oversimplified and arbitrary.

The DRG dealt a great DPS, so he can get a better reward (There's no need to be a "minimum value for reward")

There would have to be a minimum value of some kind. What distinguishes "great" DPS from "not-so-great" DPS? How else could the game possibly read and rate DPS performance?

The BLM also deat a lot of damage without being first on hate list, so he should be rewarded too.

What if the strategy depends on the BLM, or multiple BLMs, taking hate? What if the BLM is next on the hate list when the tank drops dead or disconnects (deliberately or not)? No system is dynamic enough to keep up with players' every strategy or eventuality.

The BRD buffed the party accordingly (Ballad on mages, Paeon on DD, etc...) so he should be rewarded too.

Again, no system is dynamic enough to know what players want, and it would be silly if it imposed a standard of "buffing accordingly." Does the system know when the DD could benefit more from Paeon or Minuet? What would it use to determine that? Hit rate? WS frequency?

And I can't argue with PLD.

Look, I wish we could have material reward for our individual performance. I'd revel in it. But without a thousand GMs monitoring every piece of content and reading chat logs 24/7, we will never get a system more sophisticated than a parser. You know parsers can't measure subjective data on "knowing your job" or "playing better," so people would be unfairly judged for doing something clever and breaking routine despite a successful event.

There is simply no way for the game to read and understand anything more complex than parser data. That's why I say, let the game only reward successes of the party collectively. No arbitrary reward system for the treasure coffers and no arbitrary reward system for the individual.

[Reynhart]

Why not give the gear right away to the ppl without any dungeon, whats wrong about working on gear....

You're not "working on gear", you're "hoping for a lucky roll".
In fact, they should implement a reward for the random command. If you roll a 999, you get a nice piece of gear.
Seems pretty stupid ? It's actually how the game worked in v1.xx.

[Reynhart]

Even accounting for the positive side, a system of measuring performance vs. reward would be oversimplified and arbitrary.

Long post again

Monsters have a certain number of HP, dungeons have a certain amount of monster. So, there's a finite number of damage you can make over the course of the dungeon. The higher the percentage of HP you deplete, the better the DPS, simple.

I'm sorry, but any strategy where the BLM is supposed to take hits is a flaw in the game. For a mage, taking hits means dying, and dying can't be a strategy. Back in FFXI, some fights where done two times. First, in a "dry run", just to look how the fight goes without using items or 2h, dying, then retry. From a roleplay point of view (Which MMO should have more) it's pretty awkward.

For a dynamic system, think "Gambits" like FF XII. You can design severals "If...then..." sentences and when a player fulfill one sentence, you give him points. Higher priority sentences will yield more points. I tried to translate FFXI gameplay with a gambit system, and, suprisingly, with 15-20 sentences per job, you can cover almost any situation.

And if the programmed actions are too far from the real game, you can simply adjust the sentences without a big update.