"Cheating" - Walkthroughs on Solo Game vs MMOs

I guess this is a difference between NA and JP. In JP people are diligent about studying up and they want to do their best to not burden others. It's a cultural thing many of us growing up in Asia to always think of what's best for the group, to be considerate. In NA more players have the mindset of "I'm going to do whatever I want" and expect random strangers to cater to them. Players queueing for roulettes not mostly not looking to do a blind prog run for 4/8 members. They just want their daily done, their tomestones, their gil. If you want to do blind prog, I would suggest doing them with friends/static/fc, but if you don't know many people in game as you've stated, then you can always put up a PF indicating that this will be a blind prog for the instance. You also can always recruit other players to form your own blind prog static or join someone else's blind prog static . There are many groups recruiting players who are interested in only blind prog and the requirement is that you don't watch or read guides. I see them in the ff14 recruitment reddit all the time. I hope that clears up your question, and I wish you good luck.

The only people I've ever seen equate walkthroughs to 'cheating' are literal children. That's playground 'I'm better than you because I did it the right way' talk, plain and simple. Where as in an MMO you're dealing with people who are presumably mostly adults and who mostly have lives outside of the game itself. I'm not going to yell at anyone for not watching a guide for content outside of Savage or Extremes because the vast majority of content in this game doesn't take much effort to pick up. Especially when most of the casual content in this game is designed to 'show' you what needs to be done as the fight unveils itself.

With that said, if you go into an Extreme or Savage party that isn't marked as learning and try to say you haven't watched a guide I'm going to heavily side eye you and insist you go learn with other like minded individuals. That's when it becomes a problem. Any other time? Do what you want honestly. Anyone who thinks that you /need/ to watch a Dungeon guide is kidding themselves.

Single player games only impact one individual if something goes awry. Multiple players are impacted if something goes wrong in group content in MMO's such as FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Nekaru_Infitima

Had someone tell our party 'videos exist' on normal non-savage Deltascape 2 raid after going back and doing it. (I neglected it my playthrough and now at endgame bored going back and doing things I didn't do.)
But that's not the first time. I've seen on the forum people try to hammer guides down peoples throats and not waste their time because they want to roulette and get things done as fast as possible. Even if it's new to the player.

Honestly I wish there was a Dutyfinder option like Party Finder to set it to just people who haven't done that fight yet. The first time around. Then open it to roulettes after.

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You might think that duty finder option would be a good thing, but it wouldnt work. You que for Delta 2. Now you get to wait for 7 other people who also need to do the same duty, AND who match up to the 2/2/4 group ratio. A que like that for new content that has hundreds of people queing an hour would be workable. But even like a month into the patch when the number of first timers queing is down to a dozen an hour it stops working. And for content several patches old, where you might be the only first timer queing this hour? And on top of that, youre making the assumption that everyone wants to play the same way. They dont. A large percentage(i would guess most actually) would be 100% happy playing with people who know the fight. Some dont want to be spoiled, some dont care, some actively want to be told what to do to make sure they win. As with any time you want something specific from a group of strangers, party finder is the way to go. "Delta 2 normal, going in blind no spoilers" - and get some like minded people or quiet helpful vets to join. Much easier then programing in a new filter that would make duty finder less useful.

As for what happened, that honestly doesnt make sense to me. Unless the group was messing up easy mechanics and repeatedly wiping on a very winnable fight, or someone was asking the group to explain everything and rather then type out a guide the response was that videos exist... delta 2 isnt a fight that needs a guide. Its forgettable enough that i had to look up which fight it was(Catastrophe). That was a 1 pull fight when it was brand new and we didnt outgear it by 2 patches. Now it might be clearable even with 2 healers who eat every mechanic. So as Zomkei said, just ignore someone like that.

Foreknowledge is not cheating.

Exploits like Ungarmax outside of squadrons and spinning bosses to prevent them from doing mechanics definitely are, though.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Foreknowledge is not cheating.

Exploits like Ungarmax outside of squadrons and spinning bosses to prevent them from doing mechanics definitely are, though.

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I too remember when people were able to get titan to walk off his map and die

In a single-player game, cheating is whatever you decide it is. If you believe that using a walkthrough spoils the game for you, then that's fine. If you prefer to speed through, pick up all the secrets on the first try, and so on, using a walkthrough is fine. Basically, unless you're bragging about your "quick win" on the forums, or whatever, what other people tihnk about using guides is totally irrelevant. it's a one-player game. You can play it however you want to, and get your money's worth however you like.

In a multi-player game, however, where you are cooperating with seven other people, all of whom may have different expectations than yourself. you need to take THEIR opinions into consideration. It's not all about you, and your own personal choices. If they're hoping to clear difficult content, and have done the homework, and then one person walks in blind and spoils the run, that one person has wasted the time of seven others, all for their own gratification. When prepping for difficult content that requires the cooperation of other people, you should prepare yourself in such a way that your performance will satisfy any of them. That means doing your homework.

If you PREFER to learn the fight from the ground up, that IS an option as well - but you don't have to spring that option on seven unsuspecting victims. Use Party Finder to tailor your group as you like. If you want to go into the run blind, that's fine - make a party finder group, and make it clear that it's a blind run. It will take longer to fill, to be sure, but once it does fill, you can friend the others that joined your run, make a linkshell and invite them. Chances are they are folks who ALSO like running old content blind, who don't care about a quick win and are satisfied to take the hard road.

I don't think there's many adult gamers that consider using guides to be "cheating", whether for single- or multi-player games, but the important thing is to realize that when you play a multi-player game, it's not all about you. It's about you, on a team with seven others - and those seven other expect you to be on top of your game.

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Originally Posted by Nekaru_Infitima

Had someone tell our party 'videos exist' on normal non-savage Deltascape 2 raid after going back and doing it. (I neglected it my playthrough and now at endgame bored going back and doing things I didn't do.)
But that's not the first time. I've seen on the forum people try to hammer guides down peoples throats and not waste their time because they want to roulette and get things done as fast as possible. Even if it's new to the player.

Honestly I wish there was a Dutyfinder option like Party Finder to set it to just people who haven't done that fight yet. The first time around. Then open it to roulettes after.

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Its going to happen and unfortunately the game has been out for about 7 years now. The only time its good to go blind is during the release of new content but after a few days guides are out.

Honestly its just a good idea to review a guide be it a video or written guide on what to expect. When it comes to roulette, thing is you are playing with other people, you have to be respectful of their time when it comes to roulette. Some folks simply only have a couple of hours to play while others may have tons of time to play. Its great when you get a group of people that are new or ok with taking time to let you go in blind. But doing a little prep work on what to expect makes things go alot smoother and usually results in a happier party all around. personally some fights you should have an basic understanding of is maybe Dun Scaith, the Ivalice raids, and maybe the Nier Raids. If you are going savage, simply do your homework before hand, you will save yourself some headaches. Also you don't necessarily need to watch spoiler laden videos as there are those that upload a 5 to 10 minute video that just touches the mechanics.

However, you are free to setup a Party finder for older content to run blind in any content though with like minded folk to run in blind and keep it synced.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

I don't consider it cheating but I do consider it as a way to experience the game the devs did not intend.

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I don't even want to imagine what it would look like if everyone only did what the devs intended...literally nothing but cure bots, 1-2-3 tanks and freestyling dps *shudders*

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Originally Posted by Nekaru_Infitima

... people just expect others to read guides and videos...

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Internet Social game, it's normal for people to at least take an interest in doing content successfully, you don't need to know 100% of everything, but you should at least learn the Raids and significant group content ie trials.

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Originally Posted by Nekaru_Infitima

Why is it considered cheating...

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It has never been considered Cheating to use a guide/strategy guide/wiki/or videos to successfully clear content in a video game. Some high ego types try and make it sound like "I'm so hardcore I did X solo without any aid." This stuff has always been an ego boost/brag issue. There have been a lot of video games over the years which you couldn't clear 100% unless you used a tip from a strategy guide that they made profit on. Prima Guides use to work with Dev teams to make their guides, and the developers use to make hidden things you could only find if you used the guide. At the same time, Braggards would claim to do 100% clears without the guide, odds are they were lying.

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Originally Posted by Nekaru_Infitima

But on this game,...

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Well, they are echidna and terrible humans, if someone asks before a fight I usually try and give them a 1 or 2 line quick explanation, most good players will, as it's in everyone's interest that you should perform with a minimal amount of competency.

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Originally Posted by Nekaru_Infitima

Is that not cheating also? ...

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Not cheating never was either. Honestly, you should always use any aid or tool to make the game work best for you. Not to say I encourage people to break the TOS and use 3rd party addons, but using the wiki's and there are a couple of good ones, and a ton of good videos, a few of which I recommend subscribing to the content creators on. Learning a major fight before doing it makes you a better gamer, and it is not and never has been cheating.Now going in changing game files and cracking the code, is cheating and bannable on all Social Games.

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Originally Posted by Nekaru_Infitima

I personally don't want to cheat and learn things myself. But that seems to tick people off.

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Reading a guide, watching a video is not cheating, and a normal part of the learning process, you still have to do the content yourself. The only valid issue about using guides ad videos esp on a first playthrough, and it's also why I avoid using videos on a first playthrough when it's MSQ related are

spoilers

. I still ask for a basic rundown of what I need to know in Chat. (ie: /P /A "1st time here, what's new and different, what is important that I need to know?" )