Expectations are ruining this game

[Mahoukenshi]

I've only experienced the first few MSQ dungeons + Ifrit as DPS, but to my own - I guess postive - surprise these runs were silent ones without me messing things up due to my innate nervousness (regardless of difficulty). However, I did watch brief dungeon versions on youtube by MTQcapture who does/did imho an amazing job in her videos. In contrast, although I enjoy leveling my Paladin next to my "main job", just the thought of tanking in dungeons gives me the chill for whatever reasons.
While so far everything seems quite managable, I fear I'll eventually reach a point when I have to draw the line and mechanics + gimmicks gets multilayered, given the amount of story dungeons I'm expected to complete. Fortunately, it seems that raids and coils are not required for the MSQ, yet seem to be partially useful for grasping the whole picture (e.g. Bahamut from what I've heard). But I disgress... when push comes to shove, I will definitely consider playing the "first timer" card before the experienced players before the actual run begins.

[Noitems]

It's funny because even now with Shadowbringers I still had to keep telling people "Please don't spoil!" because I personally want to experience the content myself and figure it out.

Especially when Tanking my actions are generally going to dignify if we wipe or not. So me personally experiencing and learning the fight feels much more rewarding for me. Thankfully with many of the fights in current content they are all very predictable in terms of when your tankbuster is coming, when a raidwide is coming, and then that bosses specific mechanics. I wouldn't have been able to piece that together as well if someone just flat out told me what was going to go on, sometimes you need to deal with that head on to get the best knowledge about it.

This is applying this logic for mainly dungeons, MOST trials, and MOST raid bosses and is generally based on how many new people I see in a group. A perfect example of this imo is Tsukuyomi normal. If about 6 people know this fight you can generally hop to it without any tips (most people can pick it up as the fight goes on), however when your number is about 4-5 that's when i would suggest giving very brief tips on the fight. You still want people to experience the fight for what it is since it's really cool, but explaining every single bit about it takes the magic completely out of it. Especially when people mess up and someone has to be passive aggressive on explaining the fight to still have people die. I feel brief tips are great since it avoids having people die to mechanics that aren't too clear. The swapping sides during lunacy is a big one as that leads into both bleed and doom, easily killing someone if a healer is brand new. Nothing feels more degrading then dying to a mechanic like that as opposed to something like the fans where it's more clear as to WHY you died. That's why explanations without going into too much in depth are a big thing. Just saying "swap sides when your count hits four" is perfect, doesn't tell you what this side mechanic is, but also gives you an idea that something bad will happen if you don't follow it.

When you start hitting EX and Savage the expectation then is that you know how the fight works unless joining a blind party finder group. You can absolutely pick up mechs during those groups but as the difficulty is much higher it's best to go armed with some knowledge unless you're joining a blind one.

OP I understand your frustration and it just sounds like you've been having bad groups of people. I would recommend to avoid being spoiled on fights to simply just say "First time here, please don't spoil". I did that for every dungeon/trial I ran in Shadowbringers and only asked for help on one of them, which was Titania simply due to an aggro question.

[jellis41]

My advice is to just expect it and shed it like water. I have no fear of what a rando online thinks of how I play. I'll tell people straight up if I'm new at a duty or class and just let the hate flow if they don't like it. I will agree it's ridiculous in this game though.

My girlfriend has dungeon anxiety because of people like that and I always tell her what I just said here. Part that shit like the Red Sea and just walk on through it like you own the place. Too much actual stuff to worry about in the world besides rude people online.

[Lascivus]

I really appreciate all the responses to this! First of all, I just need to say that this was me venting out of frustration and I'm a lot calmer and levelheaded now tbh.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to explain things from both sides. There are definitely a lot of things that we can do to make things easier on ourselves. However, my fiance has decided to run through everything as a healer first so they can get a feel for how things go because they are a lot more comfortable with healing than tanking. We will definitely try to be a lot better about letting people know when we're new to a dungeon or whatever so that they understand if we wipe, that's why.

Of course, that is to say that we have played through most of the dungeons up to level 50 and do have a pretty good grasp on mechanics, unless something new gets thrown at us. But even then, we're both pretty quick to pick something up, and if one of us misses it we'll explain. And if we both miss it multiple times, we're not too proud to ask for help.

Just recently we did Thornmarch for the first time with other people (we did it undersized first just for fun, so we kind of knew what to expect), and we wiped probably 3 times before people were like "okay this is what's going on", but nobody really got upset about it thankfully.

And as I've said in other posts, I completely understand the frustration of dealing with new players who have no idea what's going on. We recently had a tank in Sastasha who literally didn't know how to do their job. But our healer was patient and explained what he needed to be doing. It was super frustrating, but we understood that he was new, so we took our time and let him learn. It may have taken 30 minutes, but it still got done and we helped someone learn something in the process.

But again, we're going to try to be better about announcing our newness to content so people know what to expect.

[Awha]

This is something I've had to do while easing myself back into tanking after like, 10 years. I've done enough content in this game through the years that I generally have an idea as to how most fights work, even though I've been a dps up until Shadowbringers. Honestly? The best way to get over this is to jump in with both feet without hesitation, and keep doing it. I know I may mess up, and I also know that some people will be more or less accepting than others, but that's part of the learning process and part of playing an MMO. If I do mess up I just apologize, shrug it off and not repeat the same mistakes twice if I can help it. I don't think I'm doing too bad. Haven't had any complaints, anyway, which I see as a good thing.

Yeah generally most people do not care much either way, and for the most part those that are annoyed just vent via discord or FC chat. Have not ran into many that will even bother to bring up something unless it completely derails the entire run and cases like that are few and far.

Glad you have not let it stop you from trying new things.

[Edax]

So I started playing this game about 6 months ago with my fiance. Neither of us knew much of anything about it and that was a huge part of why I was so excited to play it.

But now, the expectation that you're supposed to look up and know everything about a dungeon before doing it is literally ruining it for me. I understand being frustrated when someone doesn't know the mechanics, trust me. But getting pissed off at someone for not knowing when it's their first time going through is so stupid.

Literally my fiance feels like they CAN'T tank a dungeon without memorizing the mechanics completely before going through because they know people who've done it before will get pissed off and yell at them for it.

I absolutely hate this bullshit. Let people learn as they go. You shouldn't have to research things before doing them.

I can only speak for myself, but I once did a run in The Keeper of the Lake as part of a roulette. I had done it many times before and was leveled synced to it so it should have been easy. Instead this was one of the most grueling experiences of FFXIV I ever had. The tank got us all killed on the first boss 4 times because he absolutely did not understand the fuel tank mechanics. Then at the last boss, after 5 more wipes I had to give up on this group because the healer could just not stay alive and this run was taking well over 75 minutes and the other DPS had ditched. There are hard limits to how ignorant some players should go into duties. This is why I take care to watch a 5 minute guide before any new run so I don't ruin it for the rest of the team.

MSQ duties are not that hard and the "let people learn as they go" flies out he window after 9 wipes. I don't have unlimited patience and the duties do have a time limit on them. For a cooperative game, a basic level of competence is expected and you should not look down on players who study a duty beforehand. They are putting in the extra effort to ensure the smoothest experience possible which is to be commended.

[SerLuke]

When I started playing there was a person in my first FC that would pressure me into watching videos before dungeons it stressed me the heck out and almost ruined the game for me, I go in blind now and things are fine =)

[whiteblade89]

I'm telling you, party finder is your friend. Just today I joined an Innocence ex blind run party finder group. It filled rather quickly. We didn't clear it, but everyone left that group ready to clear it. You'll be very surprised at the amount of like-minded people you will run into if you just A.) Take the initiative to find said people, or B.) Keep your eyes open for it. Also, none of that is a stab at the OP, it's just a suggestion to help them out.

[Hash_Browns]

I'm telling you, party finder is your friend. Just today I joined an Innocence ex blind run party finder group. It filled rather quickly. We didn't clear it, but everyone left that group ready to clear it. You'll be very surprised at the amount of like-minded people you will run into if you just A.) Take the initiative to find said people, or B.) Keep your eyes open for it. Also, none of that is a stab at the OP, it's just a suggestion to help them out.

I have to agree with this right here.

Did a farm learning party with a group to clear Titania. Pretty much all of us were first timers. At the end of it, we got the clear. No salt at all from anyone. Even when I got ahead of myself and cleaved the entire group, no one was salty.

Next day I joined a farm party. Zero salt again. We farmed it, a lot of people got weapons. Everyone left happy.

I can totally understand being nervous when joining new EX/Savage content, but I don't having the mindset that the Party Finder is a toxic area is the right mindset to have. People are in there trying to be helpful, learn mechanics, and have fun - just like yourself.


As far as normal dungeons go, people don't really expect anyone to know anything going into the Duty Finder. As long as you update your gear, you will golden in most poeples eyes.

[Kolsykol]

The most important thing to me is that people are at least trying.
I have more respect for someone who's at least trying to figure things out and someone who knows and just doesn't bother or tries to min-max when they're too bad and end up getting hit when they were trying to get that last attack in.

Tbh I never look up dungeon mechanics beforehand either and I can only remember dying to them because of that once last expansion and the healer was very rude to me and gave me shit for it, but then the healer died three times at the last boss lol.
Things is tho, that I actually asked about it before the boss pull that time.
I said that it was my first time in the dungeon and asked if there was any special mechanics and no one answered, and then the healer gave me shit for it when the healer was also quiet and didn't tell me anything...
That's kinda bullshit imo, luckily one of the dps was friendly and marked themselves just in case so that I could follow.