My Catharsis in FFXIV

[HyoMinPark]

Yup, they wanted maximized damage, I just wanted to win. Which is funny, because when we were learning the fights, they focused on damage over mechanics, which lead to them dying more and, ironically, less damage done overall.

It's one thing to not focus on optimization as much when you're trying to get that first clear. But afterwards, they clearly stated what they wanted to do, while you wanted to continue this "playing it safe" mentality. That directly contradicted with their new goals, so they removed you to find someone better suited for the group. There is nothing wrong with that, and it doesn't make them "wrong".

You quoted me saying that they don't use FFlogs so much but something else instead, then respond to that quote as if I said that they don't use any logs of some type at all... What are you even doing?

Correcting you. You literally said that they "don't really use FFLogs", but they do.

FFLogs is the only "leaderboard" so to speak for this game; same with ACT. And they use them both. You can see them using their magical crystal ball just by watching JP streamers. You insinuating that they don't use it that much is incorrect. You insinuating they use something else is incorrect.

Do you have proof that they utilize other programs? Because the leaderboards on FFLogs insinuate that they're still fairly prevalent on there.

[Enjuden]

Pretty sure that video has absolutely nothing to do with what you're talking about. Still, to say that NA as a whole is unwelcome because of the little history you have is ludicrous. Gilgamesh at the time had a lot of players that would never agree to your way of playing whatsoever. Unless someone has personal history that speaks out in this thread, there is little to go by but your word, and with you only doing primals, there isn't anything to say one way or the other. There's a good reason a lot of the players I know are Gilgamesh Evacuees during ARR/Heavensward, so I can see why you'd just blast a server, but not an entire region.

Still, if you like it in JP servers, then you do you.

[Zorixas]

When u join in high-end contents like the savage raids, there will always be a minimum expectation for performance that is required of the content. While in the JP data centers they can be less vocal (well E players in there are much more direct lol) about under-performing players, they can-and-will voice out or even take action if the "exceptional" case becomes "truly exceptional" and might even affect the next non-j player that joins the party (got removed from a o11s party months back, can't remember whether it was ATC or farm, because the party leader had trouble with an E player the previous try).

The problem was that their minimum expectations was also the maximum expectations, which was pointless because everyone was still learning the fight. Why? Aiming to learn the mechanics first and focus on maximizing damage later works so much efficiently. I know a little Japanese, so that helped me from sharing the same fate more often. It happens, but I find more people that are willing to try to talk than those that are not. (Hmm, maybe I should share those stories).

That said, friendly players that help others are everywhere; had a grp of E players that took turns to switch to a tank to take aggro when BLU-ing for Final String, and a grp of J players that carried my fat butt 2 more extra rounds in Haukke Manor despite me being prepared to make another party so that I dun waste their time.

Yup! I never said that there weren't friendly players everywhere, there are. I just find more demanding english players than helpful ones. And that sounded like fun, I soloed getting Final Sting, but for the blue spells from dungeons, what the Japanese players do is powerlevel one another to 50, then work to get spells, so for Haukke Manor it was just a bunch of high level BLUs unsynced nuking the place, where we learned that Self-Destruct was very useful there. Didn't learn Level-5 Death? Blow ourselves up and start the boss fight over. Can you imagine a bunch of Blue Mages spitting fish at an ahriman over and over to chip its HP without killing it? I don't have to imagine it, I just get to laugh at the sight.

[Sigma-Astra]

Here's the difference between the NA/EU servers and the JP servers:

If you are doing poorly on a NA or EU, 9/10 times the people will explicitly at least have the courtesy of letting you know, it may not always be honey coated words of encouragement and friendliness, but at least they'll let you know what you're doing wrong.

If you are doing poorly on a JP server, they'll just carry you because the JP mindset is to not burden their fellow team members with unnecessary conflict during a raid and damage the morale since when one person fails, they all fail. However, they'll more or less blacklist you right after from fellow parties for the future, therefore, you've learned nothing about being a better team player and in fact, made yourself out to look like a leech on their society.

Quiet people are the ones that you need to watch out for. Politeness doesn't always mean that they enjoy helping or doing it.

[Iscah]

I play on a Japanese server, and while I don't raid myself, I've only heard my friends talk about using FFlogs - no alternatives.

My understanding is also that (stereotypically on both sides, perhaps) Japanese players tend to dislike English players because they tend to not have the same "team-minded" culture that they expect. I hear about it playing out both ways - people getting kicked from PF groups because they speak English, and English players "sneaking into" groups that specifically requested Japanese players only - and no doubt reinforcing the "rude" impression of English players when they get caught out for doing so.


It's also just a general culture that there isn't much conversation during dungeon runs, besides a greeting and farewell. It happens occasionally but not often, and then there's the language barrier to contend with. Most times if I try to talk to other players they don't understand me anyway, so a lot of the time I don't even try now.

[Zorixas]

Pretty sure that video has absolutely nothing to do with what you're talking about. Still, to say that NA as a whole is unwelcome because of the little history you have is ludicrous. Gilgamesh at the time had a lot of players that would never agree to your way of playing whatsoever. Unless someone has personal history that speaks out in this thread, there is little to go by but your word, and with you only doing primals, there isn't anything to say one way or the other. There's a good reason a lot of the players I know are Gilgamesh Evacuees during ARR/Heavensward, so I can see why you'd just blast a server, but not an entire region.

Still, if you like it in JP servers, then you do you.

In the video, there a part where he talks about difficulties in games making the negative emotions that you accumulated from real life worse when it should be a release valve. Events that prevent the player from progressing in the game. What I did was state an event where that exact scenario happened to me, the pressure effected me in real life. Playing in JP servers was the release valve that I needed. It happened in Heavensward, so it was a good while ago. Hoped that you liked the video though, it was more about sharing it rather than my story.

[Zorixas]

I play on a Japanese server, and while I don't raid myself, I've only heard my friends talk about using FFlogs - no alternatives.

My understanding is also that (stereotypically on both sides, perhaps) Japanese players tend to dislike English players because they tend to not have the same "team-minded" culture that they expect. I hear about it playing out both ways - people getting kicked from PF groups because they speak English, and English players "sneaking into" groups that specifically requested Japanese players only - and no doubt reinforcing the "rude" impression of English players when they get caught out for doing so.


It's also just a general culture that there isn't much conversation during dungeon runs, besides a greeting and farewell. It happens occasionally but not often, and then there's the language barrier to contend with. Most times if I try to talk to other players they don't understand me anyway, so a lot of the time I don't even try now.

I can definitely see that happening, reminds me of the old saying, "When in Rome, do what the Romans do". Luckily I know a little Japanese, and use a translator, so I don't get kicked out so much, but it happens now and again, not a lot though. And yup the greetings and farewell is mostly all that is said, which is more than I can say for the years I spent in parties with people that said absolutely nothing from start to finish.

But in any case, the whole point of all of that is to share the video and tell what prevented the game that I played (this one) from being my release valve and how it became one again.

[Zorixas]

It's one thing to not focus on optimization as much when you're trying to get that first clear. But afterwards, they clearly stated what they wanted to do, while you wanted to continue this "playing it safe" mentality. That directly contradicted with their new goals, so they removed you to find someone better suited for the group. There is nothing wrong with that, and it doesn't make them "wrong".

Agreed, that is what happened. I didn't say that they were wrong, but I did insinuate that it was pointless. That lead to unnecessary stress in the game that I didn't want.

Correcting you. You literally said that they "don't really use FFLogs", but they do.

FFLogs is the only "leaderboard" so to speak for this game; same with ACT. And they use them both. You can see them using their magical crystal ball just by watching JP streamers. You insinuating that they don't use it that much is incorrect. You insinuating they use something else is incorrect.

Do you have proof that they utilize other programs? Because the leaderboards on FFLogs insinuate that they're still fairly prevalent on there.

Hmm, I see the problem here, my apologies, I should have worded it better. My words were "It no longer matters, the Japanese players don't really use it." What I meant to say was that they don't use it to judge other players, it's not a requirement in order to raid, which was what I had to do to start raiding for Alexander, so that code on my lodestone now has no purpose. I also said, "I think that they use something else to check performance" I was sent a link to information from an O7S fight, I didn't pay much attention to it because my group was talking about how their performances were while using that info, but I was not sure what it was and I didn't ask about it, so I don't know what it was. I hope it clears up that misunderstanding.

Really, all I wanted to do was share the video and an event in game that became the blockage which resulted in making the stress that I had built up worse rather than a release valve for that pent-up stress.

[Nora_of_Mira]

I will never forget the time I was kicked out of my first static because I refused to use Shoulder Tackle on cooldown and save it for quick returns. My damage was fine, made the fewest mistakes that lead to wipes, wasn't rude or anything of the sort (barely spoke at all), but got kicked for that crap. I neither need nor want those kinds of unnecessary demands and expectations ruining my fun time, no one does. We spend money every month to play a game, why make such unnecessary demands for such a pitiful amount of damage when dying less results in so much more damage?

Thanks for the context, I sympathize a lot more with the post now.

That just sounds to me like a disorganized static. In my only successful static, optimizing DPS was the goal from the very first pull. We all agreed that the learning phase was meant to push yourself to the brink of dying trying to figure out the best way to keep our numbers up, so a few deaths trying to keep uptime was generally accepted and okay. Now when we all knew the fight, it was time to sort of balance out our greediness and mechanic knowledge. For clears, we wanted 0 deaths. But at that point, we pretty much knew how to optimize our dps while staying alive. Im probably spoiled but our communication was constant and we all worked together to give each other tips when we died or needed to squeeze more dps.

examples were like, my healer telling me to eat a certain AoE, because the damage was going to be healed with the regen anyway, to keep uptime.

and the final part about our "fun time being ruined", I think you probably made the right call as you have to resolve that for yourself and only yourself. We all have to stop and ask ourselves "why are we putting ourselves through all this stress? is it because im having fun?" If you're answer was to remove yourself from the demands of others, thats what you gotta do.

[Vidu]

Let me give an example of what I was referring to.
During Heavensward on the Gilgamesh server, I decided to finally try out raiding and take on Alexander, so I joined a static (I was a monk at the time). When we got to Cruise Chaser, we had more trouble than the other 2 bosses. I was doing all that I can to remember the mechanics and what to do to counter them, but I couldn't remember the exact rotations and timings for what mechanics were coming and when, so I made the decision of not using Shoulder Tackle for when I needed to get away from the boss, I can charge back in immediately when it's safe, my damage was great without it anyway, I made sure to not die as much as possible and follow the strategies as best as I could. The result was as we progressed; I died the least amount of times and countered the mechanics the most when doing good damage. When we finally beat the boss, they decided to have a meeting to discuss on how to deal with that boss before moving on to Alexander. Their strategy was to squeeze out as much damage as possible (I wanted to tell them that dying less would lead to more damage, but I decided to keep that to myself). When they got to me, they wanted me to use Shoulder Tackle on cooldown no matter what, I told them no because I wanted to stay on the boss and I haven't gotten down its rotation just yet for me to pull off that kind of min-maxing, 100 potency every 30 seconds would not be missed. So they kicked me from the static. Not because I performed poorly, but because I didn't want to completely maximize my damage with such desperate clawing to scrape up a minuscule damage increase. That was not going to change the result of the entire fight. That's what's I'm talking about when I spoke of criticism because I didn't squeeze out every bit of damage.

Since other people have adressed the JP-server-thing already, I'd like to focus on your experience on Gilgamesh here - mainly to note a few things (some that might have been covered already aswell):

1) While I dont wanna say that you're doing excatly that, this has a bit of a generalisation-vibe to it: One (or maybe even just a couple more) isolated incident that made you brought down judgement on the whole western servers - dont get me wrong, I'm gald for you that you found your place on a japanese one, but basically saying "I could have never found such a friendly envoriment on a NA/EU server!" is just plain wrong.

2) Personally I would have removed you from that static aswell - but not because of your actual action of not squeezing out every last bit of damage you could but because of your attitude behind it, which is quite honestly a pretty arrogant one.
"I dont need to improve anymore" - and even more "I'm better than you guys, dont tell ME to improve". Both arent things that I'd want from any member in my very casual, laid-back and friendly static.
As I said in my first post: You should always try to improve - you had room for improvment there and as far as I can gather from your post, so did the rest of the static (if you went over everyone) and since they stayed on, they probably took that advice to heart and were willing to improve.
Playing things safe is great for learning fights - but the desire to optimise afterwards is a keypoint for many groups aswell. Sorry if your personal desire clashed with the legit desire of the majority of that group here.
I'd also like to note here that you said yourself that you were using shoulder tackle because you didnt know the rotation perfectly - your expressed desire to not change your use of shoulder tackle also showed that you werent actually willing to bother learning the content "properly" - which, again, is not an attitude I'd like in a group.
I honestly wouldnt be surprised if the real reason you got removed from that group wasnt 100 potency every 30 seconds but your attitude of "Nope, I'm not gonna improve and you know why? Because I'm already better than all of you!" (paraphrasing)
You couldnt even be bothered to learn when you can use shoulder tackle safely - I dont recall A11S to well, but I'm pretty sure you didnt had to close a gap every 30 seconds and lost out on shoulder tackles that could have been used while still functioning as gap-closer.

At the end of the day... maybe a japanese server with silent blacklisting and less open critisim is the right place for someone who acvtively chooses not to improve anymore because they (wrongfully, if you ask me) feel that they've done enough already. I cant imagine such an attitude working anywhere in the world - and specially not in a culture thats focussed on team-work and on everyone doing their best. Because you dont - or at least didnt. You could improve, you knew how, yet you choose not to - and defend it with "There are people who are worse than me!"