Lucky Bancho and NA raiding problems.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

True those can exist too but those really horrible ones who cant be misunderstood because they are simply horrible people also exist. And if someone is unlucky and got those as a group or more often then this can be a reason to not bother with it anymore. Again, if they state that every single raider is toxic than they would be wrong but if they state that they have met toxic players and that they killed any interest in raiding, than this could simply have happened that way and be a reason for them.

(I mean I for example dont believe that every PVP player is toxic, yet I had my fair share of them in matches and honestly they also made the mode less fun and thus I barely play it anymore)

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True, and if a player goes through such an experience I can see how that would impede ones enjoyment. On the other hand from my personal experience toxic players are not toxic for no reason. It does not excuse the behavior but often if one looks beyond the tone, and slurs truth is a mistake was made that caused the outburst. Do not get me wrong sometimes people are just assholes to be assholes and they have no rhythm or reason behind it.

As an example when I started to play this game I would play tank in the traditional sense stay in tank stance and spam my enmity combo. Some guy berated me for the entire run, and after the run I brought it up in novice network, and that is when I was told how tank stance / using enmity combos is not the most efficient way to go about tanking. This is a question I probably would not have asked and then done research on via reading guides and watching videos on because the game itself does not provide feedback. I do feel people can learn something even from assholes at times.

Speaking for myself, I just have no interest in raiding. It's not laziness, it's not "not wanting to better myself." I simply don't find enjoyment in it. I have mental issues that would just cause FAR too much stress if I went into raiding. Heck, I stopped leveling a healer and a tank cause I saw how much people argued and fought about healers and tanks having to put out so much dps even in story content. It made me anxious and nervous about being yelled at (and I mean yelled at, not polite suggestions on how to improve) so I stopped leveling them. But back on topic, there just might be a lot of players just not interested in raiding because they simply have no interest. Sometimes it IS just that simple. *shrugs*

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

The problem which spurred this post was content.

My point I made early was that if SE creates content around the expectation that a lot of players raid, like they might be doing in JP servers, if NA and EU do it much less, its not going to be good. Like the slow content drip we have now makes a lot more sense if most JP do this while they try to clear current or old Savage content; if most NA don't, then its going to be increasingly barren to play the game. And if they can't make more casual content, they are going to have to incentivize people to raid more to keep them playing.

I notice with myself and my friends its increasingly easier to turn off the game, because you hit a point where there is very little to actually do long term. When I saw the distribution of players on the census, the slow content drip made a little more sense, as did "we need to slow down releasing ultimate." If many JP just fill the void with savage, ex, or ultimate progression, they don't need as much content.

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To me, this game was always flawed in the style and systems, neither of which can or will be patched at their most basic level. My first experience with the beta convinced me nobody would want to play it (yeah, I was wrong). Then my friends rushed in with their FF nostalgia and dragged me along. I've continued to play to be with my friends, and I've come to recognize the depth in the game. I still much prefer action combat and hate the choreographed fighting style. It's like a cross between chess (slow, limiting) and ballroom dancing (based on rote memorization of skill rotations and predictable/scripted enemy actions). The only true spontaneity is in the randomness of other players... which is ironically where complaints come in.

I'm not unhappy to see the slow down and rising disinterest in content from the fanbase. To me that is just part of the cycle and may allow us to move on to a different and hopefully better game. I've already been waiting years.

I'd personally love to raid more as a NA player. I've yet to clear O3S/O4S, and O7S/O8S simply because I can't find a static. My work hours make it almost impossible and even if I did find one, it also depends on collective group ability as well. The one static I did find couldn't even clear Phantom Train. It'd been out for a few weeks at that point.

You can only do random groups in PF so many times before you get sick of how unreliable your party members can be. When I was still doing O5S and O6S weekly, sometimes you'd clear them in 20 minutes and sometimes it'd take literal hours. I just don't have the patience for that sort of thing. If I'm going to put in the effort to learn my class as best I can, I don't want my time to be wasted. /shrug

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Originally Posted by Hamada

The fight itself is not the issue I was getting at. When I said "put yourself through" I was referring to dealing with other players, that is why I highlighted the expert remarks. If people can't even take criticism on how to perform better then expert, even some raiders I met either refused to the tips or gave toxic feedback (leading to kicks in both cases) How many times have you met a tank that does not pull monsters to the paralyze ball in the water room in The Swallow's Compass? Last I heard drama over this a triple team premade left after for some reason the others allow the kick to pass on their tank friend then both left? Very weird but the point is, if the general NA player base has a big Russian roulette in pugs with expert, what makes you think people want to try on a grand scale for savage?

Or there is the possibility I am misunderstanding your point and the reason this happens is because of others trying to do the bare minimum, or expecting carry (because you can easily be carried though everything else in this game and the player may not even know they are bad) thus creating stress on the players that can do it, and do not want to deal with players like that.

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Well, if a player is following the logic that doing the content necessarily entails dealing with the people, then it doesn't really matter which part of that is the reason they dislike it. The overall experience is still something they'd rather avoid.

My point throughout this thread is that you can't make people like something, and that it's rare in the extreme for someone to become good at something they don't like to do. Material incentives are therefore an extremely poor way of trying to close the gap between JP and the rest of the world, because while you will get more players in savage, they'll only be doing it for the rewards and not because they want to do it. They may even come to resent the game more for making them do this thing they dislike in order to get the thing they want.


As an aside, I'd also say that the logic followed by the hypothetical player is for the most part flawed. You don't have to PuG the content (barring circumstances like unsociable work hours, but those are the exception rather than the rule), and therefore don't have to deal with players you dislike. If someone likes the content, but is constantly running into players they dislike, then they would be better off arranging to run it with others that share their outlook. It might take a while to set up, but ultimately it would avoid a lot of strife.

And I've never met a tank that does pull the mobs in the water room on top of that orb :p

It's not parsers, It's not WoW, It's not FFLOGS, It's not that the raids are boring, It's not the loot system.... You all already know what it is.


It's the NA community... period.


Pugging in NA is horrible. Too many people bail because they don't want to teach. Too many crappy attitudes ruining it for anyone new to the scene. Too many people who don't even care to try i.e. low dps or repeat failing mechanics. (which causes more of the first 2). Our cultural differences (i want it now now now me me me) as far as raiding goes is horrid, unfriendly, and unforgiving.

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Originally Posted by SinisterJoints

It's not parsers, It's not WoW, It's not FFLOGS, It's not that the raids are boring, It's not the loot system.... You all already know what it is.


It's the NA community... period.


Pugging in NA is horrible. Too many people bail because they don't want to teach. Too many crappy attitudes ruining it for anyone new to the scene. Too many people who don't even care to try. (which causes more of the first 2). Our cultural differences (i want it now now now me me me) as far as raiding goes is horrid, unfriendly, and unforgiving.

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Pretty much, the pugging is hideious.

People who have cleared will only stick to others who have cleared, even if they were carried through as the Duty Complete tag gets used quite heavily. Eventually anyone new wanting a clear will have to offer up to an FC willing to try and help them for the sake of boosting their numbers. Pugging with folk looking for Duty Completion is a grating experience as people don't hang about long enough to learn and get used to each other, or lack someone with experience to help them out.

I'm perfectly aware it's not the job of experienced folk to have to teach new ones, but it contributes to the problem for newer players regardless. Perhaps the bonus for savage clears should be raised?

I can't really speak for the "NA community" and I know even less about the "JP community". All I do know is that I'm definitely not interested in high-end content myself.

Furthermore, I don't consider it a problem, I intend to take no steps to remedy it and I feel no sense of obligation to become a raider just because a census is saying that there's fewer raiders on my data centre than somewhere else.

It is not for lack of incentives. It is certainly not for lack of opportunities or due to any past experiences that might have turned me off of that kind of activity. In actuality, my reason is quite simple:

I consider it an optional and niche activity - a vanity thing - similar to achievement-hunting, or trying to reach all the vistas in Kugane, or house-decorating. And I'm totally fine with that, just as I'm fine with not owning a house and having blanks in my sight-seeing log.

Are all hardcore raiders also avid house decorators, platforming enthusiasts, big-fish-collectors and ranked PVP champions? Should they be? Should everyone be whether or not they enjoy those aspects? Obviously not.
NOBODY would like it if we suddenly got long-requested glamours or BIS gear locked behind a fish that required a very specific quintuple-mooching chain in a high-end fishing hole and the thing in question had a sub-1% chance to drop from desynth.

Big-fishing is its own reward for people who are passionate enough to engage in it. I believe that raiding should be the same. A few vanity items are fine but the bulk of rewards should be, as it is now, geared towards helping raiders raid better, not be a must-have thing for everyone.

Personally what keeps me playing the game (now on two characters, spending twice the amount of time and mog station money) is the story, RP and crafting. I'm an omnicrafter currently working towards crafting gear that makes me better at crafting... for no reason really. I know there's nothing to craft that's more challenging than the crafting gear itself, I know it will be obsolete within 3 levels of the next expansion and I don't care. I just enjoy optimising my materials and synthesis process and experiencing the satisfaction of being able to reliably churn out HQ versions of things that used to seem beyond my reach once upon a time.

And I'm quite sure it's the same feeling raiders get when they finally see all their planning, preparation and practice result in a flawless run n_n

But I've never been able to share that sense of accomplishment with people who simply don't enjoy crafting and I doubt the satisfaction of pulling off a perfect raid would mean anything to me if I don't like raiding in the first place.

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So, back to the topic at hand: should SE offer more incentives to engage more people in high-end raiding?

Nuh-uh. While SE could certainly force me to do it through underhanded means by walling off story content (*cough* Eureka *cough*) or very attractive exclusive rewards (*Cough* *Wheeze* PVP *Sputter*) behind it, that kind of "incentive" would only last until I either got what I wanted or gave up on it in frustration. At that point I would never do that content again and the state of the raiding population would remain unchanged in the long term.

TL;DR: If I had to farm o7s to get crafting mats for cute glamours, I would flip all tables within a 6300km radius and then go into space to declare a crusade against all tables and table-like-objects in the galaxy. So unless you want to live in a universe without tables, pray that SE never tries to pull people who don't want to raid into raiding.

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Originally Posted by Awha

People often bash what they do not understand, or have no interest in. I do not get it though the raiding community is like any other community you have your helpful, neutral, and asshats.

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Whew isn't this the truth.

As a raider myself - who also pugs on an alt on the side with a lot of time (though not as much as before), I very much enjoy the challenges and satisfication of clearing and getting gear. And that's me, maybe not everyone else has interest, time and or patience in raiding, and that's perfectly fine in my opinion. Just like not everyone has the patience in gathering, crafting, etc. (though I actually very much do enjoy it as a break from raiding).

I can't speak for JP or EU, since I've only done extreme fights and never raided savage content there due to ping but maybe the disparity comes from NA having less patience for others. I can really only provide anecdotes. In my experiences with this community regardless if you are a raider or not - I find people to tend to not have a lot of patience for other players in any piece of content. I often see vote abandons in 24 mans after a single wipe, and people abandoning after a few (at times even just one) wipes in an early progression party (savage and extremes). Though in the end I'm unsure myself.

Summed it up perfect. I feel exactly the same.

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Originally Posted by Bonbori

I can't really speak for the "NA community" and I know even less about the "JP community". All I do know is that I'm definitely not interested in high-end content myself.

Furthermore, I don't consider it a problem, I intend to take no steps to remedy it and I feel no sense of obligation to become a raider just because a census is saying that there's fewer raiders on my data centre than somewhere else.

It is not for lack of incentives. It is certainly not for lack of opportunities or due to any past experiences that might have turned me off of that kind of activity. In actuality, my reason is quite simple:

I consider it an optional and niche activity - a vanity thing - similar to achievement-hunting, or trying to reach all the vistas in Kugane, or house-decorating.

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I laughed quite hard at this one lol

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Originally Posted by Bonbori

TL;DR: If I had to farm o7s to get crafting mats for cute glamours, I would flip all tables within a 6300km radius and then go into space to declare a crusade against all tables and table-like-objects in the galaxy. So unless you want to live in a universe without tables, pray that SE never tries to pull people who don't want to raid into raiding.

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NA raiders if you pug tend to leave after a couple full wipes. We don't use raid finder and sometimes you get the occasional "exclude non meta job"/clear for me-er-a friend trap parties. NA raid culture in any online game can be toxic, mistakes are met with talking town and belittling. My last O6S had a WHM going off on another healer and DPSes going off on him.

So sure, you look for a static, just be sure you'e on a job that they need or you're out of luck. What's that? You're a SAM/BLM/RDM/MCH? Hmm pass or play this other job you're not very good at bit it has utility! Now not all statics are like this, but people tend to treat the top percentile of fflogs as holy doctrine of raiding and rarely budge.

HOWEVER...

it's not as common, just mentally prepare yourself when you do end up in a bad situation. Also, late into the raid tier it can be hard to find practice parties for the later raid. I want to give Kefka a shot but I only see God Kefka starting points.

And this is why I have been raiding with FRIENDS for the last decade. It's the only reliable way to dodge toxic idiots that dont know what being a team player is. The NA culture is overall more me me me and that doesnt lead to success in a tightly choreographed 'team jump rope' type game. You cant go run n gun and solo the enemy team by being selfish god mode like an FPS or 1 v 1 game. You need to work together and sometimes, especially in pugs, that means playing it safe to get the win instead of playing for the parse. Sure, I could tank every fight with zero tank stance, but in a PUG you cant rely on that, so play a little safer. Slip into tank stance, miss a GCD to ensure generous space to complete a mechanic. PUGs are more likely to be greedy and then blame the team for not catering to your DPS.

JP: /em runs backwards to take less damage from head on at the cost of 2 gcds.
NA: "WTF I died to point blank head on without! Trashcan healers didnt shield me" /ragequit
NA2: "This is why I REFUSE to do train without a SCH"

Just take the dang hit to your precious parse. You are the only person that thinks your parse matters that much.

Ah, well the JP community is not perfect per se. I have been playing on JP server for close to 5 years now. You still have elitism, people blaming others on chat(Rarely you get instant blacklisted) and etc.

But the main thing is people here are more patient with one another. When someone messed up that apologize and ppl in the pt just said don't mind and we moved on. I remember doing a クリア目的 (Clear motive) pt and it took close to 2hrs at that point someone asked for a break before continuing on one last time and when we all came back from that break we instant cleared it.

Often than not i get to experience the Eng players playing culture vs a Jp players. When you messed up Eng players tend to be more vocal and tries to emphasize it's your fault like for e.g spamming the /slap emote on you. But for JP players if you messed up they usually endure it and ignore once. But after many repeated faults they usually type on chat and advise the player.

For raiding and EX they usually separate it to 3 parts 前半(First half)、後半(Latter half) and クリア目的(Clear motive). What those means is that the first timers will start from first half and after reaching a certain point they "graduate" and go for latter half. And after reaching the 時間切れ(DPS check) they "graduate" to clear motive. So pugging in JP servers are pretty easy because it's very organized.

If I wanted to raid, especially seriously, I'd go back to WoW. The only thing they can do to get me to step into raids is to tie rewards to it that I really want and then remove them when the raids are no longer current to prevent me from going back later and doing them unsynced. If they start doing that though, I'm out. I have stepped into savage when it was current this expansion, but that was to fill in for my FC because a static member couldn't be there. I normally only do the raids once when they drag me through them and then maybe do some ex primals for mount farming.

Lack of raid participation isn't a problem. MMOs should focus on offering diverse content and letting their players make their own fun from within that framework, not manipulating them all into approaching the game the same way. That's the mistake Blizzard is currently making, and it's ruining WoW. I don't want to see any other game, much less the only other MMO that has retained my sub for years, going down that same road.

I'd rather they make crafting more exclusive and more lucrative again. Follow it up with more uses for gil. The only true gil sink in this game is an aftermarket manor, which is a one time expense. After that, what's left? A nightmare pegasus whistle for like 10 mil? It only gets less expensive from there.

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Originally Posted by Dalmacus

For raiding and EX they usually separate it to 3 parts 前半(First half)、後半(Latter half) and クリア目的(Clear motive). What those means is that the first timers will start from first half and after reaching a certain point they "graduate" and go for latter half. And after reaching the 時間切れ(DPS check) they "graduate" to clear motive. So pugging in JP servers are pretty easy because it's very organized.

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To be fair, NA/EU have our own tiered structure in Learning, Clear and Farm parties, respectively. Unfortunately, they are often not honoured, or people who clearly lack experience—clearing by the skin of their teeth—immediately join farm parties.

I definitely think that the tendency of a lot of NA players to yell or belittle other players prevents some people from wanting to challenge anything harder. A number of my friends have expressed this concern - they could probably clear the content with some practice, but they don't want to get put in a situation where someone is trying to make them feel bad. Even though those people are the minority of raiders, it happens often enough to be a real deterrent to people.

Heck, I've been raiding in MMOs for a long time and I still remember when I tried to clear A5 normal for the first time ever, I accidentally let the tank die after the tankbuster, and both the tank and 2 of the DPS went off on me even though we didn't wipe. It felt horrible and I didn't do the rest of that tier of Alex for a long time, until I convinced some friends to come with me, because I didn't want that to happen again lol. And that was in normal! Imagine if it was Savage.

The mindset of the JP community seems to be focused a lot more on "well, we all have to learn this new fight, so let's be patient and learn together." It's a lot friendlier to people who may be anxious about their skill level.