Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.

[SamSmoot]

First run of Castrum Meridianum.. More time spent in unskippable cutscenes than actually doing the content.
I was frantically trying to skip them anyway because in my previous MMO, you're effectively AFK if you stop to watch a cutscene = bad.) Square Enix really wants us to watch their stuff I guess..

[Cincierta]

Another day in duty finder, leveling up sam again on another alt (because practice and running dungeons repeatedly on multiple characters helps me get better).

Queued up for Sohm Al, got a WAR, RDM, WHM, and me on SAM. I immediately realize the war's hp is rather low for this dungeon and check him, realizing he's actually wearing the lvl 50 Noct quest reward gear you get from doing ARR MSQ. I tell myself if he takes it easy things will be alright.

I have been proven wrong again.

War's easy with the pulls and probably realizes he's undergeared for the dungeon, and first trash pull I realize the rdm possibly doesn't know what they were doing either as they're hardcasting verspells. At this point the whm joins in on dpsing and only popping regen on the tank and both me and the tank have to remind her to pop Protect. After nearly losing the tank on the first trash does she remember to do so.

We get through the rest of the trash and first boss relatively fine, save for several close calls (war dipped into triple-digit hp a couple times), and get up to the second boss. Once everyone gets in the war immediately pulls before I could refresh people on mechanics. First part of the second boss is fine until we get up to the colored stack marker bit. WHM gets tagged with the red stack marker and runs with it, with me running after her. Unfortunately she was too far away and eats it to the face, and immediately dies. Joy. I try my best but we wipe anyway.

We get back in and I explain the mechanics to the group (red, stack up; blue separate; murder green slime asap), and the rdm dies to the red stack marker this time. Sigh. We beat it after the whm gets him back up (tank almost died again), and we trudge through the final set of trash up to the last boss, Tioman. I put down markers and inform everyone what to do.

Spoiler alert: Apparently directions are too hard.

The war pulls her to B, but keeps her turned to the side, letting the rdm get hit with Chaos Breath. While dodging aoes, somehow the whm almost dies to the first Chaos Blast.

Little did I know that this was a prelude of things to come during the next 20 minutes. The whm ends up repeatedly standing in Chaos Blast aoes, the rdm doesn't seem to realize you need to run away from the green comets once you see the aoe marker on the ground over casting, and the war doesn't seem to rotate between cooldowns very effectively.

Three wipes later, we finally beat it, and my reward for my alt was a new pair of pants...I honestly can't wait to get my squadron up to this level so I don't have to deal with another aneurysm.

[Aosha]

First run of Castrum Meridianum.. More time spent in unskippable cutscenes than actually doing the content.
I was frantically trying to skip them anyway because in my previous MMO, you're effectively AFK if you stop to watch a cutscene = bad.) Square Enix really wants us to watch their stuff I guess..

Thankfully Castrum Meridianum and The Praetorium are the only dungeons in the game that are like that.
The cutscenes used to be skippable (but on the flipside, if I recall correctly, had MANUALLY ADVANCED TEXT). This caused situations where new players trying to get their story clear and watch the cutscenes (which they have the full right to do, bugger off speedrunners) would get left behind. Heck, I started the game in 2.2 or 2.3, and ALREADY people were going so fast that by the time I'd exit a cutscene a new one would be starting right after.
This made the dungeons kinda unplayable for new players who didn't set up a party specifically to go slow.
So to allow new players to experience the full dungeon SE eventually made this change. It's honestly kind of a bad solution, but I'd argue it's still better then what we used to have.

The devs learned from this mess, and made sure that no future dungeons would suffer from this issue. Any custcenes are shown before entering or after exiting a dungeon, minus the usual three (panning view through the dungeon at start, boss intro, and "hooray we beat the boss").

But hey now you're past that and getting closer to Heavensward. Post-Praetorium is where dungeons really start getting more interesting, so have fun.

[Endeleon]

First run of Castrum Meridianum.. More time spent in unskippable cutscenes than actually doing the content.
I was frantically trying to skip them anyway because in my previous MMO, you're effectively AFK if you stop to watch a cutscene = bad.) Square Enix really wants us to watch their stuff I guess..

That and Praetorium are the only two times you have to worry about it and unless you do Main Story roulette you'll never see them again. So just relax and don't worry about it.

[Aosha]

On a completely different note, what is this weird obsession people have with removing Alliance markers in Orbonne's third boss? We had to re-apply them every few minutes because someone apparently didn't want them there. And it hasn't been in just one run either.

But hey thanks for being such great people to coordinate with, fellow Orbonne tanks. Haven't had to fight anyone for enmity in a while, and someone has always been available to fill in when I go down (or get trapped in a pocket dimension).

[Ilenya]

On a completely different note, what is this weird obsession people have with removing Alliance markers in Orbonne's third boss? We had to re-apply them every few minutes because someone apparently didn't want them there. And it hasn't been in just one run either.

Honestly, it's been that way since at *least* World of Darkness. It doesn't surprise me, some people just like screwing around.

[Iscah]

Ouch. I had a WoD run too. I looked at the other tanks. Another PLD in Shield and the DRK had Grit and Darkside on. I popped Sword Oath. And I was still somehow stealing aggro from the other tanks. After a game of spin the five headed dragon, I popped Shield Oath just to keep me on top and tanked the rest of the raid.

I had the same thing one time in Syrcus Tower (one of my few ventures into alliance tanking). Turned on Sword Oath, and halfway through the battles I realised I was tanking anyway.

Didn't worry about switching to Shield, I just stood close to the supposedly-main tank in case they got back in control.

[KaivaC]

Had a Sirensong run earlier today on SAM. During the run up to the second boss, I had to keep diversion on cooldown because the sprout tank couldn't hold all the aggro. Took a look at their gear and sure enough, based on the HQ gear they had, they used a jump potion. But not wanting to assume, I asked in chat.

Didn't really care all that much in a lvl 61 dungeon since the healer was quick to keep me healed whenever I had aggro (especially when diversion and merciful eyes didn't help). For a sprout, they were doing good, but then the healer suddenly jumped on my case for asking if the tank jumped.

I told him that I asked to make sure so I could be prepared for more sudden aggro shifts, and he shut up shortly afterwards.

I had no problems with the tank, and in fact, they did better than a lot of sprouts I've seen who jumped, but this coddling attitude that some people have is a cancer.

edit: I mistakenly said Shisui originally - damn autocorrect, I come to the forums too much on mobile.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

So this last run of Weeping City I just had for Alliance Roulette solidifies my reasoning on why I can never ever be a Mentor.

Que'd into Weeping as a PiP with a 12 minute timer. They're at Forgall. That's... not raising red flags as of yet, but as I watch (because I'm stuck outside of the barrier) I noticed that there are a lot of dead people and mostly they're dropping to Mega Death (and most of them are in my party). It gets to the point where I and another person are telling people what to do in Alliance chat but people are still dying to it. Thankfully, iLvls prevail and we move on. Epitaph goes as usual with at least one Alliance forgetting their button but strangely two people in my party decide that standing outside of the barrier is a good idea, and of course they die. (They laugh it off.)

I'm starting to feel a little bit uneasy now and when we hit Ozma this uneasiness becomes totally justified. I explain about the meteor markers, because that's the mechanic that seems to fail the most. However even though the first marker goes without a hitch (save for someone falling off the platform), 5 out of 8 of my party are dead by the time we hit the add phase. The healer starts hard-casting raise OFF THE PLATFORM while myself and one other lucky DPS try to kill he add but eventually we get offed and the ENTIRE PARTY is dead and we're not even to Ozmashade.


At this point I curse wretchedly in Party chat.


One of the DPS tells me to chill out. At this point all I've done is said a swear in Party Chat, so the only thing that keeps me from taking this person's head off at the neck is that it's obvious there's new people. All of two have admitted it. And none have mentioned needed help even when it's been asked in Alliance if anyone needs a recap. So even though the only thing I want to do is make it rain salt, I instead start listing the mechanics so we can get thru it. We just barely do.


I do the same for Calofisteri. Chill-out dude dies repeatedly to the mechanic I specifically pointed out (her hair-axe), and by the grace of our healers (and someone's LB 3) we win it. Good job guys (not sarcasm--you're the only reaon we didin't wipe MORE).

When I check the chatlog for achievements, I find that 10 people in the raid were new. TEN PEOPLE. That's an Alliance and some change. Nearly HALF in fact. And NO ONE SAID A WORD about 'hey, I'm new' and still none asked for help. (And even when mechs were explained, people KEPT DYING TO THEM).

I feel bad for cursing but holy crap. That was the worse Weeping run I've had in a long long time and I'm kind of scared of what's to come. @_@

[TalithaSolarien]

More stuff from Orbonne. Have been trying the farm the BRD chest piece for a few day now, as has probably been done by most BRDs on my data center. Loading into the raid I see 2 other BRD's, so it's 33% chance, the first boss drops a BRD head piece which is claimed by one of my co-BRDs, so it up to a 50% chance. The next boss drops no BRD pieces, so I pass on. Then I weirdly get a message from one of the healer in party chat if I don't want any gear. I answer (truthfully) that I'm here for the BRD chest piece. And then one of my FC mates (which I queued with) informed me that a Vote Kick for me was started ... which luckily failed. Sheesh.

In the end the chest piece did drop ... and I got ;-)