EXP Parties as an option please!

[Anna_Lannis]

The reason why no one talks in dungons, raids, and the like is because most people, in spite of it being an MMO, only care about "progression", i.e. EXP and gear for the sake of EXP and gear. "Friends" are just a term for people to help you with content you can't solo, or do things you can't be bothered to do (like tank, heal, kite adds, etc.) for the sake of doing "fun" things like DPS.

Thing is back then level sync didn't exist, and jobs didn't have shield or a plus sign to tell you what "role" was. A lot of jobs didn't even grind well unless you had ridiculously overpowered gear (read: be prepared to spend a lot of time ALONE farming and camping to get said gear). Since 1-75 was simply 99.9% PUGs, and most people flock to "path of least resistance" mobs, most people had little incentive to level (or even use) their axillary skills. You have samurai that don't have Archery leveled, Dark Knights not using their magic (and missing spells), Warriors that don't tank, Blue Mages and Black Mages acting like glorified cannons, and I even had a Puppetmaster in Dynamis in full AFv2 that didn't have his healing puppet frame. "Experience" parties are nothing more than a mind-numbing grind with strangers, who only value you if you discard everything about your character to make the numbers as big as possible. That's not counting the fact people are EXTREMELY picky about what jobs to use.

All of this also means when it came time to "adventure" people had no idea how to do ANYTHING in their jobs outside what it's "role" was. If the fight actually had mechanics involved like "reading a chat log and if a mob uses a certain ability stop DPS or you will heal it", "use item X to stop it from using its special nasty party wiping move for 30 seconds", "stay with the party and pay attention to where you are going, don't just run off and explore somewhere", "bring status recovery items and other supplies to make it easier on the healer", and everyone's personal favorite, "read up on fights and know what to do". Most people just want to burn these fights with either BLMs or Melee DPS, and it generally goes wrong 95% of the time.

TL;DR Experience parties suck. Most of the time you do them with strangers, your mind goes numb, and its like being power leveled in you don't know the intricacies of you job.

[Ashkendor]

The reason why no one talks in dungons, raids, and the like is because most people, in spite of it being an MMO, only care about "progression", i.e. EXP and gear for the sake of EXP and gear. "Friends" are just a term for people to help you with content you can't solo, or do things you can't be bothered to do (like tank, heal, kite adds, etc.) for the sake of doing "fun" things like DPS.

This is... completely not true. I talk with the people that I call friends quite frequently. About half of my static is in Mumble together daily. We have each other's real life contact information and sometimes talk via text outside the game as well. Others pop into Mumble regularly or occasionally to hang out, as well as doing stuff with us ingame. I have real life friends that play this game as well, people I've spent a lot of time with face to face.

When I get into a dungeon, I say hi and depending on the response I get I may or may not chat more. If people don't seem inclined to chat, I'm not one to slow down the run by talking to myself. Some people just wanna get it done, get their tomes, and be done with it. We've all done the dungeons countless times, so I get it. On the other hand, if they seem nice and willing to talk, then we can slow down the run a bit to chat off and on. I chat frequently in FATE parties and hunt parties because those are hours of mind-numbing boredom in a can.