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

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Originally Posted by bounddreamer

Regarding the dungeon tuning arguments, I have been running a ton of duty finder lately as I work on the most recent relic step for three jobs. We've also had players in my FC returning to the game with the most recent patch. A lot of people are still running ~200 ilevel gear, not upgraded, with some 230 lore pieces mixed in. This is what your average casual player will be wearing as they catch up.

The latest dungeons aren't tuned for you in the 240 gear you're wearing on patch day. (I was wearing all 240 on patch day and so was my healer. We rarsmashed All The Things.)

They're tuned for the lowest common denominator, to allow casual, average, and catch up players to run the content without having a difficult time or getting harassed by 260/270 geared players who want to steamroll through it.

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And they shouldn't be. People aren't going to upgrade gear if the content their faced with can be completed with what they already have. It's no coincidence the devs made the current Anima step force us all back into Expert. People aren't running dungeons as frequently. Even Yoshi has acknowledged how boring they've become. I appreciate FFXIV has largely advertised itself as a MMO for brand new players. Alas, you can only carry that motto for so long before you drive away even your midcore playerbase. New players have leveling and old dungeons to get caught up. Experts shouldn't be gated behind the story nor should they be so laughably easy on the day of release. People still running around in Esoteric gear isn't an excuse. If the dungeons hurt, those players would eventually discover they need to upgrade their gear and work towards doing so.

Since we're at that topic right now, and my alt finally hit level 60 AND an okayish item level...
Well, Gubal HM at i214... or i217, dunno... hurts. It really darn hurts. Even moreso since I'm just a machinist, and everything in there is just "hope you don't have anything gnawing on you, loser". That one book my friend missed that I plucked off our (rather bad, admittedly) AST nearly chewed me up as I dragged it into Unleash range.

Also,to all Astrologians who play in Noct: I beg you, don't spam Aspected Benefic and barely anything else and don't dps... I get not being comfortable with dpsing, I've been at that point too! But please, there's no reason to spam AspBene on everyone who takes even just the slightest amount of damage... your MP will skydive....

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Originally Posted by HiroKirito

Generic rant about actual DF, probably been covered before. An FC friend has the tank bail half way through ARF, a tank from our FC queues join in progress gets put with a fresh group, I do the same and also get put with a fresh group while my FC friend is still sat there without a tank... >.> what's the point in the Join in progress selection if it throws you into fresh groups even when there's a group open? Surely those halfway through should get priority over those still waiting to start the duty?

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I understand the frustration, but did you select the same languages as the friend that was already in the duty?
I had a similar experience once and couldn't get in progress until I asked and friend told me they selected all languages whilst I had only E. As soon as I selected all of them and queued I got placed in the same duty.

Did the trial roulette and got 0m in-progress for Final Steps and get a bonus. Both tanks were gone and a dps leaves shortly after. I say that I'm asking my linkshells if anyone can tank, then the other healer leaves. A friend helps me and we get another tank. The bonus asks for any tips, we mention (briefly) what to do, then we do it in one shot without any deaths.

This is why people shouldn't leave at the start. A bonus does not mean failure and I've been in plenty of awful groups without any bonuses.

Came back home late yesterday and there was another 30 mins to spare before my sleeping time.

I tried to queue for Sephirot Ex for mount farming purposes. After awhile, i got into a party and it was smooth until the green and orange phase.
However, one of the tanks was so busy dpsing that he didnt noticed the green orbs started to expand and he died. Slowly one by one everyone keep dying until we wipe.
Ok no biggie. I am sure we can do the next one.
Andddd one healer left. Than one dps left. And everyone left.
To that healer, why? It was just a mistake and everything was going smoothly before.
Sigh... Didnt have time to queue for another so i log off and get to bed. :C

This BLM in Xelphatol who was equipped with the i240 lore weapon and still got out-dpsed by a bard wielding the i170 relic. You made my heart bleed.

A month or so ago when my Expert popped, I landed into Gubal HM, no biggies was looking forward to it as it seems to be the Xelphatol-roulette. Anyway, I just had hit 60 with Ninja and decided to try something more challenging. It all went well, Although I was slow I felt I was doing decent dps. Then after the 2nd boss the healer told me: Your dps is too low, please leave. Whilst that partly offended me, I said that I just picked up Ninja again and that I was still learning. No response from the healer nor from the rest. We went on and I thought it was fine. We did the last trash-pull and there was the final boss. A few seconds later after its cutscene my screen went black and I got kicked. Although I saw it coming, it was a bit of a jerk move to kick me right in front of the last boss.

That reminds me that I encountered the same people again a few weeks later when I got more used to Ninja. When I asked the healer what my dps was, he/she replied "all good, why do you ask?". And I explained to him/her that he/she kicked me last time for having low dps. After that a simple "oh..." came out and he healer left. Like what? Why? The others followed soon after. I never understood why they left {/shrug}

More reminders!
When I was leveling my Ninja, I queued up for The Stone Vigil. (I believe that's the name of the dungeon...) Anyway! It popped quite fast and I got in. We had a Scholar, Machinist and a Paladin. Looked good to me! Dungeon started, new player bonus announced. No biggie, I offered to explain when it was needed. The Machinist said that he/she'd explain everything through voicechat. Well, that's one problem solved, or at least I thought. What could go wrong, right? ...Well too much. We died at the first pull as the Paladin couldn't keep aggro and I kept using (Names... Names...) The fire Ninjitsu for AoE damage. Bad idea as I died first. 2nd try. I decided not to use any AoE and tried to explain the basic Paladin rotation and the importance of Shield Oath. Alas no response from the Paladin. 3rd try, we somehow managed to succeed. I checked the Paladins gears and I was surprised, he/she had really underleveled gear. What even struck me as odd, was that said Machinist had all tanks at 60, but didn't seem to give any advice even though they were voicechatting. So I tried advising again, this time to get shut-up by the Machinist as I had to let the Paladin play the way he/she felt comfortable. Sure, why not? I didn't need to rush it but it just didn't go well. So I bit my tongue and kept going. The 2nd pull killed us 5 times. And after that I couldn't handle it. I said that there's no way we'd be able to clear this dungeon if the Paladin didn't learn how to tank at least a bit properly. Although being annoyed I tried to make it as friendly and non-aggressive as possible. So, I discussed what we should do, as continuing wasn't an option. We agreed to vote abandon, and so I started to vote. To my surprise it didn't pass. A few seconds later I got kicked. Not that I mind it but I felt somehow disappointed.

Okay, so I started working slightly more seriously on my second Anima back at the Sand step. I'm at 96 there. Cool, only need a few more tomes for Umbrite on top what I already have to get it to 120. Levelling roulette it is, then! Vault!

Oh, that newbie warrior has... awfully low hp...
OK, a few str accs I can stomach. Fair. Those boots, though...

Mythril Sabatons. Y'know, the level 40 boots.

They were super squishy but we made it through without wipes, even if I really had to say "okay, thanks" when they pulled Grinnaux in the middle of me explaining him to them as they asked.

Gubal HM.. is that... that's a marauder.
They left once they realised why they were missing a hotbar, but... Why me...

I really wish tanks would stop spinning The First Demiurge in Sophia. I've lost count of how many times I've gotten two stacks of vulnerability or just flat out killed because the tank spun him before my attack hit. It's getting to where I won't attack him until he starts casting infusion so that my merry caster butt can go to town without having to worry about the parries even though that can get us dangerously close to not hitting the DPS check.

Got Amdapor Keep HM for lv50 roulette. After the first pull of the ochu + 2 condors, the tank pulls nearly everything in the hallway. They didn't place the mobs under the vines. They also didn't pop a single cooldown, and despite the cure 2 spam, they drop dead. Cue everyone else getting shredded to pieces. We get to the first boss after small pulls. The nin is new, so I briefly explain mechanics. The tank gives loltroll advice like "don't die", "damage the boss", "push buttons to use skills". I got the first marker, but the tank got the next, and didn't bother moving behind a statue, so they got all 6 stacks of infirmity + vuln up and promptly died. Whm raises while I put my amazing blm tanking skills to use (bless you manawall). Tank gets the marker again. They would've been killed a second time if the boss hadn't died first. I told the nin "If you observe the tank, that's what happens when you don't hide behind the statues". Tank says they were "too busy being a smartass to do mechanics". :rolleyes:

Tank died again on the pull before the second boss, because clearly they're too busy being a smartass to use cooldowns. Luckily everything was almost dead so I nuked everything before my face was ripped off. Then we wiped on the part with the 4 demon walls because for some inexplicable reason the tank faced the gargoyle at the rest of the party and cleaved the whm to death. I don't remember ever wiping there even when AK HM was current content. :|