"Don't Explain; Learn by Doing"

Personally you can give me a huge wall of text or tell me to watch a video but it's not gonna help me even a smidge if I can't DO the fight.
I learn by actually doing, so...
Is that harsh? I don't care. I love going in blind the first time I do a run. Though especially for the first few days of new content, why do you want to tell everyone? I mean, for example if the fights in Praetorium were still hard or something, and I waltzed in as a new player, I'd get that someone explained the mechanics to me. That content came out almost three years ago. Patch 3.3 just dropped a week ago; it's not wild to think that everyone hasn't done it yet.

Not every player can simply learn by doing. There are players that need and explanation like it or not, explanations need to be given for people who can't learn by doing. If you don't like explanations close your alliance and party chat windows for a few minutes. You can let someone take a few minutes to explain or wipe repeatedly cause you got people in group who can't learn by doing. Me personally Ill take either path learning blind or explanation did Nidhogg blind the night it came out while I took and explanation in Weeping city.

I only really hate explanations when they are crazy walls of text that aren't necessary. Most fights in this game have very few mechanics that aren't obvious, especially now that the devs are thankfully standardizing the AOE indicators so that specific ones always mean the same thing. Typically I only try to explain stuff with obtuse status effects or the random AOE that you need to get hit by instead of avoid, since those are the exception instead of the norm.

So for example, tell me "don't face the boss during move X" or "don't move or do any actions while you have dice over your head" since stuff like that will have people die and give them absolutely no indication why. Don't make people sit there while you tell us to avoid AOEs on the ground.

My FC and I did Final Steps of Faith this weekend, we were 7/8 and all blind to the fight and we got an 8th who vomited a several paragraph macro immediately upon loading in. You can't really expect people to memorize all that stuff in a timely fashion and it turns out the only bullet points that were necessary were "Attack the middle add first since it has random hate" and "Stay gathered for Akh Morn until it's finished" (which coincidentally wasn't even in their explanation), everything else was pretty easy to figure out. No wipes either.

Get killed by the same mechanic 10x
Learn while doing sure

I do most of my learning by actually experiencing the content, but if I'm new to an instance I usually don't mind a quick rundown if someone is willing to give it, it can save me the trouble of dying to something needlessly. I won't usually ask though. Most of the time I'm already in voice chat going over the fight with friends I'm running the content with.

That said, there's no reason you should be stopped from giving advice especially if people are asking for it. It's rude behavior, but I think it amounts to people being impatient and not wanting to wait for someone to take two seconds out of their time for any reason, even if it's just to hit a macro. Doesn't make a lot of sense when you consider that it might help someone catch on to fight mechanics a little quicker and save the group from a wipe which would waste more time than it took to explain the fight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Estellios

My FC and I did Final Steps of Faith this weekend, we were 7/8 and all blind to the fight and we got an 8th who vomited a several paragraph macro immediately upon loading in. You can't really expect people to memorize all that stuff in a timely fashion and it turns out the only bullet points that were necessary were "Attack the middle add first since it has random hate" and "Stay gathered for Akh Morn until it's finished" (which coincidentally wasn't even in their explanation), everyth--ing else was pretty easy to figure out. No wipes either.

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^ I actually agree with what this guy says though. I've seen those macros plenty of times myself in the 24 man raids, and there's no way anyone can read and understand a wall-of-text explanation macro before everyone else starts moving, so anyone new to the raid just ends up skimming over it and missing a lot of relevant information. There's no need for entire paragraphs, it just confuses people. If you're using a macro, just keep it sweet and simple.

Those who really want explanations AND don't want to waste everyone's time, can read/watch something beforehand.
I hate players who walk blind and then request tactics/strat (unless its a coordination issue like who goes to each corner in Nidhogg EX) at each boss.

The thing is, if you have no idea as to why a certain mechanic is killing you then you can run it a billion times and still not learn anything. Sometimes it's essential for some explaining, like when it's required to have a certain status from a marker to survive a mechanic but every instinct tells you to *never* stand in the AoE puddle. If you don't stand in it you'll wipe for eternity.

In a group like that, with some new, but some of those new people not wanting any pre-info, stick only to the things that are learned by punishment. Ozma's triangle form and acceleration bomb, for instance, give no clue of what's to come. You just hopefully notice when or why some massive jolt of pain occurred. Final Steps of Faith on the other hand, until Ex version, hasn't got a single mechanic you haven't seen before, and marks every single one of them for the raid. A person with decent internet and/or increased movement speed can zone out and just dodge the red zones, step into the stack zone, and they're good. So, just let them be until people (usually the laggier) are obviously having trouble. ("It will either be Hot Wings, which forces you inward from the sides, or Hot Tail, which forces you outward to the sides—start between the edges of those two different option's AoEs so you can dodge either possibility.") Mark kill order preferences. Type "LB!" with an attached spammable sound effect if needed. At that point you shouldn't get in trouble with anyone, but your clear time should be basically unchanged.

tldr; People don't need to know all the mechanics. They just need to know how to situate themselves for certain combinations thereof. Most of that will be obvious, but correct or advise as needed if it's not.

Honestly, I find wall of text macro's to be annoying, but not walls of text written out (or at least spread out decently if in macro). Because when you get so much text all of a sudden to read that you have to enlarge your chat box to full size just to read the start of it, then it feels like it's a race to finish reading it as quickly as possible so everyone can get started.

But if you write it out or spread out the macro into decently sized steps, people can read along and actually take in what you said while you are writing the next part. To me, this is a world of difference. I can take my time to read what you write vs I feel like I have to skim and say "got it" as quickly as possible so as not to hold up the entire party.

Another thing that helps but is a little more work is to only really bring up stuff when it's soon to be relevant, as long as there is a moment to do so. Most non-extreme, non-savage content gives you some breathing room between phase changes to throw in a quick macro message or type something if you're decently quick.

Using the Weeping City as an example, I'd tell the alliance to "run into the green puddles/orbs while the boss is casting mega death" right after the adds are dead, since you get a few seconds and it's going to be relevant immediately after and will still be fresh in their minds. I also tell groups "turn for assimilation against the Ozma Shade" when Ozma uses black hole and everyone gets sucked in since there's a good couple of seconds of that animation where you can't do anything.

Throwing out all the mechanics before a fight starts when you won't see several of them until halfway into it doesn't let people retain the information.