Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.

Yeah, but, aside from the quirk with needing to collect Vril and manually flicking it on, her attacks are easy to read. The vril thing causes more deaths in the fight than anything else, but she so heavily telegraphs them that she's really not a terrible fight to learn unless you have 0 situational awareness, or like, the tank has her in the middle or something. (which is an issue with the AOEs, admittedly)


Also, asking people to bring up YouTube MIDFIGHT is a taller order than you realize for console players. I'd have to grab another device, or close FFXIV than hobble around the app on PS4.

I know this isn't DF, but what is with Zurvan EX farm parties? Every single one I've been in the last two weeks has ended up wiping 2-3 times on the FIRST run of the party. I can understand someone who needs a clear still dying a few times, but when it's people who say they have multiple kills, I just can't stick around in those after the single clear. I just want my last birb! -.-

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Originally Posted by Enla

~snip~

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I kinda agree with the last comment in that pic, you shouldn't have to watch YouTube to be able to play a game. That's bad game design imo. I think Dark Souls did it pretty well, you got a short tutorial on how to play the game and then let you loose. Tbh, I honestly feel a lot of these fights are poorly designed and the classes are poorly designed. As much as I think some of the stuff in this game is hard, I've played Dark Souls and I never had to bring up YouTube to play or defeat a boss (tbh I thought Dark Souls was easy compared to a lot of other people, but maybe different types of games click for me better than others.)

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Originally Posted by AphraelAmarantha

I kinda agree with the last comment in that pic, you shouldn't have to watch YouTube to be able to play a game. That's bad game design imo.

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I agree. I feel like the information on how to handle game mechanics should be taught by the game itself - particularly the meaning of floating markers like the 'green rock' and different coloured arrows. Perhaps introduce them in a solo instance where an NPC can prompt you about what to do when you see them, and then you can go into the dungeon understanding what to look for and how to react. The marker alone tells you nothing except that *something* is going to happen in relation to it, but not how to handle it, and the fights are generally too fast-moving to really understand what just happened.

(Once again: advanced Hall of the Novice really does need to be a thing....)

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Originally Posted by Avatre

I know this isn't DF, but what is with Zurvan EX farm parties? Every single one I've been in the last two weeks has ended up wiping 2-3 times on the FIRST run of the party. I can understand someone who needs a clear still dying a few times, but when it's people who say they have multiple kills, I just can't stick around in those after the single clear. I just want my last birb! -.-

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Because people are spoiled by unsyncs. Wipes were common more than I want back when zurvan was current content and it's only made worse by people thinking they can skip every mechanic. Southern cross stacking? Nah. Broken seal? What's coordination (assuming an unsync run gets to one)?

I make sure to avoid doing this for Wt like the plague.

Massive thanks to the party that had to work with my still-struggling astrologian in Sohm Al the other night (which I've only done as white mage or DPS). Three wipes to Tioman, lots of advice and patience given, finally scraped through. I still really need to grasp astrologian's unique skills instead of just thinking of it as white mage plus cards.

(I then went into leveling roulette again as tank, got Sohm Al again with an astrologian healer, and the whole thing went super smoothly. Clearly it's not just that the level is difficult, and I still have a long way to go....)

Byakko EX today decided he wanted to try and cause a wipe via bugs. Second tiger spawns and everything is going normally, but then it decides to use its second Hyper Beam while Byakko-man was casting his donut AoE (they went off at the same time, so no safe spots unless you're with the tiger). SCH, SMN, RDM (me) and NIN were the only casualties, with the DRG, two tanks and WHM as the only survivors.

Normally we'd go "wipe it," but instead we pushed on, recovered and eventually got the win (before enrage even started). The DRG joked about 'what's this about DRG's always dying?' and then got himself killed by Sweep the Leg. "Talk [bleep], get hit" as the saying goes.

coming here to cry about how nobody can competently stay alive in o5s... of all things. i'm clear ready, i've BEEN clear ready and i'm confident in my ability to perform well. i've seen 4% enrage many times but it's just super frustrating to always have a couple of people not perform well enough to where we can't even survive past the ghosts in the cars.

altho i will say what's more frustrating is joining clear parties and having people leave/party disband after 2 wipes. i get it-- i'm frustrated and mad too, but leaving after a wipe isn't helping anyone, especially those who want a clear. one of those times i wish i had a static or a dedicated group of friends to run this kind of stuff with... ;_;

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Originally Posted by winsock

Didn't get your way so you took your toys and went home? Why should the way you want to play override the tanks preference?

If he's doing what he is supposed to, at worst you're looking at minimum sprint and cure II spam. Maybe an mp cool down occasionally and using tetra or something during the dog section if you get targeted by AoE. Of course, you are always welcome to heal more efficiently than the above to improve your DPS uptime.

If your job is less stressful than repeatedly pressing the cure II button, I need to look into a career change lol.

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This is the attitude that breeds this sort of behavior. The tank doesn't get to make everyone accommodate THEIR style of play either. Most of the time we are forced to, because of role mechanics but that doesn't give tanks carte blanc to make everyone work twice as hard to cover their ass. If he would have asked, instead of just assumed, I'm sure that duty would have gone very differently. Maybe the group would have treated it as a challenge instead of getting yanked along by TANK GOD-MODE. "Doing what they're supposed to do" is doing right by the team, not just themselves. Pressing buttons in the correct order at the correct time is a trick anyone can learn, but responsibility? Not so much.

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Originally Posted by bounddreamer

Maybe...try asking for smaller pulls instead of leaving?

Big pulls in EX are a community standard. If tanks don't do it they're at risk of being scolded or kicked. If you don't ask for something else, they will assume the party is good with the typical speed run.

Most tanks will be at least willing to accommodate you if they say "Speedrun!" but you reply with "smaller pulls please." I mean, not all of them, some will leave.

But you certainly can't expect to be accommodated for something you didn't even ask for.

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It's very difficult to type when your Tank sprints ahead and starts the duty and you're trying to keep up and keep it together. Also, I have never seen a tank get kicked. Ever. I've seen tanks leave, or get shamed into leaving but tanks are the last role to get kicked because there is an obvious shortage--and very few have 'Party in Progress' checked unless they had it checked for another class. I am an awful tank and I've never been kicked from a duty. I assume because I communicate with my team instead of assuming they are going to cover for my lackluster performance.

This 'Community Standard' of 'Go Big or Go Home' for tanks is really just role-stereotyping based on bad behavior and memes. While it sucked that the DPS were made to suffer (because usually that's a 10-15+ que time) the OP was well within her right to leave. It was, in fact, a lot nicer than what I would have done which is let the tank eat floor until they A) got a clue or B) tried to kick me. Which wouldn't have bothered me at all since there's no penalty for that. *shrugs*

OP, in the future the kick feature is found in the party menu. I usually get to it from the Hotbar (little flag icon). You either right-click or press square over the person's name and the vote-kick option should appear. Just like for vote-abandon, I think 15 minutes need to elapse before you can do it. However it's kind of hard to get someone kicked unless at least two of you are in agreement. It's actually easier to just work whatever is going on, out in the duty so that it can resume, but its there for your extreme cases.

So I've done EX many many times now, and I'm seeing a pattern. Why does EVERYONE flub the Sophia mechanic in Fractal Hard? I actually kind of yelled at someone last night because I died after getting hit by Citadel Buster because I was chasing after someone with rings while they RAN AWAY FROM ME (I was healing). I apologized because I really hate that sort of thing and I understand that not everyone has done Warring Triad, but it's literally every. Single. Time. *screams*

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Originally Posted by Ursa_Vonfiebryd

Why does EVERYONE flub the Sophia mechanic in Fractal Hard?

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People do the exact same thing in Sophia normal too, which I used to run a lot just because I felt like it. The mechanic IS pretty confusing to see just out of the blue they probably thing it's like a burst aoe or something that they need to be by themselves for. Your options there are to let them eat it, make a macro to explain it while its happening, explain it during the pull before the boss, or rescue someone into yours if you're healing.

Yup. Plus the mechanic isn't punishing when failed in Normal so average players never have a reason to learn what you're supposed to do.

60 minute Hell's Lid.
The RDM never cast a single spell. Ever. Just TP moves.
At one point, me, the tank and healer were all running on empty, tactician and refresh were on cooldown. Was there a mana shift? Vercure? Even a jolt? Nope.
So sick of carrying lazy people. At 70, there's no excuse for play that bad.

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Originally Posted by ChloeGrace

60 minute Hell's Lid.
The RDM never cast a single spell. Ever. Just TP moves.
At one point, me, the tank and healer were all running on empty, tactician and refresh were on cooldown. Was there a mana shift? Vercure? Even a jolt? Nope.
So sick of carrying lazy people. At 70, there's no excuse for play that bad.

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Use the votekick feature earlier then.

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Originally Posted by Ursa_Vonfiebryd

If he would have asked, instead of just assumed, I'm sure that duty would have gone very differently.

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The tank in that story did state what he was planning to do and I am not defending his way of going about it... he should have waited a bit longer for a response, but in the end it still takes two people to communicate either way.

If any of them in the group had a problem with how the tank was playing they can speak up and ask for what they want. Yes, you can't stop the initial big pull, but Ala Mhigo specifically has walls that need to be blown up which takes a little bit once all mobs are dead. There would have been ample time for any of them to type "wait" after even the first pull and try to explain what they want.

If the tank ignored them after that then it is 100% on the tank since he isn't listening to them, but honestly people have to stop this thing where they expect people to know what they want without speaking up.

No one can help you if you don't tell them what you want. No one can tell if you are personally stressed unless you say so.

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Originally Posted by Ursa_Vonfiebryd

the OP was well within her right to leave. It was, in fact, a lot nicer than what I would have done which is let the tank eat floor until they A) got a clue or B) tried to kick me.

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Yes, the OP was well within her right to leave, but she came here posting a rant about someone doing something she didn't like yet stayed silent and didn't bother to communicate her desires.

There was time; OP just didn't use it. There are two walls in the beginning of Ala Mhigo that need to blow up before the first boss alone that leaves the party sitting there for a bit waiting each time...WAY more than enough time to type "wait a second" or even simply "wait".

If the tank ignored OP still then yes it is on him for not stopping to listen, but OP didn't even try according to her post.

So yeah I am sorry, but the whole thing turns into: "They couldn't read my mind that these pulls were too stressful for me so I am going to just say nothing and leave group then go to forums and then rant how this tank didn't do what I wanted....even though I didn't even attempt to tell them what I wanted."

Your approach is even more ridiculous. Instead of communicating what you want you'll just purposefully let the tank die or wait for them to kick you? lol I'm sorry but you need to learn to ask people for what you want, not just throw passive aggressive tantrums.

Not everyone is going to ask you or others every time they load in to DF "How can I serve you today?" They are regular MMO gamers, not Burger King staff...so if you want something from someone whose whole purpose in DF isn't just to serve your needs then you have to use words and make a request of them. How they respond is what you should use to judge if they are a respectful individual.

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Originally Posted by ViolaCrossfire

Use the votekick feature earlier then.

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You can't when they bring a friend and you lose the popularity contest.

Long rantish thing:

Just got out of Hell's Lid. I've only done it maybe 3 times. My sister, WHM only, was doing it for her first time. She'd watched a video and I was trying to help her with the mechanics but since I've only done it 3 times myself, they're still a bit hazy. Get a WAR tank and tell them right off the bat that it's the healer's first time. First pull was easy, drop down into that square room, no big deal. Firey hallway was fine. Sadly, sis died on first boss but SAM, myself, and WAR managed to hold on and down it. After that the pulls got bigger and tank was double pulling (and at one point after the second boss, a triple pull). I kept ripping hate off the tank despite using Lucid Dreaming and Diversion when possible. Tank dies, and then we wipe. Try again, single pull now. Ok good. Everything's fine leading up to the last boss. Tank does a single pull, then a double, I LB, goes smooth. Last two pieces of trash down quickly and onto the last boss.

Here's where it gets not so fun. I've only done this maybe 3 times myself and the water ball mechanic thing is still a bit hazy to me so I try to stay on the middle tile because that seems to be the safer one more often than not. I try to explain the mechanic as best I can (not very well), SAM confirms, WAR says nothing. We go in and within a minute or so, WHM is dead. I didn't see how she died but there she was. We held on a bit more but eventually I died (too many stacks b/c again, I'm not super good with the mechanic yet either and no healing) and then SAM and WAR died. WHM asks a question about how to avoid the water, and gets "watch the tiles" as a reply. We try again, this time WAR tells WHM to stick with them (and marks themselves). WHM does, WHM dies. Again I think probably due to stacks. Third time, WAR says "ok you need to stop dying to that." No explanation of what "that" is, no other help beyond that. Obviously we were having a bit of trouble. WHM apologizes, I'm biting my tongue because as much as I want to stick up for my sister, she's an adult and she can stick up for herself and I don't want to look like I'm "protecting" her. We manage to get through and as soon as the fight's over, WAR high tails it out.

Yes, it took us longer than a normal run does. I get that. No, we weren't perfect and yes I was messing up (and trying not to) too. But, I feel like we did the best we could. WHM watched a video before hand. Explained that she was new up front. Was obviously trying. She asked a question about something that was confusing her in an effort to learn and was met with a rather watered down reply. WAR wasn't rude, but I'm sure they hated that run because of the wipes and that's understandable. I just kind of wish people would have a bit more patience, a bit more willingness to explain something when explanations are obviously going to be well received (WHM asked a question, obviously she wants help).

I don't really know what else could have been done to avoid the wipes. You can only really learn something from running it. I felt bad for my sister because she's not a terrible white mage (she's definitely grown over the past month or two) and she hates failing at something (don't we all).

I dunno, maybe I just feel all big sisterly right now.

So, if that tank is reading this: We're sorry we wiped that many times. We're trying to do better. We appreciate you sticking through to the end.

Doing leveling roulette as WAR, got Copperbell normal. All good, apart from the fact that I mixed it up with the Copperbell Hard in my mind... So having checked that everyone in the group is high enough level to not need any EXP from the dungeon itself, I decide to skip as much of it as I can. I (falsely) remember that the monsters in this dungeon (actually, the other one...) start deaggroing after you've pulled them far enough. So after the initial group of 3 monsters and riding the elevator to second floor, I start pulling and sprinting ahead...and I keep pulling...and I keep sprinting...until I find myself next to the boss room.

Imagine my surprise and horror when I realise none of the monsters had actually deaggro'd, and I must still have around 15 of them. I was sure we'd wipe but couldn't do anything but Berserk Overpower Overpower Overpower and so on with the little cooldowns I had available to me, and drinking the random Potion I had on my action bar. Somehow, miraculously, we got through it with everyone alive, thanks to the super sharp healer and two extremely effective DDs (luckily we had a BLM).

Afterwards couldn't really say anything but "whops sorry I thought they'd deaggro" and compliment the group for the situation well handled. I'm fairly certain the healer at least was cursing me in their mind, but at least I gave them the commendation. :D

So haven't been in a rabanastre run that only took 25 mins in forever the norm seems to be an hour which im fine with but the last one I did just sent me over the edge. Join in progress 27 mins in I'm thinking nice boy was I wrong still on the second boss. Ok no need to panic some people are new I see the bonus message this is fine. Around 30% our party has a couple of people dead and I just saw the healers swiftcast so hey rdm has full mana he is going to help rez WRONG. First seeing a rdm with full mana that far in the fight is already signaling some red flags. We ended up wiping to the sand spheres and rdm didn't rez.

So round two I watch their cast bar, we are talking the bare minimum not even being done.Occasional cast here and there. Maybe one rez out of the near 10 deaths during the fight. At this point I am thinking bot so I called them out on it and oh boy the response was just fantastic. Lets see I think the first retort was "Have you ever seen a rdm maintain full mana?". So having experience with rdm even using lucid just doing the basics you don't stay at full mana the whole time. This was met with "Just focus on your own gameplay and maybe you wouldn't play bad". I'm just sitting there dumbfounded at this point since I died several times ripping hate as smn.

At this point im just irritated and notice a mentor status next to this persons name. In rage sorry if I offended the leech (not sorry) I state "I feel sorry for other people that are force to play with a leech with a mentor status just distasteful". Met with the good old "Im blacklisting you for harassment". At this point I am just like w/e I just want to finish this raid. There were many other things going on trolls and what not but that is what stood out to me during that run. Even left with a comm so glad I wasn't the only one noticing this leech.

Not really a story, but a neat trick I figured out for those struggling with not ending up with tons of vuln stacks and giving your poor healer an aneurysm during the last phase of the boss fight at Hell's Lid.

If the boss is casting the knockback attack at the same time the bubble spawns, just position yourself in the center panel, between the boss and the panel where the bubble spawned. The attack will knock you back into that panel after the bubble has already gone off, meaning it's a safe zone. This is especially useful to ensure safe melee DPS uptime (and that trying to move into the first panel normally without getting hit by the exploding bubble is usually a crapshoot because of the knockback hitstun effect).

Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a surefire way to have the entire team dodge the AoE marker variation without risking stacking on top of someone else, much less actually coordinate it in a random DF party.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

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I've seen posts for Hell's Lid a few times - is this an actual widespread issue with the boss here?

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Originally Posted by Kakiko

Here's where it gets not so fun. I've only done this maybe 3 times myself and the water ball mechanic thing is still a bit hazy to me so I try to stay on the middle tile because that seems to be the safer one more often than not. --- WHM asks a question about how to avoid the water, and gets "watch the tiles" as a reply.

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I guess you might have got this already but here goes. On the water ball the the tiles turn into arrows. The ball itself will move from tile to tile into the direction the arrow points until some arrow points it out of the field. It is sort of mini puzzle in itself and takes quick thinking. Check on which tile the ball starts, visually trace it's route how the arrows point, and try to mentally check the safe tile that is not on that route. You can also try to time yourself with the ball movement but that is only feasible once you've learned to read the arrows.

And yes, I know that can be daunting when seeing it first time. I hope that run didn't ruin the place for you and your sister.

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Originally Posted by Kakiko

Here's where it gets not so fun. I've only done this maybe 3 times myself and the water ball mechanic thing is still a bit hazy to me

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Yeah, i didnt understand the ball at all the first time or two i ran it. You need to quickly do a couple things for that mechanic. So obviously, first you have to spot which tile the ball is over. Now look at the glyph on the floor. First time through i thought it was just some pattern, but its actually a stylized arrow. So each tile has an arrow pointing somewhere. Now when the ball drops it will follow the flow of the arrows from one tile to the next til it gets sent off the edge of the platform, so you need to quickly trace in your head what that path looks like. Then if you're in the pathway, figure out where to move. As a BLM i pick a tile and try to stand near the intersection where i can quickly step over into two others. Then if all 3 end up in the path(unlikely but possible), ill stand in the last one and dodge directly into the first one as the ball passes(can also AM over to the other side of the room if you have a teammate safely out of the way). Its not too hard with a few practice runs, so keep at it and good luck to both of you!

My story for today: TIL my home internet can't handle gaming and streaming at the same time
I needed to practice level 70 tanking, so I was working my way through the dungeons and today it was time for Skalla (which I had done plenty of times on Dragoon so no big deal really). I queued in, told the party I was tnaking it for the first time, and it turned out the healer was new to the dungeon after a long break from the game. Easy enough, so i pulled only one or two group at a time and nobody said to go faster. Part way during the first boss, I notice a lot of skipping and unresponsiveness. i called out to the lounge "are you watching something?". the response is affirmative. Great. But I tab over to Resource Monitor and it's not causing latency (probably just packet loss) so I continued but felt bad for the group and apologised. They said it was okay, but it continued to be awful all the way through to the end.

At the last boss, one of the dps says something in all caps about the origins of Mewtwo, which caught me off guard, but there was no follow up so I started the battle. Part way through, the healer is killed and releases, but the dps and I manage to complete the fight. I thank the team for putting up with my awful internet, and the all-caps dps goes something like "no thank you for being a tank monster" (to which I was like "???") and when the healer got back to the exit they said something about hating novice network because it "hid warnings" (does anyone know what they meant by that?). I told them they did okay (and internally was kicking myself for not offering to explain anything, since i felt i might be at fault for any issues they had). Somehow still managed to get 2 comms.
Afterwards I thought "well at least it was only a dungeon that i was having packet loss in", since I had been thinking of starting on Omega.

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Originally Posted by AphraelAmarantha

I kinda agree with the last comment in that pic, you shouldn't have to watch YouTube to be able to play a game. That's bad game design imo. I think Dark Souls did it pretty well, you got a short tutorial on how to play the game and then let you loose. Tbh, I honestly feel a lot of these fights are poorly designed and the classes are poorly designed. As much as I think some of the stuff in this game is hard, I've played Dark Souls and I never had to bring up YouTube to play or defeat a boss (tbh I thought Dark Souls was easy compared to a lot of other people, but maybe different types of games click for me better than others.)

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Agreed. FF14 really drops the ball on in game teaching.

That said Dark Souls approach doesn't work for anyone even though I wish it did. I actually missed the DS hype train all these years. I was over a buddies house saw he had DS3 and was like yo can I try this? He said it was a shit game he couldn't even beat the tutorial. So we booted it up and took turns trying to beat Gundyr. He was so discouraged he simply gave me the game, but I couldn't put it down.

I found that it's not a hard game, but it is a VERY punishing game. I found that every single one of my deaths was my fault. It was because I got greedy. It's because I went for 1 more attack, or a heavy when I went for a light, or I rolled poorly.

The only boss in that game I needed a video on was the one boss in Anor Londo. I couldn't figure out his fire phase and died to it way too many times. I must have died 20 times on that guy when most took me 4-5. Once I trained myself to be patient the game opened its doors. I then went on to play BB and DS2 and am very eagerly awaiting the DS1 remaster.

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Originally Posted by killstein

altho i will say what's more frustrating is joining clear parties and having people leave/party disband after 2 wipes. i get it-- i'm frustrated and mad too, but leaving after a wipe isn't helping anyone, especially those who want a clear. one of those times i wish i had a static or a dedicated group of friends to run this kind of stuff with... ;_;

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It is possible that they expected a clear party, saw clear mechanics issues and possibly DPS issues and decided their time was better spent in a new group. God knows I've done it.

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Originally Posted by Ursa_Vonfiebryd

.This is the attitude that breeds this sort of behavior. The tank doesn't get to make everyone accommodate THEIR style of play either. Most of the time we are forced to, because of role mechanics but that doesn't give tanks carte blanc to make everyone work twice as hard to cover their ass. If he would have asked, instead of just assumed, I'm sure that duty would have gone very differently. Maybe the group would have treated it as a challenge instead of getting yanked along by TANK GOD-MODE. "Doing what they're supposed to do" is doing right by the team, not just themselves. Pressing buttons in the correct order at the correct time is a trick anyone can learn, but responsibility? Not so much.

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In actuality he does. Just like a DPS can hamstring the group by doing awful damage or being AFK. They get to dictate the speed. Much like a healer gets to dictate the safety of the run. Each role has aspects it is in charge of, and the pace is up to the tank. You can volunteer it away if you'd like, but that's the hallmark of an inexperienced tank. A good tank can judge his peers and adjust dynamically. I do it every single run.

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This 'Community Standard' of 'Go Big or Go Home' for tanks is really just role-stereotyping based on bad behavior and memes.

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No, it's based on optimal play. Something that should be striven towards. Sometimes you can't play optimally (due to gear/skill differentials), and it's up to the tank to analyze that, as well as players with deficiencies to speak up. I cannot read your mind. If you want me to do something specific to accommodate you just ask and I'll gladly accommodate you.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

No, it's based on optimal play.

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Optimal only if you are optimizing for speed. Personally I much prefer optimizing for ease and/or completeness.

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Originally Posted by Apoptomon

and when the healer got back to the exit they said something about hating novice network because it "hid warnings" (does anyone know what they meant by that?).

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I'd guess that a bunch of mentors were being chatty in NN (some of them use it as a private chat channel) and that caused text to scroll by too fast to see the boss emoting something.

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Originally Posted by Ursa_Vonfiebryd

So I've done EX many many times now, and I'm seeing a pattern. Why does EVERYONE flub the Sophia mechanic in Fractal Hard? I actually kind of yelled at someone last night because I died after getting hit by Citadel Buster because I was chasing after someone with rings while they RAN AWAY FROM ME (I was healing). I apologized because I really hate that sort of thing and I understand that not everyone has done Warring Triad, but it's literally every. Single. Time. *screams*

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The marker on that isn't at all clear in what it wants you to do (and isn't one you'll see in many other things), so it'll take some time before knowledge of the correct action works its way through to everyone.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

Optimal only if you are optimizing for speed. Personally I much prefer optimizing for ease and/or completeness.

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It's still optimal play. If I can be as safe and complete as you and do it in 1/3 the time. It's more optimal. That is a fact.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

It's still optimal play. If I can be as safe and complete as you and do it in 1/3 the time. It's more optimal. That is a fact.

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You're both right. It depends on what your success rate is. If it's 100%, then you optimize for speed.

If it's not 100% (and yes, people do wipe on this stuff), trying to go faster is going to make it go slower.

That math changes between people, it's not something that has a single always correct answer when done in a vaccum. For example: Some people do the pulls between bosses 1 & 2 in Ala Mhigo as one pull. I do them as two, because I've had too many wipes caused by trying to do it as one and it's not a net gain for me.

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Originally Posted by Ursa_Vonfiebryd

It's very difficult to type when your Tank sprints ahead and starts the duty and you're trying to keep up and keep it together.

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You make it sound impossible. It's really not difficult to type "small pulls please" as you're loading in, before the barrier drops. I've personally had someone do that at Skalla and they further elaborated "I'm a returning healer and not confident with big pulls." I was happy to accommodate them.

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Originally Posted by Ursa_Vonfiebryd

Also, I have never seen a tank get kicked. Ever. I've seen tanks leave, or get shamed into leaving but tanks are the last role to get kicked because there is an obvious shortage--and very few have 'Party in Progress' checked unless they had it checked for another class.

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This, friends, is what is known as "confirmation bias."

I've been in many parties when a tank was kicked for rude or disruptive play or for flat out not doing their job. I've kicked tanks for it personally. And as a tank, I've lost count of the number of duties I've joined in progress anywhere from the beginning of a dungeon up to the final boss. But it happens quite frequently I'd say.

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Originally Posted by Ursa_Vonfiebryd

Just like for vote-abandon, I think 15 minutes need to elapse before you can do it.

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Correcting misinformation. It's actually five minutes from the start of a duty before you can kick someone.

Big pulls are absolutely not based on "bad behavior and memes." When done properly it's the most efficient way to run a level 60 or 70 dungeon and it can be a great deal of fun, as well as very satisfying to see how quickly you can clear with everyone doing their best. But as other tanks have mentioned, it's important to assess whether your party is geared and the comp supports it.

Last week I ran Fractal Hard with a returning FC mate and we had a bard who never used a single aoe ability for any pull. Fortunately my friend was on RDM and used his to the best of his ability and the WHM did plenty of Holy spam.

Does no one use greet macros anymore?

/greet

/wait 2.5

/s Heyo, I like to do big pulls. Feel free to tell me to speed up or slow down.

/wait 2.5

/ac "Balldance"

Did a Fractal hard run, and everyone except the tank was a Roe bro.

https://i.imgur.com/8BptA3c.png

Fun times ;3

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Originally Posted by Tridus

You're both right. It depends on what your success rate is. If it's 100%, then you optimize for speed.

If it's not 100% (and yes, people do wipe on this stuff), trying to go faster is going to make it go slower.

That math changes between people, it's not something that has a single always correct answer when done in a vaccum. For example: Some people do the pulls between bosses 1 & 2 in Ala Mhigo as one pull. I do them as two, because I've had too many wipes caused by trying to do it as one and it's not a net gain for me.

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I think if I were to try to elaborate on this in an effort to figure out a real "best case" for every dungeon it would likely still mean having the tank pull multiple packs at a time to start.

Using Ala Mhigo as an example it is successful in most parties to pull up to the first wall and I think any tank should start that dungeon that way unless they know for sure that there is a weak link in their group. If that goes off without a hitch I don't think there is any harm in trying the largest pulls you can from there on out.

Most dungeons have a similar pull to start them off - Skalla has two packs up to a wall, Temple of the Fist has the Couerls and the moss wall that spawns adds and Kugane also begins with a technically two-pack pull that is rather manageable.

A good tank will take that opportunity to gague the group and assess whether they can handle some of the larger pulls later on. If you've lost someome during the opening pull that is smaller than some of the potential megapulls earlier on then slow it down, if your healer and dps were mostly AoEing down the packs though...

So yeah, I say pull big until you have a reason not to. Whether that reason is your own lack of confidence, a healer asking for smaller pulls or derp dps doesn't really matter. Will you wipe on occasion? Sure, but the vast majority of the time things will go fine and the time you'd lose single pulling by default will far outweigh the rare wipe on a larger pull.

Clearly communication would be preferable but if that isn't an option and we're just trying to establish a fair baselinr I think this is the most reasonable one.

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Originally Posted by Ursa_Vonfiebryd

.
This is the attitude that breeds this sort of behavior. The tank doesn't get to make everyone accommodate THEIR style of play either. Most of the time we are forced to, because of role mechanics but that doesn't give tanks carte blanc to make everyone work twice as hard to cover their ass.

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Again... We are talking a minimum of cure II spam and sprint... Not asking you to move the world or be some WHM savant, am asking you, at the very least, to press one button repeatedly. Is that too much to ask / expect?
If so, what do you think I should be able to expect from healers?

Healers with attitudes like yours have no accountability. If I pull 1 group at a time, I don't need a healer, but if I pull more than one group and I problem occurs, it's the tanks fault for pulling too much, even if the healer stops casting for 3 gcds.... Or decides cure I is ideal for large pulls

What do you think is reasonable amount of consistent healing to expect from a healer?

Oh man, so the other night it was getting late and I decided to do a quick run of Fractal Hard before calling it a night. The run was going smoothly for the most part. All three of the other party members were in a group together, doing the run for their first time, taking their time and enjoying it. All good stuff, I don't mind tagging along. We approached the second boss room. I intended to set the focus target during the approach like I normally do, but I apparently flubbed... something (I honestly don't even know how I managed it) and accidently fired off a Fleche at the boss right as we all started entering the room. I was absolutely mortified and owned up to it as soon as the fight ended and I had a second to do so, which was followed by pat and blow kiss emotes directed at me. Everything else went smoothly though. So if anyone from the party from Jenova I was with for that run happens to be reading this, please know I am still sorry about that and that I did not mean to initiate that little snafu...

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

I think if I were to try to elaborate on this in an effort to figure out a real "best case" for every dungeon it would likely still mean having the tank pull multiple packs at a time to start.

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For you and I, it would, yeah. That's not universally true, which is the point I was trying to make. If you have a group that can't handle that, trying to do it because it's faster will actually make it slower. See the nightmare gong show of tanks in shire gear trying to do big pulls in Doma Castle. That was not fun.

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Using Ala Mhigo as an example it is successful in most parties to pull up to the first wall and I think any tank should start that dungeon that way unless they know for sure that there is a weak link in their group. If that goes off without a hitch I don't think there is any harm in trying the largest pulls you can from there on out.

Most dungeons have a similar pull to start them off - Skalla has two packs up to a wall, Temple of the Fist has the Couerls and the moss wall that spawns adds and Kugane also begins with a technically two-pack pull that is rather manageable.

A good tank will take that opportunity to gague the group and assess whether they can handle some of the larger pulls later on. If you've lost someome during the opening pull that is smaller than some of the potential megapulls earlier on then slow it down, if your healer and dps were mostly AoEing down the packs though...

So yeah, I say pull big until you have a reason not to. Whether that reason is your own lack of confidence, a healer asking for smaller pulls or derp dps doesn't really matter. Will you wipe on occasion? Sure, but the vast majority of the time things will go fine and the time you'd lose single pulling by default will far outweigh the rare wipe on a larger pull.

Clearly communication would be preferable but if that isn't an option and we're just trying to establish a fair baselinr I think this is the most reasonable one.

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Yep. Taking the ten seconds to ask if people want big pulls works too. :)

Boy, do I have a story of Duty Finder horror for everyone. Yesterday was amazing. Amazingly bad. My runs in the duty finder were something that has convinced me that if I ever need to spam dungeons for Mendacity, never to do Hells' Lid. They were as follows:

1.) Hells' Lid. The first thing that happens is this AST says he's a Savage Raider and that the tank can pull as much as he wants. I'm immediately given a sign that this might not go so well, as when the tank was given permission to pull as much as he wants, he takes the first 3 crabs and pulls it to the wall; there are no monsters between the first 3 crabs and the wall, so it was a pointless pull. It didn't really hurt anything though, and after that everything went fine. Until we get to the second boss. We get to the second boss and the healer dies to the thingie where the boss hides itself, you have to kill the air elementals while the boss zips around the room. We wipe not long after that. No big deal, one accidental wipe, it happens. We kill the boss on take 2 and proceed. This is where everything went south. We pulled far more then we could handle and we wiped. Revive, go back to that point, the tank pulls before the healer is there, so we make the same pull with no protect up and the healer gets there around when the tank is half dead(On this pull I realize the tank isn't the greatest. He pulls the big water snake thing through the tunnel, but while he's running through the tunnel with just the big water snake thing in tow, I see him pop both Rampart and Convalesence, so he had very few CDs for dealing with the trash when we stopped to kill. I've suggested we make a smaller pull at this point, we make the SAME pull but manage to at least kill one thing before we wiped. The next time will be easier, right? It took 3 Boles and my Palisade, but we finally got past that pull. In what world was this a Savage Raid quality healer, heh. I don't think I've wiped on the same trash pull that much before.

2.) A Fractal Hard that was actually really smooth and was nothing noteworthy

3.) Another Fractal Hard. This time however, the healer said he was new to this dungeon and asked everyone to take it easy on him. No big deal, right? I don't mind. The party agrees, and we take it really slowly. We pull the dungeon one group at a time, the whole time. Mind you I'm trying to cap Mendacity at this point cause it's getting late and I'm not there yet. It was a really chill dungeon and we never wiped(Though the WHM died to the first Citadel Buster on the first boss, so the PLD, SAM and I trio'd it, heh), so I'm fine with it. This dungeon is only noteworthy because when we get to the last boss, the three other party members admit to either being high and/or drunk, which absolutely explains why everyone was okay with pulling so slowly, hah.

4.) Another Hells' Lid. We get into the dungeon and the tank AFK's for 2 or 3 minutes without even saying anything, but it's smooth for most of the run after he starts moving. However,this run was similar to the first in that we wiped a lot on the trash after the second boss. I swear off Hells' Lid at this point.

5.) Fractal Hard. Fractal Hard has been easy thus far, and Hells' Lid has been, well, Hell so far, so clearly Fractal Hard is the dungeon I should be spamming for Mendacity when I need to hurriedly cap it, right? Wrong. Clearly I angered the Game Gods somehow today at some point. The tank decides that he's going to pull EVERYTHING at once on the second platform, as if to say "Oh, you haven't wiped on Fractal Hard trash yet, have you? I'll fix that". He took the rest of the run a bit slower so that didn't happen again, but good lord. What a day in the DF.

Moral of this story is don't wait until Monday to cap Mendacity.

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Originally Posted by AphraelAmarantha

I kinda agree with the last comment in that pic, you shouldn't have to watch YouTube to be able to play a game. That's bad game design imo. I think Dark Souls --snip---

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I agree that FFXIV players don't need to watch YouTube in order to clear any content, but saying it's bad design because Dark Souls...no. you can beat Dark Souls playing on your own, this is an MMO--group synergy matters. the issue has always been players who are rude with newbies, who refuse to help, or are just jerks. all MMOs have their share of these types. you can always find a learning group and clear any duty without a guide, but the DF is not the best place to look for one.
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@topic
yesterday/last night was the first time I had to kick a tank in a party. DR 50/60, got Amdapor Keep with 3 sprouts, I was BLM. I don't tank so when PLD told us to let him know if he's doing anything wrong I didn't say a thing, and failed to notice he wasn't using flash, as there were moments when he couldn't maintain enmity. TBH, I didn't mind that the tanking was far from perfect, our SCH was doing great, the run was smooth enough, but PLD got offended when SAM asked him a few times why he's not using "Blinde", then "Are you a new tank". PLD stopped midway to 2nd boss and explained that the gear discrepancy is the issue, that there's nothing he could do, and he's been tanking for 15 years (!) then probably walked away iRL because he didn't respond for at least 5 minutes when we asked if we could move forward. kicked him for AFK http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i...ies/tongue.png

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Originally Posted by Galgarion

Does no one use greet macros anymore?

/greet

/wait 2.5

/s Heyo, I like to do big pulls. Feel free to tell me to speed up or slow down.

/wait 2.5

/ac "Balldance"

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I like that one! May I yoink it for my paladin toon?