Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Well, I just saw something I wasn't sure was even possible.

Someone died in Cape Westwind.

I sincerely don't know how.

[Shibi]

Someone died in Cape Westwind.

Yeah, I've died there on-level 2 times in 7 years. Off tank doesn't bother to get those 2 adds, stand in wrong place (or cast a heal), and boom - dead.

[SturmChurro]

Honestly hard to say, I usually get comms when I tank as long as I'm friendly and don't cause any mess-ups when pulling wall to wall, but I only really comm people if they stand out in some way.

Only advice I can really give ya is to stop worrying about comms and focus on making sure the run goes as smoothly as possible instead, you'll get plenty of comms if you just do that and be friendly.

I have done more stuff as heals, stayed alive whole runs when the other dies, saved others from death, still none! It's actually a cruel joke at this point..

I want my fat white chocobo, and I can't get it if people don't commend me! As for being friendly, I usually don't chat at all.. I doubt that's the reason either.. Not after this many runs.. I literally don't think I have gotten a single commendation on my white mage, the entire past week. It's actually insane.

I'm telling you right now, it's definitely the cast bar. People probably think I'm only casting glare and not healing.. even though I am healing.. even putting divine benison on tanks..

That's how I go about it. I focus on myself and make sure I do what is needed. Sometimes I get commendations, sometimes I don't. I do feel Sturm's pain though. There are runs where I'm like "man, I should have gotten at least a little praise!" and I get none. But I guess the satisfaction is mostly in knowing that my efforts made the clear possible. On the other hand, there are runs where I walk out of there thinking I could have done better. We all have those from time to time.

Man I have had a ton of runs the past week where I am literally carrying the run as heals, and I'm like "not even one?"..

I actually had one earlier in Ivalice something. Orlando Bloom was dropping some stuff on a dude I put a shield on them and they survived BARELY. Got nothing that run either! Not even a thank you! Sometimes I wonder if it's even worth saving these people from mechanics! Hard life of an unappreciated healer, that people think only casts glare..

[Somnolence]

I'd like people to be less scared about giving advice, I've learned a lot from other players. It's been very valuable to me despite trying to educate myself through videos and guides. To those giving advice: I'm sure in the long run you benefit more people than you annoy/anger. Plus, let's face it, even if you have a bad experience in a dungeon, you most likely (?) will not see that/those players again or anytime soon.

Meanwhile in PF kill/loot parties you hit enrage or fail because of some people making mistakes repeatedly and then party silently disbands hoping deadweights don't join again - all because discussing such things is against terms of service or "toxic".

[Vahlnir]

Meanwhile in PF kill/loot parties you hit enrage or fail because of some people making mistakes repeatedly and then party silently disbands hoping deadweights don't join again - all because discussing such things is against terms of service or "toxic".

Yep. For me it's not because I don't want to help. It's because I don't want to deal with the drama or any fallout resulting from it. It'd be way more helpful to be able to say "Hey <insert name here>, that AoE is avoidable. Please don't stand in it", but it could come at a price. I'm not willing to pay that price.

[Rilifane]

Just remember that the forum isn't representative for how the majority of players treats and plays the game at all.
Reading through the forums, one might easily get the impression that it's common curtesy to only heal with oGCDs, GCD heals only when every other resource has been exhausted and dps with every GCD you freed up. But in the everyday life of DF, that's not the case.
The majority there likes to see their healers heal in the form of castbars. The majority of tanks there doesn't appreciate one bit if you let them drop for more efficient ED/ Bene/ Excog. There is a reason why so many PLDs like to use Clemency when dropping below 50% or RDMs starting with Vercure if you didn't heal them for a certain amount of time - regardless of wether there is an aoe coming up or not. I've even see a lot of SMNs switching permanently to Titan Egi after the first time you didn't heal them fast enough after an aoe. They want to feel safe and they want to go through the dungeon without dying or feeling like they're about to die.
I think the majority doesn't pay attention to how much dps their healer is doing - many don't appreciate healers being completely idle but most won't say a word about it; as long as you use a few dps spells here and there, it's enough. But if they don't see a heal castbar often enough, many are quick to assume that you aren't doing your job properly, even if nobody is dying or had to use selfheals to stay alive.
And if you see a melee using Bloodbath and think "Great, more Glare!", you're definitely not getting the comm because many treat Bloodbath/ Clemency/ Vercure/ Titan Egi as a "Look, I even need to heal myself now. Get the drift, you bad healer?!" button and feel their concerns about the bad healer have just beeen validated.

Early into a tier and shortly after weekly reset, you usually meet a lot of endgame players in expert roulette and they appreciate a Glare Mage/ Broilar/ Malefic bot. But escpecially in leveling content, normal raids, alli raids and trials, the majority isn't able to spot a good and efficient healer and will assume that no heal castbar ever = bad healer.
Escpecially in 8man content with two healers, people are much more likely to comm the healer who kept Succor/ Noct Field or Med 2/ Asp helios regen up on everyone than the healer who managed to non-stop dps while still healing everyone. Plus most players don't pay attention to what or who healed them, let alone who saved someone else. Even if it's really in-your-face like a Rescue yanking someone out of a death zone or a Bene quickly healing a freshly ressed (and ofc instant attacking) person back to full before a huge aoe.

[SturmChurro]

Just remember that the forum isn't representative for how the majority of players treats and plays the game at all.
Reading through the forums, one might easily get the impression that it's common curtesy to only heal with oGCDs, GCD heals only when every other resource has been exhausted and dps with every GCD you freed up. But in the everyday life of DF, that's not the case.
The majority there likes to see their healers heal in the form of castbars.

Sadly.. 100% true.

I can name several times, like the earlier example where I have saved players from themselves (failing mechanics). Nothing. Literally nothing. The other healer can die 6 times and I am stuck hard-cast raising ALMOST THE ENTIRE PARTY AND SOLO HEALING, in turn actually saving the run - nothing. It's just a little odd.. Somebody should have noticed me working my butt off, right? But I guess not..

[tdb]

I actually had one earlier in Ivalice something. Orlando Bloom was dropping some stuff on a dude I put a shield on them and they survived BARELY. Got nothing that run either! Not even a thank you! Sometimes I wonder if it's even worth saving these people from mechanics! Hard life of an unappreciated healer, that people think only casts glare..

One problem with the commendation system is that it's often hard or impossible to see who's performing particularly well. Healing in dungeons is perhaps the easiest to evaluate because healing affects everyone. But with the low healing requirements these days, a healer who can keep everyone healed is barely mediocre. A bad tank is noticeable to everyone if aggro is all over the place, but the differences between a mediocre, good and great tank are only really visible to the healer. And since everyone deals damage, it's really hard to tell if anyone is doing particularly well on that front. I usually play healer and I'll commend the tank if they're keeping aggro, using their cooldowns and not failing with mechanics (I'll let small mistakes slide if they clearly know what they're doing). Dps sadly has to be truly extraordinary to get a commendation from me, or the rest of the party has to be bad.

It only gets worse in 8- and 24-player content. Now there's multiples of all roles, and in normal content only one tank and healer is really required. I generally have some idea of my co-healer's healing performance, but as with dungeons it's difficult to gauge their dps. It's hard to keep track of vuln stacks and deaths of seven other players as well, though if there's only a single player who consistently avoids them I usually remember that. If there's any raise-capable dps in the party, it's not evident who's helping with raises either. More than half the time I just don't give a commendation in this type of content since I have no idea who it rightly belongs to.

I really wish there was a builtin combat tracker so I could see who the good ones are.

[tdb]

Just remember that the forum isn't representative for how the majority of players treats and plays the game at all.
Reading through the forums, one might easily get the impression that it's common curtesy to only heal with oGCDs, GCD heals only when every other resource has been exhausted and dps with every GCD you freed up. But in the everyday life of DF, that's not the case.
The majority there likes to see their healers heal in the form of castbars. The majority of tanks there doesn't appreciate one bit if you let them drop for more efficient ED/ Bene/ Excog.

I don't know how much this varies between datacenters, but I've never gotten any flak for using oGCD and instant heals almost exclusively, or letting everyone hover around 90% health and focusing on holy/glare spam instead of immediately topping them up. Commendations are pretty random, sometimes I get all three for a smooth dungeon run where nothing special happened, other times nothing. One or two comms is most common though. Trials and raids seem to yield no comms more often, and as noted above I rarely give comms in those either.

[Rilifane]

I don't know how much this varies between datacenters, but I've never gotten any flak for using oGCD and instant heals almost exclusively, or letting everyone hover around 90% health and focusing on holy/glare spam instead of immediately topping them up. Commendations are pretty random, sometimes I get all three for a smooth dungeon run where nothing special happened, other times nothing. One or two comms is most common though. Trials and raids seem to yield no comms more often, and as noted above I rarely give comms in those either.

I think you misread.
It's not about getting flak for not hardcasting heals, people in general rarely give flak for anything because of the ToS. Neither for dpsing very little nor for only using oGCDs or letting people drop.
What I wrote was that people in DF usually prefer to see their healers hardcast as a sign of them doing their job as opposed to healers constantly spamming Glare/ Broil/ Malefic because they often assume they're not doing their job. They will not actively give you flak for anything, because ToS.
But most are simply not able to recognize a healer working efficiently and will not comm someone they think wasn't doing their primary job sufficiently or not to their liking even iuf they actually did an absolutely stellar job.