Expectations are ruining this game

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Originally Posted by MOZZYSTAR

I can relate to the fiance. I want to try my hand at tanking, but I know I'll get shat on for fucking up in trials or alliance. Dungeons, so far, haven't been so bad but in alliance or trials? People can get really nasty if a tank messes up. I know most dungeons and raids like they're the back of my hand at this point, and I'm typically OK with running any dungeon as tank provided I have my favourite healer, otherwise I only do ones I'm very comfortable with, like Wanderer's Palace. But Alliance? Even though I know those ones so well, I'm not confident about tanking with multiple tanks, knowing tank mechs, etc. So, I really can't bring myself to do those.

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You're overthinking this. Seriously. You join a raid, a trial, or a random dungeon, and what's the worst that happens? Some people will call you means names and vote kick. In 4 years of tanking, I can count on one hand how often that has happened to me. Even now, I'll commonly forget mechanics. I just tell people "my bad, I forgot" and we move on.

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Originally Posted by Delily

You're overthinking this. Seriously. You join a raid, a trial, or a random dungeon, and what's the worst that happens? Some people will call you means names and vote kick. In 4 years of tanking, I can count on one hand how often that has happened to me. Even now, I'll commonly forget mechanics. I just tell people "my bad, I forgot" and we move on.

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I agree 100%. If people want to try something they try it, just go in understanding that you have the chance to run into many different types of players some will understand, others will not. If as a new player you run into someone that you view as overly harsh take just chalk that up to a random chance encounter, now if you run into the same reaction many times then maybe it is time to take a look at how you are doing things.

I get it negative experiences tend to leave a lasting impression but generally I do honestly believe if people really thought long and hard and tallied up each negative experience against the positive / neutral ones unless as a player your behavior or play is not substantially below the standard deviation of the general population of players the positive and neutral experiences would be far greater. This community is far from as "toxic" as some make it out to be, if unless by "toxic" people mean apathetic.

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Originally Posted by Awha

I agree 100%. If people want to try something they try it, just go in understanding that you have the chance to run into many different types of players some will understand, others will not. If as a new player you run into someone that you view as overly harsh take just chalk that up to a random chance encounter, now if you run into the same reaction many times then maybe it is time to take a look at how you are doing things.

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This is something I've had to do while easing myself back into tanking after like, 10 years. I've done enough content in this game through the years that I generally have an idea as to how most fights work, even though I've been a dps up until Shadowbringers. Honestly? The best way to get over this is to jump in with both feet without hesitation, and keep doing it. I know I may mess up, and I also know that some people will be more or less accepting than others, but that's part of the learning process and part of playing an MMO. If I do mess up I just apologize, shrug it off and not repeat the same mistakes twice if I can help it. I don't think I'm doing too bad. Haven't had any complaints, anyway, which I see as a good thing.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

This is something I've had to do while easing myself back into tanking after like, 10 years. I've done enough content in this game through the years that I generally have an idea as to how most fights work, even though I've been a dps up until Shadowbringers. Honestly? The best way to get over this is to jump in with both feet without hesitation, and keep doing it. I know I may mess up, and I also know that some people will be more or less accepting than others, but that's part of the learning process and part of playing an MMO. If I do mess up I just apologize, shrug it off and not repeat the same mistakes twice if I can help it. I don't think I'm doing too bad. Haven't had any complaints, anyway, which I see as a good thing.

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Yeah generally most people do not care much either way, and for the most part those that are annoyed just vent via discord or FC chat. Have not ran into many that will even bother to bring up something unless it completely derails the entire run and cases like that are few and far.

Glad you have not let it stop you from trying new things.

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Originally Posted by Lascivus

So I started playing this game about 6 months ago with my fiance. Neither of us knew much of anything about it and that was a huge part of why I was so excited to play it.

But now, the expectation that you're supposed to look up and know everything about a dungeon before doing it is literally ruining it for me. I understand being frustrated when someone doesn't know the mechanics, trust me. But getting pissed off at someone for not knowing when it's their first time going through is so stupid.

Literally my fiance feels like they CAN'T tank a dungeon without memorizing the mechanics completely before going through because they know people who've done it before will get pissed off and yell at them for it.

I absolutely hate this bullshit. Let people learn as they go. You shouldn't have to research things before doing them.

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I can only speak for myself, but I once did a run in The Keeper of the Lake as part of a roulette. I had done it many times before and was leveled synced to it so it should have been easy. Instead this was one of the most grueling experiences of FFXIV I ever had. The tank got us all killed on the first boss 4 times because he absolutely did not understand the fuel tank mechanics. Then at the last boss, after 5 more wipes I had to give up on this group because the healer could just not stay alive and this run was taking well over 75 minutes and the other DPS had ditched. There are hard limits to how ignorant some players should go into duties. This is why I take care to watch a 5 minute guide before any new run so I don't ruin it for the rest of the team.

MSQ duties are not that hard and the "let people learn as they go" flies out he window after 9 wipes. I don't have unlimited patience and the duties do have a time limit on them. For a cooperative game, a basic level of competence is expected and you should not look down on players who study a duty beforehand. They are putting in the extra effort to ensure the smoothest experience possible which is to be commended.

When I started playing there was a person in my first FC that would pressure me into watching videos before dungeons it stressed me the heck out and almost ruined the game for me, I go in blind now and things are fine =)

I'm telling you, party finder is your friend. Just today I joined an Innocence ex blind run party finder group. It filled rather quickly. We didn't clear it, but everyone left that group ready to clear it. You'll be very surprised at the amount of like-minded people you will run into if you just A.) Take the initiative to find said people, or B.) Keep your eyes open for it. Also, none of that is a stab at the OP, it's just a suggestion to help them out.

The most important thing to me is that people are at least trying.
I have more respect for someone who's at least trying to figure things out and someone who knows and just doesn't bother or tries to min-max when they're too bad and end up getting hit when they were trying to get that last attack in.

Tbh I never look up dungeon mechanics beforehand either and I can only remember dying to them because of that once last expansion and the healer was very rude to me and gave me shit for it, but then the healer died three times at the last boss lol.
Things is tho, that I actually asked about it before the boss pull that time.
I said that it was my first time in the dungeon and asked if there was any special mechanics and no one answered, and then the healer gave me shit for it when the healer was also quiet and didn't tell me anything...
That's kinda bullshit imo, luckily one of the dps was friendly and marked themselves just in case so that I could follow.

"Hey guys, first time running this!"

Boom, probably completely solved in less than 7 words.

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Originally Posted by whiteblade89

I'm telling you, party finder is your friend. Just today I joined an Innocence ex blind run party finder group. It filled rather quickly. We didn't clear it, but everyone left that group ready to clear it. You'll be very surprised at the amount of like-minded people you will run into if you just A.) Take the initiative to find said people, or B.) Keep your eyes open for it. Also, none of that is a stab at the OP, it's just a suggestion to help them out.

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I have to agree with this right here.

Did a farm learning party with a group to clear Titania. Pretty much all of us were first timers. At the end of it, we got the clear. No salt at all from anyone. Even when I got ahead of myself and cleaved the entire group, no one was salty.

Next day I joined a farm party. Zero salt again. We farmed it, a lot of people got weapons. Everyone left happy.

I can totally understand being nervous when joining new EX/Savage content, but I don't having the mindset that the Party Finder is a toxic area is the right mindset to have. People are in there trying to be helpful, learn mechanics, and have fun - just like yourself.


As far as normal dungeons go, people don't really expect anyone to know anything going into the Duty Finder. As long as you update your gear, you will golden in most poeples eyes.

I cannot remember the last time someone got angry because somebody did not know the startegy in duty finder, unless you are not telling everything and you keep joining kill parties in party finder without knowing anything.

Sometimes i feel like discussions about in-game social interractions on forum are over-exaggerated to the mountains height levels.

I rarely if ever experience that stuff on my own, i am happy if people i play with are writing anything at all... It feels like playing on a lone island than anything.

Sort of reminds me of when right before SHB dropped I did an Orbonne with a friend and the rest of our party were completely new.

Didn't wipe at all until Orlando and some dude and his friend (assuming) from another alliance starting going off about "How there's no excuse for this." and "Go watch a youtube guide." Me and my friend + the group of new people made fun of him by calling him a casual guidewatcher until he and the other guy left.

Cleared it on next pull even though it was rough.


Moral of the story, make fun of people getting upset and they'll go be upset somewhere else.

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Originally Posted by Lascivus

Like I said, I understand the frustration. But I'm the kind of person who doesn't want to know ANYTHING before doing something. Even with raids. I don't want to know. If you can't handle new people not knowing, then you need to reevaluate yourself. Or like. Explain how it works before jumping in. The game literally tells you that there are new people when you start.

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I find it fun to learn my way through things the first time as well.
But since many people do get upset, it's sometimes easier to make a 'learning party/blind party' in the party finder so you can go in with like-minded people willing to be patient and learn.

People do make more of a fuss for trials and raids than dungeons. So I'd recommend making a PF for trials and raids. (Also seems to be the fastest way to get people).

There shouldn't be any dungeons that have mechanics so complicated you can't complete them the first time running them blind.

Now, if you're counting Trials or raids as "dungeons", that's an entirely different story. If you want to do Extreme trials (and some hard mode in ARR) and you want to go in blind, then you should create a Party Finder and specify that it's a learning party that you're doing blind.

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Originally Posted by Nariel

I never, NEVER wiped more than twice in a dungeon in the last 4 years. Raid, sure its a mess first week, primal too sometime... But THAT bad... hell no.

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Then you never ever run Brayflox normal with CureI CNJ .
I got this with Roulette a lot of times and i cant count the wipes on the Dragonboss.

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Originally Posted by Cemil

Then you never ever run Brayflox normal with CureI CNJ .
I got this with Roulette a lot of times and i cant count the wipes on the Dragonboss.

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Oh I did it, quite a lot and with so many different player but it was back in 2013 when it first came out, barely had any wipe on it since 2.2 maybe 2.3 when gear was already enough to make it trivial.

I don't really see the issue.
In Shadowbringers I tanked every single dungeon in a group first time and almost had zero vuln up stacks. Most of the mechanics are just common sense even though it was the first time for me.
There was only 1 case where I just left the group and that was in the third dungeon, there was this WHM constantly spamming Medica II and running out of MP (also never doing any effort to do DPS) and messing up every mechanic, even 'mechanics' you see in satasha (running out of AoE) and wiping numerous times. I just left that group after 6th wipe on the boss.

Also yesterday I got into the lvl 74 trial (avoiding the name for spoilers).
The first time I actually did that I noticed that when I got into the puddle I got fire resistant buff and the fists for the stack marker are fire so I put 2 and 2 together.

But yesterday everybody just didn't knew what to do, also only 3 people stacked up (outside the puddle too). I explained that 5 times and people still no stacking up and moving out the puddle.
Then multiple wipes on the ice ... That literally a 2.0 mechanic (About 6 years since we've got that). Ok everybody can make mistakes no problem with that but we've had like 7 wipes or something, I explained and explained but they would just keep wiping on it.
List goes on but you get my drift.

I refused to leave the party and thought our GCBTW can't be this bad. In the end at least everybody of the original party had left the group (even the people messing up). I spend +40 minutes on it and met numerous new people that got into the party and got met by more people who would keep wiping on very simple mechanics (even after being explained).

In the end managed to finish it with a group that also had a lot of people wiping. So not a single commendation, not a single thank you after I spend such a long time explaining pretty much every thing there is about that fight to numerous different people who have no clue how to play.

I'm done, I started 5.0 with a sliver of hope, jobs become much easier to play, maybe now DF people would start paying more attention to the fight and mechanics itself but they won't. People are downright rude, expecting carries and do not show any signs of actually trying to play together and do content the correct way.

After yesterday and more of this stuff happened earlier I'm no longer going to try and help, I will just leave and put people on blacklist. I'll stop trying to meet new people and help them do stuff (they are not even thankful anyway).

I'll stick to my static and FC.


Maybe 6.0 will be made easy enough so I can try and go with DF people again.

I can’t help but feel this isn’t the whole picture. Is this specifically 4 man dungeons? Raids? 8 man? 24 man? EX trials? Is it DR or party finder? Each one of these carries a different set of expectation.

As many have already stated, most are more than willing to run with players new to content. But if you wipe to the same fight a few times, be ready and willing to listen to advice and form a strategy.

If you get indignant over that, then yeah you’re the problem. Also considering how many people have said how rarely they come across toxic players raging over this issue. If you are frequently and specifically getting called out, it may have nothing to do with the fact that you’re new to the content.

Players are typically very very reluctant to call out tanks for anything. So if you’re getting called out as a tank, odds are it’s because the other player/s feel you’re messing up so badly that the run will end in failure.

That’s not always the case, some players are just jerks. But if you’re not willing to embrace the spirit of cooperation and listen to advice and strategy then you’re just being stubborn and are the one causing the problem.

I totally understand. I feel like newer players go through this all the time as I experienced this going into HW when it first came out and having to do the ARR stuff to get to that point. I also main tank and can agree that they can get some flack for not knowing the dungeons. They are often seen as the leader of the group since they literally set the pace of the dungeon. At times, I gave up tanking because I got tired of having the story spoiled by feeling the need to look up dungeon guides due to getting attitudes by asshole players.

After a while, I realized that tanking is my thing...I enjoy doing it regardless of the pressure that I and most players feel when first taking on the role. I got to the point where I would just run it blind and often times, you get the boss mechanics after 1 run or two. And if you don't ask your group. Often times, people are nice enough to explain the mechanics. Most of the time, in higher level dungeons at least, you literally just do large pulls and burn everything down. As a tank, remember your job is holding aggro over anything. Positioning enemies away from the rest of the party and using cooldowns are very important as well as doing damage to help burn enemies down quickly. If your doing those things, you'll rarley get called out as a tank. In lower level dungeons, just take it easy and go at your own pace. There will be people saying, "big pulls please" which can get annoying but I feel like that comes down to the healer and if they feel confident enough to do that. Usually, I just go for it and if we die during a large pull, I fall back to smaller ones.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

Now, if you're counting Trials or raids as "dungeons", that's an entirely different story. If you want to do Extreme trials (and some hard mode in ARR) and you want to go in blind, then you should create a Party Finder and specify that it's a learning party that you're doing blind.

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Trials are a different story. People still kind of expect you to know the fight and that does get really annoying. I normally just ask for any tips and what to look out for before the fight. It does suck though because you just want to play the game but at the same time you have people farming trials and are expecting/hoping for quick runs. If anything, I personally feel like it should be the other way around...make a party finder for an experienced group opposed to pushing new players to PF which a ot of the time takes forever for people to join. For Extreme Trials at least.

Honestly though, I haven't experienced too many bad apples. Just play at your own pace, play your favorite job/class and try to have fun.

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Originally Posted by Lascivus

Like I said, I understand the frustration. But I'm the kind of person who doesn't want to know ANYTHING before doing something. Even with raids. I don't want to know. If you can't handle new people not knowing, then you need to reevaluate yourself. Or like. Explain how it works before jumping in. The game literally tells you that there are new people when you start.

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You want to go in not knowing "ANYTHING" but then you ask somebody to "Explain how it works"?

That sounds kind of lazy. If you want/expect somebody to tell you what to do then you should be researching beforehand. If you want to figure it out on your own, then go blind but don't expect others to hold your hand. Nothing wrong with wanting to figure it out yourself either.

On my “old main” I have all the ore shadowbringers tanks and healers at 70. So the roles people tend to be watching. Rarely see this issue and I have a habit of doing content without checking a guide first. Just charge in, best with a WAR, act like a maniac and act like you know what you’re doing... but pay a lot of attention to tells: mob animations and ground effects. And a slight oops when you goof.

Peopke in this game tend to be pretty cool about it.

Anytime they are not I just note that, 1 bad group every 100 or so is pretty good...

Never heard of this outside of high end trials/raids in case you join clear or farm groups via PF or DF. If that happens it is a huge problem and if it makes you feel uncomfortable, either ask them to vote kick you or leave on your own accord, you will be very unlikely to run into toxic people like that often enough that it should be a problem.

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Originally Posted by ColeSlawter

You want to go in not knowing "ANYTHING" but then you ask somebody to "Explain how it works"?

That sounds kind of lazy. If you want/expect somebody to tell you what to do then you should be researching beforehand. If you want to figure it out on your own, then go blind but don't expect others to hold your hand. Nothing wrong with wanting to figure it out yourself either.

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This.

Yesterday did a blind run of the lvl 77 dungeon and while I did said to my party that I was new, I didn't expected them to tell me how to deal with the boss fights. It was really nice trying to figure it out by myslef and it felt really rewarding learning from my mistakes in the fight.

I used to watch dungeon videos everytime before doing them but in SHB I went blind in all of the dungeons so far and I'm really enjoying it more that way.

EX and raids on the other hand, I still watch the guides.

I just dont tell them.

I think a lot of the fun is experiencing things for the first time, including mechanics. Although i hate having to sit through cutscenes in the msq duty finder, its great not to ruin the experience for new people. A free company, and announcing that your new should help with your experience. There are only a small percentage of people who are like those who you described. Make sure you have the correct gear on, and eventually you'll be fine. We all started from the same place (well minus the jump potions and story skips now, we've all gone through this at some point or another. Enjoy :)!

I've been tanking in this game since 2.1 and ive literally never watched a video about new content before ive gone in for the first time. Never had any issues.

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Originally Posted by Conquistadork

I used to watch dungeon videos everytime before doing them but in SHB I went blind in all of the dungeons so far and I'm really enjoying it more that way.

EX and raids on the other hand, I still watch the guides.

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Gotta agree with this tenfold. The difficulty of dungeons when you figure out the mechanics are really simple. By Shadowbringers we've generally seen so many different kinds so now a new dungeon run is just seeing which one they implement and the twist that's put on it. Like for me the first boss of the LVL 80 MSQ dungeon is perfect for this. It's a mechanic we've seen in both alliance raids and in dungeons, killing you if you don't know what to do. The twist really being how the huge aoe (which you'll have enough time to dodge) comes immediately after.

All of them are like putting a puzzle together and the worst case is you'll wipe but come back swinging with new info.

EX and Savage raids there are expectations to be met so watching guides in those cases is the best option for more uptime.

I don't care if you haven't looked up something. Play the game to have fun

Just don't be one of those people who pops into a random group and gets pissed when someone explains mechanics. If you want a blind run go do a blind run

Whenever it's my first run in a dungeon and think it is difficult I always tell the party that I am new.
They actually always explain the dungeon mechanics to me or boss mechanics.
I never encountered any negativity so far.