SE Wants You To Bring Along "gimp" Players...

A lot of the posts are beginning to get closer and closer to something I have not agreed with for a long time and never will: Pushing or imposing one's morals, beliefs, or religion upon another person without their permission or acceptance. I will never agree to fundamentalist religious groups doing that in real life (Catholics, Islamists, Westboro Babptist, etc.); and I will never agree to elitist players doing similar in the game, even if it is not a religion they're imposing or pushing upon others.

You cannot and will never be able to hold people to the same standards as you. Even if I said all that above, I will not push that onto another person in this game. Everyone is different and everyone plays and learns differently at different rates and methods. And, as you can tell from that hint, I am the same way in real life, which is why I am opposed to such things as the "No Child Left Behind Act."

This is not just about tolerating another player in a game or a person in real life. But, if I cannot accept the differences of others, sympathize and empathize with them, then it makes me no different than the other elitist players on this server in this game, and no different than a racist and prejudicial person in real life.

I am not that and I have not been raised that way. Regardless if I have taken twelve years of private Catholic education, I have not chosen any religion to belong to like Catholicism. However, I have also learned a lot of things about Catholicism in regards on how to treat others in real life. And, I have carried that into this game as well.

People need to be treated with respect, and one must try to understand their situation, empathize and sympathize with it or you will never understand the "why" and "how".

People are different. They are not you or I. We are all unique individuals here. We all have our own needs, wants, and desires. We also have our own problems, intentions, and situations that may affect us in real life. The same can be said of any player in this game and any other MMO.

If you continually expect others to be perfect or be at the same standards as yourself, then you will eventually run into another problem I have: "You cannot expect people to be perfect all the time, or you'll eventually hit a dead end or get closer to it." This is already happening in this game. The population of actual skilled players is smaller than the entire population of unskilled players-- new or returning players. And, expecting only skilled players or perfect players to join a pick up group will eventually lead people to shouting for hours on the server. Other so-called "skilled players" may already have a Linkshell or their own static to do these events. Shouting for hours in "/yell" for hours means you are either reaching that eventual dead end when you cannot find the right players or it takes a long time to get them.

Yes, hold others to a certain standard or level or play skill, but do not set the barrier too high or try to raise every player's skillset and knowledge about endgame as you have. Not everyone has had the time to learn it and many have not been given the opportunity to do so. At the same time, these players will have to learn about it themselves eventually and have to be willing to learn them and gear themselves appropriately. Until then, they will need to join these groups to learn and will need a willing teacher to teach them.

Also, not everyone is a leader, and that holds true in real life outside the game. You cannot expect others to be able to lead a group competently and assuredly from beginning to end. Leadership is learned and earned through hard work and effort, but they have to start from somewhere and that means going to these endgame events and learning how they work. We are all players who have been in the same shoes years before when we first started in FFXI and have learned from each other how to play the game. Now, when players are returning to the game or new players are joining, regardless how small the number is, do we have to turn a blind eye to them? No, because they will never learn anything that way.

I like to see everything from both sides of the coin, from both sides of the situation or problem. It's the only way you can eventually find a solution or a compromise between the two.

Yes, I remember you mentioning that. Skirmish weapons are a nice stopgap before Delve weapons or 99 R/E/M weapons. However, even Skirmish groups are picky on our servers and shouts for pick up groups are very, very rare. I've noticed they're mostly done between friends that know each other's skill level and understanding of how to play and gear their job; or it's done exclusively within an LS where long-time members that have played together the longest in the LS know each other well and will only invite them even within the LS. So, it's like an exclusive club within an LS.

If anyone is like me, I do not have many skilled friends that are willing to help especially those who have done Delve or other things like Meeble Burrows, and majority of them have not done Skirmish or Delve even. There are players like me in the very same situation. I've only done two Skirmish runs since I've returned, but was only invited because the people they usually go with are not available at the time I went. And, I'm still too inexperienced to even lead one myself. I would have to do more to learn how it's done. Again, there are players in my same situation-- having not done Skirmish or too little of it to even be competent enough to lead a pick up group themselves.

So, Skirmish weapons are out of the question for these kind of players.

If we're going to bring this standard to things outside of Delve and the Delve NMs for the key items, then it's going to be difficult to let inexperienced players, new players, and returning players to get into these endgame events, and eventually newer content that gets introduced.

Like I said above, even if the player is willing to learn, they still need a willing player to teach them and what they can and cannot do. Everyone is different, and they learn differently. These players will eventually have to be invited or they'll never learn anything at all as to how these endgame contents work. Or else, we're going to see a very lopsided and eventually small subset of the playerbase that are both skilled and geared to do these events where it becomes an exclusive "country club" excluding others that are not "like them" to the group. It's already happening and is happening-- only LS play with LS people, only friends play with longtime friends. New and returning players to these content? They're, as how many have put it in this thread, "***out of luck", to summarize it in a nutshell.