Think before you join someone's clear party.

[Purrfectstorm]

On the subject of clear parties, I am also frustrated that people join T9 clear parties and can't even do meteors (even if the PF explicitly says "know all phases" or "know up to divebombs"). This happened with T5, Titan EX, and I'm sure many other fights. There seems to be a pretty large contingent of players who try to leech clears in this way. They either have a very high opinion of their own abilities or they don't realize how much impact one person failing a mechanic has on the rest of the party. Plus, other players are doing the same thing so it's not unusual to see 7 of 8 players be completely clueless (they all joined hoping for the same easy clear lol).

So leeching isn't really possible but they'll do it anyway whether it harms another person's experience or not. And they'll justify it by saying the other people just wanted to exclude them because they're mean elitists, never mind that NO ONE gets the clear once they add their inexperience to the mix.

[Chihaya]

-stuffz-

Tip for you, as I'm in a small casual FC also (having 5 people on same time is a miracle)

I tend to find groups using the various linkshells, if you can't find one, make one.
Put it on PF see if there's other people that are new and want SCOB/FCOB progression and invite them to join. Though do have to warn some people will leave after they clear but you will find some willing to stay and farm/help others clear.

[Kiyashi]

I think the problem here is the general view of what a clear party is. It's SUPPOSED to be a party with 8 players that have the entire fight down but have only gotten to a final phase or close to winning. A party that's going for a win and is going to put what they've learned and such to get that win.

Sadly that's not what it turns into. The truth of the matter is it turns into a carry or learning party. The reason for this is because in a clear party you're going to have people that don't have a win yet. And someone that doesn't have a win yet views this as a way to try and get that win even if the other 5-6 people will carry them through it. Hence why in reality, a clear party is really just a learning party.

Now a farm party is a party that can one shot at beast or in 2-3 tries wins fight and FARM it to gear up your jobs. I've actually had people join mine when I specifically state no 100 soldiery. And soon as we enter there it is, 100 soldiery bonus. My last one was a tank. They admitted it was them. And I said you know this is a farm party right and you're a tank. And they said And? lol. Like it was OK to join a farm group with 100 soldiery and as a tank no less and not knowing the fight. I left and my party disbanded because of this one person.

Straight up guys, don't join farm parties either. If you tell me ahead of time and say hey I can beat this fight, this is one of my alts then more than likely I'll give you a shot. But if you try and hide it well you're going to be replaced right away.

[Purrfectstorm]

Lastly, I completely disagree with statements to the effect of "maybe content isn't for you" or "you should find another game."

We're all playing the game to have fun.
If the game isn't fun, we're not going to play.
If enough people don't play, there is no game.
If there's no game, then you can't play, whether or not you personally continue to have fun.
Therefore, we must all care about the fun of all players.

1) Right now, there's not enough content for the casual player who has been playing a while, unless they do FCoB. If there's not enough content, they'll unsub, at least for a time. No content = no fun.

2) It's not fun to be held back by other players. "MMO... social... etc." Yeah but still when the community seems divided into two camps, the nice players, who are terrible most of the time, and the good players, who are assholes most of the time, where is the enjoyment? I have been trying since launch to make a static comprised of decent, laid back players. No luck yet and there is no sign of it on the horizon either.

3) Not being able to do content is not equal to not wanting to do content.

In summary, FFXIV is a very classist community much like the real world. Every Have got there 100% by hard work and every Have-not is 100% lazy, piece of trash. In truth, there are many lazy players in the "cleared T9" camp and many hard working players in the "stuck on T9" camp. Maybe it's hard to appreciate how unfun the game is right now if you're in the latter group but I would say both the lack of available fun and the lack of empathy in the community are pretty valid reasons for permanently leaving FFXIV.

[Elazu]

Snip

You completely missed the point. Nobody will ever give someone flak for having full Tomestone gear when that person is not a detriment to the team and knows what he/she is doing. If you know your job and play it well, you are not a "Poetic Princess" even if you don't have any Coil gear.

[Lemuria]

The hypocrisy is strong in this thread...

On another note, do we really need so many definitions of different parties? I define them as two kinds. Those who want to clear and BEAT the content, and those who have done it before and just want to farm for loot. In the first category I include training parties and other newcomers, as well as more experienced players who may not have quite cleared the whole battle. In the latter I include anyone who's beaten it once before, and anyone who's beaten it multiple times before.

Is it really so surprising you ended up with newcomers in a 'clear' party? The definition about as loose as it gets.

You completely missed the point. Nobody will ever give someone flak for having full Tomestone gear when that person is not a detriment to the team and knows what he/she is doing. If you know your job and play it well, you are not a "Poetic Princess" even if you don't have any Coil gear.

Sadly, that doesn't mean the stereotype doesn't exist. People make judgments based on gear, and poetics seems to be the same as 'newbie' to many. Even if the coil gear doesn't even match up.

[Elusana_Celah]

"Poetic Princess"

Nah I'm referring to people who have put effort into obtaining casual gear but no effort into learning their job class. I think you have completely misunderstood what I said. When you see a fully geared relic and poetic dragoon parsing 220 in a 20% echo fight who didn't die to the mechanics and had all that DPS time, you will know exactly what I mean. What's worse is, I can't say to him, "Hey you're parsing 220 with your gear... what rotation are you using?" and try to help the guy out cuz then the GMs will ban me. So I have to watch him fail and blacklist him for my future farm party sake.

Please note, this is only in reference to farms and clears. I know that DPS will be low while people are learning fights and will stay low until people are comfortable with the mechanics. I am not that kind of 'elitist' who thinks everyone should be awesome without practice lol.

[Purrfectstorm]

You completely missed the point. Nobody will ever give someone flak for having full Tomestone gear when that person is not a detriment to the team and knows what he/she is doing. If you know your job and play it well, you are not a "Poetic Princess" even if you don't have any Coil gear.

People tend to miss points whenever derogatory language is used. Think about it.

[Elusana_Celah]

People tend to miss points whenever derogatory language is used. Think about it.

This is absolutely true but I had not thought about it as a derogatory term until you mentioned it. I guess it does come off as bad so I am sorry if that upset you.

I am an elitist to a degree. I join a lot of learning and clear parties of content I have on farm in order to try to help people out but if I see people who need a learning party joining clears or farms, I quickly become derogatory to them because I truly believe that they are being disrespectful to us by not being ready to beat the fight.

[Purrfectstorm]

This is absolutely true but I had not thought about it as a derogatory term until you mentioned it. I guess it does come off as bad so I am sorry if that upset you.

I am an elitist to a degree. I join a lot of learning and clear parties of content I have on farm in order to try to help people out but if I see people who need a learning party joining clears or farms, I quickly become derogatory to them because I truly believe that they are being disrespectful to us by not being ready to beat the fight.

Thanks, I appreciate that. The thing is gear is made irrelevant so fast that you have to constantly stay on the "cutting edge" for Coil gear to be better than Tome gear. A lot of us do Coil, just at a more gradual pace, so it's not necessarily that we can't get Coil gear, more just that we haven't gotten there yet. For someone like me, who has used relic and crafted gear to customize stats, FCoB gear offers very little, if any, improvement over what we have.

Some examples (I main WAR):

Dreadwyrm helm vs. Tome helm: I get unneeded accuracy and I trade crit for parry (a bad trade imo)
Dreadwyrm body vs Tome body: I trade parry for dtr (decent trade)
Dreadwyrm hands vs. Tome hands: I get accuracy and skill speed, neither of which I need in exchange for dtr and parry (a bad trade)
Dreadwyrm belt vs. Tome belt: I exchange accuracy for parry and crit for dtr, a good trade if I didn't need the accuracy.
Dreadwyrm legs vs. Tome legs: I exchange accuracy and parry for crit and dtr, another good trade if I didn't need the accuracy (that amount of accuracy is going to be hard to make up.)
Dreadwyrm feet vs. Tome feet: I lose some accuracy (which I currently need) and dtr for parry (a bad trade).

As for jewelry, I believe all crafted jewelry beats out other jewelry. Main stats trump secondaries and you get more main stats with i110 pentamelded than you do from the alternatives. Once you max out main stats, you can customize secondaries further too. I added skill speed to hit my 9-hit berserk. The Dreadwyrm hands is the only piece of i130 left side with skillspeed. Also a nice perk to i110 melded stuff is the extra oomph you get when under level sync.

I have full crit/dtr on my relic.

Anyway, my point is, most Dreadwyrm gear isn't an upgrade. The only piece I'd definitely use is the body and that drops from T13. So for some using all poetics gear is:

- their only option (they can't beat Coil)
- a conscious choice (the gear is not an improvement)
- or a mixture of both (they don't put more effort into beating Coil because the gear isn't an improvement)