The question for Monday: Why do you need your clear asap?

[Souljacker]

like you need any kind of leadership skills to put together an early-phase pug in PF!

This is not entirely accurate. The party leader is still expected to direct the team, so you *do* need leadership skills and a general knowledge of the fight, especially three weeks to a month out from the latest primal. There's an expectation that you've "watched a youtube video" and can lead the team.


This is why I wish the hard mode content wasn't *so* far removed from the extreme mode content or we had some other way to get into practice modes of extreme mode content. I feel like I mastered the hard mode in a couple tries, enough that I finished both Seph and Nid on my feet in random groups by try #2, but extreme content is so much more difficult with no way to practice other than hoping the 7 other people don't bail after the first wipe. The gap is huge and doesn't have to be. The hard mode content could stand to be a little harder.

If you're a little behind, like I am, forget about it. I have to now wait until this content is obsolete to finish it.

[Ryel]

This is not entirely accurate. The party leader is still expected to direct the team, so you *do* need leadership skills and a general knowledge of the fight, especially three weeks to a month out from the latest primal. There's an expectation that you've "watched a youtube video" and can lead the team.

Except that this is only true if you do not specify otherwise in the PF description.

There have been times where myself or friends have been behind on content and wanted to set up a learning party in the party finder, so we would specifically describe the party as a "wiping party" and make sure to get the point across that we were going in to get our feet wet and had very little to no knowledge of the fight.

More often than not the party either filled with like minded individuals who wanted to test the waters and get some experience or others who have cleared before but wanted practice on a new job or role (like tanking / healing), occasionally we would even have players join who simply wanted to help others learn the fight because they had free time on their hands.

There were the few times that there were players who joined the party without fully understanding the intent and would get impatient and leave but those cases were few and far between.

The key is that you have to be up front about exactly what you're trying to do and in some cases wait for other like-minded individuals to fill the spots, but for many players it does start by stepping out of your comfort zone and actually putting up a party.

The reason the JP servers have more learning parties in the PF is because they are being made by both players who want to teach and players who want to learn.

This idea of sitting around and waiting for the perfect learning party to show up and then complaining that there aren't any players making them however will accomplish far less than tossing one up and taking a few lumps here and there and more importantly not giving up after a few bad experiences.

[Ryel]

a few? a few?
Try seeing this patch after patch when trying to clear it. Try getting it finally done only in time for the next content to rush past you, leaving you stuck in earlier phases while you are trying to learn tethers.

Oh I've seen what it is when pugs are the only thing you have to turn to. night after night after night.

I've been here since 1.0 and it seems my experience has obviously been very different than yours.

There are both good and bad pick up groups and sometimes you just end up having a bad night of runs, it happens. More often than not in my experience I've walked away from parties that I've put up for learning being better at the fights coming out of them than i was when i started, even if the party as a whole did not make significant progress. The experience also allows me to change the conditions of the next PF I put up.

I'll ask myself this question:

Did I consistently get past "x" phase of the fight with the previous learning party and now know well enough to perform in it?

If so then I'll put up a party for the next phase of the fight and repeat this process until I've learned the fight in it's entirety, at which point I'll change the party from "learning" to "clear" and after enough consistent clears I'll change it to "farm" and repeat this cycle with each new update / encounter.

Once again the key is to not get discouraged and to not give up, either that or find a group of players you mesh well with and join a LS or FC that runs this kind of content so you can avoid using the PF and DF altogether.

In fact as I type this post there is currently a clear party in the PF right now on Excal for Nid Ex and i usually see quite a few during the course of the day.

[LineageRazor]

This is not entirely accurate. The party leader is still expected to direct the team, so you *do* need leadership skills and a general knowledge of the fight, especially three weeks to a month out from the latest primal. There's an expectation that you've "watched a youtube video" and can lead the team.

Then dispel this expectation. Make it clear in the party finder that you're as green as green gets. You will STILL get folks wiling to join. Other folks that would like to try the content blind. Mentor-types who want to show the newbie the ropes. Bored folks who are just looking for something exciting to do.

As long as it's clear in the party finder description what folks who join should expect, any mistaken expectations of this kind are on the heads of the folks joining, not the one who organizes it. It still won't stop some folks from blundering in without reading the description carefully enough, but I don't give them much consideration and neither should anyone else.

Above all, avoid simplistic descriptions. I joined a party that just said "learning" not too long ago. Nothing else. We got a variety of folks who were expecting all kinds of different progression stages - and unsurprisingly, most left when they realized how fresh a lot of the players were...

[Souljacker]

Then dispel this expectation. Make it clear in the party finder that you're as green as green gets. You will STILL get folks wiling to join.

Yes, you will. And you will still get that one jerkface who joined to "teach other players" and either ragequits after leaving you with several "well-intentioned" insults, or is just abusive throughout the whole process and you end up disbanding anyway. I know you are trying to be helpful but I've been doing this mmo thing for a long time, and I've never see players as horrible and abusive to other players as in this game. Our server is particularly harsh, as is Balmung. Places like Excalibur seem to be nicer. I hear the entire JP community is laid back.

NA players are some of the meanest, most elitist, most obnoxious players in the game and after years of trying, I'm at the point where it's not even worth my time. I'll wait until it makes it into duty finder and clear it there with strangers from other servers. There's no way I'm putting up a PF on Gilgamesh.

I've been here since 1.0 and it seems my experience has obviously been very different than yours.

You are on Excalibur. That server seems to be the most decent of the lot. Even when hunts first landed there were few to 0 complaints coming from people on that server. Balmung on the other hand...

You just got lucky and picked the right server. So yes, your experience has probably differed DRASTICALLY from others.

[Ryel]

You are on Excalibur. That server seems to be the most decent of the lot. Even when hunts first landed there were few to 0 complaints coming from people on that server. Balmung on the other hand...

You just got lucky and picked the right server. So yes, your experience has probably differed DRASTICALLY from others.

Maybe, but the person i specifically replied to on this page at least is also from Excalibur. I can't speak for Balmung but as it's also one of the highest pop servers regardless of the fact that it's primarily an RP server i can't imagine it would be impossible to find at least 7 other like minded players who are interested in clearing content.

[LineageRazor]

NA players are some of the meanest, most elitist, most obnoxious players in the game and after years of trying, I'm at the point where it's not even worth my time. I'll wait until it makes it into duty finder and clear it there with strangers from other servers. There's no way I'm putting up a PF on Gilgamesh.

Interesting. You'll notice what server I'm on? Every word I've spoken, has been from the perspective of a Gilgamesh player. Perhaps I just have thicker skin than most...