What do you think of speed running dungeons.

[Aldora]

I think that most df speedruns... Are not in fact speedruns.

Exactly. There is a big difference between a speed run and getting the most of the group, while maintaining a safety net, in case things are starting to go sideways. Most DF parties i’ve been in start off with a courtesy “Hello!” and the Tank running off to pull as much as (s)he can, without measuring if the party can actually pull it off.

Multiple things can go wrong, making it impossible to clear the dungeon in less than 20 minutes of starting it.

• Not everyone is fully geared up
• The party composition isn’t suited for burning down big packs of mobs
• The tank is not using his/her cooldowns properly, taking more damage than necessary and “forcing” the healer to heal more rather than assisting with the DPS output
• The tank is simply focussing on maintaining hate and not maxing out his/her DPS output
• The healer can’t keep up with the damage the tank is taking
• The healer is running out of MP because the enemies aren’t dying fast enough
• The DPS are running out of TP because the enemies aren’t dying fast enough
• The DPS get hit by avoidable damage, “forcing” the healer to heal more rather than assisting with the DPS output
• The healer only focussing on healer and not contributing in the overall damage output.
• The DPS not getting every ounce of DPS out of their rotation, because they aren’t using the proper rotation / using their cooldowns / moving around to dodge aoe’s

Not everything mentioned above has to be a bad thing. It mostly boils down to the skill and experience of each individual player and the effort they wish to put into the game.

The more you run the dungeons, the better the feeling you get for the content you’re running. With the every bit of experience you get, you can start to anticipate what is going to happen and how comfortable the party is with the flow of the run. Eventually you will find time to observe your surrounding (and focus less on which button to press next) and see where you can assist your party and make the dungeon run go more smoothly. You will also start to notice that your dungeon runs will go faster.

However, in order to get to the point of actually speed running a dungeon, every one within the party will have to work together as a team and support each other in getting the most of the party. Most of the parties within the Duty Finder are too self centered and people are only focussing on themselves while judging others based on the current “Norm” or “Meta”.

I’ve said the following in a couple of different threads, but it still holds true to this particular discussion as well:

The bottom line is that when you are playing a game with other people (like FFXIV), you are actually playing with other people. Everyone has a different kind of skill set, certain amount of experience, etc which might not be similar to your own.

However, since you group up to tackle different kinds of content, you are asked to work together as a Team in order to complete the said task, like for instance clearing a Dungeon. When you are working as a Team, you should look out for each other so that everyone crosses the finish line together.

I read a lot of things like:

• If you don’t keep up, you suck
• Healer: If you don’t wait for me (to finish my buffs), i’ll let you die
• Healer: If you don’t pull less, i’ll let you die
• Tank: If you pull ahead of me, i won’t take the monster off you (and let you die)
• Tank: I keep pulling multiple packs. If you can’t keep me alive, you suck
• Healer/DPS: If you don’t pull more, i’ll pull more for you
• If you don’t switch to DPS stance (referring to Tank and Healer), you suck
• Etc

All of these comments display the wrong kind of attitude when you are playing with other people as a team. It doesn’t really matter if someone is faster than you or even not as fast as you. If they are as skilled as you or not as skilled as you.

Most of the comments i read are rather “self centered” and lack team spirit. Even if only 1 person can’t keep up with the rest of the group, that single person is just as valuable to the team then the rest.

As a member of a team, you are expected to do your job to the best of your abilities. Some people work better under pressure and improve faster when placed in stressful situations, but not everyone will be able to. There are plenty of people who will panic in situations like that, or simply won’t be able to function properly.

That doesn’t necessarily make them a bad player. They might need more time and less stressful situations in order to “blossom”. They may even need a guiding hand in order to teach them things they didn’t manage to figure out themselves.

Which brings us to the next point. When reading comments on the forums, it’s pretty plain to see that we (as in the general populous) are unable to properly communicate with each other. We call each other “trolls”, slap each other in the face with insult, aren’t open to suggestions or even in some cases able to properly phrase a suggestion so that it won't “feel” like it’s “forced upon them”. We take offense to almost anything, take things personal and react rudely to things that don’t go the way we want them to go. We don’t have any patience and insult people/kick players/vote abandon at the first sign of mistakes or even a wipe.



It seems that it’s hard to find a sense of (team) effort, camaraderie, community, support and most of all fun in the things we do as a group. Apparently we don’t see games as a form of relaxation anymore, but a competition or a job.

Perhaps it’s time for us as players to take a good look at ourselves and wonder how we got to this point and how we (as human beings) can change that.

I mean, taking things down a notch to ensure that the entire group makes it through the duty will feel a lot better then rushing towards the end and be frustrated about the amount of damage the group does or the amount of deaths/wipes we faced during the said duty. If you see someone struggle, why throw insults? Why not talk about it and try to help instead?

Sure, not everyone listens. There are bad apples in every community, but for every bad apple there are a hell of a lot more apples that make a pretty damn fine juice when mixed together. Aren’t we all thirsty and crave for such a juice?

Just, don’t go fight fire with fire. You’ll only going to get yourself burned in the process.

Sometimes, mostly when reading threads like this or the “Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.”-thread, i think to myself: “Why is it that we can’t simply work together when playing this game?” Is it really that hard to talk to one another, relax and play with each other, rather than “jumping at each other's throats”?

As people, we should be able to respect that try to work with them nonetheless. I believe that this is where the main problem lies. We want others to adjust to us, rather than adjust ourselves to others.

One of the arguments used, would be “One most adjust themselves to the majority of the group”. However, this is only true to the extend that everyone can follow suit. When you are running “group content” (like Dungeons) in Final Fantasy XIV, you are asked to work together as a Team in order to complete the said task. This also means that you look out for each other.

You are all in this together. The most important thing about working together, is communicating with each other. And by that, i mean come to a mutual agreement and taking every member in the party into consideration (even the members who are struggling to keep up).

However, this also means that you have to put your best foot forward and give it your all. Put all of your skills to the test and try to improve yourself as well. You can only improve, if you strive to be better with each attempt. After a while you will notice that you will have less trouble keeping hate, or keeping the tank alive during bigger pulls.

“You can’t advance by standing still.”

However, people nowadays want “insurance”. Insurance that they will clear the content they are queuing up for, by demanding others to know the duty inside out, match a certain level of DPS and have the gear to show for it. They want to skip mechanics and burn down their target, so that they don’t have to deal with mechanics that will kill a group if 1 or 2 people were to make a mistake. Some of them are obsessed with performing at optimal levels of DPS, that they require others to perform at the same level as they are. Even if they are less experienced within the game.

To me, that’s a backwards way of thinking. As a group, you need to be able to be prepared for anything the encounter throws at you. This means knowing all of the mechanics of the encounter itself and handling them accordingly. You have to be prepared that the worst possible situation can occur during the encounter, so that you can see it coming and adjust so that you can prevent it from happening.

As time goes by, we start to talk less with each other, but at the same time complain when things aren’t going the way we want them to. How can we expect things to go a certain way if we only assume that it’s going to be the way we want it to?

If i run content as a tank and i’m in a good mood, i’ll ask “How brave is everyone feeling today? (^_~ )”. This sentence alone has been enough for people to know what i’m planning on doing. If they feel as confident as i, they will respond with “Very!” or something within that direction. That will be my green light to go for it. The first pull will determine if we can actually manage it and i’ll adjust accordingly if needed.

Of course there were times where we were overconfident and wipe when things went sideways. But, every single time it happened, we were laughing about it, returned and went at it again.

It was all in good fun.

If i come across 1 single person within the party (for instance a healer), who’s not confident enough to handle those big pulls. I’ll respect their wishes and tone it down a little bit.

Like i mentioned within one of my quotes. We are all in this together, so the most important thing is that we are working together in order to clear the duty and especially communicating with each other. And by that, i mean come to a mutual agreement and taking every member in the party into consideration (even the members who are struggling to keep up).

So come on people, talk to each other and listen to what they/we have to say.