Parties as a disabled gamer.

I played FFXIV before and love the crafting and many of the side activities. In the past because of my disability, I used the story skip to unlock most of the game. I've been away for a couple of years and with the duty support system I have decided to try playing through the story from the start and seeing how far I can get. I have noticed there are sometimes grouping is required still from what I can tell.

My question is when I get to the group required fights would it be better to set up a party finder stating I have a disability or just do a pug and hope the random party doesn't mind a "bad" player. Sadly, it's not a matter of learn to play I do the best I can and try not to drag others down.

Thanks for your input and time reading my question.

I would imagine most people aren't going to care deeply as there isn't a high skill requirement for most MSQ duties. You actually trying your best already puts you ahead of a good chunk of players we'll encounter randomly.
If anyone happens to be having a bad day they're going to be just like the people who are having a good day and forget you by the time their next instance rolls around.

So imo don't worry about it and go for it and have fun. At the end of the day it's about having fun.
Perhaps do use PF for harder content, but that's usually not required content.

Broadly speaking, most players will be more than happy to carry strangers through MSQ content. They're just there to get their tomes and get out, and a bad player couldn't meaningfully affect that process even if they were genuinely trying to. I sometimes PuG normal content with a friend who is a lovely person and one of the worst players I've ever encountered, and it's rare to see any criticism of their play.

But on occasion, it does happen. Sometimes folks are probably genuinely trying to be helpful, while others are more insulting. Like any community, you will find bad eggs.

That said, I've never seen any hostility towards a disabled player who announced their disability at the beginning of a run. Whether you PuG it via the Duty Finder or make a Party Finder, if you are transparent about having disability, then it is incredibly unlikely that you will run into any hassle. Both are equally valid.

But also, even on days when you don't feel like talking about your disability, you'll probably have a fine time in the Duty Finder; it's really all about whether you run into a bad egg or not.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

(And for what it's worth, doing dungeons solo with the group of NPC's they give you is often more difficult than doing it with real players, because when you're the only real player the game tends to target you with every single mechanic.)

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

Broadly speaking, most players will be more than happy to carry strangers through MSQ content. They're just there to get their tomes and get out, and a bad player couldn't meaningfully affect that process even if they were genuinely trying to.

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Not quite true. I had an Aurum Vale pug once where the tank ran around the first boss room, kiting Locksmith and eating the morbol fruits as fast as he/she could -- leaving none for anyone else. Whether that tank was ignorant or trolling I don't know, but it made it impossible to defeat Locksmith. It's the only duty I've abandoned since Endwalker launched.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

That said, I've never seen any hostility towards a disabled player who announced their disability at the beginning of a run.

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I've never had anyone announce their disability, and wouldn't care if they did.
Anyone putting in an effort is fine with me; we were all new and needing to "get gud" once.
It's only the people who queue into Alliance raids and then do literally nothing that annoy me.

If you feel the need to announce it then I doubt many will still care. The only time I had a problem was a long time ago during an Aurum Vale run where the tank was very hard to heal due to a lack of defensive buff use. They said they only used them on bosses due to how they had to hold their controller due to their disability that made their hands hurt if they had to switch their cross hotbars too often. Yet they kept on insisting on the big pulls while blaming my healing. This was back around Heavensward or Stormblood. MSQ only you'd only have to worry about the trials. Otherwise all other MSQ dungeons are able to be done with duty support. Lilimo is confusing squadrons npcs with duty support as squadrons is the only time the game sees you as the only "non pet" npc and thus would target you with all of the mechanics. Just know that with duty support if you die they won't raise you. The npcs also have their own quirks and personalities.

I have played other games where players got quite upset with me being slower than most. I have reduced vision and slow reflexes and I know in some games the communities are quite hostile to non-perfect players. Sounds like that is not the case here. Thanks so much for the information it gives me hope that I may have found a long-term gaming home.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

Lilimo is confusing squadrons npcs with duty support as squadrons is the only time the game sees you as the only "non pet" npc and thus would target you with all of the mechanics.

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Just to be clear, I'm not confusing the two; I've watched my spouse do Duty Support multiple times a day for years now, and those are the NPC's I'm talking about. From what I've seen, it seems like any non-CC mechanics that is capable of targeting the player will target the player. So if you're not at the top of the aggro list then the tankbuster isn't going to target you, but if there's a non-CC ability that can target any character, it will target the player 100% of the time. (CC abilities would be like when a player can't move or act because their teammates have to break them out; these don't target the player when possible, presumably because they want you to do the breaking out part)

And as you mentioned, the player's death ends combat with no chance to revive, so that's another extra layer of difficulty that comes from doing it solo.

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Originally Posted by Lilymew

Thanks so much for the information it gives me hope that I may have found a long-term gaming home.

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I hope you've found a home here as well! Welcome!

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Originally Posted by Lilymew

My question is when I get to the group required fights would it be better to set up a party finder stating I have a disability or just do a pug and hope the random party doesn't mind a "bad" player. Sadly, it's not a matter of learn to play I do the best I can and try not to drag others down.

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You don't have a responsibility to disclose disability to the people you play with, and every story-required duty in the game can be cleared with whoever the DF matches you with randomly.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

Just to be clear, I'm not confusing the two; I've watched my spouse do Duty Support multiple times a day for years now, and those are the NPC's I'm talking about. From what I've seen, it seems like any non-CC mechanics that is capable of targeting the player will target the player. So if you're not at the top of the aggro list then the tankbuster isn't going to target you, but if there's a non-CC ability that can target any character, it will target the player 100% of the time. (CC abilities would be like when a player can't move or act because their teammates have to break them out; these don't target the player when possible, presumably because they want you to do the breaking out part)

And as you mentioned, the player's death ends combat with no chance to revive, so that's another extra layer of difficulty that comes from doing it solo.


I hope you've found a home here as well! Welcome!

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Could you give an example of this? As the only time I've ever been hit by something that normally wouldn't hit me as the role I'm on is when I'm running a dungeon with my GC squadron. I have trusts all to 90 and ran every MSQ dungeon more than once with duty support while leveling up classes and to see different comments they make. It's how I know Alphinaud is the only one to cure you of misery when running Gubal Library. Or that the npcs will Aoe just not as often as most would prefer. And why I'm sad that Urianger doesn't whip out death in Endwalker.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

Could you give an example of this? As the only time I've ever been hit by something that normally wouldn't hit me as the role I'm on is when I'm running a dungeon with my GC squadron.

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I think that's where we're miscommunicating; I'm not talking about moves that normally wouldn't have any chance of targeting you. I'm talking about moves where if you were in a 4-player party, there'd be a chance of a move either targeting you or not targeting you. When you're in a Duty Support, those moves will always target you (again, as long as the move doesn't result in other party members needing to break the player out).

EDIT: My spouse told me I'm wrong about this, so it sounds like I've either just been "lucky" when watching her fights, fallen prey to confirmation bias, misunderstood something, or perhaps all 3! But regardless, I was wrong, and I wanted to make sure to clarify that.

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Originally Posted by Lilymew

with the duty support system I have decided to try playing through the story from the start

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If you are a DPS, you can just pull the enemies and the NPCs will fight them for you.

You can replay it using New Game+ in chapters as well.

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I have noticed there are sometimes grouping is required

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For 8-person duties as well as non-MSQ (side) content.

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would it be better to set up a party finder stating I have a disability or just do a pug and hope the random party doesn't mind a "bad" player.

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Your options:

1. Setup a Party Finder and ask for help.
2. Find a nice circle of friends that will help you with it.
3. Solo the duty with the "Unrestricted" setting by being a higher level. You can be a higher level via a level skip (not MSQ skip), or by using your existing max level character and doing the MSQ via New Game+.
4. Queue for the 8-person duties as a role that nobody cares about, such as: a DPS, or off tank (don't turn on tank stance, let the other person tank, your high defense/HP will allow you to survive most mechanics).

You can also create macros to help press buttons for you in sequence if it helps your disability. They aren't normally considered optimal, but they can help if you have a disability.

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Originally Posted by Lilymew

I have played other games where players got quite upset with me being slower than most. I have reduced vision and slow reflexes and I know in some games the communities are quite hostile to non-perfect players. Sounds like that is not the case here. Thanks so much for the information it gives me hope that I may have found a long-term gaming home.

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I can confirm nobody will care in story content. They will normally just clear it however much you die/mess up. This is different in (optional, high-end raids) done via Party Finder, but you're probably not intending to do those.

They especially don't tend to care in the NA region. I have found people can be quite rude in the EU region sometimes, but you are playing on an NA data center and they truly don't care.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

I think that's where we're miscommunicating; I'm not talking about moves that normally wouldn't have any chance of targeting you. I'm talking about moves where if you were in a 4-player party, there'd be a chance of a move either targeting you or not targeting you. When you're in a Duty Support, those moves will always target you (again, as long as the move doesn't result in other party members needing to break the player out).

So for example, in the fight against T at the end of Somh Al, there's a green marker that gets placed on players for the meteor mechanic. It starts out only going to 1 or 2 players at a time, until finally it's going to every non-tank later in the fight. I have never seen a Duty Support run where that mechanic doesn't include the player as one of its targets every single time...and I've seen this dungeon run a lot! Meanwhile, in an actual group of players (where you're not the tank), sometimes you won't be among the player's targeted when the meteor mechanic happens.

My assumption is that the devs know you're the only player and they want to keep you engaged, so any mechanic that would normally have a chance of targeting you doesn't even do a dice roll and instead just chooses you as its primary target.

Hopefully that helps clear things up! ^^

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Well I know that one is random as to who it picks cause even tho it normally is dps that get picked it can be a dps and a healer. That and sweet scent the yellow prey the 1st boss of that dungeon should always hit you the player if what you say is true yet I've had runs where the npcs are the only ones who get hit by it. Heck I even went to test this and on my 4th run of it today I had comet pairing of npc and me, npc x2, and then all three.

Edit: heh yeah sometimes the game is like that. Just look at the card mechanic of the 2nd fight of the 2nd leg of the current Alliance Raid. Many would only get one of the card combos all the time until the one time where they get the other and are just dumb struck.

i am partially paralysed from my left hand, cant feel half of my fingers basically and moving them right is hard sometimes, this matters because i play on ps5; this happened after i begun to play ffxiv so i have so old muscle memory and hand/eye coordination thing to help me, but hotbar changes dont come easy + my "the" is PLD, which got it's rework done. i got hang of it by some grit, but of course that didn't come easy either. i stealth use some macros. that's my real dirty secret.

disability dont a bad gamer make. just try df, mostly people just want to get stuff done but most are not s#itstains about it. they are more likely be understanding and even helpful.

Thanks for the encouragement. I will look into macros to see if they help. I know I am hard on myself as I gamed hardcore before my injury and have a bad habit of comparing then to now. I will see if I can find a linkshell where I can start making some friends. I am on PC and use a side button mouse that helps a lot. As for class Ive almost always played ranged dps so I've started over with a bard.

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Originally Posted by Lilymew

Thanks for the encouragement. I will look into macros to see if they help. I know I am hard on myself as I gamed hardcore before my injury and have a bad habit of comparing then to now. I will see if I can find a linkshell where I can start making some friends. I am on PC and use a side button mouse that helps a lot. As for class Ive almost always played ranged dps so I've started over with a bard.

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If you have sprout status, you can get a mentor (person with a crown icon) to invite you to the Novice Network. It is a chat for veteran players (mentors) to help new players (sprouts) and returners (flowers). In many cases, if you ask them to help you with a duty, they will either queue for it with you or they will help you unsync it. Not always, but often they will at least unsync (where they kill it super fast for you in level 90 gear).

From some experimenting I've been doing with the duty support, you can generally go through levels without having to fight at all if that's difficult for you, so long as you pay attention and move out of danger zones.

One notable exception though is that your choice of companions for the level 73 dungeon Dohn Mheg will affect whether the NPCs can clear the fight or not.

There's a point in the boss battle where you have to cross a narrow winding "tightrope" to reach the boss and attack them, and if this is something you would struggle with, you'll be reliant on the NPCs to complete this part for you. Each character is scripted to handle this differently, and Alphinaud and [new girl in Shadowbringers] will both fail to cross in time, so if you take them both in your party then the third NPC will not be able to do enough damage to clear that stage of the fight. You can take one or the other of them with you, but not both.

I’d recommend PF or a good FC that is willing to help you get thru content. Me personally if someone in a dungeon I’m running has an issue, whatever it is, that will cause them to not play to what they think the standard is I’d prefer to know at the start so I can look out for the where I need to do extra and be able to manage my CDs appropriately

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Originally Posted by Lilymew

Thanks for the encouragement. I will look into macros to see if they help.

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I've used macros for years and in my experience it can be difficult to find information about how macros work; the game never explains them so players have had to figure it out themselves, and there's just enough misinformation out there from well-meaning players that I'd recommend taking everything you read with a grain of salt. I've had to do a ton of my own experiments to figure out some of the nuances of what they can and can't do.

All of which I say to explain why I'm hoping this post I made awhile back might give you a leg up in the process of figuring them out. It's initial goal was to provide evidence that disproved a common misconception about macros, but in trying to make the post thorough and accessible it also became a bit of an explainer on the fundamentals of macros. So if it helps, great! There are also some examples of macros throughout the thread that I made upon request for other players, and at-present there are some examples of bard macros on the very last page.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-or-Lost-Casts

If you ever need help with macros, please let me know! It would be my absolute pleasure to do whatever I can to help you play the game happily and comfortably! ^^