The other side of helping others.

[Ramzal]

I couldn't think of a better name for the title, but the point of this is that I think I saw the other side of the fence finally.

Allow me to make a note: This is not for raging. I'm not mad or looking for an outlit here but I'm only giving my experience with a very stubborn and resistant player that makes me understand why players sometimes tend to NOT want to spend time helping others understand fights.

So I jump onto Garuda EX in the duty finder. I don't really need anything from there, just thought to help out a bit with my bard/get some more practice with it. Things were okay in the first part of the fight. No big mess ups, and everyone is doing pretty good until we get into the Tornado phase. In our first attempt, the MT just goes from full HP to zero. I main a tank and I've done Garuda EX to know that the only way that happens in Tornado phase is catching a double wicked wheel to the face without buffing, or for some reason you decided to tank inside of the tornado in the upper west corner. It wasn't a gradual loss of HP, it was instant.

So we wipe and the healers asked what happened, the MT states (s)he has no idea what's going on. I voice that maybe (s)he isn't timing buffs correctly and maybe why there's too much damage but (s)he says that there were buffs up. I can't really say anything at this point as I wasn't fully paying attention. Okay moving on, second attempt it happens again but (s)he is left with a sliver of health do to the echo being up. So the healers get her/him back up and we keep going until I notice my damage on Chirada is pretty low...and then I notice she has a 4 stack buff to her. We manage to kill her in time for the spiny plume to go off due to the OT having 3 stacks.


Wipe again. I make note that the spiny plume wasn't exchanged until after 3 stacks. The MT denies this even though the entire party took heavy damage and the 2 black mages that are in our party have died. I remind the MT to grab the spiny plume before the third stack or else we'll take heavy damage. Fast forward to the next attempt where we get past the tornado phase with still a sliver of health left on the MT after double WW, plume goes off again and we almost wiped at the exact same place again, but this time a white mage survives (I have no idea HOW outside of stone skin possibly) and LB3's the DPS so we can get into the fight again.


We get back up and the MT stands dead center in the room with Garuda and all of the plumes. This time the OT does not grab the spiny plume and everything is just left together. I derped here and decided to use my aoes on the razor plumes. During my AOEing, the Spiny plume went off. We wiped and people asked who hit it and I stated it may have been me since I AOE'd and the Spiny plume was in the crowd. MT demanded I never AOE when the spiny is out. I took fault but then I thought "Wait... I'm a Bard... with rez sickness....aoeing... There's no way I could do enough damage alone to bring down that Spiny just from AOEs."


But rather than argue it, I decided it was easier to take the blame for the Spiny going off, but I asked why wasn't the spiny moved by the OT. That question was ignored in favor of my aoeing. Okay, I admitted fault even though it was unlikely just me. Moving on to our final attempt, I decided to focus target the MT to see what buffs were up and when. Not once did I see Sentinel, Hollowed Ground, Rampart, or Foresight go up during WW's, the tank moved Suparna and Garuda as close to the tornadoes as possible and failed once more to grab the spiny plume before it hit the ot with 3 stacks.


After we backed out I asked the MT: "Don't take this the wrong way *insert name here*, but have you beaten this fight before?" The tank was in mostly i100 gear excluding his/her hands and carrying an atma, but none of the above was an indication towards beating Garuda EX. I thought it was a fair question, but met with a "Back off! Don't even go there." I explained that I am not picking on him/her, only trying to give advice. I suggested focus targeting Garuda in order to see when slipstreams were coming so you can dodge them, take note of how many stacks the OT had from the spiny plume so you can provoke it off, and to move Garuda and Sup as far back as possible during the tornado phase so that Chi would have a low number of stacks for the DPS to do damage.


To which (s)he responded with "I'm doing all of that already." The MT had been hit by every slipstream (Stun proved it), spiny aoes went off every Tornado phase and each time I would attack Chi there would be 3-4 stacks on her. I also brought up that I focus targetted to MT to see if (s)he used buffs during Wicked Wheels and that never happened. This lead to the MT outright calling "BS." I left the group on the note that I was only trying to help, not pick on him/her.


I can now understand what players mean by not wanting to waste time on helping players that don't want to listen. Personally, I like helping players as it gets them past content they've had trouble with and they can move on or even help other players down the line. It's always awesome to see someone improve just from some advice. Sure, MY way to doing things is hardly always the BEST way but I'd figure if I can clear that fight on the duty finder on several occassions while explaining it to 6 people who have trouble with it and come out winning, on a ps3, with a controller in hand I'd have something to offer another player in advice. (Okay. A bit of a pat on my own back there, but whatever I'm on ps4 now anyway)


The way this player came across was different to me. Very resistant to changing their approach and even more so pretending as if they're doing the advice when I know they aren't. I am very much still in a camp were it is good to help players out, but I now understand there's another side to that coin. A side that honestly (from what I can tell) does NOT want to be helped. To do things their own way until a win happens from strained effort on a party to make up for poor strategy, but in reality that rarely happens in this game as that usually ends up wiping a raid/group. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with this line of thinking if you were playing a single player game that punishes you for mistakes like Megaman 1. And you can overcome those deaths from your mistakes by trying something different eventually down the line, but this doesn't apply in an MMO setting where if you mess up that's it for everyone. Where honestly, the only solution is to avoid playing with these people because they are so stubborn that if they don't win -their- way then there's no win to it at all.


It should be a focus that this game and all games should be about fun however. Me, I get my fun from overcoming a challenge and helping others to overcome that challenge too. However I don't see the fun in constantly losing because one person refuses to listen, or even notice what they are doing isn't bringing good results.


TLDR: I get why some of you guys just don't want to explain things to players.