Does anybody else notice a PUG issue with Savage lately?

[KaivaC]

In spite of my prior threads and my own little confidence issue, this is not an elitist post. Or toxic in nature. This is more or less an observation and a question for more experienced members, though anybody could pop in. Now, I wasn't around for Alex Savage, but with Deltascape, I noticed a huge difficulty spike with V3S...and I could understand the issue when pugging it. I missed out on V4S because I couldn't consistently join good pug groups til I figured out after a month that the best times to go into Savage was Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

I'm somewhat seeing the same issue with the current tier...except that starts with V5S. Personally, I'm stuck on V7S. I can clear the fight myself with a tank, SMN, and DRG...but a huge portion of the time, ink gets messed up by others, or someone gets hits consistently with a missile during chakras, or searing wind gets messed up. The few groups that I have joined that made it further were statics that needed a temporary fill in, and with those, we just hit enrage due to deaths. On V5S...well...I dunno what the deal with that one is.

Now again, I'm not speaking on this as a means of saying randoms are bad. I just wonder if others who do raid have noticed this. Does it compare at all to the Alex Savage raids? This was a question that popped into my mind, as I spent the weekend going through V7S. Has it always been like this, or is this something of a recent trend?

[KageTokage]

I've only noticed that the PUG quality tends to rapidly degrade the longer you wait after a reset.

While a lot of people do wait until the weekend, it's probably safest to get it done on Tuesday.

[KaivaC]

I've only noticed that the PUG quality tends to rapidly degrade the longer you wait after a reset.

While a lot of people do wait until the weekend, it's probably safest to get it done on Tuesday.

I did try that with V7S, and it could be that either I'm getting incredibly unlucky, or the times I am able to play, I'm jumping into the wrong groups. On a whim, I ran a clear party yesterday and requested clearers and vets only; didn't make it past ink, sadly.

[Miste]

My experiences so far...

It is a nightmare pugging O7S.

Everyone has clear yet...groups fail over and over and over failing mechanics an uncanny amount. Even partial static doesn't save you since one person alone can wipe you.

I get mistakes happen, but these aren't just a couple of mistakes...or even a handful...it is simply hours with some people making mistakes over and over again.

Pugging O8S Kefaust clear to God Kefka is pretty much equally as bad...groups put it as God Kefka learning but they can't manage Kefka. It is frustrating...I'm not the type to get angry though I sit and wipe with them for quite awhile, but it sucks for me because I know I can do Kefka quite cleanly by now and I need to practice God Kefka ><

[Vidu]

I'd say you need to consider at least three things here:

1) Sigma is supposed to be a bit more difficult than Omega in general - Omega (and specially O1S then) was supposed to be this entry into raiding. That makes sense for the first raid-tier of an expansion since you might have a lot of new customers who only bought the game now aswell as returners who might not have played for months. You dont want to discourage either of them right away by the first one or two fights of the raid. Now with Sigma its more legit to assume that most people doing Sigma have been raiding before and are prepared for more difficult content.

2) The longer you wait, the hard it gets to find decent people. Specially for "clear"-groups, since the more talented folks has already cleared it. But I could imagine the same holding true for your simple O5/6 weekly clear - depending on the jobs you want to gear up, some people might already be done with 5 completly (for example: I main a tank, I dont need the accessories and I got my belt - I dont mind grabbing some pieces for my bard and I'll obviously clear it with my static as long as anyone still needs it, but I would have no incentive to join a PUG-group anymore, since I dont need anything)

3) This is something I'm noticing in my static aswell: People are getting cocky later down the road. Happens with my static aswell, but I could imagine the same holding true for pugs - the idea that "this is easy content" and therefor underestimating it, slacking, not paying as much attention as needed, being greedy with dps and dying because of it... all those things are more likely to happen later down the road aswell because of the idea that "I've cleared this for ten weeks now, my ilvl has increased by 20, my health by 15k, pffff, I dont need a cooldown for this tankbuster anymore!"

And then there are the usual problems with pug groups - bad communication, timing etc.
Thats not totally new...

Specially for O7 I could see the slight randomness of the encounter being a struggle for some people - it makes a bit more difficult to plan ahead (if you dont memorise the whole pattern thats gonna be loaded quickly). Tunnel vision seems to be huge issue here and O7 offeres several tunnel-vision-pain-points, aka things that happen everytime but always with a slightly different pattern, so you cant pre-plan for that (as tank in Shinryu I can agree with my co-tank that I'll always go to the right to break the theter - for searing wind/whatever-the-other-one-is-called-in-english we cant pre-plan, we actually have to pay attention - shocking, I know!)

...and as cheap of an excuse as this might seem at times: it seems that this raid-tier is especially laggy aswell, O7 being the biggest offender. My static had wipes because even though we did Virus correctly, one person would get pushed back a second later due to connection and both would get hysteria... FUN!

To answer your question a bit more clearly though: We had the trend of the first raid-tier being "easy" in both Coil and Alexander. Its the entry raid, you dont want to drive people away right at that point. The second and third tier always started out with more complexe fights.
Despite most of us being pretty bad my static in 2.X managed to clear T1 fairly quickly - we never got past Twintania, but I eventually joined a second static for Second Coil and T6 is a lot more complexe and difficult than T1.
Same for Alexander - I didnt really raid until Creator here, but I helped a friends static out with clearing A1S and A5S when they were missing a tank at the start of each tier. I dont recall neither as super hard, but I do remember that we didnt spend much time on A1S and that I was very much like "...wait? That was it?", while A5S at least took a bit more time and has more mechanics and the like.
So yeah, this happens everytime and it kinda does make sense, doesnt it?

[Fhaerron]

Lately?

Pugs have been bad since the beginning of time.

At least on the EU datacenter.

[KaivaC]

@Miste, Yeah, I can recall. I can only imagine what V8S is going to be like if I ever get there. Just a matter of continually pushing until either I can finish building my static, or I just get lucky enough to join a like-minded group. On that front, at the very least, I can say that I'm good enough to be able to clear the fights that I have seen. My motivating factor right now is just clearing it.

@Vidu That makes quite a bit of sense. I can attest to tunnel vision because I did it a lot of Shinryu Ex...after that fight, I stopped focusing on just one thing, and it's helped a lot with minimizing mistakes on my part. I've been chasing after V7S since week three, I believe, as I think that's when I got the desired ilvl for DRG. I want to say V6S is the easiest on this tier...but I still see wipe-worthy mistakes on that one too. Not very often, but I still see it.

[zuzu-bq]

PUGs ability in fights will vary and you'll probably feel they're worse on fights with less recoverable points. Deltascape fights were easier to recover than Sigmascape even though they're both mechanically on similar difficulties. For example O5S pugs have lower success rates than O6S pugs because Phantom train gives you less space to recover from insta death mechanics while Chandernook has less insta death and more time to recover.

[whiteblade89]

Tbf I just started attempting savage content with this expansion so I have zero experience with Savage Coild and only experienced A1S due to the Anima light grind in HW. With Deltascape I managed to clear 1 and 2 with minimal difficulty because I ran a group with an FC on an EU server. But with Sigma savage, I just started learning O5S last week and I have the fight down pat. Aside from the occasional knock off of the train (tunnel vision and whatnot) I know that fight inside and out. And I've been attempting to clear it with pugs for the last week and I still have yet to clear. I've seen enrage so many times, at 5%, 3%, 1%, .5% it's infuriating. We get so close yet people fail mechanics left and right. It's fine to mess up, but when you fail the same thing over and over and over again, and when the leader of the pf group, who has the pf set to "parse runs", is the one who tells ME "just don't die too much and you can stay in my group." This group, this is the one ill get my clear with. Nope. That guy died more than anyone to the same knockback almost every run. I think Vidu has a good point, especially for this particular group. People get cocky and complacent which causes them to screw up easy mechanics. And I don't think this will ever change, tbh. I've had spectacular pug groups and then awful pug groups. It's just a matter of getting lucky with which group you join.

Side note: it was funny because this guy threw a literal tantrum the other day in one these groups. The leader wanted to do the WAR strategy (which I have never done before) and when it came time to do that, half the group bailed on the plan at the last second lol and this guy lost hid f***ing mind. "You guys are idiots! We said we're doing the WAR strat!" Another member: "sorry, I didn't see that in chat. My fault." First guy: "WE LITERALLY SAID IT!!!" proceeds to quit the instance, and before leaving group says "LEARN HOW TO F***ING READ!"

TL;DR: not only is it difficult to find competent pugs, but you also run into cry babies like this guy. I honestly don't understand getting THAT upset over a video game. The salt flows freely in Savage pugs it seems.

[KaivaC]

The WAR strat is a gamble...it's very easy to do if you have a good ping, but I've noticed that quite a few people FEEL iffy about it because they are counting the WAR to have a good connection. RDM can do it too, but they usually have to be on top of their game. I have realized lately with V7S that I kinda stopped caring about hitting high numbers and trying to just do what I can to help PUGs clear whatever fight I'm in. Contrary to belief, they don't go hand-in-hand all the time. When I'm tanking, I find myself going into tank stance more often than not just to help out healers who may be struggling. On V6S, if I'm on DRG or PLD, I'll hurt myself by taking either a pink or yellow paint because nobody else wants to grab it or are very uncomfortable with it. It's...interesting how different things are in the PF.