Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent. 2.0

[Veranolth]

Today I was the DF idiot. Twice. Because once is clearly not enough.

This morning I got up really, really early and thought I'd do a expert on SCH to get back into playing healer before pretending to be a sensible and responsible adult.
I blundered every 5 steps and even got myself killed on mechanics I had never had trouble with after eating more stacks than is healthy. I even managed to die on a trash pull. I thought that maybe I'm just not awake yet and I wasn't in a good mindset to begin with, making more mistakes as we went because I couldn't get back into whatever I usually do so I apologized, bowed out and closed FF.

Then during my break I thought I'd give it another go, after all I was supposed to be fully awake now. At least I felt fully awake.
It was even worse than the first attempt. I have no idea what I was doing but every first timer sprout would've done better and the "no worries we don't need a healer" comment did it and I bowed out again. I didn't take it as an offense, they were technically right, they definitely didn't need one. The only one needing healing from one blunder after another was the DF idiot healer.

Needless to say, my confidence skyrocketed.

Sorry to hear that. Anyone can have bad days, and it just so happens it was your turn.

[Stanazolol]

Not one case but a slew of Expert Roulette runs where a Tank single pulls.
As a healer: the mobs hit like wet noodles and had a crit shield for the first pack. By the time it was gone, one mob remained. i got to Slap and Lazor clean the floor at least... right?
As a DPS: cant kabooom all I desire. used all my kaboomy for first single pull, 2nd one is sadness, less kaboomy, ya know?

The amount of Arum Vales I get with new players is amazing, love seeing them try to pull the entire first room. then direct them afterward.

I like pulling the entire first room of Aurum Vale, good times to be had.

[VictorSpoils]

Cure I spammers might be getting usurped by Medica II spammers. One of them actually showed up in EX3.

[Packetdancer]

Wasn't Totorak a hallway before though?

No, Toto-Rak was about seven hallways before, or eleventy-three different hallways if you go back to 1.x.

It's (arguably) more acceptable here because after the first couple of runs, most people just want to get their roulette rewards and get it over with.

Plus when they have given us dungeons with side-paths and optional things to do, the community rapidly decides to ignore them and take the 'optimal' path. We will start pulling mobs and pull them until the dungeon forces us to stop, ignoring any optional goals or side pathways. How often does anyone take a side path that leads to a treasure chest in Halitali or Brayflox Hard? How often do people even bother to go into all the side rooms of Haukke Manor? Heck, I know people who have been playing for literal years who still don't have the achievement for getting the full Haukke Manor map, because they've never gone into the upstairs side rooms.

(This isn't unique to current-FFXIV, mind you; I am fairly sure I remember people trying to optimize Toto-Rak to the bare minimum necessary to get all three diremites in 1.x. But I have a lot of unresolved gamer PTSD from that incarnation of the game, and I may be misremembering.)

So, given that any time they give us multiple options we will try to figure out the single most efficient way to run things in the shortest time possible and then try to make that the cultural standard to follow, I cannot say that I am surprised they would decide that was clearly the sort of dungeon design we want: a long hallway with two clusters of enemies to pull, a wall, two more clusters of enemies to pull, and a boss... repeat that three times, and call it good.

[SturmChurro]

Cure I spammers might be getting usurped by Medica II spammers. One of them actually showed up in EX3.

I did a dungeon the other week where medica was being spammed. It was definitely a bit odd.

[Carin-Eri]

Have to admit was a bit baffled earlier.

Played Alzadaal's Legacy (admittedly my current favorite dungeon) earlier, playing as Bard. Approximately halfway through the instance one of the players on the team says, in team chat: "Hey, Bard, are you AFK all the way back there or something".
Was a bit confused by this question - I mean, I guess I was hanging back a little, but not so much that I was out of range to attack the targets everyone else was focused on. So I reply: "No - why?"

And the same person replies:
"Not seeing any AOE attacks from you and its not helpful"

I mean, as have confessed her a few times in a few threads, I'm not very good at the game; however Alzadaal's Legacy is one dungeon I DO know my way around, and I do know how to play Bard well enough to know what I'm doing - and I certainly was using AOE attacks where appropriate.

Anyway - I chose not to respond to the aforementioned accusation as wasn't really interested in starting a discussion/argument during a dungeon, no-one else on the team seemed to have a problem with me, and the player in question left the moment the instance was completed. Still a bit of a confusing accusation though.

[Reclusegamer]

Yesterday was WEIRD.

I was going over my classes and I realized I never touched reaper. So I decided to start getting tomes so i could assemble Full Augmented Scaevan gear.

First incident:
Alliance Roulette, I ended up in CT. I know that's not original. What was original was one of the tank's behaviors. Alliance B's tank would take aggro then move just enough to make the boss take two steps in the direction of the tank, and she'd keep doing this REPEATEDLY every couple of moments until she'd hit the wall but she wouldn't stop there! She'd then move either clockwise or counterclockwise around the borders of the boss chambers. She did this on all of the bosses. I was on Ninja, so you can imagine the salt but it wasn't just me and the melees who were pissed off, the casters were too because the boss stepping away kept interrupting their casts!

When it was all over the tank apologized and claimed it was her first time using controller. >_>

Ha ha...and I'm a ufiti's uncle. Did she have "Autorun" binded to a skill or something? I use mouse/keyboard so I wouldn't know.

Second Incident:
Leveling Roulette:
Continuing leveling my ninja, the queue popped. It's Dzemel Stronghold with 17 minutes elapsed. When I port in stupid little me forgets to use the shortcut but that's not the oddest thing I experience.

I noticed there's only one dps on the team. It's a machinist and the Tank and healer are nowhere to be found. As I'm running past the boss chambers I ask what happened.

I get no response, not even from the dps. I ask twice as I'm racing past the rooms and try to strike a conversation but I still get nothing. I then exit the second boss chamber and find my dps. The skeletons and stone throwing pillow monsters have already been cleared and the time gates have been deactivated but the drakes in the following hallway are still alive.

I get to the dps. he's just up the ramp. I try to, once again, talk to this player and I STILL get no response. The person...sort of moves around a bit but not sporadically. I couldn't send tells either. It wasn't an option in my right click menu. I then do an intelligence check....

I /poke him...

He responds by /bow. I could DEFINATELY tell it's not a bot. It's either someone whose account is muted or its a foreigner. Realizing I can't directly communicate with him I booted the afk tank in hopes I'll get someone I can talk to(and also assist with booting the afk healer too). The dismiss goes through thankfully so my silent partner was at least able to make that go through. I waited 10 minutes with him and nobody came but then the server kicks me! I then log back in and suddenly I'm in a +2000 queue trying to get back into Balmung. 0_o

Whatever happened...only that Male Viera in the maid outfit knows....

After I fought my way through the queue an hour later I got my roulettes done but dayum, that was a trip.

[BRVV]

I couldn't send tells either. It wasn't an option in my right click menu.

You can't tell people in an instance. Maybe they were on console. A lot of console players, sprouts mostly, don't know how to chat and use auto-translate yet.

[Raoabolic]

I get no response, not even from the dps. I ask twice as I'm racing past the rooms and try to strike a conversation but I still get nothing. I then exit the second boss chamber and find my dps. The skeletons and stone throwing pillow monsters have already been cleared and the time gates have been deactivated but the drakes in the following hallway are still alive.

I get to the dps. he's just up the ramp. I try to, once again, talk to this player and I STILL get no response. The person...sort of moves around a bit but not sporadically. I couldn't send tells either. It wasn't an option in my right click menu. I then do an intelligence check....

I /poke him...

He responds by /bow. I could DEFINATELY tell it's not a bot. It's either someone whose account is muted or its a foreigner. Realizing I can't directly communicate with him I booted the afk tank in hopes I'll get someone I can talk to(and also assist with booting the afk healer too). The dismiss goes through thankfully so my silent partner was at least able to make that go through.

Stories like that are why I mostly don't play with others when i'm streaming the game to my Switch. It have no way to access the kb (I like laying in bed and playing XIV after work) and my switch does have a bit of drift. That said, to those I did the MSQ roulette with my blm, sorry about that! I didn't realize how bad my drift was and by the 5 cast broken by said drift I was already feeling regret. At least it was the msq Ultima weapon, even then though, sorry about that low dps. ;A;

[weebtext]

Moogle tome events really bring out the worst of the playerbase, huh.

Lighthouse once again, but this time on WAR. Out the gate I check to see if the other tanks have their stances on. B's DRK turns his on so I decide to leave mine off. Everyone's standing waiting at the first boss, DRK isn't pulling. Alright, guess I'm main tank now! Run goes fine, nothing really noticeable happens.

Until Yiazmat busts out the add phase.

I immediately grab aggro on my add as any tank should! A few seconds pass and I have a most curious thought, "wait why are B and C's adds running at me oh god oh f-". I'm getting triple pounded, still only single targetting my add and begging the other tanks to grab their adds as my brain completely malfunctions and I start running away in a desperate attempt to split the adds that still have red aggro on me (why). We wipe.
We get back to Yiazmat and I put down markers and say in alliance chat where each party goes for adds when out of nowhere C's DRK says I grabbed all of their aggro. Dude, what? I was nowhere near either of B or C's adds and apparently neither were they. Whatever, someone autoruns in and we pull again. Maybe now that markers are down we'll get through adds.

Add phase again, I do the same as before and go straight to my add. I look to see how the other tanks are doing, C has grabbed his thankfully, I look towards B's add aaaaand it's running towards me again. I literally saw him run over to his add what the bloody hell is he doing? This time I'm only getting double pounded but B's tank seems to absolutely refuse to grab his add so, once more, we wipe. We make the run back and oh my god did this guy really just say someone was aggroing his add? Despite C's tank and myself being at our adds? The only reason I can think this is happening is because I've got the most aggro on Yiaz, all the adds are automatically targetting me. I don't know if that's how it actually works but I can't think of a better explanation. I tell them they need to actually hit their add and this guy says he'll provoke this time but he "doesn't usually need to use it since stance pulls them". Sure, whatever. I don't care how you do it just bloody hit it and get aggro. Time for another pull.

We get back to add phase and I'm starting to feel like a robot running over to my add. For good measure I check C's add, it's not running at me. Good. I look at B's add, it... isn't running at me! Wooo! We... clear adds...! And then Yiazmat dies lmao.

B's DRK says "what a pain" and I can't help but agree, he was a pain. I'm just glad it's over. but man, some people really hate taking personal responsibility for their failings. Sucks that both co-tanks were like that.