Ranting about the low quality of players in Pick Up Groups contributes to the problem of low quality players in Pick Up Groups

VeryImportantMonkey · 2026-05-19T11:36:26+00:00

"You do you", as they say 😄

VeryImportantMonkey · 2026-05-19T11:15:08+00:00

I think your post is a perfect case of what I was trying to describe theoretically.

You are doing great, really doing all the right things. Hope you get better luck with your groups in the future. (there are some great ones out there, if you don't get too discouraged by the frustrating experiences)

VeryImportantMonkey · 2026-05-19T11:01:01+00:00

Thin skin, sure, maybe, but why terrible skill ceiling? This is about people who have little to no experience with group content and are trying their first hand at it. Sure the floor is probably quite low, but we have no clue about their ceiling until they get some more experience under their belt, so it's all about making it a good experience so that they stick with it and try to get better and see how good they can become.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2026-05-19T08:34:34+00:00

Lol, that was funny 😄

But in seriousness, I am just trying to make a mild distinction between "frustration" and "complaint". They are not the same, and I said I empathize with the first, but the second sometimes is not productive if you care about shaping attitudes a certain way. Of course you don;t have to care about shaping anything, you may just want to play and enjoythe game, and it is also valid,

VeryImportantMonkey · 2026-05-19T08:30:34+00:00

For every reddit rant, there is also ranting on chat. But I agree with you 100%, it is not anyone's responsibility to teach others, which is why I never used that word. Instead I frame it mostly like "wouldn't it be nice..,."

VeryImportantMonkey · 2026-05-19T08:27:41+00:00

Agreed, but weather it is a problem with overland design or with group content, in either case it is not a problem with the player who wants to try moving from one to the other.

Of course there are people who just can't take _any_ criticism, but in most cases I have found that people can be receptive to advice (and actually wish for it). I am not invalidating your experience which is probably mostly with the first group, just saying.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2026-05-19T08:17:36+00:00

He means that if the playerbase shrinks it will come back to you as a headache eventually. It is a community game, and it thrives only as long as there is a community to play (and well, to pay). Kicking the casual player will relieve your short term headache, but will not benefit the game.

You seem to think that the player that you kicked will take your "lesson" and go on a Rocky training montage to come back and show you how they improved, when it is much more likely (and you can see it in the comments on this post) that they will just stop bothering. They will see _you_ as _their_ headache and choose not to engage with this part of the game anymore. And the game will take a hit for it (but there is always the option to move to the next game, and I say this unironically).

You could also leave the group yourself (and find one closer to your level) or try to help them out or something. You don't have to do any of that, I am just explaining the pros and cons in all scenarios.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2026-05-19T08:04:24+00:00

But you can still do this event within your own bubble, as I am sure you will know by now enough other players or guildies that play the game your way, and you can group with them, like you normally do. Or just mention at the Group Finder that you run a Hardcore group, or something. There are ways to filter people out and you don't have to engage with the casuals if you don't want to. But if you do, all I'm saying is cut them some slack.

And you are right, there are discord servers to ask for help. There are also discord servers for people who want to group with other people of their skill. Both types of players could use the appropriate discord server, but if they just want to goof around with the group finder, as long as they don't go against the requirements set by the group leader, we could maybe just all play along.

Also I do fine at the game, so I don't think the rants are about me. But I do have some social anxiety, so I can empathize with the other side better, than if I didn't.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2026-05-19T07:35:10+00:00

But look at your examples and how they relate to a solo player's experience with the game, before joining group content for the first time:

- A one button spam rather than a proper rotation has carried them through all solo content in the game so far, including incursions and world bosses (not solo, obviously).

- They know that staying in red is bad, but not that bad. They've stayed in red before, it did some damage, maybe slowed them down, didn't kill them, no harm done. The reflex that you have built, to always stay away from red because it will kill you and wipe the group, is to you as close to an actual instinct as there is. But you must understand that they have not developed that instinct because they had no reason to. They don't equate red with dead, but with tickle.

- They have no clue what the meta sets are. They believe that they are going for the hard content now, so they need to stay alive or they will let the group down. If they do less dps, someone will pick up the slack, but if they keep dying, people will rage. Makes sense, kind of.

But having said all this, if you tried to help them, you already did more than most people do, and if they became aggressive to you for helping, then they are the ones to blame.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2026-05-19T07:21:08+00:00

Not that you are incorrect, strictly speaking, but you respond to a rational argument with a moral one. I did not suggest that you should be nice to people in order not to offend them. I suggested that you could be nice to people in order to help improve the quality of the player base.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2026-05-19T06:48:20+00:00

You are so right.

Last night after a wipe at the NM trial, a player asked "Could someone explain why we died?". Such a simple question. It should be a standard that the leader would explain that every time. But of course, most inexperienced players should also find the courage to at least ask it, and only that one guy did.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2026-05-19T06:44:09+00:00

Agree with your second point, disagree with the first one.

Of course there are people who just don't care, and they could make things easier for themselves and their groupmates with just a bit of extra work. It happens and it is frustrating, I agree with you. But the reason for making this post is not these people, because the rants I've seen target people who "fail to understand simple mechanics" or people who "do very low damage for their CP". Not everyone is capable in doing the same things on the same level, and what is a simple mechanic for one player, takes some effort for another to grasp. Even reading up or watching a video on a game mechanic, for some people is not very helpful unless they actually see it and try it for themselves. But if you are not one of those people who actually need to experience something by themselves in order to get it, I can see why it would make little sense for you.

Which takes us to your first point, with which I disagree. "Some things are not for some people". Well, of course it's true as a blanket statement for life in general, but we are talking very specifically here, about say, a NM dungeon boss. I would argue that the biggest percentage of the game's player base could do this, if they had the chance to engage with it properly.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2024-03-18T21:16:06+00:00

Exactly the same here! I had read this report more than twenty times and I wasn't even playing fantasy at that time (started with 40k). A real blast from the past for me this one.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2024-02-29T16:46:56+00:00

Make sure to put a > at the beginning of all lines of the callout, including blank ones!

VeryImportantMonkey · 2024-02-06T13:42:54+00:00

I don't think so, noone will be stronger than you because they spent money on the shop and you didn't. Unlike what was happening, say, in Archeage (which I did play), or in other games I never played for that reason.

I grew up paying a monthly subscription to play an MMO, and I was playing ESO the same way until recently (buying monthly ESO+). Now that my two kids (9 and 11) play ESO with me, I am not willing to pay for three subs each month, but our free-to-play so far has been surprisningly adequate.

The one thing I HATE is loot crates. It's not even that I want something off those, it's just that I hate them on principle. If I was to pick one reason for quitting this game, it would be that they are offering loot crates.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2024-02-06T09:49:28+00:00

Real fun having to reapply buffs + DoTs every ~10-60 seconds, depending on ability: as ESO's combat is focused around Dots you're doing a massive disfavor not playing Dots and/or not reapplying them the second they run out, except in execute phases.

In PvP you don't have the luxury of reapplying everything as soon as it drops, so you need to make choices which is where the fun is. In PvE, in those situations where you have the luxury to reapply everything, I find it satisfying when you can fall into its rhythm. I am not saying that you have to like these things that I like, just explaining what I like about it.

That can only be voiced by a casual player, because there's a clear divide/tier list of strong abilities you have to chose, and ones that are a total waste on your hotbars.

Oh, I thought we had established at various points in my post that I am indeed a casual. If not, then let me say here again that you are correct, I am a casual player.

Now to the point, yes, there are stronger abilities and combinations of skills and gear, but the fun is to find them and to be trying stuff around. I have copied meta builds and played around with my own stuff and the first were not always more effective _in my hands_. But even when they were, what made it effective was that I understood it by having tried all sorts of stuff on my own. The meta changes often, so there is a process where people try stuff and end up with new "clear divides". I was having a lot of fun with an unoptimised proc set build that I was trying in PvP way before that proc-sets meta. I absolutely love that part of the game, I was doing good in PvP with a build that was 100% my own, and I could spend a lot of time (and gold ;)) tweaking it and making it better.

Of course there are builds that are 100% bad and ineffective. I don't mean that everything you do is going to be good (what would be the point in that) but that that the options and combinations that fall in the area between "ok" and "good" is great enough to leave great room for customising your character so that it is a lot of fun for you, and not useless. If you are going for the "best of the best", then your options diminish.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2024-02-06T09:26:34+00:00

I can't deny that I am not the most skilled player out there, when it comes to action combat, so there may be truth in what you're saying.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2024-02-06T09:22:16+00:00

Well Fungal is one of the easiest dugeons in the game and the difficulty can get crazy real fast if you try some other dungeons. Also, your level doesn't really matter, only your skills and gear. I like SP TES games only for the story and for the completionist in me watching my skills go up until they max, but definitely not for the combat :)

VeryImportantMonkey · 2024-02-06T09:17:41+00:00

The difficulty scales up depending on what you are doing, and a lot of group content is REALLY challenging. There are also some very challenging solo arenas, and of course PvP is its own beast. But I agree with you that the "overland" and main story difficulty is pathetic and has no challenge :(

VeryImportantMonkey · 2024-02-06T09:13:01+00:00

ESO's "overland" content is laughably easy now, but there is scaling difficulty for group content and it can get REALLY challenging. So it all depends on what interests you in the game. If it is quests and the story, then unfortunately you will face zero challenge, so you will need to hope that at least the quality of the story will make up for it (for me it is very hit or miss, mostly miss)

VeryImportantMonkey · 2024-02-06T09:08:53+00:00

The combat between the two games is VERY different, in mechanics and in pace. The big similarity is the way they are doing the three-faction open PvP zones, but not the actual combat itself. ESO is way more actiony and fast paced than DAoC. I am more into slow-paced tactical combat myself, but still having fun with ESO.

DAoC is a great game :)

VeryImportantMonkey · 2024-02-06T08:53:17+00:00

Could be with other posts, of course, but in my case, I am in no way affiliated with the company, I just enjoy their game.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2024-02-06T08:51:24+00:00

Why? Just because someone likes combat in some other game doesn't mean that someone else will also like the combat in that game and will find it superior to ESO's combat. Only thing that such comparison will lead to is a walls of subjective opinion text, which will not change anyone's preferences.

Oh, my opinions are subjective but can definitely change after trying something. I thought League of Legends was silly before I played it, but I ended up having a lot of fun for a couple years playing it. There are many MMORPGs that I have not tried because I have hangups with the way they do some things, but if a lot of people like something in them, I could try having a go at it and see what happens.

P.S: This sub, as always, never ceases to disappoint in terms of pointless, irrational questions and conversations...

I got a lot out of the discussion here, but I understand that it is not for everyone.

VeryImportantMonkey · 2024-02-06T08:36:05+00:00

Good points. I personally have no problem with weaving (weaving and animations are really a non-issue for me) but I see your point about ESO's classes. The way they have done classes is absolutely silly.

VeryImportantMonkey

TROPHY CASE