Discussion on clearing content without your raid group.

[Arlinne]

Aye, to answer a few questions:

I was called out by the off-tank of the group that "If you can clear O3S I would buy you a house". Obviously it was more of a joke bet and I expected nothing serious from actually achieving the victory but I thought it would be fun to try! We had only seen last phase a few times within about 8 weeks of practice, and it was the last raid of the week, and furthermore no one actively said no to it while the bet was being engaged, so I assumed I had the right to do so.

I will fully admit that I would not attempt to gain a win, nor participate in any group currently doing a fight if we still had at least one raid day left. Ruining chests is not fun, and so I would only do a pick-up shot at a fight if raid was finished for that week.

Finally, I get along with everyone within the raid outside of the raid times. We're basically two happy FCs connected, and so we have a laugh and general funsies outside of the time.

the reason I bring this up, by the way, is due to our raid stuck at Virus from O7S for about four weeks now, and I grew tired and even found myself a little angry at the lack of progress, so I was thinking of attempting it with PUGs for a clear and getting some gear to help out with the second half of the fight, to also keep myself tempered and not get more irritated at what is essentially wasted time. (Though it was fun time!)

[Shihen]

If you're not taking chests from anyone, having someone that cleared in the party is a positive for the rest of the group. Tell the OT to bite you.

Four weeks of virus prog also points to a problem within the group. Either there is too much time being wasted between pulls resulting in not enough actual practice time, the raid's strategy is flawed, or a member needs a helping hand. I would make a mental note of the repeat offender(s) and reach out to them privately after the raid. It's possible they've misunderstood the mechanics.

[Lord_Zlatan]

I got yelled at this before too.

I too got shamed for doing it, but we were done clearing for the week, it was a MONDAY NIGHT, and I even posted in the discord that i'd be putting it in the PF for anyone available to join. When no one responded, I went on my merry way.

My group sucked tho, always having people need to reschedule, forgetting mechanics, and holding others back... So if an opportunity arises to improve yourself (which in turn improves the group), I dont see an issue with it

[Lord_Zlatan]

You did everything right, once the raid week is over if you want to keep going with randoms is no problem at all. Looks like someone was salty about your clear and that's the real problem.

Also, after so many weeks without progress, I say that something is wrong there and need to be corrected. If can't be fixed and you are not happy perhaps it's time to find another static before you resent the game our your current group.

This is very very true, and should be heeded. Some groups just dont have the organization and/or leadership to stay cohesive and progress after a week or so of struggling on the same fight.

[Granyala]

Heyo everyone! First time posting here and I thought I would hopefully begin a discussion I haven't actually been able to find yet (If there is a topic for this, please let me know so I can migrate over to there).

Now to take a real life example into consideration, I am part of a raid group in game. After being goaded into clearing O3S at the time with pick-up groups (by a member of the group I may add), I was scolded and even shamed within the raid chat by the leader for clearing it without them.


Anyways, steering back to the discussion in hand, I was wondering about how people felt about the idea of clearing content in your own time, without any drawback to the group? Do you take the side of clearing it all together, or feeling like each person should be fine to continue their own progression, or even a bit of both? Please let me know, I'm eager to know more and see the sides!

As a guild officer in WoW this was my recent stance:
You clear stuff on your own time: Great more practice, less errors more knowledge and possibly input on tactics that work for others and might work for us.

However: In the days of old: if you get yourself an ID/Lockout and subsequently can't clear the encounter with us, then we would not tolerate it because you would actively hinder our progress.

Not entirely sure how it works in FF but as long as you can help your group kill stuff, I find it idiotic to QQ about s/o putting in extra effort. Unless you are "Ermagawd how dumb are you, even randoms killed this faster!1". Then you deserve to get some FLAK.

[Paladinleeds]

However: In the days of old: if you get yourself an ID/Lockout and subsequently can't clear the encounter with us, then we would not tolerate it because you would actively hinder our progress.

Not entirely sure how it works in FF but as long as you can help your group kill stuff, I find it idiotic to QQ about s/o putting in extra effort. Unless you are "Ermagawd how dumb are you, even randoms killed this faster!1". Then you deserve to get some FLAK.

Way it works in Final Fantasy XIV is if you get the clear: you're locked out of loot until reset, plus number of clears for the week influences number of chests on clear.
0 previous clears that week: 2 chests
1-4 previous clears: 1 chest
5-7 (potentially 8 too, can you go on a floor if all 8 members have cleared it for the week?): 0 chests

So you do hinder progress by means of reducing loot that comes in from the clear for the rest of the static.

[Miste]

Now to take a real life example into consideration, I am part of a raid group in game. After being goaded into clearing O3S at the time with pick-up groups (by a member of the group I may add), I was scolded and even shamed within the raid chat by the leader for clearing it without them.

Anyways, steering back to the discussion in hand, I was wondering about how people felt about the idea of clearing content in your own time, without any drawback to the group? Do you take the side of clearing it all together, or feeling like each person should be fine to continue their own progression, or even a bit of both? Please let me know, I'm eager to know more and see the sides!

As long as you are doing it after all of your static's scheduled raid times are done (don't want to screw your group out of getting 2 chests) I don't see the problem at all since the group apparently didn't put any rules about pugging after.

The only thing I would say would be a jerk move to do would be if you (or anyone else in your static) personally created the PF, but didn't extend invites to the rest of the players in your static first before pugging the slots either by FC/LS/Tell or even leaving an @ in the discord that you are making a PF (even if it is outside scheduled raid times).

If no response or they aren't available to go then no problem make your PF and pug the slots, but if they are online and you don't bother asking them if they would also like to join even though you (or another static member) are the ones personally creating the PF that would be pretty darn rude in my opinion.

A static is a static so ignoring other members of it to prioritize your own clear doesn't seem like a nice thing to do imo. It would sort of send a message of "I don't think I can clear with you so I'm not going to invite you even though we are supposed to be a team and you are online and might go if I asked". Even worse if your static is decently close and consider each other friends.

If you are just joining other random player's PFs then it doesn't really apply since it may be hard to find a PF open enough that you can all join, but you could still let people know so they could try to join a group with you, but no big deal if it doesn't work out. It isn't the same thing as if you or another member of your static were the ones creating the PF personally.

Not accusing you of doing this, just stating a specific situation where I could see people getting upset about PFing outside your savage static for savage floors. As long as you aren't ignoring static members who are online and if you are the one making the PF and you are making a gesture to invite them also then there is no issue that I can see.

I mean just in general if anyone gets to the point of snubbing certain members of their static and/or trying to sneakily avoid playing with them they may want to think about why they are staying in that static, might be time for a change.

[Makeda]

To me it seems like they asked you to go do it, you did, and then they shamed you for doing so.

That's kind of shame on them - if I understand right. EVEN IF you had done it before the raid and reduced their chest count... they dared you to go do it... and you responded in kind.

But under a 'normal fact pattern'... I'd say as long as someone does their PUG after the day of the static... fine. Helpful even. The more people who know how to clear content the better.

As to the poster who talks about 'why is anybody using statics anymore'... I'll also bring up WoW.

I'm tanking for a heroic antorus raid group in WoW right now... and our constant nightmare is not enough DPS... Every week we have to PUG in about 6+ DPS, and then 1 healer...
- Between fights, or on any wipe, a few of them leave. No tolerance for working to a goal... And even if it is just 1... we spend 10-30 minutes before the next pull replacing. Even if we find the replacement right away, we have to get them there, go over our strat, get them into discord, and so on...

My raid lead over in WoW spends every night after the raid venting in discord about this... and complaining about how hard it is to recruit DPS in WoW at this late stage of an expansion where... everybody is now playing their other MMOs, like FFXIV (/waves a catpaw).

Having a nice, stable static roster you can depend on... to be there at the start of raid time, and willing to stick it out through 312 wipes that night because they know the other people and they value learning not JUST the fight but also how to work better as a team and even value hearing the voices of those people in discord talking about life and stuff...
- That's gold.

Last time I had that in ANY MMO was maybe 2011... Came close in 2013 in WoW... but we had a micro-manager of a raid boss (the guy was trying to pic our individual talents, rotations, and I think even gave me transmog "advice" at one point)...

Don't pass up the value of a good static.

[Ghishlain]

I feel doing content with PuGs is acceptable with the following caveats:

1. You're not hindering the group from collecting their loot by reducing the chest pool
2. I would inform your static of that intent and see their response

I personally don't mind my static members to go out and clear content after our raid week is over but I know some players may find that offensive. Yes, it technically doesn't affect them since you're already doing it past your raid nights but some players take pride in clearing content together as a group for their first time and I would gauge your actions around those nuances of your group.

[Penthea]

I was wondering about how people felt about the idea of clearing content in your own time, without any drawback to the group? Do you take the side of clearing it all together, or feeling like each person should be fine to continue their own progression, or even a bit of both? Please let me know, I'm eager to know more and see the sides!

My raid team raids twice a week, on tuesday and thursday. In the raid rules we specifically state to not kill any bosses we plan to fight until we have done both raids, and after that you're free to do as much and any raid content as you like.

One of our tanks frequently does additional raids in party finder after thursdays and it has honestly helped us a lot. Not only does he get gear which made his combat performance even better, he has been able to give us insight to bosses he saw before us or phases of bosses we had not reached yet.

I have to add that his attitude helps. He is a very helpful and perceptive player without an elitist attitude. In the past in another game I saw other players use their additional personal progress as a platform to be rude to others. But that's an attitude issue more than a raid progress issue.

In short, as long as it doesn't hurt the team in any way, I think doing additional raids in your own time is fine.