This game doesn't do enough to help people clear Ex/Savage content.

[DrWho2010]

You're suggesting to take the MM out of the MMO. Not going to happen. Organizing friends/groups either inside the game via Party Finder or outside the game via social media/discord/etc. is just how things are. The devs are not going to hold your hand and make trusts for high end content.

[ForteNightshade]

I've never understood this sort of philosophy of only inviting people with FFlogs as I have them hidden. I haven't savage raided since Stormblood since they butchered SCH and haven't had a static since then. I've been playing SCH since 2.0 release, but I've rarely ever been asked for my FFlogs, instead most static groups asked me to come as a trial member for the week and depending on my DPS and my ability to do the mechanics I was granted a spot in the raid group if I did well. Only once I've failed to join a static this way, it was for Turn 5 of Twintania before the couple of nerfs and the echo buff to it.

My thing is if you want to recruit someone to a static try giving them a try and see how they do instead of declining giving them a chance based off of FFlogs.

It largely depends on the group you're aspiring to join. Having both recruited and been asked for my logs, they aren't necessarily the deciding factor but an introduction. If I'm putting together a week 1-2 group, I expect a certain level of experience. Someone with primarily green logs and the occasional blue just isn't an attractive candidate whereas say, someone with purples and one or two oranges shows promise. I'm also able to track how they might be improving. If they started with greens but ended the tier with a handful of purples. That shows a lot of progress. Contrast with hidden logs, where I immediately assume you have something to hide and x the tab. Again, it depends on what your goals are. Casual and lower end statics aren't going to care about logs. Upper midcore and hardcore groups will want good logs and/or Ultimate experience/clears.

FFlogs gives you a heads up as to what kind of experience someone has, but I remember being in a static where the BLM was the only member who uploaded logs. He would cherry pick logs on all fights, if we killed something 20 times he would have only 2 logs of it where he did well. Meanwhile he would stand in aoe's and make it frustrating to do a fight while healing him. If FFlogs uploaded every single clear from every single person in the game, I wouldn't have an issue with it.

I wanted to touch on this separately because FFlogs changed its upload progress to specifically address people doing this. Say you and that BLM both uploaded but it showed his log as being recorded. If he goes back and deletes it later, the system will automatically put yours through preserving the parse. Basically, if you upload your own logs, there's nothing anyone can do to hide the result if they have a bad run.

With that said, I'd honestly rather talk to you about this BLM sabotaging your parses than see you have none shown. It'd be easy enough to sort through and see that's the case.

The solution for stuff like this is trusts. You should be able to run every raid of every difficulty with a trust.

There is a whole host of problems with this. Chief among them being Trust AI simply isn't anywhere near sophisticated enough to handle the intricate mechanics used in higher end content. Take Cycle phase at the end of E11S. That series of mechanics happens way too fast for Trusts to properly respond. Meanwhile, clones in E9S has a binary answer which means the player can always follow their Trusts to guarantee they complete the mechanic. Making it pointless to exist in the first place.

Before you argue they should commit resources to make Trusts smarter and more adaptive. Assuming it were even feasible, this would be no small undertaking and take away development time and resources on other content. All for a system whose targeted demographic would never use it. Players who want to improve already have the resources readily available to do so via guides, discord and practicing themselves. Players like, well, the OP, blame everyone else. Therefore, never seeing a reason to use Trusts.

At the end of the day, no one is entitled to clear Savage. It's optional content designed specifically for players looking to challenge themselves. Programming Trusts goes against the very nature of higher end content. The onus is on players to improve themselves if they want to tackle it.

[Dreamsoap]

No one wants to sit on reddit or discord for hours begging just for an opportunity to practice.

Lmao. You've never done it, have you? Literally go make an ad and give them your discord. You'll be inundated with more requests than you can fill.

[van_arn]

Lmao. You've never done it, have you? Literally go make an ad and give them your discord. You'll be inundated with more requests than you can fill.

Hi I don’t make parties why are there no parties

[Goji1639]

There is a whole host of problems with this. Chief among them being Trust AI simply isn't anywhere near sophisticated enough to handle the intricate mechanics used in higher end content. Take Cycle phase at the end of E11S. That series of mechanics happens way too fast for Trusts to properly respond. Meanwhile, clones in E9S has a binary answer which means the player can always follow their Trusts to guarantee they complete the mechanic. Making it pointless to exist in the first place.

Before you argue they should commit resources to make Trusts smarter and more adaptive. Assuming it were even feasible, this would be no small undertaking and take away development time and resources on other content. All for a system whose targeted demographic would never use it. Players who want to improve already have the resources readily available to do so via guides, discord and practicing themselves. Players like, well, the OP, blame everyone else. Therefore, never seeing a reason to use Trusts.

At the end of the day, no one is entitled to clear Savage. It's optional content designed specifically for players looking to challenge themselves. Programming Trusts goes against the very nature of higher end content. The onus is on players to improve themselves if they want to tackle it.

Binary mechanics you would just make the AI immune to and put the pass/fail entirely on the player. Also, there's no "series of mechanics" that an AI couldn't respond to in a much faster and more coordinated fashion than a group of players; especially when you consider how structured FFXIV raid content is. Creating AI that could perform these mechanics would be very easy for SE. Trusts aren't stupid because making them smart is too difficult; they're stupid because they have to be less appealing than a player group.

These trusts would exist entirely for the purpose of practicing; you wouldn't get any credit or loot for the clear. I'm aware the onus is on the player to improve and that's the point; giving players a reasonable, convenient way to improve.

Lmao. You've never done it, have you? Literally go make an ad and give them your discord. You'll be inundated with more requests than you can fill.

Let me guess; 800 DPS requests, 1 tank, no healers, all just hoping to luck into an easy clear and poised to bail the second it looks like the run isn't going to be smooth. And that's only if you're trying to practice the most recent Savage content.

Needing to rely on other people to actually clear the content makes sense. Needing to rely on them to even PRACTICE is idiotic.

[Dreamsoap]

Let me guess; 800 DPS requests, 1 tank, no healers, all just hoping to luck into an easy clear and poised to bail the second it looks like the run isn't going to be smooth. And that's only if you're trying to practice the most recent Savage content.

Needing to rely on other people to actually clear the content makes sense. Needing to rely on them to even PRACTICE is idiotic.

I had more Tanks than I could fill for, some of the ones that were accepted initially had to move to DPS. We had most trouble finding a second tank after we cut down from the initial group and one of them kept flaking. So I switched to tank, a dps swaped to healer and we found another DPS. Days after that SCHs and ASTs kept hitting me up for the healer/ dps spot I advertised. It's not that hard to learn a new role, lol. I picked up PLD's rotation in a couple hours whacking on a dummy. I'm by no means an amazing pld, but I can perform at least on an average level. We only even did the swap around because we didn't wait to wait a week to find the missing tank. If we waited, we easily could've tried several, but we liked the new DPS we brought on. There's something to be said for self reliance.....

What does the bold even mean? You're angry you have to wait for other people to learn the content? You.... have to learn it yourself too.
I'm not addressing the italicized part because you don't even know what a static is. You're upset about a system you've never tried. You're the #1 obstacle to your inability to clear savage right now.

[MrMagic]

...

There is no way learning using Trusts is going to fully prepare you for Savage. Can you perform under pressure? Well I only have me to worry about because my party members can't kill me or be killed. Anyone who learned this way still isn't suitable to join loot parties, and now needs to go practice for real. What a waste of resources.

[Kaurhz]

The game does enough, to a degree.

Trusts won't adequately prepare you for high-end content, at least what limited experience I have with the previous tier, since it isn't teaching you to think or compensate for the mistakes that people make. Sure, you may clear the fight, but your skill as a player is more than likely going to remain very stagnant otherwise. Besides, if we're talking about them incorporating the same principle of; you die you wipe, regardless. Then that isn't really conducive for someone that is just getting started into raiding. I'd personally rather just look for a group and learn not only the encounter but dealing with other people and mistakes that may arise. Or the development that I get in making sure I adequately communicate any issues or difficulties I have in an encounter. E.g. I play on the console, for the time being, I have some nasty colorblindness that really impacted me in the previous tier. I can communicate this matter with other players, or vice versa for other players that have some similar struggles. Players can compensate for that by strong communication, a trust NPC can't do that.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I don't know where you're getting this "process to break in is inconvenient and terrible.". I seriously despise those 'horror stories' regarding finding your own static or pugging a learning party because more than often they're not telling the full story & what they actually do is simply driving more potential new raiders away. I wish I did not heed to those stories early on because I did at first & it delayed my entry to raiding which in reality: they are not bad at all, if we have the right mindset for the content. It's those players who clearly aren't ready to take on said contents---be it skill/gearwise or mentally, then proceed on to 'blame' the content instead---are the ones that makes the whole experience 'inconvenient'.

[Goji1639]

I had more Tanks than I could fill for, some of the ones that were accepted initially had to move to DPS. We had most trouble finding a second tank after we cut down from the initial group and one of them kept flaking. So I switched to tank, a dps swaped to healer and we found another DPS. Days after that SCHs and ASTs kept hitting me up for the healer/ dps spot I advertised. It's not that hard to learn a new role, lol. I picked up PLD's rotation in a couple hours whacking on a dummy. I'm by no means an amazing pld, but I can perform at least on an average level. We only even did the swap around because we didn't wait to wait a week to find the missing tank. If we waited, we easily could've tried several, but we liked the new DPS we brought on. There's something to be said for self reliance.....

What does the bold even mean? You're angry you have to wait for other people to learn the content? You.... have to learn it yourself too.
I'm not addressing the italicized part because you don't even know what a static is. You're upset about a system you've never tried. You're the #1 obstacle to your inability to clear savage right now.

I know what a static is; I'm talking about putting together a practice party on the spot, not finding 7 new BFFs to coordinate my life around. Statics are an entirely different issue people tend to hate for different reasons.

What I'm talking about is people being able to get some C O N V E N I E N T practice in so they can more easily find/create and get into successful PuGs. Trusts would be a perfect way for people to practice on their own schedule and be far more prepared when they finally are able to get a real run going.

There is no way learning using Trusts is going to fully prepare you for Savage. Can you perform under pressure? Well I only have me to worry about because my party members can't kill me or be killed. Anyone who learned this way still isn't suitable to join loot parties, and now needs to go practice for real. What a waste of resources.

This is just a ridiculous argument. If you know the mechanics and know what YOU'RE supposed to do then it doesn't matter if it's a trust or a real group. A trust is more pressure than a real group because you end up shouldering the majority of the responsibility for mechanics, and if you screw up and die you're starting over; no res. If you can perform well in a trust you'll be fine in a real group.