Stowaways in High-End Content?

[Seera1024]

I would like to suggest maybe a % track on individual progress. Or perhaps having more fights into checkpoints like doorbosses on the last savage fights you could have a option to set it to people who have made it to that checkpoint.
Perhaps if duty complete is checked by the achievement have a "Half way there" achievement you get for wiping past 50% or higher.

Its scrappy.. Its slapdash but its honestly better then what we have going here. Not everyone has statics or a group of friends to consistently work with. Square is out of touch if they think everyone does. And with third party illegal software like ACT running the scene on most statics, finding such groups is harder then it should be.

All someone has to do is get carried to that magic percentage and they get past your system.

There's no system that will get rid of stowaways and it lets players through who guessed the mechanic right and therefore didn't really learn the mechanic as they didn't have to figure it out due to failure.

The current system is just fine like it is.

[AriesDaBeeh]

All someone has to do is get carried to that magic percentage and they get past your system.

There's no system that will get rid of stowaways and it lets players through who guessed the mechanic right and therefore didn't really learn the mechanic as they didn't have to figure it out due to failure.

The current system is just fine like it is.

My solution isn't perfect I know that but that doesn't mean that doing nothing is the better choice either. Some step in the right direction is better then none.

[Vidu]

I would like to suggest maybe a % track on individual progress. Or perhaps having more fights into checkpoints like doorbosses on the last savage fights you could have a option to set it to people who have made it to that checkpoint.
Perhaps if duty complete is checked by the achievement have a "Half way there" achievement you get for wiping past 50% or higher.

And would that be tracked per job? Or at least per role? Because I can assure you that just because someone reached a certain point in a fight (or even cleared it) as a tank they dont necessarly know how to heal it. Or how to play a DPS well enough to bring the needed damage to the fight. Or how to deal with mechanics that are role-specific. I could enter a farm group for the Second Ex-Primal right now with my scholar and people would be rightfully wondering if thats my first time doing that trial at all - despite me having cleared it multiple times with my paladin. Your system would still allow me to enter.

Its scrappy.. Its slapdash but its honestly better then what we have going here. Not everyone has statics or a group of friends to consistently work with. Square is out of touch if they think everyone does. And with third party illegal software like ACT running the scene on most statics, finding such groups is harder then it should be.

Right, not everyone has a group of friends or a static - but everyone can build or find one. Befriend those people from failed farm/clear groups who showed potential (both in regards to the fight and in regards to being nice enough people). Invite them to linkshells and/or a Discord server for that purpose. Or ask if anyone already has such a linkshell/discord server you could join.

In regards to ACT... in my personal experience its not as present and excluding as some people portrait it - but again: personal experience, anecdotes, etc.
I am a little surprised though that you bring it up as a negative point - seeing how you would like to introduce more ingame-gatekeeping to get rid of "stowaways"... doesnt ACT (and people using it) do essentially the same? Knowing the mechanics and/or the fight up to a certain point is all fine and dandy, but if you hit enrage at 30% because half the people know how to dodge, but not how to deal damage you wont clear the content either.

[HemlockEvergreen]

I don't think that will matter. People in PF will kill the party rather than suffer someone who is still having trouble with mechs, regardless of whether they have cleared or not.

That's just how screwed up PF is. They should rename it to Toxic Finder.

No one should have to "suffer someone who is still having trouble with the mechs" when that person joined an enrage prog party and keeps messing up on the first two minutes. Wasting other people's time like this is incredibly disrespectful.

[Colt47]

Stepping into savage in this game takes effort and the PF is sort of the fallback in my mind when someone can't get a set group to come together. The problem with the PF is just that people have different commitment levels to the savage content, and the reality is that unfortunately, those with the largest sums of time on hand to dedicate to savage are the real benefactors of the PF.

This is why so many true statics are more so bending towards midcore or casual play. And to be frank there's just not enough people building statics right now to satiate the sheer volume of players wanting to participate.

[AriesDaBeeh]

In regards to ACT... in my personal experience its not as present and excluding as some people portrait it - but again: personal experience, anecdotes, etc.
.

I don't know maybe your parse is better then mine but I have tried and failed on literally every attempt to even join new static parties because they are all looking for act. I've never had a problem with parser stuff in theory but ACT specifically is a very flawed program that is being over relied on and used in ways that aren't actually representative of anything people are looking for. It has grown rampant in this community and it shouldn't not just out of principle but out of all the flaws it has to not be relied on.

You say I could make a party but if one has problems joining any statics because of act what is the likelihood anyone would stay or respect a party you made either. People in this community use act almost as a social credit system, defining your quality as a person and a player and often just the percentage. Not 'if' you cleared or how much you did, but how well you did even if most people now are probably spending hours a day over-killing their bosses in parse parties to climb in % and dilute it for everyone else who didn't.

Biggest problem with act is that it doesn't bracket players when considering parse %.. based on ilvl I know wow at least does with its act.. That means someone who enters savage late, even if they did their job perfectly and with perfect uptime will get a stunted parse when the pool for their class is full of full bis savage geared players who have been pumping the same boss every day for the last month. That new player who just got their clear will never have a % as good as the bis players even if they performed exactly the same.

[LittleImp]

I don't know maybe your parse is better then mine but I have tried and failed on literally every attempt to even join new static parties because they are all looking for act. I've never had a problem with parser stuff in theory but ACT specifically is a very flawed program that is being over relied on and used in ways that aren't actually representative of anything people are looking for. It has grown rampant in this community and it shouldn't not just out of principle but out of all the flaws it has to not be relied on.

Most people that are recruiting based on logs aren't just looking at your damage. It's definitely part of the equation, but logs give a lot of additional insight around things like mitigation usage, positioning, consistency, etc. If you want, I could review some of your logs and try to figure out why you may be getting denied frequently.

People in this community use act almost as a social credit system, defining your quality as a person and a player and often just the percentage. Not 'if' you cleared or how much you did, but how well you did even if most people now are probably spending hours a day over-killing their bosses in parse parties to climb in % and dilute it for everyone else who didn't.

You're not wrong. Players put too much esteem in parse % in this game. There are a lot of absolutely terrible players out there that grind for 99's, but the day new content drops will absolutely trap and obstruct every party they join.

[Azuri]

snip

Sigh. Why is it always the same? Just a cursory glance at the data provided by that "very flawed program" has shown me that:

- you often break combo.
- you often weave as many as six abilities between two GCDs. The maximum amount you should be doing is two, btw.
- you are not using your offensive cooldowns as soon as they are available and are losing quite a bit of uses.
- you are using your personal and group mitigation abilities very infrequently and let them sit unused for most of the fight (two TBN uses over an entire fight level of bad, btw).
- you are very rarely landing five GCDs in Blood Weapon. Sometimes even doing as little as three.
- your general GCD uptime is around 80-85%. Which means that you are simply doing nothing for about 1/5th of the fight.

I'm sorry, but your parses aren't grey because of "act being flawed" or bad gear. They are entirely the result of your poor play and simply not pressing buttons. And even if we were to ignore the damage part, your tanking is very far from stellar as well. I'm not surprised that a static leader would refuse you. For someone who wants to get rid of "stowaways" in high-end content you have definitely been skipping on that humble pie.

[Seera1024]

I don't know maybe your parse is better then mine but I have tried and failed on literally every attempt to even join new static parties because they are all looking for act. I've never had a problem with parser stuff in theory but ACT specifically is a very flawed program that is being over relied on and used in ways that aren't actually representative of anything people are looking for. It has grown rampant in this community and it shouldn't not just out of principle but out of all the flaws it has to not be relied on.

You say I could make a party but if one has problems joining any statics because of act what is the likelihood anyone would stay or respect a party you made either. People in this community use act almost as a social credit system, defining your quality as a person and a player and often just the percentage. Not 'if' you cleared or how much you did, but how well you did even if most people now are probably spending hours a day over-killing their bosses in parse parties to climb in % and dilute it for everyone else who didn't.

If you make a static, you are the static leader. You can enforce the no gating by ACT.

Statics that want ACT want it for a few reasons:

1. Shows desire to self-improve. Those willing to self-improve on their own are more likely to accept feedback and work towards correcting them. The grey parser who is willing to take feedback and put forth the work to improve to top parsing would be more welcome in a static than the middle of the road parser who thinks they know everything and the only reason they aren't parsing higher is other people, even if the logs disagree. At least if everything else is equal and those were my only options, I'd give the grey parser a shot over the mid-parser. But that's me. Other statics may be different.

2. It's a tool. A good static will talk with those with less than perfect parses and take a look at the gear used to figure out the reason behind it. And any good static should be able to tell you what you could do to improve int the range they would want.

You could phrase it something like this: "I know I'm not a good fit for your static now, but what are 3 things I should look to improve to make my parses closer to where I would need to be to join?" That way they have to find your three weakest points and you don't get overwhelmed with all the mistakes and can focus on the ones making the biggest impact.

Any static interview should be you interviewing them just as much as they are you. Personality and goals are also a major part of how well a static does. Any static leader not willing to give you any answers should be a static you run from.

[Vidu]

I don't know maybe your parse is better then mine but I have tried and failed on literally every attempt to even join new static parties because they are all looking for act. I've never had a problem with parser stuff in theory but ACT specifically is a very flawed program that is being over relied on and used in ways that aren't actually representative of anything people are looking for. It has grown rampant in this community and it shouldn't not just out of principle but out of all the flaws it has to not be relied on.

You say I could make a party but if one has problems joining any statics because of act what is the likelihood anyone would stay or respect a party you made either. People in this community use act almost as a social credit system, defining your quality as a person and a player and often just the percentage. Not 'if' you cleared or how much you did, but how well you did even if most people now are probably spending hours a day over-killing their bosses in parse parties to climb in % and dilute it for everyone else who didn't.

Biggest problem with act is that it doesn't bracket players when considering parse %.. based on ilvl I know wow at least does with its act.. That means someone who enters savage late, even if they did their job perfectly and with perfect uptime will get a stunted parse when the pool for their class is full of full bis savage geared players who have been pumping the same boss every day for the last month. That new player who just got their clear will never have a % as good as the bis players even if they performed exactly the same.

Quite frankly: I dont know how my parse looks like. I'm sure it could be better.

I'm raiding with a group of friends who care more about having fun together (we usually try to go as blind as possible into Savage fights and only look at guides when we get fed up with mechanics) than about parses or group-meta. Some of these people I've met during ARR while clearing Leviathan EX and added the nice (and semi-competent) ones to a linkshell for that purpose. Over the years, said linkshell grew, by now most of us are also in the same FC - and in a very casual static.
It might take a while to build a community like that, but that is most certainly an option - if one can look past raw numbers.

You claim that you have trouble finding groups because no one does that [=looking past numbers] - but from your post it sounds a lot like that "no one" includes" you. You want the gates to just close behind you, to set a bar you know you can reach right now - and then raise it to make others jump higher.
ACT is not your problem, the way you play is your problem - you got an analysis what you can do to improve, ACT just makes that easier to figure out. So... improve? Thats what you wanted from everyone else, isnt it? To only join parties once they've imrpoved enough to pass your standards?