Lucky Bancho and NA raiding problems.

[Arya_Leviathan]

As a raider myself - who also pugs on an alt on the side with a lot of time (though not as much as before), I very much enjoy the challenges and satisfication of clearing and getting gear. And that's me, maybe not everyone else has interest, time and or patience in raiding, and that's perfectly fine in my opinion. Just like not everyone has the patience in gathering, crafting, etc. (though I actually very much do enjoy it as a break from raiding).

I can't speak for JP or EU, since I've only done extreme fights and never raided savage content there due to ping but maybe the disparity comes from NA having less patience for others. I can really only provide anecdotes. In my experiences with this community regardless if you are a raider or not - I find people to tend to not have a lot of patience for other players in any piece of content. I often see vote abandons in 24 mans after a single wipe, and people abandoning after a few (at times even just one) wipes in an early progression party (savage and extremes). Though in the end I'm unsure myself.

[SmokeyTheSequel]

Summed it up perfect. I feel exactly the same.

I can't really speak for the "NA community" and I know even less about the "JP community". All I do know is that I'm definitely not interested in high-end content myself.

Furthermore, I don't consider it a problem, I intend to take no steps to remedy it and I feel no sense of obligation to become a raider just because a census is saying that there's fewer raiders on my data centre than somewhere else.

It is not for lack of incentives. It is certainly not for lack of opportunities or due to any past experiences that might have turned me off of that kind of activity. In actuality, my reason is quite simple:

I consider it an optional and niche activity - a vanity thing - similar to achievement-hunting, or trying to reach all the vistas in Kugane, or house-decorating.

I laughed quite hard at this one lol

TL;DR: If I had to farm o7s to get crafting mats for cute glamours, I would flip all tables within a 6300km radius and then go into space to declare a crusade against all tables and table-like-objects in the galaxy. So unless you want to live in a universe without tables, pray that SE never tries to pull people who don't want to raid into raiding.

[Tracewood]

NA raiders if you pug tend to leave after a couple full wipes. We don't use raid finder and sometimes you get the occasional "exclude non meta job"/clear for me-er-a friend trap parties. NA raid culture in any online game can be toxic, mistakes are met with talking town and belittling. My last O6S had a WHM going off on another healer and DPSes going off on him.

So sure, you look for a static, just be sure you'e on a job that they need or you're out of luck. What's that? You're a SAM/BLM/RDM/MCH? Hmm pass or play this other job you're not very good at bit it has utility! Now not all statics are like this, but people tend to treat the top percentile of fflogs as holy doctrine of raiding and rarely budge.

HOWEVER...

it's not as common, just mentally prepare yourself when you do end up in a bad situation. Also, late into the raid tier it can be hard to find practice parties for the later raid. I want to give Kefka a shot but I only see God Kefka starting points.

[Aana]

And this is why I have been raiding with FRIENDS for the last decade. It's the only reliable way to dodge toxic idiots that dont know what being a team player is. The NA culture is overall more me me me and that doesnt lead to success in a tightly choreographed 'team jump rope' type game. You cant go run n gun and solo the enemy team by being selfish god mode like an FPS or 1 v 1 game. You need to work together and sometimes, especially in pugs, that means playing it safe to get the win instead of playing for the parse. Sure, I could tank every fight with zero tank stance, but in a PUG you cant rely on that, so play a little safer. Slip into tank stance, miss a GCD to ensure generous space to complete a mechanic. PUGs are more likely to be greedy and then blame the team for not catering to your DPS.

JP: /em runs backwards to take less damage from head on at the cost of 2 gcds.
NA: "WTF I died to point blank head on without! Trashcan healers didnt shield me" /ragequit
NA2: "This is why I REFUSE to do train without a SCH"

Just take the dang hit to your precious parse. You are the only person that thinks your parse matters that much.

[Dalmacus]

Ah, well the JP community is not perfect per se. I have been playing on JP server for close to 5 years now. You still have elitism, people blaming others on chat(Rarely you get instant blacklisted) and etc.

But the main thing is people here are more patient with one another. When someone messed up that apologize and ppl in the pt just said don't mind and we moved on. I remember doing a クリア目的 (Clear motive) pt and it took close to 2hrs at that point someone asked for a break before continuing on one last time and when we all came back from that break we instant cleared it.

Often than not i get to experience the Eng players playing culture vs a Jp players. When you messed up Eng players tend to be more vocal and tries to emphasize it's your fault like for e.g spamming the /slap emote on you. But for JP players if you messed up they usually endure it and ignore once. But after many repeated faults they usually type on chat and advise the player.

For raiding and EX they usually separate it to 3 parts 前半(First half)、後半(Latter half) and クリア目的(Clear motive). What those means is that the first timers will start from first half and after reaching a certain point they "graduate" and go for latter half. And after reaching the 時間切れ(DPS check) they "graduate" to clear motive. So pugging in JP servers are pretty easy because it's very organized.

[Nixxe]

If I wanted to raid, especially seriously, I'd go back to WoW. The only thing they can do to get me to step into raids is to tie rewards to it that I really want and then remove them when the raids are no longer current to prevent me from going back later and doing them unsynced. If they start doing that though, I'm out. I have stepped into savage when it was current this expansion, but that was to fill in for my FC because a static member couldn't be there. I normally only do the raids once when they drag me through them and then maybe do some ex primals for mount farming.

Lack of raid participation isn't a problem. MMOs should focus on offering diverse content and letting their players make their own fun from within that framework, not manipulating them all into approaching the game the same way. That's the mistake Blizzard is currently making, and it's ruining WoW. I don't want to see any other game, much less the only other MMO that has retained my sub for years, going down that same road.

I'd rather they make crafting more exclusive and more lucrative again. Follow it up with more uses for gil. The only true gil sink in this game is an aftermarket manor, which is a one time expense. After that, what's left? A nightmare pegasus whistle for like 10 mil? It only gets less expensive from there.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

For raiding and EX they usually separate it to 3 parts 前半(First half)、後半(Latter half) and クリア目的(Clear motive). What those means is that the first timers will start from first half and after reaching a certain point they "graduate" and go for latter half. And after reaching the 時間切れ(DPS check) they "graduate" to clear motive. So pugging in JP servers are pretty easy because it's very organized.

To be fair, NA/EU have our own tiered structure in Learning, Clear and Farm parties, respectively. Unfortunately, they are often not honoured, or people who clearly lack experience—clearing by the skin of their teeth—immediately join farm parties.

[Elamys]

I definitely think that the tendency of a lot of NA players to yell or belittle other players prevents some people from wanting to challenge anything harder. A number of my friends have expressed this concern - they could probably clear the content with some practice, but they don't want to get put in a situation where someone is trying to make them feel bad. Even though those people are the minority of raiders, it happens often enough to be a real deterrent to people.

Heck, I've been raiding in MMOs for a long time and I still remember when I tried to clear A5 normal for the first time ever, I accidentally let the tank die after the tankbuster, and both the tank and 2 of the DPS went off on me even though we didn't wipe. It felt horrible and I didn't do the rest of that tier of Alex for a long time, until I convinced some friends to come with me, because I didn't want that to happen again lol. And that was in normal! Imagine if it was Savage.

The mindset of the JP community seems to be focused a lot more on "well, we all have to learn this new fight, so let's be patient and learn together." It's a lot friendlier to people who may be anxious about their skill level.