For those who struggle with group content

[Lium]

The irony in a lot of the posts in this thread.

Starting with the first few posts. The title is literally “For those who struggle with group content,” and then several people rushed in to immediately let everyone know that they have no such problem. So then…I guess this thread isn’t directed at you?

Then there’s the inevitable posts about how bad people are at playing this game that it makes them not want to to queue for duties.

And therein lies the irony. Anyone with social anxiety or physical disabilities that might make group content challenging would read this thread and be convinced to never queue up for anything in this game. They would likely have the impression that the community has no patience with them and that you - you reading this with anxiety or a disability- you are the problem that makes all the leet players dread duty finder.

All I can say is, I’m on the Primal DC. If you ever need someone chill to run a dungeon with just hit me up and I’d be happy to run something with you. I can heal or DPS. Not very comfortable tanking myself. We can chat while running it, take it slow, or whatever. The point here is to have fun.

I’m here if ya need a wingman for a run.

[tinythinker]

Able to get online from the hospital. Great to see all of the replies. If you you’re just joining the thread welcome - feel free to share your experiences.

[Antharaes]

The only peeve I have with group content is not having any groups around when I need to do my msq. I am currently stuck, because there is no one online. It's very early, so now I have to wait. I think msq dungeons and maybe trials should have duty support.

[Sorimachi87]

Whenever queuing up for group content on duty finder i feel the pressure to perform well. I've been through raid environments in World of Warcraft so i know the gist of it. I try to perform at my best in each and every instance. Sometimes it works better sometimes it doesn't... Whenever i queue up for expert roulette 99% of all times people just sprint out of the box and use it whenever possible. I feel kinda awkward when people suddenly don't do it. Became a unpopular habit for me (due to lack of a better word).

I definitely stay away from extremes / savage let alone ultimates because i feel like there is absolutely no learning environment there which would take someone like me. I tried the 6.2 trial on extreme recently and it was an absolute shitshow with me being one of the healers. 3 hours and we went to 60 ish %. Having a slight learning disability doesn't help with harder group content either. So i am quite happy where i am now on the casual side of things.

Oh and you can believe me. Every time you see me in a duty, i am trying to work my hardest to perform well.

And i am quite happy with the group content treasure maps so far tbh. Not a single issue i had with other people. So thank you on that note.

[Antharaes]

Whenever queuing up for group content on duty finder i feel the pressure to perform well. I've been through raid environments in World of Warcraft so i know the gist of it. I try to perform at my best in each and every instance. Sometimes it works better sometimes it doesn't... Whenever i queue up for expert roulette 99% of all times people just sprint out of the box and use it whenever possible. I feel kinda awkward when people suddenly don't do it. Became a unpopular habit for me (due to lack of a better word).

I definitely stay away from extremes / savage let alone ultimates because i feel like there is absolutely no learning environment there which would take someone like me. I tried the 6.2 trial on extreme recently and it was an absolute shitshow with me being one of the healers. 3 hours and we went to 60 ish %. Having a slight learning disability doesn't help with harder group content either. So i am quite happy where i am now on the casual side of things.

Oh and you can believe me. Every time you see me in a duty, i am trying to work my hardest to perform well.

And i am quite happy with the group content treasure maps so far tbh. Not a single issue i had with other people. So thank you on that note.

As a former WoW player I understand where you're coming from. I quit raiding and doing dungeons in WoW, because of the toxic environment. As a fairly new player to FF14, just started last august, I kept dragging my feet on progression, because I had to do group content. I kept putting it off, because I still had the WoW mindset. When I finally decided to go into the duty finder, I was pleasantly surprised. Nice, friendly people and although I did perform poorly, no scolding, no bad words, no pressure at all. I do however watch guides before going in. That is something I learned from my time in WoW. And that helps a lot.

I think the main problem with doing group content is the pressure we putt on ourselfs. If you do and be the best you can be, that's good enough. I am far from raiding and doing harder stuff in game, but I do hope, that when the time comes, I will be the best I can be, because we can't do anything more.

[JamieRose]

I wish I my first experience with savage raiding had been better. The group approached me as friends and they knew I had social anxiety issues, but they quickly turned on me when the anxiety leaked into my gameplay. It's very hard for me to curb the frustration when I feel like everyone is judging my gameplay and it turns out they were doing just that as well. Numerous expressions that my parsing was unacceptable even though we had cleared our first fight, which was P1S. The group kicked me out and things just went downhill from there and I eventually was coerced out of their community. I have been approached to do content since then and I appreciate that these players have given me the benefit of the doubt, but I'm beginning to think that I really just can't do advanced content in this game because my social anxiety just cripples me too much.

I just really felt like I needed to give some clarifications. There are some on these forums who think I'm just some jerk who can't get along with people. Even before the anxiety figures in I am not at all good at social interactions.

[MegaOddly]

I wish I my first experience with savage raiding had been better. The group approached me as friends and they knew I had social anxiety issues, but they quickly turned on me when the anxiety leaked into my gameplay. It's very hard for me to curb the frustration when I feel like everyone is judging my gameplay and it turns out they were doing just that as well. Numerous expressions that my parsing was unacceptable even though we had cleared our first fight, which was P1S. The group kicked me out and things just went downhill from there and I eventually was coerced out of their community. I have been approached to do content since then and I appreciate that these players have given me the benefit of the doubt, but I'm beginning to think that I really just can't do advanced content in this game because my social anxiety just cripples me too much.

I just really felt like I needed to give some clarifications. There are some on these forums who think I'm just some jerk who can't get along with people. Even before the anxiety figures in I am not at all good at social interactions.

The issue you have isn't because of your anxiety. I am anti social hate talking to people but in a raid you don't have to talk you listen to your group leader. Everyone is going to judge your gameplay there is always room for improvement so stop blaming others or your social anxiety. If your anxiety is that bad that in a game where you barley even need to talk or even type you have a deeper issue you need to go get help for because its not other players job to accommodate you. It's group content for a reason you can't just blame others for things where you could have been the reason.

You have complained in many comment sections people do try to help you but you fight back and say they are attacking you.

First thing I have learned don't raid with people you call friends it sounds like a good idea but just like playing monopoly or uno it can ruin friendships. Secondly for a static if you join one just say you aren't comfortable speaking but type out how to communicate or have macros if you need to make call outs in the game. Party finder people are there too many people also do want to help people learn fights that is how I found a group for the first set of pandemonium raids.

Savage and ultimate content is made to be challenging especially in ultimate's where you have to be perfect because one mistake in an ultimate could wipe the whole party.

[Renathras]

OP: I guess it depends. I'm sometimes nervous about groups, but I've also learned to sometimes throw caution to the wind and try stuff anyway. Not...always. But enough times, I guess. And for a lot of content, I play healer because I like helping people. That extends to healing people in Dungeons and Trials. And I'm fairly personable for an introvert, as it turns out. Typing isn't as intimidating to me as talking, I guess...?

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As a fellow hater of add-ons - "DBM or gtfo" as well as the damage meter e-peen flexing/berating people in WoW ruined add-ons for me for life - I did want to mention this:

As far as savage and ex goes, no thanks, I can do it anytime I want, I just dont do schedules, "be here at xxx time" no thanks, and also theres the given that savage and ex are using dps meters which are AGAINST TOS., yeah I did enough of that crap in WOW.

Extremes have been my "end game" since late Heavensward. I've never run an add-on in all my time in FFXIV, and never will. I've never had a Static, either. I run all of them via Party Finder practice and prog parties, and then farm parties once I've got enough clears I feel comfortable with the fights. It does mean I watch videos instead of going in blind (the only time I do blind stuff is if some FC people draft me to all go into something together, which is rare...and then I tend to watch a video after that to understand the mechanics), though you can absolutely make "blind" runs, just make sure to put that in your description. Extremes are kind of nice since they give good weapons for the patch ilevel and they all have mounts you can farm. They also drop tokens so if you get 99 of those (a lot of Extremes give 2 per run so you only need 50, but even the ones that don't...), you can buy the mount 2 patches later as kind of RNG protection/pity system. You can also buy the weapons the Extreme drops with 10 tokens at all times. (The only semi-exception is the two Extremes released with an X.0, one has a weapon and the other has right side accessories instead of a weapon, but you can buy all of those for 5 tokens each if you wish...though usually if you're farming it, it's better to roll for the drops and save the tokens in case you need to pity the mount later.)

It takes some patience and you can get a lot of people that are less than good, but it's entirely possible to do Extremes this way.

Savages I know less about, as I've only done three at level (P1S was my first, followed by P2S, and I did P5S this tier). I'm not as driven on those since I can get gear I need with Tomes other than the second ring slot (why I tried P5S in the first place, honestly). They CAN be done with pick up groups in PF. At least, the first one or two of each tier seem to be. The third and fourth ones tend to require a lot more coordination and people being willing to stick with it for the clears, so they may not work as well. But it IS possible to get some Savages in if you wish to.

But the Savages I have cleared I didn't have schedules or add-ons or DPS meters. I have read The Balance guides for my Jobs and read my tooltips, but I'm no master by any means. I just do my best, which is generally good enough once I've seen the mechanics, understand them (why videos are helpful), and then it's just a matter of getting 7 other people in PF that can do them all at once.

Once you get a clear, you can check the [Duty Complete] tag and join PFs for that encounter where you know everyone's cleared at least once. (Which...doesn't always mean they're good at it, but it DOES mean they've at least done it. )

Best part is ilevel inflation makes doing older ones easier, and people are always willing to do farm parties for them. Best time is prime time or weekends, of course, but you can get some nibbles other times as well for getting runs in.

.

Obviously, you don't have to, but it's worth dipping a toe in from time to time. Or you can just solo the old ones. I know at level 80 I could solo some of the HW ones on a Tank, and you probably can come close to that for SB ones now. Some have mechs that require 2+ people, but some do not and can be soloed outright or done with smaller groups if you're running Unsynced.

[FireMage]

Thread has been helpful in identifying who to avoid

[Amarande]

Once you get a clear, you can check the [Duty Complete] tag and join PFs for that encounter where you know everyone's cleared at least once. (Which...doesn't always mean they're good at it, but it DOES mean they've at least done it. )

Ironically, I usually regard this as a severe source of player anxiety, rather than a means of mitigating it.

Because of the ability to sequester a group behind a clear being required, people feel - and not without some level of justification - that the only hope to do on-patch content is to be there for the patch drop and back burner everything else if necessary to focus on the 8-man hardmode instance as top priority. Otherwise, enough people hide behind Duty Complete that the chance of getting a group that's not hopeless from the outset plummets, and because that's been a thing for such a long time, I've noticed that the casual EX crowd from later in patch cycles that I remember from early Stormblood has thinned out a lot: apparently, most people that can't or won't early bird rush simply accept that it's not happening at all that patch and wait for the next gear tier (or even settle for unsync ... which is a useful feature for farming, but takes a lot of fun out of the initial clear).

Worse, the closer you get to a clear, the more anxious you get, because if the people you're practicing with get just that one more onze of progress lead on you, they're no longer available to you, they're behind the wall now and you're basically (especially the way XIV mechs work) kicked all the way back to Fresh Prog.

And yet, the player culture will defend this practice as a good idea. In fact, they will defend it to the point that unlike other MMOs, there's heavy social pressure on group leads not to make exceptions: if you take off Duty Complete to invite someone who doesn't have a clear, that's apparently puppy-kicking levels of evil. (In fact, in general, one feels like the social pressure is that even as a group lead, you barely have any authority to decide things for your group, but merely act as an agent of the community who is expected to keep things "standard" as if PUGs were a meta-guild rather than a hodgepodge of individual groups.)

I have critiqued this for many years and it doesn't seem to effect change though - it seems that once games' hiveminds are formed, there is no changing the culture (and people think that's a good thing too).