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

[LianaThorne]

I'm familiar with clock spot waymarks. This particular player placed four in a line on the side of the room the group starts in, and after having done the fight, I'm 99% certain he was trying to get puddle pairs assigned.

Nothing wrong with that imo.
My group did blind homebrew strats for P5S & P6S. We did clocks, partners and light parties at the start, just in case we came across mechs that needed it as we progressed to save some time. Personally I wouldn't have kicked that guy lol, nothing wrong with a little organization at the start.

[ArchlordPie]

Nothing wrong with that imo.
My group did blind homebrew strats for P5S & P6S. We did clocks, partners and light parties at the start, just in case we came across mechs that needed it as we progressed to save some time. Personally I wouldn't have kicked that guy lol, nothing wrong with a little organization at the start.

I kicked him because I didn't want to know going in that we'd NEED partners. Wiping to something surprising and having half the team go "oh it's partner stacks / Hades cones / split stacks / etc., let's assign positions/groups" is part of the fun IMO. The whole point of a blind run is that everything is a surprise, and I go in having accepted the fact that this style of prog is inefficient and most of what the group comes up with will not get used by future groups. You get exactly one blind run of any given instance, and that's a valuable and enjoyable part of learning high-end content to me.

[LianaThorne]

I kicked him because I didn't want to know going in that we'd NEED partners. Wiping to something surprising and having half the team go "oh it's partner stacks / Hades cones / split stacks / etc., let's assign positions/groups" is part of the fun IMO. The whole point of a blind run is that everything is a surprise, and I go in having accepted the fact that this style of prog is inefficient and most of what the group comes up with will not get used by future groups. You get exactly one blind run of any given instance, and that's a valuable and enjoyable part of learning high-end content to me.

Wha? How does assigning "just in case" stuff before a blind pull make it any less blind? You're still going to wipe to the mechanic either way because you won't know thst you need stacks there for example, until after dying to it...?

All it's doing is saving you time so you can just immediately pull again since you did assignments in the beginning.

[ArchlordPie]

Wha? How does assigning "just in case" stuff before a blind pull make it any less blind? You're still going to wipe to the mechanic either way because you won't know thst you need stacks there for example, until after dying to it...?

All it's doing is saving you time so you can just immediately pull again since you did assignments in the beginning.

Is it really saving time to assign positions prior to pulling instead of between wipes? Either way you still need to assign positions, and nothing's preventing people from going "oops i forgot my position, can we redo them real fast" and causing the group to have to assign positions twice in the end.

Also, choosing as a group to assign positions before pulling does not make a pull any less blind. Someone coming in to a blind run and trying to assign partners before we've pulled, because he knows partners are needed, is what makes the run less blind, and that's what I kicked him for.

[Deveryn]

Is it really saving time to assign positions prior to pulling instead of between wipes? Either way you still need to assign positions, and nothing's preventing people from going "oops i forgot my position, can we redo them real fast" and causing the group to have to assign positions twice in the end.

Also, choosing as a group to assign positions before pulling does not make a pull any less blind. Someone coming in to a blind run and trying to assign partners before we've pulled, because he knows partners are needed, is what makes the run less blind, and that's what I kicked him for.

That's some very flawed logic. The fact is clocks, groups and partners are a regular part these encounters. That's not a blind run. That's an ignorant run.

[Ivtrix]

That's some very flawed logic. The fact is clocks, groups and partners are a regular part these encounters. That's not a blind run. That's an ignorant run.

If people wanna stumble their way through the encounters like that, so be it, just make sure it’s damn clear in the PF description cause I want no part in a run like that LOL

[Packetdancer]

Is it really saving time to assign positions prior to pulling instead of between wipes?

Yes.

No, seriously, it is.

And the reason I do it at the beginning is that many people will sort of hang generally near their clock spots in general when you do, meaning if a clock spot mechanic turns up people are more or less already in the right spots. Moreover, it gets people thinking about those spots from pull #1; in my experience, when you do 5 or 6 pulls and then hit a mechanic and assign clock spots, there's a non-zero chance that someone has now basically ingrained "I STAND HERE" wherever they were for those first 5-6 pulls and then you waste another couple of pulls before people actually remember to start standing in their clock positions.

Moreover, if you see a mechanic that drops a stack marker on each healer, you can scramble last-minute and hope you end up with two sufficient stacks (rather than both tanks and three DPS stacking on one healer, leaving the other healer and one DPS to die)... or you can have set up light parties ahead of time and go "Oh, there's a stack marker on each healer... better get to my healer."

(And there's a decidedly greater than 0% chance that there will be a light party stack on each healer at some point in a fight. They basically use light party stacks for seasoning in these fights... like adding a pinch of oregano, if oregano was prone to exploding.)

Same with role buddies/quadrants, etc. I have found that getting people to keep those in mind from the beginning tends to make the later pulls go much more smoothly if it turns out you need them.

Also, choosing as a group to assign positions before pulling does not make a pull any less blind.

I mean, that is correct? That is more or less what people are telling you in this thread.

Someone coming in to a blind run and trying to assign partners before we've pulled, because he knows partners are needed, is what makes the run less blind, and that's what I kicked him for.

Again: many of us have said would assign partners from the start whether or not we know a fight needs them, which is the point here. The vast majority of higher-end content in this game has some combination of clock spots, quadrants, role buddies/partners, and light parties.

My usual "okay, let's square this away before we start" is:

• Clock spots. (Drop one waymark, people stand around it.)
• Light parties. (Drop the '1' and '2' waymarks, a tank, healer, and two DPS gather on each.)
• Quadrants/role partners. (Drop '3' and '4' in addition, a Tank/Healer and a DPS stand in each, thus partnering up.)

Hey, cool, we have now accounted for the vast majority of things we're likely to see ahead-of-time. Those may not show up -- maybe you don't need light parties! Maybe you don't ever have quadrants or role buddies! But if they do, we've already sorted them from step 1.

I'm not saying this person wasn't planning to give away mechanics; I have no way of knowing. I'm saying -- as are others -- that many of us think that just the act of dropping waymarks is insufficient to find them guilty immediately. It's sort of like going "This person drives a red sports car, so they obviously must always break the speed limit." Sure, there are people who drive red sports cars and break the speed limit. The person you're accusing might, in fact, be one! But just owning a red car is not sufficient data from which to draw that conclusion.

I mean, you do you; when you're the one running a party, it's sort of "your way or the highway". But if you're looking for validation of that choice, I don't think you're going to find it in this thread. Many of us do run blind prog parties, and still will drop waymarks to set up positions ahead-of-time.

[Iyrnthota]

I mean, even in literally fully blind progs, when new content drops, people still drop standard waymarks, assign groups, clock spots etc.
It's just useful.

[ArchlordPie]

I mean, you do you; when you're the one running a party, it's sort of "your way or the highway". But if you're looking for validation of that choice, I don't think you're going to find it in this thread. Many of us do run blind prog parties, and still will drop waymarks to set up positions ahead-of-time.

I mean, I didn't come here looking for validation. I was just adding my two cents to the discussion. People took issue with it and I figured I should explain my thought process more. Turns out we prefer blind progging stuff differently.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Vahlnir]

I mean, I didn't come here looking for validation. I was just adding my two cents to the discussion. People took issue with it and I figured I should explain my thought process more. Turns out we prefer blind progging stuff differently.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's your party. Run it however you want. If anyone disagrees with it, they are free to leave. I'd have probably left myself, but I wouldn't have spewed any salt over it. I'd either leave quietly, if wish everyone luck and then leave, and then I'd move on with my day and largely forget the experience pretty quickly.