Jade Stoa Extreme Saga

[Jaywalker]

I've seen how intense the arguments get on these forums get between people who want players to be kind/patient with newbies and players who get frustrated because they want to be able to do a bunch of runs smoothly and keep getting bogged down by exploitative or inexperienced players. Finally think I have a better grasp of both sides, so want to very cautiously invite some discussion.

I mainly played through duty finder for months. I'm used to players struggling or occasionally being total snots. I've also had really nice experiences that way. At a certain point, it just wasn't feasible to do duty finder for certain content. Extreme runs, older raids... those are disaster zones unless you're in party finder.

I've gotten good enough lately that I can play through recent extreme and some savage runs. My first truly recent extreme battle has been Jade Stoa.

I want a dog mount, and very specifically that one. I reviewed mechanics and actually asked if anyone had advice before going in. No advice, and honestly in hindsight I wasn't terrible. First time I hit the edge of the field while in the falling phase and that killed me. I had no idea it could even do that. Second time I struggled with navigating the second phase's White Herald and got killed there. At this point I am very confident I can do that run, and looking back I think as a newbie those weren't unforgivable spots to have messed up.

The party ditched after two wipes. Only one member said anything, and implied it was my fault the thing failed because I'd said I was interested in farming. I'd also said I was new to the trial, but apparently not clear enough.

I got into a run that was specifically for practice after that, alongside other people who were pretty fresh to it. Tank had to learn about using LB3 on the second tiger at the right time, I got really good at dodging not just White Herald but paralysis attacks.

Tried to enter farms again after that. Found a remarkable number of people tended to speak authoritatively when they had zero clue what they were doing.

One case, had someone spamming text images into the chatlog to the point that it was impossible to read anything without the whole thing expanded. I'm on a console. I can't have log expanded unless I drop everything else I'm doing. At the same time as that, the healers (white mage and scholar IIRC) weren't using regens or shields at crucial moments. And cherry on top, as black mage I'd figured out that for the first time the tiger preps a major attack in that fight I should have triplecast, fire IV, swiftcast, and foul all lined up.

"Casters don't need to DPS just get the orbs".

I'm very aware that during that phase it's normal for healers to eat the regen orbs. That way everyone else can get the tiger's health low enough for survival... or better yet, minimal damage received. I was basically told not to do DPS in a DPS-crucial phase to run around uselessly. Healers were skimping on orbs so if I didn't get them, no one would. We had some bad wipes, and when we didn't wipe outright we lost a lot of people and then wiped.

I left. Following that, tried to enter another run. One person entered as tank, switched to healer, wouldn't switch back. Lost about 3 people in the queue stage because of that. When we eventually filled up, one of the healers was dying repeatedly and struggling to keep up on heals. Additionally, one of the tanks kept leaving his zone while he was surrounded by an orb then running into the DPS section. He almost crashed into me in multiple runs, including when I had an orb around me too. Distracted me in the middle of dodging and I legit died repeatedly trying to adjust around him. He'd been told it's important not to do that but seemed to be determinedly ignoring the information.

The person leading that run disbanded.

At that point I was pretty frustrated and made a specific PF request for players who knew mechanics well and stated past runs had been rough. Team was great, we had I think 5-6 clean runs (as another player put it) and a few people got mounts before we turned in. From this I also got to confirm I know mechanics and can absolutely hold my own, which was a huge relief.

I have never felt so impatient with other players learning things before, or just players being inconsiderate. I think I'd be able to explain mechanics decently clearly to the average learning player at this point now too, which I hope to do and maybe reduce this issue a bit. I don't mind new people if they can learn. And besides that, when the run goes smoothly I like it a LOT.

But I also think people being so impatient that they'll just ditch wordlessly on runs with minor hiccups as if they were trainwrecks, without ever explaining what went wrong, don't necessarily make this better. Stuff like that can actually shrink the pool of competent players a lot and makes it more difficult to find people who can clear.

Players being honest about what they're going for is important I think. Players having at least some level of patience and ability to explain mechanics imo is too. Patience can run out, mistakes can happen. But I think this is something that could be better on both ends, at least for this trial.

Any of you guys have similar experiences? Any thoughts? Hope this can at least shed some light on both sides of the issue!

[Wynn_Storm]

Is Jade Stoa that hard now? I did it for the first time last week and have cleared it multiple times since without too much issue.

And i just do it with randoms in party finder.

If you don't want to deal with inexperienced players then just make your own party and list it under duty complete so first timers can't get in.

[Jaywalker]

Is Jade Stoa that hard now? I did it for the first time last week and have cleared it multiple times since without too much issue.

And i just do it with randoms in party finder.

If you don't want to deal with inexperienced players then just make your own party and list it under duty complete so first timers can't get in.

Extreme is, regular is no problem. Knowing mechanics for ex it's fine too (I go with party finder randoms too usually, I play pretty solo) but this has been really weird. I did make my own party a couple of times and until recently it's been either people with zero patience whatsoever for normal stuff or people who don't know mechs but claim to know mechs and then push bizarre, party-annihilating moves. There's gotta be a middle ground, you know?

[Wynn_Storm]

Extreme is, regular is no problem. Knowing mechanics for ex it's fine too (I go with party finder randoms too usually, I play pretty solo) but this has been really weird. I did make my own party a couple of times and until recently it's been either people with zero patience whatsoever for normal stuff or people who don't know mechs but claim to know mechs and then push bizarre, party-annihilating moves. There's gotta be a middle ground, you know?

I meant that i did it on extreme last week with randoms, and have done it with randoms ever since with no real issue.

People need to be honest if they don't know the mechanics and speak up beforehand. Some people go in expecting everyone knows the fight if everyone stays quiet.

Its just personal responsibility and people are afraid of being the one to mess up, but its likely they will since they don't ask for help.

[Miminming]

Using pf at this point might be your mistake, most people who use pf atm is the people that dont have the confidence to clear the stuff with random people...

[Jaywalker]

Using pf at this point might be your mistake, most people who use pf atm is the people that dont have the confidence to clear the stuff with random people...

Thanks for the heads up, will try! ^^

When I was trying the early primal extreme runs got told I should do PF, so knowing it switched back is helpful!

[HyoMinPark]

Thanks for the heads up, will try! ^^

When I was trying the early primal extreme runs got told I should do PF, so knowing it switched back is helpful!

NA/EU use Party Finder for both learning and farming EX primals (as well as Savage). Don’t try to queue up for SB EX primals in Duty Finder/Raid Finder, because people on these data centers don’t queue for the content this way.

The person you’re replying to is on a JP data center, where they do things differently—PF is for learning/practice over there, and DF/RF is for clears/farms. That’s not the system for NA/EU, though. Just so you know.

[Liam_Harper]

Is Jade Stoa that hard now? I did it for the first time last week and have cleared it multiple times since without too much issue.

I'd say it's one of the messier ones I've farmed.

Groups tend to underestimate it. A big one is groups trying to 1 heal it, with no SMN or Red mage, who have no business 1 healing. I've seen a fair few tanks who die to the tiger add. Groups popping zero shields or defensives when the tiger add blows at a third health and wondering why half the group died. Farm groups set to 330ilv req. I've never seen an entire group dodge Sweep the Leg yet. Another odd one is that I frequently come across tanks who struggle with emnity. I'm talking Diversion on cd, 3 merciful Eyes and being in the orange.

Overall I've had some decent groups too and my first practise run was great, very patient group. I think it's just an issue when content does become "easy", people stop taking it seriously and start wiping to things they normally wouldn't. It's still an EX fight. Byakko is quite capable of killing a group who ignore his mechanics.