When is it OK to say, "It's Not OK"

[Mikedizzy]

Coil is worth doing if you are up for that type of challenge...if you are not then there is no point.
If you are in a "non-raiding" FC then there is always a choice to be made to accomplish your goals.
Coil can be done easily in PF. It can be done in DF through T4 and that is about it. T5 you have to be work together and would be very hard to do in DF.
I suggest to the other poster to record your gameplay and then watch it back so you can learn what is going wrong...that is the best tool.

[abzoluut]

There is indeed a certain lack of sympathy for players who don't run content on Day 1.

There also is lack of effort by most of these so called day 1 runners. They often have a different approach to the game. This results in discussions and what not, hence this thread.

[abzoluut]

There also is lack of effort by most of these so called day 1 runners. They often have a different approach to the game. This results in discussions and what not, hence this thread.

Lack of effort by the NOT "day one runners".

(Couldn't edit it on my phone >.>)

[Sadonix]

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I can sympathize with this,the endgame raid being somewhat less than friendly to the newcomers despite the fact that they know what they're doing.

However I wish to also add that if you're struggling with t5 you're gonna love the attitudes and environment of t6-9. At least for t5 you can use DF to assemble groups,which from my experience once started people will rarely leave on their own unless it's clear that the group is totally hopeless(thanks to the penalty incurred),this in contrast with the later coils which people just up and leave whenever their ego kicks in or maybe just want to troll,and just plainly rejected out any group with 100 sol message.

I don't know if the same can be applied to your server but in my case I just keep trying at DF until I got it. A few times you got jerks who try to start a witch hunt and asked to be kicked out when they saw "100" but in the end I finally got a group competent enough to clear it. If I have to say DF played a significant role in allowing new players a shot at attempts since it bypass a lot of unsavories you found in PF.

[ruskie]

The problem in generally boils down to: people that want to raid hardcore, people that don't care for raiding and those that want to do the content but can't commit to a static due to time constraints or have issues finding people through PF to do it.

For the hardcore - I know a few that will be more than willing to help and even wipe alongside you for the full time of the duty if they see things improving - some limit themselves to after a certain phase of the fight but still
For those that don't care - well nobody can help them really

Now for those that actually want to clear content for whatever reason but can't find a group/time constraints - first ask yourself
Do I want this enough to start my own static/LS to have able bodied people to help me with this - LS might be easier since it means you have multiple people that you can pool from and you can still setup times to hel eachother
If yes start running PFs for that content and grab people you see performing well into that LS or static
If no join training PFs or run your own until you understand the fight nearly in full - suplement with guides then join kill groups and ask any PF looking for kill exp people if they take you stating how far you came in the fight - a lot might give you a try or two - and if you don't mess up won't have a problem and might even get an inv to a LS or two based off of that for future needs. Basically get good with your job and good at the fight.

@HakuroDK - you mentioned cliques; sadly yes a lot of FCs are basically focused around one 8 man core static with everyone else there being as pugs or support. There are raid focused FCs that will have multiple raid teams - the problem is there needs to be people willing to organize those teams. I'm lucky enough that we don't treat our FC that way and we are all always excited when we get people that want to go into coil and we will fight with eachother to be able to tag along with them for the fun(also our raid team is not FC based but external - infact half our members are external to our FC). We also have a LS that we operate with some other smaller FCs - and in which we also have some friends that joined some raid FCs quite a time ago - to have a pool of people we can draw upon to help eachother. This seems to have worked out very well - at times we had half hardcore raiders and half casual raiders in the parties that went in an cleared after a few wipes. Though running such a LS can be a struggle because there will always be differences in opinion and not everyone is willing to back down but we have a strict no nonsense policy of removing people that start things.

As for the topic of how to try and explain to people that their are either underperforming on their job or are ohterwise the cause of the issue. This seems to be the biggest hurdle people have in this game. For two reasons:
a) People have issues accepting critisism
b) People have issues giving critisism

Lets look at A first:
We've all seen it, know it and dread it... that one person that when you say something just starts spewing out explitives and in generally acts as the one and only true player. Now this has a few causes behind it as I can see:
1) the person has issues anyway and will react that way no matter what someone says - simple solution replace - sorry to say there are people like that out there and it's best to avoid them - usually can spot them a mile away with comments on how someone is messing up or even starting with explitives

2) the person will go on the defensive because they consider it an attack on themselves - this can be due to badly communicated critique or because they have confidence issues or something else - solution: don't start with player is doing this and this wrong - to start try something like: we might progress further if we do this and that when we reach this point - make it group wide to not single anyone out at first - if the same mistake happens again go ok that was better; player can you please do this and that when we reach that point so we don't mess up again. Basically try to be indirect at start and go more specific if they are not improving - same for giving them tips on their job playing never said you should be doing that but more along the lines: I have a friend playing this job or I play this job and I find that doing this then that works better then that then this. It can work for those with such issues.

3) simply a bad player that thinks he is doing everything correctly - sad but true these exist - they have no clue about rotations, they refuse to adapt or even learn anything - replace if you see this going on


Should be straight forward I think.

Now for B - and this is something each and every one of us needs to look into and sort it out:
1) you start of by going all out on the person failing, verbal abuse and so on - this is just wrong on so many levels - JUST DON'T DO IT - go vent your frustrations at the wall
2) directed critique - this can work with all well but it's good to ask before starting if everyone is ok if you point out their problems in a fight or with their job in the fight - if not everyone is up for it treat those that have not responded in an indirect manner as per point A 2 - basically getting more direct if they keep failing
3) snarky, sarcastic, ironic, etc... comments - unless you are with people you know... refrain from these - not everyone can have the same understanding of the language or see the nuances
4) language issues - all to often we accept that everyone we meet in the game speaks and understands a certain language or even on the same level - this can have potential issues with communicating strategy, critique etc... it can bring a group to a breaking point due to misunderstandings and so on - give it a try and if it seems to be going badly just abandon
5) this is something that starts to happen over time due to wipes and so on - anger, annoyance, rage etc... call a break or just walk away if you start getting that - you've been at it for too long or you had issues before that - go relax and calm down
6) RNG - yes this can have an effect on your group I have seen it happen myself - one person constantly getting fireballs and conflags in t5, one person constantly getting divebombs etc... this all can lead to wipes and so on... examine what went wrong before bursting out... use your brain; was it a player mistake or was it RNG that wiped us badly - TALK AMONGST YOURSELVES about it

Now that A and B I think are mostly covered here's the other big reason for issues in this game and I bet any hardcore raider will be able to confirm this:
Before you start doing something(and this goes for new or not new people in a raid): talk about the strategy - how will you handle certain mechanics(if you know them already) and so on(if this is blind in then run it and see how far you get in then discuss).
Once you start doing something - don't tunnel vision on your job - be aware of what's going on around you and to your party members - be willing and prepared to adapt - don't get stuck on a guide or on only your job.
After a wipe - talk and figure out what went wrong and what needs to be corrected - use your brain - if you have people recording the fight ask them to take a look and examine what they can see - multiple points of view can help.

I hope the above atleast helps some people.

[SpookyGhost]

Coil especially has been just one big, long, tiresome headache. I have never once cleared Turns 4 or 5.

Know this is sort of completely off topic, but I've been solo queueing T4 for hours in the past couple days to get the i110 mats, and I've only had 1 group fail due to one of the healers being undergeared and the other one disconnecting 5 seconds in (which lead to that healer being kicked and the entire group leaving). While I've never done T5 through DF, I have helped out friends with the fight, and while wipes are inevitable, it is a step by step process. Everyone must be able to understand Phase 1 before you start heading into Phase 2. Getting lucky on Phase 1 and getting to Phase 2, then expecting to make it there again immediately is the mentality that leads to groups disbanding. While T4 is much more cut and dry (kill the things as fast as possible), T5 has layers of mechanics that must be learned and dealt with - it might not have a lock out anymore and you might have the Echo on your side, but that doesn't mean anyone in your group can just breeze through it their first time there. While 4-5 people can carry a T5 group, those extra people can also get them killed with Divebombs, Conflags, Twisters, Dreadknights, etc. I'm just repeating this ad nauseum, but no matter how good you are at the fight YOU yourself can't carry the entire group.

But yeah. Try T4 through DF some time, as long as you know what you're doing you'll beat it for sure. T5 you just have to have patience.

[LunaHoshino]

Know this is sort of completely off topic, but I've been solo queueing T4 for hours in the past couple days to get the i110 mats, and I've only had 1 group fail due to one of the healers being undergeared and the other one disconnecting 5 seconds in (which lead to that healer being kicked and the entire group leaving).

Seconding this, I've been farming T4 a lot for the mats and I have only ever had parties that wiped twice, once because the healer was not very good and another time because one of the tanks was seriously undergeared. 99% of the time it goes just fine.

[Lemuria]

This is an MMO. You are absolutely required to network with other players if you want to make meaningful progress.
Or DF all day then come here and complain about how the game is broken (hint: it's not).
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You failed at networking with competent players.
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So either be that leader, or continue to fail until you find someone to latch on to.

Attitudes like this do more harm than good. All this does is put people off even attempting this content, which is what causes these problems to begin with.

Only the most bigoted player can say "Coil is easy". It's not. In the Twintania fight alone there are so many little things that can go wrong. Divebombs which hit the party because players didn't move quick enough or lagged briefly, kill debuff not being applied to the targets, that annoying twister attack which is literally the DUMBEST concept in a video game ever. Doubly so since some of them seem to spawn directly ON you instead of where you were, so running does literally nothing.

The point is, these toxic attitudes make players less likely to pick up newcomers as party members for running coil and new groups tend to disband quickly when they're repeatedly hitting a brick wall in content. It can be incredibly frustrating to fail at a fight and not understand where things went wrong, and coil is FULL of these little surprises. There are so many instant death mechanics that it stops being about a fun challenge and becomes little more than a glorified memory game that only takes a single person to screw up.

Players like you are literally the worst kind of poison a community can absorb. Instead of being willing to help people learn, you shoot them down for being less 'competent' than yourself. The sooner we start teaching instead of preaching, the better off new players will be and the sooner they can get to the same level.

[xnonamex]

Such situation is because there isn't really a medium challenging content. And the jump from your standard fight to coil is really huge. Furthermore it is due to the mechanics of the later coils. There cannot be any messups. The tactics are unforgiving. Furtherore as mentioned before the coil takes the idea that everyone can get in since gear for it can be obtained through running standard dungeons (which everyone can do). The first coil was better when it was the only end game content. People kind of realized that they need to gear up (like get a relic thus beating titan) before they go into coil.

[xnonamex]

Continue....

I think there should be a similar fashion for the new coils. That you would actually need to do something fairly more challenging than standard dungeon in order to actually qualify for entering the coil (something like mid-lvl 8 people raid such as CM was (or a bit harder) when ppl weren't overgeared for it) by actually imposing gear requirements that make sense. The problem now however is that every player wants to get max ilvl gear and SE is willing to oblige by making iLVL of end raid gear equal to one obtainable by "casuals".

I think SE went into a deep ditch when they decided to release content so often thus they can't make the most out of it because they never have time to make a "full package". Thus we are left with dead simple stuff and the difficult stuff which has really unforgiving mechanics. I really hope that they will have the "full package" prepared for 3.0