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

[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?

[wereotter]

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.

The problem, as you overlooked, is for the person on the outside of the Discord group needing to both join the group, or know who the admin is and hope to have some way to contact that person in FFXIV, and then you have to hope that person is online at the same time as you, and if the person isn't on your server, you're going to have a much harder time contacting that person. It's not just "oh just send the admin a message!" because the message of who that person is isn't readily available, and goes back to my earlier comment that I would expect someone to trust the person in their group as opposed to the outside party. Hence why I don't trust the group to police itself.

Look I'm not defending bad behavior by any party, and this whole situation is just a giant mess that I'm opting out of participating in, but those who are part of a larger group have a responsibility to acting better than the terms of service allow exactly because their behaviour reflects back on everyone involved.

Also I don't think the discord group helped us as a region get better, it only served to further divide the community. People here already get really nasty when people are learning, or when people don't do what they expect, and rather than help someone improve, they will just kick you or they'll just take their proverbial ball and go home (remember skip soar or disband?) We as a community have a lot of maturing to do, and I don't think the discord group has helped us get there, if anything it's made things worse.

[Alucard135]

The problem, as you overlooked, is for the person on the outside of the Discord group needing to both join the group, or know who the admin is and hope to have some way to contact that person in FFXIV, and then you have to hope that person is online at the same time as you, and if the person isn't on your server, you're going to have a much harder time contacting that person. It's not just "oh just send the admin a message!" because the message of who that person is isn't readily available, and goes back to my earlier comment that I would expect someone to trust the person in their group as opposed to the outside party. Hence why I don't trust the group to police itself.

Look I'm not defending bad behavior by any party, and this whole situation is just a giant mess that I'm opting out of participating in, but those who are part of a larger group have a responsibility to acting better than the terms of service allow exactly because their behaviour reflects back on everyone involved.

Also I don't think the discord group helped us as a region get better, it only served to further divide the community. People here already get really nasty when people are learning, or when people don't do what they expect, and rather than help someone improve, they will just kick you or they'll just take their proverbial ball and go home (remember skip soar or disband?) We as a community have a lot of maturing to do, and I don't think the discord group has helped us get there, if anything it's made things worse.

There is also the forums. Just like the thread about banning discord complaining about them because they did something to OP's friend that's not against TOS. And when the story sounded really fishy and OP responded, he mentioned a crucial detail that nailed the story his friend told him as a fabrication (which saying they used return after dying in BA and people still didn't raise them, and that's impossible to happen since if you used return you'd automatically get raised and delevel). But, the Aether discord admin did reply there and even addressed the issue of another one complaining and took actions against a player that violated the group rules. And if they didn't, member of the discord will see that and it will get addressed if it was a true accusation. So you don't have to bother using discord at all in that case.

And you're right, we have nasty people in our regions. I've seen people kick everyone in the party and black list them from a single wipe. But that's when you're talking about a small group of players in hard content like EX trials and savage raids. Take a look at hunts for example. On my server the majority of players wait for people to gather for S ranks, there are a few players that don't and are well known for early pulling, but it’s not the entire hunt community that is doing that. Even if you were to go to servers that are well known for early pulling, you’d find out it’s a certain group that are actively doing it and not the entire server. Same thing goes for BA groups. You have 56 players, the chances of all those 56 being toxic to new players is very low (I’ve never seen it happen in all my runs). And in fact, having the entire 143 players in an instance refuse to raise that new player is even lower unlike what was stated in that thread about banning discord. you can even see what happens in 24 man raids on release week. When someone is being toxic to other for failing mechanics, a couple of players stand up to them. And some of those toxic ones just leave the duty right away. But not the entire 24 alliance gang up on the player that failed the mechanic (unless they were trolling).

The benefit of BA discords is that they made it more accessible to lots of players, unlike what SE was intending. Everyday there's always a new clear with lots of players getting the mount. And the only way to show that is to wait for the next census about how many players in each region got the mount. Furthermore, when I was trying to find the instance to join one of discord groups, I ended up in jumping between 3 instances that didn’t have them, and in all 3 of them Ovni spawned and died but no one touched BA (yes, I spent a lot of time instance hopping but at least I got my 9th clear lol). So no one bothers with BA unless they hear there’s a group ready to go and in the best case scenario that you actually get a group of random pugs, it barely gets you 2 – 3 full parties, which disband at the entrance.

[Fiorinol]

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to strong arm this one a little bit. For the record; I'm banned from the Aether discord and I "snipe" portals, but other discord servers laugh at it on the daily through screenshots, and I notice it's always the same handful of people shilling for it on here who don't seem to understand why some people might not like their discord. Here's a quote from one of the players in that very same discord that says that it's "against harassment":

"Well in regards to snipers, one in particular. Moral of the story... send a report every time. When they catch her slipping up (ie kills someone with an orb) she'll get the hammer. Also send anything she writes. I believe GM's are looking for a way to help, but unless a report is sent everytime she snipes they won't have the ammo needed to get her"

Now I'm not sure whether this refers to someone who actually griefs. I don't think it is considering this person wants the player to "slip up" to report them for screwing up mechanics. This is just straight up targeting a player and harassment.

Because some 3rd party wrote a rule list doesn't mean it's applied, especially considering the Aether Discord is run by a Free Company that has a laundry list of ToS violations, notably RMT and botting, you can always look it up on Reddit. Not only does the GM tell this player that any player can take any portal, and that it is first come first serve, he seems to think that the GM agrees with his holy crusade. Later on, he goes as far as implying that he will throw himself in mechanics to attempt to get "snipers" banned.

I'm well aware this probably isn't the opinion of the people in this thread, but it makes the Discord look like a bunch of idiots whenever this happens. There was also a thread on Reddit where yet another Aether discord player wrote a novel about how much the aether discord agrees that stabilizers don't matter to them and that they will defeat the evil "snipers".

You really need to clean up house. I'm not going to start about the attitude of people who think that you can get "carried" through this content, as well as the attitude of people who seem to seriously believe that taking a portal and doing the content is the same as going in with the sole intention of wiping parties to AV or Ozma mechanics.

As for the OP of this thread. People trash the BA discord because of things like this and because you seem to have 2-3 gentlemen/women picking fights with people in the instance in some of the groups. Yesterday I was in an instance where a player got harassed by someone else, and that someone else taunted them to "report me to the GMs you *insert nice insults here*". While that's perhaps not representative of the rest of the players, that's what people remember. As far "No PUGs try BA", that's a chicken and the egg question, the existence of the discord makes it so most people will join that, and thus won't pug at all. I think I wouldn't be too far off the mark by saying that most people in there don't want to step up and party lead, which leads to certain people complaining that nobody will party lead.

I also won't reply to answers to this post, making that clear; This isn't me trying to have an argument.

[Alucard135]

snip

No need to answer, but I'll still make some points just to highlight some issues I see in your post.

If one player was actively hunting a group of players from one instance to another and those players resorted to reporting them time after time to a GM, who's the one harassing the other? The players in your quote didn't say "chase that player and report them every time you see them and wait till they mess up". That player chose to play with them and snipe a portal with their own free will. So you can't label the group as being the ones to target and harass the player if they player is the one actually targeting them. And what the group is using is an in game tool to report to the GMs who will conclude if any violations has occurred, they're not engaging the player in any form.

If what you're doing is not against TOS, then you shouldn't be bothered at all by how many reported you (although with the new TOS, I'd say make 100% sure you're not violating any TOS). You know what you're doing is right? Then just do it. You're afraid of making a mistake and getting banned for MPK, why did you force yourself into this situation?

What is mind boggling is, there are many empty instances that has no BA discord groups in. Yet, no one bothers touching them (as of today I tried to get people into BA in one of them and people even said "We have a full group ready". And what did I get?? only 5 solo players). Furthermore, some actively hunt the groups and the group gets labeled as the ones targeting and harassing others if they reported them?

An even better solution that I don't see anyone talking about, if you don't like the discord groups, why not make your own cross link shell in game and invite whoever you see interested in the content? If people don't wanna bother with BA when there's no discord group and you don't want to play with them nor want to be reported by them for sniping, then make your own in-game one.

[Physic]

No need to answer, but I'll still make some points just to highlight some issues I see in your post.

If one player was actively hunting a group of players from one instance to another and those players resorted to reporting them time after time to a GM, who's the one harassing the other? The players in your quote didn't say "chase that player and report them every time you see them and wait till they mess up". That player chose to play with them and snipe a portal with their own free will. So you can't label the group as being the ones to target and harass the player if they player is the one actually targeting them. And what the group is using is an in game tool to report to the GMs who will conclude if any violations has occurred, they're not engaging the player in any form.

If what you're doing is not against TOS, then you shouldn't be bothered at all by how many reported you (although with the new TOS, I'd say make 100% sure you're not violating any TOS). You know what you're doing is right? Then just do it. You're afraid of making a mistake and getting banned for MPK, why did you force yourself into this situation?

What is mind boggling is, there are many empty instances that has no BA discord groups in. Yet, no one bothers touching them (as of today I tried to get people into BA in one of them and people even said "We have a full group ready". And what did I get?? only 5 solo players). Furthermore, some actively hunt the groups and the group gets labeled as the ones targeting and harassing others if they reported them?

An even better solution that I don't see anyone talking about, if you don't like the discord groups, why not make your own cross link shell in game and invite whoever you see interested in the content? If people don't wanna bother with BA when there's no discord group and you don't want to play with them nor want to be reported by them for sniping, then make your own in-game one.

"hunting a player is only harrassment if you actually do something to them. Following some one and taking parts in the same FATES they do, would not be considered harrassment.


As for, make your own BA, thats playing into the same ideaology, that BAs belong to some one specific. Its like someone saying why not just make your own public park. BA is supposed to be an equal opportunity for all players, every time it pops up. SE again changed portals to favor random players.



SE wants random players to have a chance to participate in any BA run that spawns while they are in the instance, they dont want there to be an exclusive runs.

no one expected everyone who wants to do a run to make their own runs in their own instances, thats not sustainable, and spreads the playerbase too thin.

[Suniva]

I am honestly curious about a situation I've ran in my head for the past week, especially about those on here on the forum from the Aether data center that have a negative opinion on the Discord. The ones that state in their argument that the pre-made group is "claiming" the instance to do a BA run.

Hypothetical question of course; suppose the Aether Discord group stopped making pre-made groups for, three weeks let's say. Using the general argument of "It is a public instance and anyone/everyone should be able to join or another point I've seen is that "SE designed the content to be for anyone in the zone, it is meant to be pugged, pre-made groups are elitist, etc": Would those of you making these said arguments be willing to put together a group of 48 like minded people to clear up to Absolute Virtue, then get another 8 to come in from support? Are any of you willing to spend hours looking to find people that want to try it within the ONE instance your in? Would you be willing to put together a party finder and spam entry in Hydatos to try and find more people interested in there isn't enough in your instance? Would you and your fellow FC mates be willing to spend possibly an entire day trying to get a run started? Since you're against Discord, how do you intend to coordinate between the 7 groups, especially with those that aren't on your server, to all get in the same instance of Hydatos? (Remember, when you are in an instance, you cannot receive /tells unless they ARE in the same instance). Since even the patch notes stated that in order to do the content, you WOULD have to coordinate with other players to get past it, so what solution would you use if it isn't Discord?

Like, not to be THAT person, but from what I've seen on the forums here are a lot of people arguing AGAINST Discord, for various reasons, and yet, I don't see any of you that are arguing against it stepping up to plate and trying to organize groups via your own beliefs of how the game should be played.

I have a feeling that I know the reason, and if I am wrong, please correct me. But it seems like you aren't attempting to do so because you do in fact realize just how TIME CONSUMING it would be. And I have a feeling that you all realize that, deep, deep down. You know it, and for whatever reason you use to justify it to yourself, you just, don't make an effort, but you will argue otherwise. I think you also realize that if you did manage to put together all that time and effort, only for people to come in and take the spot of your healer or tank, that based on ones own personality, one would be either mildly upset or extremely pee'd off, or a combination of both. Why? Because it took them HOURS, or even DAYS to find people interested in doing content in the traditional manner available in game, and having some random just jump in would be disheartening after you all put in so much effort.

Then, let's say you DON'T spend that time to coordinate, you just find a few people willing to do it each time in the instance, die, de-level, then level up again and then rinse and repeat trying to get further and further into the dungeon. How much patience do you have to always go over mechanics... I guess using macros since you won't use VoiP, to a fresh new group every time you enter? Would you expect healers to bring a certain amount of sacrifices? (Remember, they are PRICEY if the healer doesn't farm for them within the instance.) Do you expect a random healer to have spent 100k or even MORE for a logo, or having farmed it, with a 70% success rate, and if it doesn't proc, then they get left out of the rest of the instance and no chance at fragments? Then let's say you do macro everything for call outs and sound effects, etc. and even I KNOW how rare the chances are of you encountering this, but let's say you DO happen to run into that player that doesn't have his chat open, for whatever reason, so he can't read that you are calling out mechanics or even explaining the fight. Again, how much patience do you have to die, de-level, explain fights to new people, every. single. time. With the chance of you not even making progress because of various degrees of problems/issues that may arise within the group? You want to try and run BA using your own preferred methods, yet, from what I have seen, none of you have made attempts to do so. Instead you choose to demonize pre-made groups or call them "elitists" and or argue that you don't want to use a "third party program" for getting content done. I don't think you have it. The patience that is.

So, why not prove me wrong? Do it, attempt it, do something OTHER than being here on the forums arguing. Update us with your progress, so we know how you're doing. We will even give you tips to help you. If you wanna make the argument that it isn't fair, then DO SOMETHING about it. You say that you shouldn't have to use Discord, fine then don't. You say the instance is meant to be done with randoms, then organize them and get them together to GET it done. It is well within your capabilities to do so, after all, using a quote from one of the one's against pre-mades and Discord: "SE designed it that way." If you aren't willing to do this, for whatever reason you will use, then there is in no way that you will EVER convince ANYONE that IS using other means to progress through the dungeon that you aren't trying to be "carried" or that you have just as much of a right as those people who put in time, effort, and in game currency; to organize and to ensure they are able to contribute to the party with the proper logos AND spending time to get all the people into the same instance ----- with the argument "It's a public dungeon and so...." Why won't you be able to convince anyone?

Because simply; We don't see you trying enough using your own preferred methods of doing the content you firmly believe is well within your right to. It is, no one here is stopping you. So, get it done.