Quote Originally Posted by Velisra View Post
This is exactly why, as a new player (with my first character at 51 and still not yet done with the level 50 content) I'm not in a huge rush to get to HW at all. These types of folks who make end-game content into a job are in every game. They were in WoW when I left, and they were much of the reason that I never did instanced group content in WoW. I wasn't willing to put up with the elitists and trolls in group content to play the game. I didn't have to do it there to play the game, but apparently I must do it in FF to clear the story content.

That pretty much sucks if there are going to be elitists in group content. Perhaps I'll never get to finish the story in HW until it's "old content" like ARR content is now, when everyone is on to the next xpac and only runs the old content once daily to get the xp and currencies. /shrug There are plenty of things to do in FF, though I supposed there's a possibility that I'll run out of things to do and then have to unsub and play something else. It is quite sad that people have to be elitist jerks over a game.
You won't have the same problem with the end of HW like you did with ARR. You have to run one final dungeon and do one final fight, both of which take a team. The difference is the dungeon is only a 4 man dungeon and only has a an intro scene and one short scene late in the dungeon. ARR's end had so many problems because it literally had 35 minutes of cutscenes to watch in CM and the Praetorium each. Most parties will wait for you to watch your ~3 minutes of cutscenes if you tell them you're new. It was asinine for SE to ever think people would twiddle their thumbs while new people watched 35 minutes.

As to endgame as a whole, it's honestly not nearly as bad as it's made out to be as long as you don't overstep your boundaries. If you've never been into a fight or never been to the last phase only join learning parties or create your own learning party. If you have been to the last phase but not cleared it and are comfortable with your execution, join clear parties but DO NOT join farm parties unless previously talking with the leader. As long as you are in a party commensurate with your skill level in a fight, you will rarely have too many problems save for the very occasional asshat. Toxicity in these fights stems from people who are brand new to a fight trying to join a farm party with 7 other people who can probably run the encounter in their sleep.