Tales from the Party Finder - share your fun and suffering!

[Rilifane]

We already have a thread dedicated to DF and since people feel bad for hijacking it to tell PF stories, let's do it here!
And it's mid-tier so it's safe to say that PF quality is a mixed bag. STORY TIME!

For those thinking about going into raiding and reading this: remember, expectations vary greatly depending on how a party was tagged. Don't be discouraged if someone vents about things in a clear/ farm/ log run party that you feel like you could never get right. It's all a matter of practice and that's what [Practice] parties are for.
And maybe you can even take a hint or two for when you decide to try raiding. Or maybe you can't imagine raiding but enjoy stories of other people suffering.
In this case, we're happy to provide!

My most recent PF adventure:

I joined a [Duty Completion] party for Ramuh last week where several people with enrage exp were trying to get their kill. They only wanted the kill and didn't care about chests and I was in the mood to smack something on AST.

I expected several warm up wipes but I wasn't prepared for both tanks continuesly eating all tankbusters raw. Or better yet, eating pretty much everything raw and not using personal or raid mitigation at all or ad really, really odd times.
First tankbuster hit, tank went from full HP to around 25k. Goddamnit.
Add spawned and same story with OT. Ate every single auto-attack and tankbuster raw, almost died because they had only ~155k HP. I heard the Benediction sound. No doubt the other healer had a heart attack aswell when he saw that.
Next tankbuster after knockback and he not only ate it raw but with a vuln stack no less.

Raid AoEs hit and I was surprised by how much damage everything took. They usually go from ~90% to maybe 40% at worst. But suddenly everyone was standing there with 20% because no Reprisal, no Heart of Light/ Divine Veil, no Addle.
And don't think more than 2-3 people stood inside the Star or Asylum even after we mentioned it. So a lot of hardcasting heals from both of us, we had to constantly keep up Asp. Benefic and Regen because our other resources weren't nearly enough.
14 came, you could already see both healers sigh in defeat because eating the charge raw even at full HP with Benison, CI and Neutral Asp. Bene shield on is not going to work.
Of course we went flying.

After a few wipes and no improvement in sight we both spoke up and asked people to use their mitigation, gave them some exampled of when they're best used.
Same story. Non-existent mitigation, a lot of babysitting from both of us on the tanks, people died from not taking orbs and blowing each other up on Thunderstorm or eating several ticks from Stormclouds and WEEEEE everyone went flying on 1st 14.
More wipes, more "please stand in my star/ asylum. could you addle aoe during chain lightning? could you use invul for 1st 14? please use strong mitigation for tankbusters. please use your mobility to get back in heal range. don't forget your orbs. don't stay in the stormclouds as melee please".

The healer ultimately left and a friend from my static joined (I warned him!).
Still a lot of incoming damage (did you ever had combined healing of 9m in the first 5min of Ramuh? No? We had) but at least we made it past 14.
Cue the usual deaths during donuts, we picked up 4 people (I never had to use LS for 3 raises before) so they can at least see Chain Lightning.
We obviously wiped but at least everyone got to see it.

Now came the best part: when we asked once again to use their personal and raid mitigation for tankbusters and aoes, the tank replied with "what r u talking about? i perfectly mitigated busters" and the other one with "but I survived why do u complain?"

He did use Sentinel on the next tb ... well, more or less. He used it a couple of seconds AFTER the big hit. He tried, right?
The SMN at least tried to use Addle though it was kind of random and generally not in time for aoes. Good thing Ramuh's autos are magical.

I think the only reason we stayed as long as we did and tried to help them as best as possible was because we shared the suffering and some of them were genuinly trying their best like the SMN. But after they got so defensive and sometimes even aggressive when we asked for some minor things like pushing one measly button that doesn't cost you anything if you see a long-ass "Crippling Blow" castbar, we were fed up and left.
[Duty Completion] and "perfectly mitigated" my behind.

I enjoy helping out clear parties and "kill for friend parties". Many aren't that bad, they just need some warm up wipes and maybe a few hints from experienced helpers and they're good to go for the kill. But this was just a pain to watch.

[Quintessa]

Oh this gonna be gooooooooooood. I don't use it, but I've read a lot of horror stories on reddit lol.

[AstreMcClain]

Reddit is down right now, so I'll post a good one to share.

So while I don't remember the names, I do remember the jobs involved.

There's Me: I was playing RPR.
There's the Amazing PLD
Then there's the troublesome SAM.

It all started when I made a PF for Sephiroth UR. I learned the fight but because people had jobs irl to go to, we stopped for the night, this wasn't a static, just a bunch of randoms. When I made a PF the Next day, we had to re teach some mechanics to newer players, the PLD joins and remains positive through the whole thing. Now keep in mind, I put up CLEAR Party for this, normally you just want to clear and clean up after... right? right?

Well, the SAM joins and we start getting to phase 2 (Where he grows massive and changes his moves) It gets to tethers and everyone gets into position. The next thing I know I see the SAM rush up using their gap closer to melee (instead of range attacking it) and gets an unpleasant explosion to the face and dies. She then types into the chat:

SAM: "Okay, who didn't take their tether?!"
Me: "You quite literally leaped in front of me, taking my tether."
SAM: "So YOU didn't do your job?!"
Me: "No I did my job, you just rushed in front before the mechanic was done."

(By this time they get rezzed, and continue the convo while fighting (me being the PS3 OG I was (quickly traded to PS4 to PC (yes I do keep at least a PS copy and PC copy) so typing while fighting isn't new to me) while they stop doing abilities to continue every now and then...)

Cont- Pt2

[AstreMcClain]

Part 2

SAM: "You still should have taken the tether back!"
Me: "You could have waited like 0.2 Seconds for the mechanic to pop. Why did you even do that?"
SAM: "Because I wanted to push my deeps"

- SAM Dies again-

We get to the snapshot phase and because the SAM died trying to push deeps, we had to see ALL of the mechanics for a longer period of time. One of these, where the SAM causes More trouble, was the snapshots. I don't remember what the SAM said next, but they tried to put the blame for us doing poorly on me.
I just re-iterate that I wasn't the one who was impatient and basically ran headfirst into a laser beam.

PLD: "I agree with Batto, He didn't do anything bad."
SAM: "RPR, Why are you running around like a chicken with your head cut off?"
Me: "I'm Dodging the snapshots?"
SAM: "You don't need to run around like that."
-SAM Rezzes again- (At this point, I'm wondering how they have such an attitude when I see her jump to attacking the wind, moving out of her snapshot and into my Snapshot, which K.O.s her again, I just start laughing at this point.)
SAM: "SEE?! You Just got me killed because you're running around like a chicken with their head cut off."
PLD: "That was all you, you started attacking (canceling out invincibility state) weren't watching where you were going, and clipped Batto's AOE."

(I sigh. She was one of those players who couldn't have a bad grade in any assignment that they had I guess. By this time, I was the only one left standing and Boss HP was at a 0.02% but he AA'd me before I could hit him.)

The rest of the time left was like this, and all because she wanted to push DPS.

Let this just go to show that, if you try and be an elitist and do things like Go for Max DPS in a Clear fight and then try and blame others. it won't go well.

[Katish]

Every pf party I have been with that don't do pf standard strats are the ones that come to mind, there's too many to choose just one. But the worst offenders are the ones that bring unneeded frustration, it is usually the parties that don't explain what they are doing something when doing something unique and try to act high and mighty talking me down if I fail a positional, when I'm trying to interpret the jumbled mess you're doing. It's fine in a static but please don't bring static strats to party finder as videos and stuff have already set foundation. Or if you are doing it cause you're used to it, at least have the audacity to explain and be patient for me to understand what you're doing (cause it's different from what was previously learned)

[MaxCarnage]

I was in a PF for the Ruby Gwib farm. Had a WAR join that decided to take off their job stone and equip a level 1 weapon, with no gear. It got pointed out after the pull happened, they apologized, we cleared.

We exit the duty, and their job symbol turned from marauder to warrior, and they apologize again. So we queue and lo and behold, they're still a marauder.

It was pointed out again, before the pull this time. We're all getting annoyed now, as it's becoming clear that they're trolling. And as soon as it got pointed out, the marauder pulled before anyone had time to leave.

We spend the fight with people mentioning how that's not cool and the marauder laughing and calling us losers and idiots. We still cleared, and the gwibber drops.... and the troll marauder won it.

Everyone was so annoyed and salty we actually ended up disbanding the group.

[Zebraoracle]

I was in a PF for the Ruby Gwib farm. Had a WAR join that decided to take off their job stone and equip a level 1 weapon, with no gear. It got pointed out after the pull happened, they apologized, we cleared.

We exit the duty, and their job symbol turned from marauder to warrior, and they apologize again. So we queue and lo and behold, they're still a marauder.

It was pointed out again, before the pull this time. We're all getting annoyed now, as it's becoming clear that they're trolling. And as soon as it got pointed out, the marauder pulled before anyone had time to leave.

We spend the fight with people mentioning how that's not cool and the marauder laughing and calling us losers and idiots. We still cleared, and the gwibber drops.... and the troll marauder won it.

Everyone was so annoyed and salty we actually ended up disbanding the group.

Why didn't y'all just force wipe and kick him? Gosh that would have been so annoying, I wonder if he would have kept instant pulling to try to trap y'all in - pretty sure that'd be reportable... I think? I've never actually seen a complaint of someone doing that though.

[NekoMataMata]

In a lengthy Shinryu Ex Doggo farm. There's nothing mechanical to complain about but the whistle drops are incredibly spread out and people are getting tired. 30 chests in someone asks if the party wants to farm snakes instead.

The person asking got their whistle(we got 3 so far). Of course the 3 people who got theirs vote yes and one other person votes yes too. So yay, I spent 30ish kills of a boss farm helping people farm mounts who found a way out to decide not to return the favor. Tyranny of the majority at its finest.

[Celine_Aurora]

In a lengthy Shinryu Ex Doggo farm. There's nothing mechanical to complain about but the whistle drops are incredibly spread out and people are getting tired. 30 chests in someone asks if the party wants to farm snakes instead.

The person asking got their whistle(we got 3 so far). Of course the 3 people who got theirs vote yes and one other person votes yes too. So yay, I spent 30ish kills of a boss farm helping people farm mounts who found a way out to decide not to return the favor. Tyranny of the majority at its finest.

You can always leave. You should have.

If they bring up some sort of social contract about the rule of majority, because it's a FC activity or you play together often or whatever, point out that "farm" means getting a mount for everyone and that's a social contract too. If they are your friends and give you crap for not helping them get a second mount after you got zero, they are not your friends.

[NekoMataMata]

You can always leave. You should have.

If they bring up some sort of social contract about the rule of majority, because it's a FC activity or you play together often or whatever, point out that "farm" means getting a mount for everyone and that's a social contract too. If they are your friends and give you crap for not helping them get a second mount after you got zero, they are not your friends.

I did leave. Just sucks that I had to. I don't think it was a FC. It's just 3/7 people had their whistles and wanted to move on, and 1 person who didn't have theirs decided to vote with them.

The funny thing is that the PF for what they wanted to farm immediately went up with only 3 people as soon as I left, cause apparently 3 other people left too.

Doesn't stop me from fuming over it. They could have lied to our faces and said they had other things to do and even thrown up their own PF for what they wanted to do after leaving but instead they actually tried to drag 4 of us who had yet to get their drop into farming something else for them.