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

[BigHoffie]

but this is a video game not a "skilled environment."

This is a cop-out. Wanting to be skilled at a hobby doesn't make me less of a (surprise!) "human being". And while you don't really have a choice about who you're grouped with in a roulette, I would argue that at a certain point there should be a reasonable expectation of basic competence. But once again, if the group wants to pull one pack at a time I can stay or leave. Regardless of what role I'm filling at the given time.

[TaintedTG]

I was leveling my baby tank yesterday, and it was fully gear for a level 16 dungeons. I'm not a main tank but I still tried to learn, and so far I have not wipe anyone until yesterday. I notice my health was going down very fast, and I thought I forgot to equip a piece of gear or something. It turn out, the conjurer was healing me for 76....I view her gear and all she has was glamour for armor, no accessories, and a lv1 weapon. I cried a little bit inside.

[Rilifane]

The rest of the group was half the group. Not really a good response to this, or even constructive. I appreciate the feedback, but this is a video game not a "skilled environment."

I don't endorse griefing others, pulling ahead, refusing to do your job out of spite etc.
But your needs are not more important than others. So while in this case you had your husband to back you up on this way of doing things the general rule of thumb is that things are done the way the majority wants. You may want to drink your morning coffee and take it slow and easy while others prefer to do it fast and efficiently. Everyone in a party should either play in a way that's in majority's best interest (yes, including the tank) or take their leave if they really don't want to.
You have your prefered way of doing things and that's fine if the group knows about and agrees with it. But there is no need to talk down the 'other side'. They are not running the dungeon any less like a human being than you are just because they also have their prefered way of doing things. Playing a video game and having some skill of it are not mutually exclusive. Nor is playing a video game and relaxing.
What counts is finding a common ground with the rest of the party and that has nothing to do with someone telling you how your job works.

And it has become the unspoken rule in experts that you pull big unless stated otherwise. So if you prefer to take it slow your best bet is to communicate that right from the start as pulling single is the exception rather than the rule. Pulling mobs for you wasn't okay but playing the "don't tell me how my job works, I want to drink my morning coffee" card and making players aiming for fast, efficient run look like bad people isn't either.

[Celbrean]

This is a cop-out. Wanting to be skilled at a hobby doesn't make me less of a (surprise!) "human being". And while you don't really have a choice about who you're grouped with in a roulette, I would argue that at a certain point there should be a reasonable expectation of basic competence. But once again, if the group wants to pull one pack at a time I can stay or leave. Regardless of what role I'm filling at the given time.

Correct, and basic competence would be the ability to pull mobs in a reasonable fashion and the dps not running to pull entire groups back to the party. Clearly, you are one of the few who like to pull and drive on. This is fine, but be more considerate to your fellow dungeoners. "I can stay or leave," could be considered a "cop-out" of the assumed social contract in dungeon running that is prevalent within these very forum boards. Tanks can pull entire dungeons or go at a reasonable pace, which was what I was certainly doing in that context. I wasn't sitting there with my lodestone pulled out and being rude to others. There are still human beings behind these characters, and you certainly don't take that into context. We all know dungeon runs can be good or bad depending on what happens within. There are new players, skilled players, or players wanting it fast and crude wiping along the way (which is what you're assuming everyone at lvl 80 to be). I know 80s who still don't have rings anywhere near their level, and they need help sometimes. I certainly don't fall into this category, but I also don't fall into the category of "screw the world," I wanna run the dungeon and be gone. You yourself said, "if the group wants to pull one pack at a time, I can stay or leave." Then, in this case, the DRG should have left instead of just pulling the next set thinking this was part of the social contract inherent to MMORPGS. If it has changed, and it needs to be assumed we all just run into dungeons like mad animals....then, certainly, some people need to go run the cute little knowledge runs out in Aleport. I typically defer to the healer who sits next to me to set my pace because if he can't heal, the party wipes. But at the end of the day, and by the picture you've set forth in your posts, you're most likely another internet troll assuming this is how the game works.

[Esmoire]

I am starting to feel that maybe I should stop saying tanking is easy.

In general, I stand by FFXIV not being a hard game in the sense that it is very slow paced compared to, say, a fighting game. A lot of the difficulty is in your ability to multitask and put sequences in order, both at a personal and encounter level. I will also stand by the fact none of the tanks have a complex rotation; I'll full well say GNB and DRK have very busy openers, of course. Though I keep noticing, time and time again, my friends (some of which are genuinely smart people) make a lot of silly mistakes and bad decisions. I keep it to myself unless it becomes pervasive, though for me it seems so obvious. Like, if you know an encounter in advance, you should know when to use CDs. If you are pulling trash and an enemy is stationary, pull it onto them. Stuff like that.

Like, is tanking easy, if so many people struggle with what I feel is basic? FFXIV player base has some incompetence and huge gulfs in experience or interest of those involved, just like any other game. Though tanks are simple on a job-by-job basis, maybe everything seem so obvious to me because I play tanks in every MMO and have done thousands of duties on them and have almost all of their mounts. It could be I am understating the learning curve of the planning component of the role. Budgeting CDs takes planning, pacing a party takes planning, positioning a boss takes planning, and it's the highest responsibility role in the sense that sometimes 23 people are expecting you to not fuck it up, and they will see every little mistake you make.

It's been a lot to process. I am trying to be more gentle, though I wish it would be easier to give feedback. I'd like to think I am good about it: I usually frame it as a question, do it after duty, not sound judgmental, etc. Some people just get really nippy and reek of Dunning-Kruger. It's not very conducive to improvement.

[Celbrean]

What counts is finding a common ground with the rest of the party and that has nothing to do with someone telling you how your job works. .

Precisely, but in this context, the DRG didn't even bother getting the group consensus which isn't something you get while running because I still move rather quickly through a dungeon. We've had many successful runs since, and no one was like this rude DRG. It shouldn't be commonplace where a DRG in their situation would have immediately said, ZOMG, they're going to kick me unless they did something wrong. The point being it isn't nice to just run ahead and pull mobs. It's inconsiderate as a DPS. I wouldn't do that unless I was in a fun group with my personal friends (trying to be funny acting out a Leroy skit). Granted, I made it seem like yes, I like to relax, but by no means was this a SLOW run. This wasn't a pull everything to the end of the block because we can't pull the entire dungeon either. I still stand by this not being a skilled environment. If you wanted skilled, you'd have a full guild of people who would run these things all the time with you creating your preferred environment. I would never force my environment on anyone else, but I do expect a "hey, please do big pulls," before the dungeon starts instead of just assuming I'm going to slow for your tastes and taking over to pull everything and dumping the aggro on the unsuspecting summoner. Clearly, this wasn't a fast efficient run because it didn't happen at the end, and this was a rant as I said earlier. My apologies for getting yourself all in knots over a rant post, but expert although it can be fast at times, isn't a place for dps quick runners to grief groups clearly not prepared for it. I've been in plenty of Expert runs where we didn't just run to the end either, so I don't think your "everyone likes quick fast runs in expert regardless of who I'm playing with" (to misquote you as bad as you did myself) holds much water. There are plenty of posts here where people clearly are not looking for a "fast" run that derails at the first pull.

[Rilifane]

Getting myself all in knots? Nice try.
You have spent quite a few lines depicting yourself as nice and fair while trying to hide side blows between them. Hm. I never even said anything about forcing an envirement on others or defended griefing in any way. I think it has been already agreed upon that pulling ahead was not okay so I see no point in trying to argue over it. But feel free to continue putting words into my mouth.

[Mavrias]

This here. I JUST had a duty finder where my husband and I were running Grand Cosmos. Granted, I have a bit of gear, but I like to judge the dps reaction to an initial pull to see if I can pull the entire dungeon or if I have new people who need a break from the huge trash-pull-a-ganza. I like to think we are fair, and I know we aren't the fastest pullers in dungeons. "Insert waifu's name here" (let's just say it had kitten in the name) immediately goes to thinking we are about to kick her for pulling a mob set. Well, if you pull a mob set, and you're convinced you're going to get kicked, I think this is a fair assumption. She wouldn't loot after the first boss. Flat out refused because she knew we were going to try to kick her(thank you SE for creating diversions for acidic players to make us wait), so instead of kicking her, my husband leaves the group because he's not going to wait for loot to be resolved, so we can attempt to surgically remove this player from the group. The other player agreed with her and said if we wanted to move slower, we should have said something. I'm sorry that my trigger is, "pull more please," but admittedly, as a tank, I don't think you should be telling me how my job is supposed to work unless you have good, and fair, critical feedback. You aren't pulling enough, isn't fair feedback. Just because you need to run a hundred dungeons a minute in a day because your pedicure is in five minutes doesn't constitute an emergency on the tank's behalf for your dps needs. I'm sorry your queues are 45 minutes, but if you would just be patient and run the dungeon like (surprise!) a human being, you wouldn't have any of the issues that trigger your, "they're going to kick me," response. Just a rant for the fellow tanks that don't feel like they are allowed to tank a dungeon in a nice soothing environment while drinking their morning coffee. I love you all!

Did she actually say she was afraid to get kicked? Cause i dont lot all the time, cause i'll auto greed when the timer expires.

[Raltar]

Like, is tanking easy, if so many people struggle with what I feel is basic? FFXIV player base has some incompetence and huge gulfs in experience or interest of those involved, just like any other game. Though tanks are simple on a job-by-job basis, maybe everything seem so obvious to me because I play tanks in every MMO and have done thousands of duties on them and have almost all of their mounts. It could be I am understating the learning curve of the planning component of the role. Budgeting CDs takes planning, pacing a party takes planning, positioning a boss takes planning, and it's the highest responsibility role in the sense that sometimes 23 people are expecting you to not fuck it up, and they will see every little mistake you make.

It has a lot to do with the fact that FFXIV is primarily a story based game and you get people that play it for that sole reason. Then they are forced into group content and haven't really learned how to play the game because questing is mind numbingly easy. They feel they don't need to get better or even do the bare minimum because they want to get the story. Which is why I fully support Square-Enix going back to add trusts to every single dungeon and trial in the game. Or remove the story requirements of these dungeons and trials and make them solo experiences and have dungeons as optional stuff.

[Rosenstrauch]

Three hours with my latest pug, and I've got my Furor(S) clear. It came down to the very last pull, and running up within like a quarter second of Raktapaksa's enrage wiping us. I feel fantastic. Kinda regret that I only just started doing it this week now.