I don't know why so many people give BA premades trash for claiming instances.

[Lacan]

The Discord groups are still pugs, even if they aren't formed inside of the instance.

Good point, but I guess the idea of attaching a discord to it makes people freak out for whatever reason. You're still grouping up with mostly randoms through the discord. You're just doing it through a discord instead of shout chat.

[jameseoakes]

Here's a simple analogy for those who don't understand why it's kinda shitty to snipe portals when you have no intention of running BA without a premade present:

You share an apartament with a roommate and you get provided with enough food to get by together. You propose the both of you will prepare and share a dinner. The roommate refuses, because he would rather play video games instead of spending time on cooking. You shrug and make the dinner for yourself, using some of the provided ingredients and then go use the bathroom. Once you get back into the kitchen, you see the roommate has already claimed your meal, leaving nothing for you and once confronted says "it was made with shared ingredients so I have just as much right to eat it"..

That's a pretty terrible analogy

[ReiMakoto]

That's a pretty terrible analogy

Care to explain why, to a layman that seems about accurate.

[Xellos2099]

The Discord groups are still pugs, even if they aren't formed inside of the instance.

Exactly, we are just a organized pug but a little mixture of standalone complex on top of it.

[Rivers23]

You can't 'claim' a public instance, period. You can ask politely, that's about all you can do. If someone declines your request, direct your displeasure towards the dev team that deliberately made this annoying system so you would waste inordinate amounts of time on trying to do this content. I mean, they know there's nothing else to do in the game (if you're an active max level player and please don't suggest 'level all combat and crafting classes to 70') so they deliberately make players waste their time. Can anyone, someone, give me a sensible reason why would they institute a system like this for progressing between the floors? There is 0 reason to do it.

I sure as hell am not going to spend half of my weekend trying to get into piece of content just to get a shiny sphere. I sure as hell am not going to renew my sub just to get a BA clear.
Seriously, I thought about joining the discord, but then I thought about how massive of a waste of time it would be. Mind you, even this broken system of accessing and progressing within BA would work if the game FC system was worth a damn. You could just go with FC people, right, no problem? It's just that such a miniscule percentage of players in this game are interested in doing any content that is remotely challenging that people need to use a 3rd party app to get somewhat organized.

[Alucard135]

snip

No one's arguing about portal rights. We all know no one can claim them. The point of argument is the moral part of taking a portal knowing there are people that wasted a lot of time just to get an organized group in (be it from discord or an FC, since if you remember, the world first was an FC and not a discord pug). This has evolved to the point that certain names are now well known for trying to take portals from discord pugs. I have seen them actively hop from one instance to another fishing for names they know are part of the discord group just to try to take a portal from them. How do I know? People communicate on discord from different instances and see those players jump from one instance to another. And once they land in the instance that has a specific group, they stop and try to take the portal. This is now beyond having right to a portal and can be considered stalking.

Is this how SE intended for people to do BA?

[wereotter]

Like I said, BA runs simply don't happen on the western server without the discord groups. You can say it's a public dungeon all you want but the people sniping portals only ever do it when a premade is present and they do it so they can skip all the time the premade committed to getting a run to actually happen.

There's honestly no excuse for snipers who aren't new and know about the premades. They know pug groups don't exist and they know they could just join the discord but they don't want to commit the time and would rather screw over someone else than pull their weight in getting a group going.

Also if you are part of the premade and someone is waiting at your portal you can't just "look for another one" because every member of the premade are assigned to a specific portal.

So, like I said... if you want to makes sure your team can get those portals before everyone else, do the prep work, get your crystals, and claim them before they stabilize out and allow just anyone into them. If not, then, I hate to say it, but sucks to be you?

No one has a right to claim something that is designed and intended to be for everyone, and based off a lot of the toxicity I've seen from people in the forums in general with how people have treated someone who beat one of their teammates to a portal, I'm inclined to side against the Discord group in general, not just because of the culture it has played into and exacerbated, but also because people are now treating the need to engage with strangers in voice or text chat in a third party application (something that can be an annoyance for console players, or players like myself who really don't want to voice chat with stranger. I didn't even voice chat with my static raid group for nearly a year) that shuts them out of what is supposed to be 100% public content.

I get people wanting to do it with friends or with a group they think will give them they best chance of getting through the content, and can respect that effort, but I can also see that people who for whatever reason don't feel comfortable in a chat group with strangers or who can't get into the Discord should be excluded from even trying, and to say "you must have Discord or you can't participate" is an incredibly toxic and vile thing to do to any other player in this game. People clear extreme primals with pugs all the time, and given that's about the level that this content is supposed to be, I see no reason that this can't also be cleared with pugs as well.

[Alucard135]

and based off a lot of the toxicity I've seen from people in the forums in general with how people have treated someone who beat one of their teammates to a portal

What toxicity are you referring to exactly? Keep in mind that both sides have toxic people in them (and those on discord get dealt with), so you can't generalize something based on the actions of a few.

[wereotter]

What toxicity are you referring to exactly? Keep in mind that both sides have toxic people in them (and those on discord get dealt with), so you can't generalize something based on the actions of a few.

in the forums I've seen posts regarding (and you'll have to forgive me if I've forgotten specifics) both people complaining about the treatment they recieved at the hands of those from the discord groups and well as those from the discord groups bragging about the nasty things they did to people outside their group. Moderating the discord group doesn't help when people use that as a shell to get away with nasty behavior. People who think "I'm in a group, so the group will support me doing X because we don't like that this other person is here" at which point you then have to have the person not in the discord group joining to try to report someone who is... which brings me back to my other point that for some people, getting into that group is a very difficult or undesirable thing, and the person or people who committed the bad behavior get away with what they did.

Also it's hard to trust a group to police itself. I don't trust that of the government or corporations, and I definitely don't trust that of random player collectives.

[Alucard135]

snip

Was the things you read that the discord group did against TOS? Of course no, else they would get banned easily. But let's be fair now, one side says taking a portal is their right and not against TOS, and they're right about that. The other side say they don't accept those that do so knowing (Keyword) full well that there's a premade and that they are taking a spot from one of their friends there into their group nor are they healing them. This is perfectly OK with TOS and it's also their right. But, they don't do that to new players that didn't know what's going on. I've been in tons of runs and never saw a toxic behavior to a new player. But we still don't raise them, since it will cost us a healer if "wisdom of the remembered" didn't proc and can also cost us the clear against Ozma. We also invite them to join discord if they want to join practice runs and know how things go there with minimal casualties to them.

Anyhow, both sides are doing things that are OK according to TOS. And both sides have admitted to doing so on the forums (some even admitted that they do it out of spite of discord groups). Why is one toxic and the other isn't?

As for policing discord groups, there were people that were kicked out and those that got warnings for violating the rules (Someone even on the forums said he's against the discord group because they kicked him out for sniping a portal). And a lot of those that got kicked out, made it their life goal to stalk the groups on different instances trying to snipe a portal. Below is a screen shots of the rules on Aether discord.

People who think "I'm in a group, so the group will support me doing X because we don't like that this other person is here" at which point you then have to have the person not in the discord group joining

1- If one of the discord members did something that’s against TOS, the GMs are the ones that are supposed to handle it, not discord groups.
2- If one of the discord members did something that’s against their discord rules, then just send a tell to the admins in-game telling them about that or even say so in the forums (of course you’ll need evidence to back that up and not just vague screen shots and claim this is what happened without a solid proof). No need to join discord to message the admin.

And let’s assume discord and all VoIP software didn't exist, and people only used in game functions to do BA. What do you think would happen?
Only FCs with enough people and cross-link shells would be doing the content. And they would still get the same treatment that you're seeing now against discord players. BA is a public dungeon, but it was not intended to be accessible to everyone that wants to try it and that was very clear from the warning message attached to it. So playing that content would only be limited to those who are lucky to be in an FC that can do it or a good cross-link shell. And the same player made rules would still apply. They can kick or keep players from their FC or link shell as they wish, and also have the right to not accept portal snipers into their parties nor heal or raise them in BA. And that's completely OK with TOS. And if you had any problems with one of their members (something not against TOS), then you’ll still have to contact their group leaders again.

What did discord give the players? It made BA more accessible to a larger population, due to its many features that it provides. Allowed them to do lots of practice runs till they're comfortable with the mechanics until they cleared. And what I consider as fully toxic, is when the discord group helps some get the clear and those people start to snipe portals from the new ones that are trying to clear. And when they get kicked out, they start to advocate “portals are for everyone and they’re toxic for not letting me into their party”.

We’re not like Japan. We have people here who think it’s OK to sneak in parties for a quick clear without knowing anything about the fights. If we still get trapped in 8 man savage raids by people who don’t know what they’re doing, how can I trust I won’t get trapped by 56 randoms in BA if my aim was to clear? Is it Toxic if I wanted to finish something efficiently without wasting hours every run just to end up with no results at all?