Why I Decided to Become an Elitist

[Malevicton]

I was going to show you 'naked popcorn' but don't look it up...just don't lol.
[And yes I realized I think I used that word wrong but now I'm traumatized lol.]

Couldn't help myself. Search history is forever unclean*

*Okay let's be honest my search history wasn't the cleanest going into this

[AlexionSkylark]

This is a moot point cause I can make my own at any time of the day. Will it fill? Maybe. Can I meet people who are on the same content as I am? Yes. Can I talk to said people. Yes. Next time I'm looking to do this content, can I ask these same people again? Yes. 6/8 Party Finder parties have a higher likelihood of filling than 1/8. You can also Duty Find it.

So, you are saying that for me to do content, I need to form not one, but SEVERAL PF parties, do a truckload of networking, add like 10 or 15 names to my friendlist so I can find at least 5 more logged in at the same time as myself another day, form a semi-filled PF party (or be lucky enough to find all 7 online) to even SET FOOT inside the instance. So THEN we finally have a shot at TRYING to learn the fight. That provided among the 7 you found to the party there isn't a jerkish tank who'll say "this DPS won't cut it. I'm out" after the second wipe, and party will disband afterwards, to MAYBE try another day.

That's your solution?

[Mishini_Dracoto]

. . . .And the 4 good players don't say anything. They're trying to be nice, they think they can still get it done (higher ilevel, echo, luck, whatever). Then the group loses when the boss is at like 5% and the 4 who died ages ago are like "You should've used LB. You should've drank a potion. You should've won SOMEHOW, even though we haven't contributed like AT ALL."

I've recently been commenting in reddit threads about this phenomenon. There were some threads about how to really give back to the community, and make Eorzea a better home for everyone, accross all servers. Each time I read this, I felt like I was guilty of not giving back enough. I am a tank, I take advantage of my role, I get low queue times, and overall feel like I don't have to work as hard on new content as, say, DPS do. At any rate, each time I read commented in these threads, I took back to Eorzea, and joined a PF for a learning party.

Every single time, I was reprimanded by people who needed clears, because I was doing it wrong.

wait a minute. I'm the one who has cleared this 100 times. Yoou haven't cleared it once. I did something you weren't expecting, and you died. Then your decision is to yell at me, and tell me that I am stupid, and that I don't know what I'm doing? I didn't even entertain the conversation. IN this case, I was just on lunch break, I didn' care about the penalty, and I just dropped, without saying a word in response.

I also know from experience a lot of these Party Finders set up for "Clear experience only" are often set up by people who need the clear. Every time I am learning a new fight, people start telling me I need to change it so that we get members faster. I have integrity, I don't do that. I'll disband a PF of 7 people and start a new one, because obviously they aren't the type of people who want to work hard and learn the fight.

In tandem with your post, I find that the people making the most noise, are the incompetent casuals, who aren't able to clear stuff. They are often most upset with the way they have treated each other, and not even the true elitists.

A friend of mine would definitely be considered an elitist. I don't like watching videos before I run stuff. . . but if I'm not running it on day 1, and if Mr. Happy or MTQCapture have already released videos, he expects me to have seen them. Typically, he expects I would have googled it, looked up strats posted on Reddit, and bluegartr. If I am going to get into his groups, I know that's expected, and i do it. I also know we are going to clear the fight, b/c if somebody is utter fail, they will be called out on it, kicked from the party, and replaced, then given another chance when they have watched a few more videos, or pacticed more. That's the way it is.

[Dement]

So, you are saying that for me to do content, I need to form not one, but SEVERAL PF parties, do a truckload of networking, add like 10 or 15 names to my friendlist so I can find at least 5 more logged in at the same time as myself another day, form a semi-filled PF party (or be lucky enough to find all 7 online) to even SET FOOT inside the instance. So THEN we finally have a shot at TRYING to learn the fight. That provided among the 7 you found to the party there isn't a jerkish tank who'll say "this DPS won't cut it. I'm out" after the second wipe, and party will disband afterwards, to MAYBE try another day.

That's your solution?

Yes. Patience is a virtue. You won't clear it today but what else are you going to do? Join a farm group, get cussed out and booted and come to the forums to talk about how terrible the community is? In that scenario you've alienated 7 other people who might possibly one day help you. Reputations go a lot further than you'd think, good or bad.

[Kallera]

It certainly undercuts the notion that ffxiv is designed to be friendly for casual players when the community approach is to insists they watch a let's play of the content.

It certainly makes it difficult to recommend to people in real life. If they have to watch the game on YouTube before playing it, then what justifies playing it?

[Dement]

It certainly undercuts the notion that ffxiv is designed to be friendly for casual players when the community approach is to insists they watch a let's play of the content.

It certainly makes it difficult to recommend to people in real life. If they have to watch the game on YouTube before playing it, then what justifies playing it?

Because having a basic understanding of mechanics is not the same as actually executing it. FFXIV is designed to be friendly to casual players and there is a ton of content that does not require you to have the slightest idea what you're doing. You can jump into any dungeon without watching videos. You can do any quest, leve, guildhest without knowing what you're doing. You can farm zodiacs and do FATEs without knowing what you're doing. At this point with the nerfs you can do most of BCoB and SCoB without knowing what you're doing. You even get increasing echo everytime you wipe on the Extreme primals. There are a handful of fights though that are designed to be the hardest fights in the game... by going into these blind you are wasting the time of 7 other people. You want to go into the hardest fights blind? Catch up and be ready to tackle them when they come out.

[AlexionSkylark]

Yes. Patience is a virtue.

I'm not even talking about clear. I have NOTHING against wiping 100x in a fight before I can get a clear. That rosary was just for GETTING INTO the instance.

[Ashkendor]

So, you are saying that for me to do content, I need to form not one, but SEVERAL PF parties, do a truckload of networking, add like 10 or 15 names to my friendlist so I can find at least 5 more logged in at the same time as myself another day, form a semi-filled PF party (or be lucky enough to find all 7 online) to even SET FOOT inside the instance. So THEN we finally have a shot at TRYING to learn the fight. That provided among the 7 you found to the party there isn't a jerkish tank who'll say "this DPS won't cut it. I'm out" after the second wipe, and party will disband afterwards, to MAYBE try another day.

That's your solution?

Well, it certainly doesn't make you look nearly as dumb as jumping into a 7/8 farm run with no prior experience in the raid, claiming you know the fight but just haven't cleared, and wiping at the very first boss mechanic.

In any case, yes. If you want clears in the most expedited and least painful way, you will need to put in some effort. You will need to join learning parties or make your own. You will need to get out there and meet people that want to do the same thing you do. In other words, you will need to put in the same amount of effort that people that cleared it before Echo and DF put in when they first got into their statics or linkshells. Do you think raid statics grow on trees? Do you think that there's some weird hidden stat on your character that means you come into the game with a network of veteran players already in place? Nobody's going to come to you and drop a clear into your lap unless you have some very nice friends, so you'd best make peace with that now. Veteran players don't typically put up party finder advertisements looking for inexperienced players to help (and by 'help' I mean 'carry') unless there's a hefty fee involved. Some of us, however, are quite willing to jump into parties with players that have taken the initiative to put together a message that basically tells the world: HEY, I WANT TO LEARN. We help those that help themselves.

Your alternative is lying (which we've been over) or Duty Finder (which has its own issues), so pick your poison.

[ToasterMan]

If I didn't have the group of friends and static that I have now to run things with, I would have quit playing the game a long time ago and moved onto another game

[Dement]

I'm not even talking about clear. I have NOTHING against wiping 100x in a fight before I can get a clear. That rosary was just for GETTING INTO the instance.

Then join the DF, it'll pop eventually and you don't have to worry about any of that.

Then ask your FC/LS for people to join you. If they don't then why are you in that particular FC/LS?

That rosary was for having a shot at going about it in a PF learning group. There are lots of different ways you can approach it if you truly want to learn/clear. Most of them take time and networking cuts that time down by predisposing you to a group of people in similar situations.