What do you think of speed running dungeons.

[enthauptet]

There are some things related to this that are annoying to me but if you want to go slowly or quickly does not matter.

A) People don't say they are going to do one or the other so I setup my leylines, etc. (or whatever) and start into my rotation then they run off causing me to lose all my damage CDs and have to catch up.

B) The tanks that want to do this can't hold hate and we all die because the healer has to heal 4 people while getting interrupted causing a wipe.

People that say something either way at the beginning always ends up being a better run. I used to tank a bit to change things up a bit back toward the end of HW with my bf on his dragoon and I never ended up getting a healer that complained about too fast or too small but I always talk to the party at the start too.

[Eclipsed]

I think that most df speedruns... Are not in fact speedruns. Most take as long if not longer than doing it normally. Constantly I see tanks doing giant pulls back to back, never stopping for melee to get TP and then the melee sit around doing nothing until they get enough TP back to actually aoe, making those pulls take forever to kill and draining the healers mana. Which you then DO have to wait for. If you have a good BLM and WHM who can really pump out the aoe nonstop then great. But if that isn't the case it more often than not makes the run take longer.

[JunseiKei]

Speed run or not, I hate it more when tanks start running off with a mob or two almost dead, but not quite. As a caster or melee unprepared for such nonsense, you lose so much buffs trying to play catch up (and casters not being able to, you know, cast) that it would have been faster to sit there the extra second or two.

[Lunafreya]

I'm a healer main. My answer to this thread is that big pulls get me to actually heal and use all my abilities. If you want to whack a single enemy pack dont act like none of the other party members will get bored because we do.. and almost to the point of falling asleep. Big pulls can be a challenge sometimes and I'm a healer so i'm dpsing and healing at a pretty even rate. In slow pulls I get absolutely none of that and after running the same dungeon for the thousandth time you're going to be very bored in general.

[Mirateski]

Constantly I see tanks doing giant pulls back to back, never stopping for melee to get TP and then the melee sit around doing nothing until they get enough TP back to actually aoe, making those pulls take forever to kill and draining the healers mana.

Did Sirensong earlier on levelling roul, SAM was my codps. Tank did every large pull and not once did I run out of tp even though I was aoeing at every possible opportunity, ie only stopping to refresh huton, because I used goad and invigorate, and my codps also used goad and invigorate.

Honestly the only time you're gonna run out of tp for aoeing is if you're paired with a caster, and they've got this aoe thing on lockdown anyway so nobody's gonna moan if you single target for a bit at the end of a pack.

It's called using your utility.

[Madepossible]

All this complaints about tanks not doing speedpulls or doing it too big too small tldr: all you dps and healers go tank yourself and u see the trash ppl never be pleased on whatever the hell we do. Tankless Job indeed.

[Alistaire]

I think we should stop calling it "speedrunning dungeons" and just "running dungeons efficiently".

[Aldora]

I think that most df speedruns... Are not in fact speedruns.

Exactly. There is a big difference between a speed run and getting the most of the group, while maintaining a safety net, in case things are starting to go sideways. Most DF parties i’ve been in start off with a courtesy “Hello!” and the Tank running off to pull as much as (s)he can, without measuring if the party can actually pull it off.

Multiple things can go wrong, making it impossible to clear the dungeon in less than 20 minutes of starting it.

• Not everyone is fully geared up
• The party composition isn’t suited for burning down big packs of mobs
• The tank is not using his/her cooldowns properly, taking more damage than necessary and “forcing” the healer to heal more rather than assisting with the DPS output
• The tank is simply focussing on maintaining hate and not maxing out his/her DPS output
• The healer can’t keep up with the damage the tank is taking
• The healer is running out of MP because the enemies aren’t dying fast enough
• The DPS are running out of TP because the enemies aren’t dying fast enough
• The DPS get hit by avoidable damage, “forcing” the healer to heal more rather than assisting with the DPS output
• The healer only focussing on healer and not contributing in the overall damage output.
• The DPS not getting every ounce of DPS out of their rotation, because they aren’t using the proper rotation / using their cooldowns / moving around to dodge aoe’s

Not everything mentioned above has to be a bad thing. It mostly boils down to the skill and experience of each individual player and the effort they wish to put into the game.

The more you run the dungeons, the better the feeling you get for the content you’re running. With the every bit of experience you get, you can start to anticipate what is going to happen and how comfortable the party is with the flow of the run. Eventually you will find time to observe your surrounding (and focus less on which button to press next) and see where you can assist your party and make the dungeon run go more smoothly. You will also start to notice that your dungeon runs will go faster.

However, in order to get to the point of actually speed running a dungeon, every one within the party will have to work together as a team and support each other in getting the most of the party. Most of the parties within the Duty Finder are too self centered and people are only focussing on themselves while judging others based on the current “Norm” or “Meta”.

I’ve said the following in a couple of different threads, but it still holds true to this particular discussion as well:

The bottom line is that when you are playing a game with other people (like FFXIV), you are actually playing with other people. Everyone has a different kind of skill set, certain amount of experience, etc which might not be similar to your own.

However, since you group up to tackle different kinds of content, you are asked to work together as a Team in order to complete the said task, like for instance clearing a Dungeon. When you are working as a Team, you should look out for each other so that everyone crosses the finish line together.

I read a lot of things like:

• If you don’t keep up, you suck
• Healer: If you don’t wait for me (to finish my buffs), i’ll let you die
• Healer: If you don’t pull less, i’ll let you die
• Tank: If you pull ahead of me, i won’t take the monster off you (and let you die)
• Tank: I keep pulling multiple packs. If you can’t keep me alive, you suck
• Healer/DPS: If you don’t pull more, i’ll pull more for you
• If you don’t switch to DPS stance (referring to Tank and Healer), you suck
• Etc

All of these comments display the wrong kind of attitude when you are playing with other people as a team. It doesn’t really matter if someone is faster than you or even not as fast as you. If they are as skilled as you or not as skilled as you.

Most of the comments i read are rather “self centered” and lack team spirit. Even if only 1 person can’t keep up with the rest of the group, that single person is just as valuable to the team then the rest.

As a member of a team, you are expected to do your job to the best of your abilities. Some people work better under pressure and improve faster when placed in stressful situations, but not everyone will be able to. There are plenty of people who will panic in situations like that, or simply won’t be able to function properly.

That doesn’t necessarily make them a bad player. They might need more time and less stressful situations in order to “blossom”. They may even need a guiding hand in order to teach them things they didn’t manage to figure out themselves.

Which brings us to the next point. When reading comments on the forums, it’s pretty plain to see that we (as in the general populous) are unable to properly communicate with each other. We call each other “trolls”, slap each other in the face with insult, aren’t open to suggestions or even in some cases able to properly phrase a suggestion so that it won't “feel” like it’s “forced upon them”. We take offense to almost anything, take things personal and react rudely to things that don’t go the way we want them to go. We don’t have any patience and insult people/kick players/vote abandon at the first sign of mistakes or even a wipe.



It seems that it’s hard to find a sense of (team) effort, camaraderie, community, support and most of all fun in the things we do as a group. Apparently we don’t see games as a form of relaxation anymore, but a competition or a job.

Perhaps it’s time for us as players to take a good look at ourselves and wonder how we got to this point and how we (as human beings) can change that.

I mean, taking things down a notch to ensure that the entire group makes it through the duty will feel a lot better then rushing towards the end and be frustrated about the amount of damage the group does or the amount of deaths/wipes we faced during the said duty. If you see someone struggle, why throw insults? Why not talk about it and try to help instead?

Sure, not everyone listens. There are bad apples in every community, but for every bad apple there are a hell of a lot more apples that make a pretty damn fine juice when mixed together. Aren’t we all thirsty and crave for such a juice?

Just, don’t go fight fire with fire. You’ll only going to get yourself burned in the process.

Sometimes, mostly when reading threads like this or the “Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.”-thread, i think to myself: “Why is it that we can’t simply work together when playing this game?” Is it really that hard to talk to one another, relax and play with each other, rather than “jumping at each other's throats”?

As people, we should be able to respect that try to work with them nonetheless. I believe that this is where the main problem lies. We want others to adjust to us, rather than adjust ourselves to others.

One of the arguments used, would be “One most adjust themselves to the majority of the group”. However, this is only true to the extend that everyone can follow suit. When you are running “group content” (like Dungeons) in Final Fantasy XIV, you are asked to work together as a Team in order to complete the said task. This also means that you look out for each other.

You are all in this together. The most important thing about working together, is communicating with each other. And by that, i mean come to a mutual agreement and taking every member in the party into consideration (even the members who are struggling to keep up).

However, this also means that you have to put your best foot forward and give it your all. Put all of your skills to the test and try to improve yourself as well. You can only improve, if you strive to be better with each attempt. After a while you will notice that you will have less trouble keeping hate, or keeping the tank alive during bigger pulls.

“You can’t advance by standing still.”

However, people nowadays want “insurance”. Insurance that they will clear the content they are queuing up for, by demanding others to know the duty inside out, match a certain level of DPS and have the gear to show for it. They want to skip mechanics and burn down their target, so that they don’t have to deal with mechanics that will kill a group if 1 or 2 people were to make a mistake. Some of them are obsessed with performing at optimal levels of DPS, that they require others to perform at the same level as they are. Even if they are less experienced within the game.

To me, that’s a backwards way of thinking. As a group, you need to be able to be prepared for anything the encounter throws at you. This means knowing all of the mechanics of the encounter itself and handling them accordingly. You have to be prepared that the worst possible situation can occur during the encounter, so that you can see it coming and adjust so that you can prevent it from happening.

As time goes by, we start to talk less with each other, but at the same time complain when things aren’t going the way we want them to. How can we expect things to go a certain way if we only assume that it’s going to be the way we want it to?

If i run content as a tank and i’m in a good mood, i’ll ask “How brave is everyone feeling today? (^_~ )”. This sentence alone has been enough for people to know what i’m planning on doing. If they feel as confident as i, they will respond with “Very!” or something within that direction. That will be my green light to go for it. The first pull will determine if we can actually manage it and i’ll adjust accordingly if needed.

Of course there were times where we were overconfident and wipe when things went sideways. But, every single time it happened, we were laughing about it, returned and went at it again.

It was all in good fun.

If i come across 1 single person within the party (for instance a healer), who’s not confident enough to handle those big pulls. I’ll respect their wishes and tone it down a little bit.

Like i mentioned within one of my quotes. We are all in this together, so the most important thing is that we are working together in order to clear the duty and especially communicating with each other. And by that, i mean come to a mutual agreement and taking every member in the party into consideration (even the members who are struggling to keep up).

So come on people, talk to each other and listen to what they/we have to say.

[Kuzonoha]

I call it balls to the walls pulling lol. I don't mind them honestly. They're definitely more epic to me and as a tank it makes me feel more alive because now have to dance between all of these AOEs, hold hate and time my cooldowns. I'm sure some DPS get a high from nuking down tons of mobs. I know I do. White Mages can blast off Holys it's just an amazing sight to me.

At the same time, not everyone enjoys that. Healing during that can be frustrating and stressful for some. Tanks and or healers may not be geared to handle it. I think communication is important for these massive pulls between Tank and Healer. Speed runs or not, I feel the tank and healer need to be of similar mindset.

[Friske]

~~~~

That was a very inspiring read, and I'd like to thank you for taking the time to write that piece out. The faults you listed mirrors many of my duty finder experiences, and really makes you look back and reflect. It is refreshingly optimistic, puts things to perspective, and while it is true that not every group will be as co-operative or as understanding as you'd wish it'd be. It did remind me that the default setting for groups does not necessarily have to be adversarial.

Admittedly, speed runs have become the norm, and although there are many variables that affect the level of co-operation in a group: Time constraints, great skill gaps, language barriers, agreeableness. the difference is to at least attempt. Attempting is half the battle, which has a chance to lead to a more warm, inclusive environment. Thankfully, a decent chunk of the duty finder runs I've participated in have been co-operative. Realistically however, I know that this won't be reflected in every duty finder run I do in the future. I have also experienced people using anger, ridicule, myself included, to provoke and unnecessarily escalate situations. Methods of which, I'm sure we can all agree, are hardly constructive at all in any sense. Moreover, It sows seeds of discontent that may eventually leave everyone feeling bitter and in contempt of each other. As a result, It shrouds discussion, feedback and camaraderie.
Let's all remember the humans behind the screens and try to co-operate with them when we do speedruns.