Duty Complete should mean duty complete :)

[MakoMight]

I'm mainly saying the status quo is pretty much about the best that can be done with the current design of PF, and that SE attempting to enforce playerbase cultural norms through restricting options isn't the answer.


This is probably a little better than PF, but it's not a panacea either, because two problems still arise:

This isn't about SE enforcing cultural norms at all, and this isn't about "solving" people using PF in stupid ways.

If someone puts up a PF that locks out a certain job and I try to join on the job that's locked out... maybe I think they're being stupid, maybe I didn't read their description, maybe I decided I don't need to respect their wishes... it doesn't matter, the system will prevent me from joining their party. There are some clowns in here who will write essays about why you're wrong if you think "this job can't clear," why being able to lock out certain jobs 'hurts the playerbase' or why it doesn't actually work because you can change jobs after joining... well go take a hike, you don't meet the requirements set by the host and the system has an effect. Try sending a tell if you have a good reason why they should make an exception, it usually works.

People who join parties are also agreeing to join based on the description and requirements posted. So if a PF host tries to put up a party where they don't meet their own requirements because they aren't happy with the results from clear parties or whatever... they can! Clear parties can't clear, I'll just put up a totem party and my chances will be better! I just don't see the great evil if they aren't able to do this or why that would lead to ilvl inflation.

Yeah, abyssos savage had a role shortage, a shield healer shortage very specifically, there were plenty of WHMs running around PF. Mit is a team responsibility and it turns out people like to blame shield healer for their 100k overkill with a vuln or for dying to unmitigated 35k dot ticks instead of taking responsibility for yourself. It turns out people who are in the habit of relying on party finder convenience to find groups to play with tend to be not great at taking responsibility, and it turns out meeting that responsibility threshold is very difficult without communicating with and having some relationship with the people you play with. But if you think demanding higher ilvls or duty completes are the answer you are going to have a bad time, and if you're demanding that everyone else be further along than you in gear or completion... you're asking for a big favor, you should not expect the PF system to save you from the inconvenience of having to talk to and maybe negotiate with people. If you think that because clearing hard duties is hard people should be allowed to lie about those things... frankly, I will not be convinced to agree with you and I hope everyone (except that one person I know is in here) who reads this will not agree with you.

Somewhat related I personally like my chances a lot better with someone who's cleared and is putting in the effort to help a friend, even if I don't like the dishonesty, than I do with people who are trying to clear themselves. Of course PF cannot solve people being dishonest and/or stupid... but I am pointing out a very small and very obvious example of a feature being broken here, what is so hard to see about it?

[Amarande]

Somewhat related I personally like my chances a lot better with someone who's cleared and is putting in the effort to help a friend, even if I don't like the dishonesty, than I do with people who are trying to clear themselves.

I think we're more in agreement than disagreement in this case.

The critical situation is that of a player who's tried, but has begun to experience frustration rather than fun because of the inability to seal the deal relying on strict potluck of uncleared joiners, and would like to increase their chances of actually finally getting out of that purgatory. Worse, this happens brutally often to anyone who doesn't make a point to shove around real life to make sure they have plenty of free time to push stuff when the content drops and "everyone's doing it" (which seems to be becoming an ever faster rush each time, I wonder if that's also part of my observations in other threads about the decline of night owl play in XIV? I.e., the endgame playerbase is now overwhelmingly morning larks because of the desire to rush to be on when servers come up each patch? Might explain the timing of observing said decline, too).

Because PF doesn't let you actively review applicants like other PUG systems do, there's only three settings that in any way translate to "joiners are experienced, or at least smarter than the average bear:"

* Using a password and relying entirely on supplemental social venues (LS ... yeah fat chance, by this we pretty much exclusively mean Discord communities) to form the group.

* Demanding an ilvl that's only attainable at the time via having gained sufficient loot through Savage (which is only possible during certain parts of the patch cycle).

* Requiring the Duty Complete flag.

And this is why the frustrated player will use the DC flag, or have a friend do a C41 with it. It's because there are simply not many options otherwise, unless you're comfortable with massive (some, like the Balance, are literally larger than most REAL LIFE CITIES) Discord servers (assuming you still get along with them, and players in this exact situation tend to get the poorest treatment from the mainstream community, honestly ... usually brushed off with a "shoulda started sooner, not my problem" or told they should go to the level of recruiting a formal static, which may not be possible for them because RL scheduling).

Meanwhile, the community issue seems to be that any attempt to improve one's odds is undeserved, and trying to narrow joiners to anything but just "potluck uncleared joiners" when one is not cleared oneself is to be considered an out-and-out honesty issue.

Removing this option might cull out some situations, but it seems to me that it's very likely to make even more less-hardcore players simply give up on attempting hardmode content altogether until later tiers/unsync, as they're left with almost no convenient way to have a party that isn't just yet another P1 fresh prog party in disguise because joiners aren't reading the description (and then by the time this is discovered, the more capable teammates are leaving, so it only gets worse).

[MakoMight]

Ok, well thank you for presenting your reasoning in an honest and coherent manner. We are not at all in agreement and I think the main point of disagreement is this.

Nobody is entitled to clear hard, team-based content.

I know this is NA and we're all special snowflakes, but this attitude that 'I played perfectly, I deserve to clear and everybody else is the problem' is exactly the thing that makes PFing hard content so awful. I'd go much further - almost everyone in PF who think everyone else is the reason they didn't make that dps check or why they died to that mechanic isn't actually playing as well as they think they are. This is the price we pay to have content accessible to everyone, instead of being locked behind hours of gear gating, etc. Is it hard? Sure. Is it frustrating? Sure. Does frustration excuse being driven to lie about your prog point, ilvl, or completion status? Absolutely not, actually that dishonesty being so commonplace makes PF worse for everybody.

There's a bunch of things you said that I don't think are true at all. PF is alive and well, just since DC travel came out most of the parties are on Aether. Yeah, there's a segment of the raiding community that shows up when new content releases and unsubs when they clear, the raid scene is livelier when they're around and a little more dead when they're not. But no, lying and C41s are not your only option, I'm sure there are lots of people here like me who didn't even know you could put up DC loot parties without having cleared yourself... and honest clear parties do clear!

The hardest fights in the game take a lot of teamwork and communication. People who PF early week savage or on content ultimates usually form pseudo statics. And sure, I know people who I think had the ability to clear and couldn't because of static drama or whatever, hey, it's not a single player game that's a big part of what the fight requires and a big part of the skillset for raiding. People who think they're above the fray, don't need to deal with learners, or statics, or schedule, or whatever and then get frustrated that clearing is hard need to figure that out, not lie about it. And if your only options is to wait until later in the patch lifecycle when there are lots of vets around to c41 you... you might not be as good or as deserving as you think you are. Sorry, them's the breaks, lying your way to your clear doesn't become okay because you're frustrated.

What's next? Plogons and world firsts? That's a rhetorical question, by the way. When I was a sprout I raided with the guy those copypastas about having to cancel raid 'cause a 3gb patch shouldn't take this long' are based off of. I'm ashamed to say I used to think he was good.

[Absimiliard]

So we're just going to pretend it's not okay to be annoyed when you perform all mechanics in a fight flawlessly, maintain excellent DPS, mitigate/self-heal appropriately, and communicate well with your team of randos only to still fail utterly because nearly every PF group has one or two people that really have no business being there in the first place. Yeah, a lot of people lack the self-awareness to realize they themselves are part of the problem, but there are also quite a few out there who do play the game with extreme competency but for whatever reason just can't find a static that works for them.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with preventing known problem players from joining your group. If they can't do the mechanics, if their DPS is consistently poor, if they won't mitigate when appropriate, or if they're a healer that believes they shouldn't have to do damage, then you should by all rights keep them out of your group if you want to maximize your chances of success. Curation is a fine practice, and there would be far fewer PF horror stories if more people engaged in it. This odd perception the community has that it's wrong to keep garbage players out of PF groups is foolishly misplaced and comically self-defeating.

[Raven2014]

Eh ... how about no? As someone who play on 4 alts, I do this a lot. The C41 Duty Complete is a god send. People can choose whether they want to join my party or not. I'm always honest and make it a C41, but is that big of a problem even if someone is not? It's not like you're bounded to the party you joint and will suffer a penalty for leaving. When you say "I hate it because it makes me wipe and waste time in my reclear", I'm sorry but that's 100% on you. Why don't you just leave as soon as that Bonus message pop up? I know I do. I also regularly talked my way into a few weekly/reclear parties on a non-clear alt before. I provide proofs if asked, sometime I got accepted, sometime I'm rejected, and it's both cool. That's totally within the discretion and freedom of choice between players with full command of their faculties. Why do you feel there need to be a hard rule/regulation over it?


I asked this before but I don't understand this obsession of demanding rule and regulation that people can easily recites simply by exercising their judgement and options. As if the only real reason behind these demand are ego/psychology issue, like people get offended simply because thing how thing is not exactly the way they think it should be.

[MakoMight]

So we're just going to pretend it's not okay to be annoyed when you perform all mechanics in a fight flawlessly, maintain excellent DPS, mitigate/self-heal appropriately, and communicate well with your team of randos only to still fail utterly because nearly every PF group has one or two people that really have no business being there in the first place. Yeah, a lot of people lack the self-awareness to realize they themselves are part of the problem, but there are also quite a few out there who do play the game with extreme competency but for whatever reason just can't find a static that works for them.

Naah, if you bothered to read the very first post on the thread you'd know the only thing I'm pretending is I shouldn't be able to put up a duty complete loot party for a duty I haven't completed

But please do explain to me if you think that you should be able to!

Eh ... how about no? As someone who play on 4 alts, I do this a lot. The C41 Duty Complete is a god send. People can choose whether they want to join my party or not. I'm always honest and make it a C41, but is that big of a problem even if someone is not? It's not like you're bounded to the party you joint and will suffer a penalty for leaving. When you say "I hate it because it makes me wipe and waste time in my reclear", I'm sorry but that's 100% on you. Why don't you just leave as soon as that Bonus message pop up? I know I do. I also regularly talked my way into a few weekly/reclear parties on a non-clear alt before. I provide proofs if asked, sometime I got accepted, sometime I'm rejected, and it's both cool. That's totally within the discretion and freedom of choice between players with full command of their faculties. Why do you feel there need to be a hard rule/regulation over it?


I asked this before but I don't understand this obsession of demanding rule and regulation that people can easily recites simply by exercising their judgement and options. As if the only real reason behind these demand are ego/psychology issue, like people get offended simply because thing how thing is not exactly the way they think it should be.

I said already, this isn't a circus and I don't appreciate all this stretching and contortion. This is not a demand for regulation! If you're always honest then good for you! So what if you use alts? Should we unlock all duties for new accounts now because that would make it convenient for people who use alts? Oh, duty complete parties wiping with people who haven't seen mechanics or phases are 100% on me now???

Like you said you can use the tell option to get around the PF restriction, this is the honest and respectable thing to do.

[Raven2014]

Oh, duty complete parties wiping with people who haven't seen mechanics or phases are 100% on me now???

Yes, because you could have left when you see that first time bonus pop up. The only reason this become such as big an issue you dramatizing up is simply due to you not exercising something that was fully within your control. Dishonesty is what get you in such party, but staying and wasting your time on it is your decision 100%.

9/10 if I see the bonus pop up without it mentioned up front I just left. I may stay for 1 or 2 pull if I'm a good mood but I would leave if it's clearly a trap. Why can not you?

Like you said you can use the tell option to get around the PF restriction, this is the honest and respectable thing to do.

The respectable thing is exercising the option that was given to you without trying to taking away from other people option just because it rubs you the wrong way.

[MakoMight]

Yes, because you could have left when you see that first time bonus pop up. The only reason this become such as big an issue you dramatizing up is simply due to you not exercising something that was fully within your control. Dishonesty is what get you in such party, but staying and wasting your time on it is your decision 100%.

9/10 if I see the bonus pop up without it mentioned up front I just left. I may stay for 1 or 2 pull if I'm a good mood but I would leave if it's clearly a trap. Why can not you?




The respectable thing is exercising the option that was given to you without trying to taking away from other people option just because it rubs you the wrong way.

You certainly can leave! Do you know that there are people who sit for hours trying to fill an ultimate PF? Do you know how people react when you instance in... and someone leaves instantly? I'd love to take your word that you're always honest when you PF... but I'm now less willing to take your word that you actually PF. You assumed I always stay, you assumed the wipes are the problem. I encourage you to think a tiny bit harder

[Raven2014]

You certainly can leave! Do you know that there are people who sit for hours trying to fill an ultimate PF?

If you're waiting for that long, you can always let people know you will leave if there is a bonus pop when you zone. Also, "Ultimate PF" is an overblow example for a general PF issue.

Do you know how people react when you instance in... and someone leaves instantly?

I do, and I don't care. If they want to get angry, then they can get angry at the bonus who wasn't up front.

I'd love to take your word that you're always honest when you PF... but I'm now less willing to take your word that you PF.

I don't think I care though. You can either take my word for what it is and we can talk, or you can think I'm a liar and walk away. I think you're being hyperpolic and overact, but I don't think you're lying.

And do you know why I think you hyperbolic and overreact? It's because I PF so much (on 4 chars) that I know 9/10 people come crying in the forum like you do on the forum are definitely making the issue far bigger than what it actually is. But feel free to assume I'm lying if that makes it easier for you to counter what I'm saying.

You assumed I always stay, you assumed the wipes are the problem. I encourage you to think a tiny bit harder

I had to assume those because while I may disagree, I can still rational your demand has some logical point to it. If you're telling me those are not the actual issue ... well, then you're far more spoiled then I had assumed.

[MakoMight]

How very philosophical. Filling and leaving PFs is a significant time cost, especially if you're in the habit of leaving early. But it's true! Throw enough trash hours at PF and nothing is a problem, and if you don't care then you don't care. Everyone on this earth is dramatizing everything because with enough hours we will all be dead and nothing matters! But some people like me are just so "spoiled" that this game of lying and not respecting other peoples' time or their wishes isn't such a trivial thing