PF is not just bad at times, it's unfair (rant)

[b3nzyme]

Ok I'm here for one more post. I made one earlier to spark discussion about trusts in savage, but take it from my experience again (mind you I've been playing MMO and raiding them since WotLK in WoW, so these kinds of experiences arent new) but this experience tonight is just another level worse than I've ever experienced ffxiv before. Tonight, after spending a great deal of my day studying phase 2 m12 so much that I actually feel like i only need to see each mechanic a few times to get through it clean (yes, I am that kind of guy lol) i went in for my actual prog point, which was replication 2. I spent 7 hours (most of the time was spent filling, understandably) in m12 and never made it to phase two. My last group, as you may be able to see, was dying repeatedly at the first raidwide after pulling the boss. Kerachole was falling off before the raidwide hit. Sometimes, we would be missing feint or addle, and besides just some people either making mistakes or not being experienced enough in phase one to know not to run into another alpha running their tether out on the outside of the coil while the boss is spinning, tonight was a complete waste of time, regardless of the amount of patience and understanding i put in to each group (albeit somewhat unreciprocated, judging by the description reading "replication 2 prog.")

Now, I may be speaking from a place that shows some inexperience on my own. I've never attempted an ultimate, because I just don't have the time or the desire with my choppy irl and work schedules. I also have other things in mind to where ultimates won't satisfy me, as we all know gaming itself is a choice. (This is also why I'm trying to clear the tier early, so I can free up my irl time and choose when to play and minimize my prog time) so I don't really know if this is normal for ultimate raider's experiences to have days or nights like this, but for my savage experience, this is insane. I put myself up to a certain discipline to never prog lie and make sure that I'm ready to raid when i get in while also expecting to make mistakes once in a while, but tonight was off the charts bad, and I'm hoping it gets better if I just keep throwing myself at the wall and rolling the dice.

I was in a group for three or four hours for rep 2 prog (that we never saw, obviously) where in the end, the leader got sleepy and said they were done, and two others in there admitted that they'd never even cleared phase one at all. This is prog lying and not okay. I have a friend who has cleared already who I raided with last tier, and he is telling me he prog lied to get ahead and is suggesting that I do the same. I refuse and have always refused, even to my own detriment.

[b3nzyme]

At the end of the day, I don't know how else to sum this up except to say that today I have experienced such a day in pf that if I had any foreknowledge that it would have turned out this way, I could have spent my time more wisely and probably postponed studying the fight in the place of something else irl. Prog liars, inexperienced people, repeated mistakes, gaps in knowledge of mechanics, basic mitigations not being covered, basic understanding of your job and its rotation, forgetting the somewhat NA - "universal" toxic friends raidplan spots, some mechanic execution, and just overall kind of mistakes that made me look more and more like a fool the more I tried to tell myself that everyone just needed a little bit of patience and we would get ahead. Hah, I had spent 7 hours this evening sitting in this chair. You'd think by now I would have progged rep 2. Nope

I'm not sure this post will have a constructive point, but something's got to give with the experience that party finder tends to yield more regularly than desired.

[Absurdity]

It's unfortunately just a reality of the current game. I'm honestly not sure if I just never noticed it as much before or if it's really happening but it feels like prog liars have massively increased ever since Endwalker.
Sure, give them a few pulls to see if they just need to warm up but if you're raiding in PF you need to prioritise your own time and your own progress at some point. Leave and find a new party as soon as you think they have never been at the advertised mechanic, they lied to you, you owe them nothing.

[Miradelle]

Why did you remain in the group for three or four hours, instead of 30 minutes? One food; no prog point? Cya.

Even better, tell the party lead to remove the people who are screwing up, which is what the norm SHOULD be, instead of everyone disbanding. If they are the leader, you can just say "hey, I'm gonna make another party, if anyone's interested" and just dip out and make one. The competent people will join you.

If I am throwing because of a bad day, I am going to take myself out of the party. Sadly, the trash often need to be put into a garbage bag and taken out, since they don't take themselves out.

[Valence]

It's unfortunately just a reality of the current game. I'm honestly not sure if I just never noticed it as much before or if it's really happening but it feels like prog liars have massively increased ever since Endwalker.
Sure, give them a few pulls to see if they just need to warm up but if you're raiding in PF you need to prioritise your own time and your own progress at some point. Leave and find a new party as soon as you think they have never been at the advertised mechanic, they lied to you, you owe them nothing.

No idea as well, but when I progged in PF it's been hell most of the time and the prog time compared to a static was just a lot higher as a result. I only PFed my first savage tier in Sigmascape (with the exception of P10S in EW, also in PF, that was also an absolute misery). I do remember Kefka being the same kind of disaster that's being described here, with a lot of p2 parties not even reaching the checkpoint at all and failing before. Why? Prog lying? Inconsistent players? No idea, and this was on NA too btw - but I doubt that EU is much different.

People talk a lot more about prog lying because of CAR or other extremes with actual body checks like Golbez ex, and probably also because of tomestone. Maybe all of this shed the light on this phenomenon. Or maybe it's also increased, hard to tell as far as I'm concerned.

Fact of the matter remains, if you want to have a smooth, solid prog experience in PF, you need to ride the wave of hardcore raiders, which means clearing the first two fights under two days after release, then reaching at least the fourth at the end of first week. After that you'll still need not to slack on the fourth because of... exactly what's described in the OP.

[Jeeqbit]

i only need to see each mechanic a few times to get through it clean (yes, I am that kind of guy lol)

It is really bad, yes. I mean, here is my M9S experience, wiping in "enrage" parties for 10 hours a day, for about 5-6 days:

Deaths and damage downs to Steamroller, a mechanic people should have mastered in "fresh prog" parties.

Deaths and damage downs to Aetherletting, probably the slowest Savage cast in the entire game that lasts like 30 seconds or something. You even have 5-10 seconds to place your little marker. You can't possibly mess it up. I required no practice at it. Yet, it was extremely common to see people mess it up in "enrage" parties...

Hell In a Cell mistakes. Now, maybe I'm bias as a tank and maybe this is harder for other roles, but I don't think so? It required zero prog and zero practice for me to do it flawlessly. I don't think I have ever messed it up as MT or OT. As MT, my tower is N or NE, but it would be very easy for me as a healer to consistently go to the one next to the tank tower, or to go to the ones CCW as a DPS.

I identify my tank spread spot instantly, and it would be easy for me to go CW of that as a healer or CCW of it as a DPS.

Now, people messing up bat following I can understand. It is just a genuinely annoying mech where you can do the proper movement and get clipped or caught by ping. That should have been the prog point in these enrage parties, because it's the damage downs from it that are meant to make you wipe to enrage. But it rarely was even the prog point of all 7 people that joined.

This was in the NA region but I went to clear it on my EU alt twice so far, and same experience in the EU region. Enrage parties ain't enrage parties. I mean, I've cleared it twice so it wasn't me preventing the clear.

At the end of the day, I don't know how else to sum this up except to say that today I have experienced such a day in pf that if I had any foreknowledge that it would have turned out this way, I could have spent my time more wisely

I also need to mention that this isn't new. Back in Shadowbringers, I was ready to clear E1S in 2 pulls but it took me 6 weeks (had to sub in a static to do it and we 1shot it) because baiting anything was too hard for people. I got almost to enrage in my first time in E2S, then proteans and gazes were too hard for any other parties so after 4 weeks I went healer to carry people and cleared 2nd party I joined. Those two raids filtered everyone because E3S only took me a few parties and I cleared E4S after 1 week of prog. Amazing how much faster the last two were despite being way harder mechanically.

My last group, as you may be able to see, was dying repeatedly at the first raidwide after pulling the boss. Kerachole was falling off before the raidwide hit. Sometimes, we would be missing feint or addle

I had that in some (not that many) M9S parties. It wasn't even necessarily that there was no mit. Just my and others' mit wasn't enough for some reason. Unfortunately, because PF isn't as coordinated as a static, sometimes the mit just won't be coordinated well and they'll all frontload it and then have nothing for the next cast. Sometimes it takes a pull to see how they are using their mit so that you can alternate it, or see if they are trying to alternate for you instead.

I put myself up to a certain discipline to never prog lie and make sure that I'm ready to raid when i get in while also expecting to make mistakes once in a while

I'm very much the same. I actually throw myself at parties prior to my own prog point just to make sure, even though I really don't need to, to make sure my practice is extremely robust up to prog point. Because I don't want to be the one wasting others' time, even though they waste my time in exchange anyways.

I'm hoping it gets better if I just keep throwing myself at the wall and rolling the dice.

Gear will help. In 1 week and a bit anyone that has been doing weekly M12 since 7.4 release will be able to get the tome weapon (if they didn't get a lucky drop in Savage). And they'll have more tome gear, so it will just get easier to beat the DPS checks. That said, you will of course find many players struggle even with these advantages in the final floors, so you'll need to also have a party that is at least good enough to benefit from this extra gear.

[Aidorouge]

You'd think with the constant failures and frustrations that people would question the hardcore system that Square-Enix created and the one the community insists on engaging with, but no, people would rather the system remain exactly as it is while holding out for players that may simply not exist on their data center, or be online during that day of the week, or that time of the day.

At some point it has to dawn on people that the pool you have to choose from his shrinking, not growing, even on Aether. Not that you're forced to deal with "prog liars" if you don't want to, but I have to wonder who you're hoping will show up in their stead, and how long you're willing to wait for these 7 other unicorns to appear if you're going to keep banking on randoms in a system that gives them equal right to participate in fights where only perfection is allowed.

[Gwenkatsu]

...I have to wonder who you're hoping will show up in their stead, and how long you're willing to wait for these 7 other unicorns to appear if you're going to keep banking on randoms in a system that gives them equal right to participate in fights where only perfection is allowed.

This is basically the same phenomena as in WoW. They have some sort of score that rates your experiences in Mythic+, and there are myriads of complaints like "that guy had a score over 9000 but played like they were rubbing their *** over the keyboard".
But still people expect an automated system to only come up with players that belong to "The Best of the best of the best, sir! With honors!" I will never understand that mindset. Either you make friends of your skill level; or you live the pug life, and then you deal with the pug life - in all of its consequences.

[b3nzyme]

You'd think with the constant failures and frustrations that people would question the hardcore system that Square-Enix created and the one the community insists on engaging with, but no, people would rather the system remain exactly as it is while holding out for players that may simply not exist on their data center, or be online during that day of the week, or that time of the day.

At some point it has to dawn on people that the pool you have to choose from his shrinking, not growing, even on Aether. Not that you're forced to deal with "prog liars" if you don't want to, but I have to wonder who you're hoping will show up in their stead, and how long you're willing to wait for these 7 other unicorns to appear if you're going to keep banking on randoms in a system that gives them equal right to participate in fights where only perfection is allowed.

It's discipline and respect for others. It's like when you apply for and/or get a job. The difference between earning a promotion and getting better or just being invited in to operate equipment that can kill everyone and yourself.

Yea progression sucks. I started with a casual guild and learned how to play. I join fresh learning parties, and sometimes used to join the ones with voice chat in order to learn. The fact of the matter is that you owe it to yourself and others to value yourself and their time enough to learn how to advance before you advance. It takes longer, sure, but its a sacrifice that muat happen. Players like myself and many ive seen today have exercised way more than enough patience with underperformers. The underperformers have just become impossible to raid (pf) with, as even they are keeping the other underperformers from.reachig their desired points and stripping away their ability to even ask questions, because everyone knows asking earlier prog questions in a later prog group doesnt belong there. Integrity is necessary for (prog)ress

The bags under my eyes this morning tell a story

[Aidorouge]

It's discipline and respect for others. It's like when you apply for and/or get a job. The difference between earning a promotion and getting better or just being invited in to operate equipment that can kill everyone and yourself.

Yea progression sucks. I started with a casual guild and learned how to play. I join fresh learning parties, and sometimes used to join the ones with voice chat in order to learn. The fact of the matter is that you owe it to yourself and others to value yourself and their time enough to learn how to advance before you advance. It takes longer, sure, but its a sacrifice that muat happen. Players like myself and many ive seen today have exercised way more than enough patience with underperformers. The underperformers have just become impossible to raid (pf) with, as even they are keeping the other underperformers from.reachig their desired points and stripping away their ability to even ask questions, because everyone knows asking earlier prog questions in a later prog group doesnt belong there. Integrity is necessary for (prog)ress

The bags under my eyes this morning tell a story

I would think any part of a game that can be compared to a job (especially a lethal one) has fundamentally failed as a game, but that's just me I guess.

My point is that its a type of content that by its very nature draws in a very finite amount of players, and due to the demands of said content, not all of those attempting it are going to actually be good at it. And while you and others are certainly free to kick and blacklist those dragging you down in order to better curate who you do and don't get stuck playing with (and people not pulling their weight aren't entitled to a free ride), I question how sustainable this process is when the number of people you have to pick from keeps going down, not up, as the months roll by and the content keeps getting harder and more exhausting (thus removing even those who were good at the content, but refuse to partake).

Or how if all it takes is a couple of bad pulls for the "runt of the run" to be identified and kick and blacklists to be administered, the same people doing this can't turn around and complain when their later PFs take longer and longer to fill because they're quite literally draining their own pool of what few people care to attempt it at all, to say nothing of how this might impact their PFs for any other kind of non-hardcore content because the blacklist is universal, it doesn't just exclude people from Savage.

You're not obligated to carry anyone of course, but I do question what becomes of hardcore content when there's no longer enough people willing to run it, and of those willing, the cross-barring of blacklisting makes it harder for them to actually play together. (And that's before we even account those who stop running because they got done in the first couple of weeks, further removing the most competent from the pool.)