Why is it so common to join extremes without watching a guide first?

[Tiramu]

I might be part of your target, so I'll give an answer and try to appeal to you to be more open-minded because some of what you've said has a touch of running people down who don't play the same as you.

I really dislike this "if you haven't read a guide you are unprepared and haven't put the effort in" mentality. When content is created it's supposed to give us a challenge to overcome. The strategy is half of the challenge, executing on that strategy is the other half. If I've read a guide before taking on the content then I've had half of the challenge done for me. It's not about being lazy or not putting the effort in, if anything it takes more effort to learn on the fly than it does to have your hand held by others.

While some people might play games with the game on one screen, walkthrough on the other. Others want to play the content blind and figure stuff out for themselves. We should try to respect each other as much as possible with this stuff and if we are really rigid in expectations, then that's what statics and your FC are for. Heck, you can even create PF duties where players have to have cleared the content to join. You can get your easy run that way.



Talking more broadly, I've had people act inconsiderately in both guided and blind groups. I was in a blind friendly Ex group only last week where one of the players couldn't help but point out the strategy to a bunch of players who were trying to blind the content, then wondered why they got pissed off at him. This happens a lot, with players who have cleared content telling blind friendly groups the strategy.

Also, my first extreme was an experience. I was struggling to get a blind group together for a Ramuh Ex Synched group because everyone wanted a guide. So, I begrudgingly read the basics and entered a group. Informed the leader that I'd read the basics, was that OK? They said yes, and then accused me of lying because I didn't get the mechanics down in 3 runs. It turned out, even reading a guide isn't enough for some guided players, you need to more guide. Long story short, they'd been trying for a few hours and desperately wanted their clear. We went a few more runs, my connection went poor and they kicked me.

It knocked my confidence wholesale. The next day, I put together a blind synced no echo group myself and we cleared Ramuh in a few runs, then went on and did a load more. Turns out, it wasn't me who was the problem, and the guide wasn't helping them. So go figure.


Now, after having done a lot of Ex runs, I'm even more set in my ways. I will create blind friendly groups and we will clear the content that way. It seems to work pretty well and one things for sure, having read a guide or no has little bearing on whether you'll clear; and if anything, I find blind groups have more success than guided ones, and blind players tend to pick up mechanics more quickly than those who need guides. Thats obviously my own personal experience, but it seems pretty consistent.


So, yeah, just... respect that different people play differently to you; that both blind and guided players can be toxic, that both blind and guided players can be good or bad and if the group is good you'll get the clear either way. If you can't do that, then make clear on your PF description or use a static or your FC.

[Ransu]

People like going in blind. The real question here though is why are you using duty finder for extremes? I didn't think anyone ever used that for those fights. Party finder can already be pretty random. I couldn't imagine a DF group.

[Payadopa]

Tbh I don't like having my food cut and chewed for me, so if I can enter content without a guide I will. If there is a limitation about a party finder asking you know the fight or seen a guide, then I will do that, otherwise I will keep things fresh.

Agreed. You can only experience something for the first time once.

[SturmChurro]

If you want to do a blind run then join and say that. Don’t join and ask for the full written guide when that is accessible literally everywhere online.

A lot of players are probably used to someone literally typing paragraphs and explaining fights. Others are likely afraid to admit it's their first time, or speak up in general.

Next thing you know, they show up in Duty Complete Farm parties STILL making mistakes like they never did it before.

That's exactly what happens! It's why I get burn out trying to do extremes every expansion. So much wasted time just trying to find a party that can clear in something literally labelled "farm"! Even inside the instance, someone can ask whether anybody needs some help or a refresher with anything, and nobody will speak up, then we wipe, constantly..

[Jeeqbit]

Watching a guide should be done if they say in the description "watch a guide" or "know this mechanic" and watching a guide is really common, but other parties advertise as doing it blind.

One reason to do an extreme blind is if you don't think you will need a guide based on the mechanics in the normal version. I did this with Innocence because I was fairly confident there was not a lot they could do to that trial that I wouldn't be able to figure out on my own and I was right. I thought that the tankbuster is obviously going to be a tank swap and it was more or less what I expected.

When you have played the game for a really long time, you can know how to get a lot of mechanics fast without a guide and will often be able to wing them on the first try, but there can be exceptions. In the current savage tier for example, if you try to do devour without any sort of guide or clip analysis, it results in headbanging and dying over and over, because you need a mental plan of how the aoes work and how to move. Another example is Tsukuyomi, where if you haven't come up with a genius plan of how to handle the meteor drops like guide-makers have, you will just wipe the party over and over.

You specifically talked about when someone queues for extremes. At least in the NA region it is not common to queue for extremes except some of the old ones that you get in Mentor Roulette and the people who queue for these are sprouts who don't understand how to prepare properly for an extreme trial or that they even need to.

[angienessyo]

I'm so sorry you require a hand holding guide for every fight in FFXIV. You would have had a lot of trouble with the earlier Final Fantasy series, and I can speak for everyone who played them back "in the day." If you want people to have watched a guide, put that in your PF, if you're joining DF I would absolutely expect people to perhaps have never watched a guide or want to.

I got Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 9 when they were released and had the physical guide for each of them, the guides were out at the same time the game was new. I also have my original Chrono Trigger and Earthbound guides. (Earthbound even came with the guide) And through a large portion of the 90s we just went to the library and printed out the 200 page Gamefaq guides with the giant ASCII art. And even in the NES days we picked up Nintendo Power if we got stuck in something. The original FF1 on NES and maybe FF4/"FF2" here in NA were the only FF games I can think of where you might not have had easy access to resources outside of Nintendo Power. But as of the PS1 days we had easy ways to look at guides online and it's not like NA players were playing any of the older FF titles outside 1, 4 and 6 as we didn't even get the others until the PS1 ports with the horrendous load times. The only gamers that were living through the dark ages with no help were people playing stuff like Sierra games and Myst/Riven haha

I used guides in the olden days and still use them now. But I also do savage+ultimate and if anyone has made any sort of guide or toolbox for those you better believe I'm looking at them, even when week 1 raiding.

[TaleraRistain]

Since you're talking DF instead of PF and it doesn't sound like you're on JP, you've answered your own question. Think about what a new person sees in the game. They do this questline and it unlocks this new way to do this trial they did before, and the game says "Go queue up in DF to do this". When they run other DF content for things like dungeons and trials in the story, more often than not they don't encounter anyone expecting them to look at a guide for something they're new to. So why would they think it was required for something else they're new to? I think you see people expecting carries more in PF since they can see the requirements there and ignore them. But you're probably running into mostly new folks who don't know any better than to use the DF for that content since they haven't learned that particular community quirk.

Also, for guides in general, they often don't help a lot of people. Some need to be in there in the moment reacting to really understand things.

[Bsrking5]

Since you're talking DF instead of PF and it doesn't sound like you're on JP, you've answered your own question. Think about what a new person sees in the game. They do this questline and it unlocks this new way to do this trial they did before, and the game says "Go queue up in DF to do this". When they run other DF content for things like dungeons and trials in the story, more often than not they don't encounter anyone expecting them to look at a guide for something they're new to. So why would they think it was required for something else they're new to? I think you see people expecting carries more in PF since they can see the requirements there and ignore them. But you're probably running into mostly new folks who don't know any better than to use the DF for that content since they haven't learned that particular community quirk.

Also, for guides in general, they often don't help a lot of people. Some need to be in there in the moment reacting to really understand things.

Well the 30m+ queue time should clue them off that it's not something you can wing it and clear the first time while actually blindfolded.

[Imora]

Haha actually mentor roulette can be really fun! You get to see new players be very happy once they managed to clear!

It's also a colossal waste of time. I don't enjoy spending a full lockout on old content because people decided to go in blind.

[Imora]

I got Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 9 when they were released and had the physical guide for each of them, the guides were out at the same time the game was new. I also have my original Chrono Trigger and Earthbound guides. (Earthbound even came with the guide) And through a large portion of the 90s we just went to the library and printed out the 200 page Gamefaq guides with the giant ASCII art. And even in the NES days we picked up Nintendo Power if we got stuck in something. The original FF1 on NES and maybe FF4/"FF2" here in NA were the only FF games I can think of where you might not have had easy access to resources outside of Nintendo Power. But as of the PS1 days we had easy ways to look at guides online and it's not like NA players were playing any of the older FF titles outside 1, 4 and 6 as we didn't even get the others until the PS1 ports with the horrendous load times. The only gamers that were living through the dark ages with no help were people playing stuff like Sierra games and Myst/Riven haha

I used guides in the olden days and still use them now. But I also do savage+ultimate and if anyone has made any sort of guide or toolbox for those you better believe I'm looking at them, even when week 1 raiding.

This.

Some people that weren't around then don't know w had guides in the 80s and 90s too.