[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[The Casualty]

I know i have been ninja parsed. I stopped going hardcore years ago and play pretty damn casually when i do. So my gear is outdated often(with little to no materia) and thus my dps is not that good(i know rough rotations but no min maxing..and no i don't go into savage nor do i go ultimate nor would i do non 24 man raids if not for them being nerfed whiich i actually am not a fan of)

And it sucks because if i did get the time/energy to go full hardcire again i suspect those older ninja parses would be a black mark against me. Ninja parsing really is a dick move imo.

Maybe I'm not reading you right, but I'm literally talking about the job "Ninja". I just looked at a DPS job at random, but then made sure to add Dark Knight to give a range because I realized Ninja is probably one of the more common jobs in savage raid teams.


I think you are talking about people parsing you without your knowledge if I'm not mistaken. What is nice about FFlogs is your score is literally the highest parse for the tier, and a poor score easily gets hidden. That or you have the ability to make your scores private.

Really I would be surprised if people used ancient parses against you, especially if it's not savage. The bigger barriers to entry would be gear without materia/and if a group wanted to check you out on SSS and you couldn't meet threshold. Both of which are fixable.


Realize too though that you don't need AMAZING parses to see success in raiding or to find a raid group. If you can do at least a fair/respectable amount of damage for your job, have a positive attitude, are willing to learn, and are consistent with your performance, people WILL want you.

[Wrecktangle]

@Granyala - yeah so SE decided before my 10 day forum suspension was up to make it permanent. Fucking RIP. I was so tilted I actually cancelled sub and uninstalled. I wasn't really playing anyway and found the $12 a month better suited to post on the forums LOL.

They did actually give me the full breakdown of how/why so I'll post it later.

Outside of guild runs that's exactly what it means. If your not wiping then there is no reason for any bitching. If you are expecting guild quality runs in a PUG then you are the one who's doing it wrong.

Don't be a petulant child. I set my expectations in a post to @Faroth. If you think they're egregious, offer insight why. Simply saying I expect perfection in DF is nothing more than hyperbolic trash, because I never stated anything remotely close as such.

Is there any reason you ignored my comment about how it's nearly impossible to fail 96%+ of the content in the game? With a barrier so low, citing that as a success measurement is both misleading and disingenuous to the discussion.

If a healer heals perfectly, never lets anyone die, but does not do any damage, did she do her job? I say yes, but the majority of players would say no.

What about a tank who holds all the mobs correctly, picks up adds swiftly, maintains threat, rotates cooldowns for tank busters, but stays in tank stance and steadily pulls one group of trash at a time? I think that's good enough to say she did her job. But other people, including people in this thread, disagree.

1) This is tricky. I've both documented and seen others document the activity level of your average "I only heal" healer. I've seen values as low as 15% activity to as high as roughly 25-30%. Imagine if your DPS did that? Imagine if your tank only held aggro or pulled 15-30% of the time?

Would that be ok? There's a measure I use called equivalency. It's the idea that if every player operated at the weakest players performance what would the run look like? In this case, if every player operated at 15% equivalency, how long would a dungeon take? We hear horror stories about this every now and then.

I'll give you an example. My IRL buddy who played WHM was a I don't DPS healer. I would deliberately wear all STR/DPS gear, and tank in Sword Oath the entire dungeon. I had less HP than one of my DPS at one point too. I also was top DPS (which was sad in and of itself).

My buddy wanted to heal, I made sure he had to heal.

2) Regarding your tank example, it's again nuanced. If the group/healer could handle more and asked for it, I'd argue he failed his duty as a tank to appropriately set the pace. While it's true it's his responsibility and ultimately his discretion on the pace, if 3/4 of the others want something different (as a tank main) I would oblige them over my personal desires.

Getting 99 is rudimentary. But these players view it as "If you don't reach this point, you're shit".

Would you mind linking your logs if you feel comfortable? I'd help me stomach your claims about how getting a 99 is rudimentary. I assume you have quite a few of them.

I think second and third point are problems. The entire idea of "the meta" is for other players to give you as much DPS as possible so you can pad your parse and look good on fflogs. None of the encounters in the game are difficult enough to warrant playing meta. There's 0 point in playing meta if your party cannot line up raid buffs. People just play "the meta" because that's what top raiders are playing, and everyone wants to somehow pretend that they're as good as the top raiders or have a chance to get there.

Don't misunderstand. I agree that requiring the meta comp is silly especially at the average level. Where I took issue was your claim that it was toxic. It's not. A group leader has the right to set any and all requirements they deem fit. That is not toxic.

However, I've seen first hand what meta comps can do. I mean hell just having an AST over a WHM pulled my average DPS up a little over 200. That's a substantial amount.

This is a problem with recruitment as well, because there's no differentiation between a casual group and a group that's more serious. A lot of people just advertise as "semi-hardcore" or "midcore", and have these very high requirements, when they themselves sometimes don't have the requirements fulfilled themselves. It makes the exercise of recruitment a waste of time for everybody.

Typically hard/mid/softcore is a measure of time invested not skill. For instance, I prefer to raid 1-2 nights a week in FF14. I am insanely casual in this game because I don't need to invest any more time. I still consistently post 90%+ logs and in general clear 3 out of 4 fights in a tier in the first week.

I can't post links with this post count, you can find them at thebalanceffxiv.com

Bleh - blocked at work. I'll try and check at home.

This is the website they're been paying for, for months. It looks like a Wordpress theme.

Again, I can't post links, but here's part of the URL; /r/ffxiv/comments/9an86k/some_activities_that_people_are_taking_part_of_in/

I read the whole thing. Speaking personally I don't think memeing on someone is toxic. However, if what is said is true (genuine harassment in game from it) then that's flat out not ok. To confirm - I do not condone that. However, the evidence is a little muddy and lacking. It appears people actually helped him, more so than harassed him (again strictly based on what I saw).

This game suffers from opposites problems; nobody can call out anyone in the game because it's "toxic". You can get banned for saying "shit" in shout chat. But when communities gather to circlejerk about how good they are, and "hahahahaha look at these horrible players on these other communities or in the game", that's fine. There's a balance that needs to be had.

The game coddles people into not caring, and the community crushes people into not caring.

Preach - Speaking personally again here - I think a lot of this stems from the lack of public feedback from parsing.

I don't know if I want to call it a game with "nice people". If I can jest a bit; FFXIV feels like a hugbox for mentally unstable players who do erotic roleplay in Limsa Lominsa or Uldah. And by coddling this demographic, you make a different "toxic" environment. It looks like it's nice, and players appear to be nice. Then you queue for harder content, and you realize that everyone wants to be treated like a diva and they can do no wrong.

You'll go into Stormwind or Orgrimmar general/trade chat, and you'll read some dumb shit, but I think WoW strikes more of a balance, and it actually bothers to teach players with multiple levels of difficulty. The community is a lot more professional too.

My personal experience agrees this analysis.

And really how often do you see someone go "hey player X your dps is just a bit low want some tips?" you rarely see it.

What you see is " I'M CARRYING THIS GROUP OF FUCKEN SCRUBS ALL OF YOU ARE NOOBS EAT A DICK". I have no issue with dps charts and so on in a guild,family,friend setting I do mind them in pug's because all they do is cause drama that isn't needed.

The tools have good intent but 9.9 times out of 10 they are abused and just cause a toxic community.

Want a perfect example look at any thread on this site related to LFR in WoW.

1) I see the first statement all the time, but that's because I do it. I've removed and coached countless players in game with ACT.

2) I don't see the second very often. I might see it behind closed doors or when I'm screaming at the BRD in my group doing less DPS than I did in ARR.

3) Do you have a source for your 9.9/10 abuse metrics? I'd like to read it. Otherwise just more hyperbolic nonsense.

No it is not easy to get a 99% parse, because you are fighting, yes, fighting against every other good/great player out there who also aim for the top spot and do whatever it takes to squeeze out more DPS.
If you are fighting for parses, you ARE essentially PvPing. You don't do damage to other players but you are testing your skills against other human beings in order to compare how good you can manage a given situation.

Not sure I could have said it better myself. We call it cooperative competition.

The idea that Final Fantasy XIV does not teach its players how to play the game at higher levels has been a point of contention for a long time. You're expected to go from "Normal Mode" which is infrequently referred to as "brain dead" content, into Extreme Trials and Savage, which is a different story entirely. There are no steps, you don't go from Normal to Heroic to Mythic.

A simple example I can give is Provoke Shirk, which are two abilities commonly used by tanks in tandem to increase their aggro to be able to stay out of tank stance to do more DPS. This is a basic technique used in Savage raids. The game does not teach you how to do this at any point, or points to you in a direction for you to figure that out. It only drops the abilities in your skills unceremoniously as you level up, along with a bunch of other things.

Yep - good insight here. The other stuff I'm less inclined to agree with, but harder to quantify without a deep dive into the data. I'm not confident the %'s are that different between the games, (I know absolute values are though, since populations are not the same).

fflogs is kind of a joke compared to wow or something tbh though. bosses in ff14 can be spammed all day so top parses are just speed kills or everyone buffing 1 guy. in wow you basically get 1 shot a week to parse.

This is something that is commonly overlooked. Good insight.

And I know it wasn't addressed in the post I quoted, but orange parses (95+% percentile) are completely doable regardless of job without cheesing or speed running. It is really only the last % or so where it really matters, and then it's likely you already have your clears/gear and have nothing left to do with the raid tier other than seeing how high you can push DPS.

As a PLD, I actually struggled getting oranges. I consistently sat at 90-94% the first 2 tiers. Once we switched WHM to AST I picked up a few more oranges.

I know i have been ninja parsed. I stopped going hardcore years ago and play pretty damn casually when i do. So my gear is outdated often(with little to no materia) and thus my dps is not that good(i know rough rotations but no min maxing..and no i don't go into savage nor do i go ultimate nor would i do non 24 man raids if not for them being nerfed whiich i actually am not a fan of)

And it sucks because if i did get the time/energy to go full hardcire again i suspect those older ninja parses would be a black mark against me. Ninja parsing really is a dick move imo.

In 10+ years recruiting I've can personally count on 1 hand the time I looked up old logs to justify a decision. I wouldn't sweat it.

[lawow74]

@Granyala - yeah so SE decided before my 10 day forum suspension was up to make it permanent. Fucking RIP. I was so tilted I actually cancelled sub and uninstalled. I wasn't really playing anyway and found the $12 a month better suited to post on the forums LOL.

Aaaand that's why I'll never post there. Thank you, you've been a wonderful crowd, ladies and gentlemen, I'm here all week. Try the veal!

Seriously, that's just stupid AF. It really is the double-edged sword of their 'the beatings will continue until politeness improves' approach to player interaction. The idea that people can't treat others like crap in chat is a nice idea, but at the same time it also empowers the mindset that any possible slight, real or imagined, should be met with severe repercussion. Hence the carebear hugspace rep the game has.

[Katchii]

Aaaand that's why I'll never post there. Thank you, you've been a wonderful crowd, ladies and gentlemen, I'm here all week. Try the veal!

Seriously, that's just stupid AF. It really is the double-edged sword of their 'the beatings will continue until politeness improves' approach to player interaction. The idea that people can't treat others like crap in chat is a nice idea, but at the same time it also empowers the mindset that any possible slight, real or imagined, should be met with severe repercussion. Hence the carebear hugspace rep the game has.

That's primarily why I'll never post on official forums because the company has to support their players, and if silencing one person who posted something that multiple people perceived as offensive, they'll do that to save the triggered masses. SE is woefully more sensitive about shit like that than Blizzard though, it's like the FFXIV forums are intentionally a breeding ground for your typical sensitive snowflake "SJW" who care nothing about facts and logic and only about "MUH FEELZ!"

I can't stand that garbage.

[lawow74]

I understand how they arrive at that position, Japanese culture places a lot of importance on politeness. But it really does feel overly harsh and unforgiving, especially the whole 'black marks NEVER go away' stance.

[dope_danny]

I understand how they arrive at that position, Japanese culture places a lot of importance on politeness. But it really does feel overly harsh and unforgiving, especially the whole 'black marks NEVER go away' stance.

Thats kind of a mixed thing for me. On one hand people, in the west in particular, are huge into faux outrage and witchhunts driven by spite nowadays. On the other i like that the games lack of alt friendliness means if i see someone in game in town i probably know them after 5 years. I can go 'oh hey thats the guy who melded the materia i used to make my Stardust rod in 2.0' and say hello.

Also back in 2.0 Shiva eu basically had no marketboard. French goons flooded it with trash and crashed the market saying "engliss spek pigs leave this FR server!" and they were the largest FC's who were totally dedicated to this (from what was said on the reddit at the time by upset french players saying 'please dont judge us all because of them' it all came from some chip on the shoulders of french hicks that live in the sticks that cannot deal with the fact english replaced french as the 'lingua franca' and they feel their bad life situations are because english speakers usurped frances place in the world, or something, so they go out their way to ruin the good time of english speakers even if its to their own detriment) and for a time nobody had any Gil because these 'fr' legacy players were aiming to destroy any economy until all none french speakers left.

Eventually 3 german FC's of players who were almost all disciples of land/hand went full Log Horizon on their ass and basically made a grey market where people who were polite to crafters and in need of gil were lead to a player made trade hub in the north shroud and people were privately trading gil for items outside of the marketboard. I found out through the dude who helped me get my stardust rod who offered to get me some good Gil if i could provide another player with skins i went on to farm in Coerthas.

Meanwhile, rather than use this to profit themselves they kept buying up anything the FR guilds put up and either sat on it or destroyed it but the final 'phase' of this plan so to speak was simple but could only work here. They did what we english call "sending them to coventry". Which essentially for americans is what the Amish call "putting them in the Shun". These FC's and every player in them and anyone that played with them was totally blacklisted with an online pastebin listing them. Nobody traded with them, talked to them or invited them to anything.

So while too busy trying to crash the market they couldn't organise for anything. Now they found they were no longer getting into Coil groups or tomefarms. Crafters -something none of them had bothered to level- would not touch them to meld their materia. They were suffering while everyone else was starting to get their shit together, putting things up on the market for like 1000% what they were and basically trying to build an economy that was sabotaged from day 1.

Eventually they left for Moogle and Balmeme when they became the default 4chan/goon servers and nowadays even a poor player should have 3-5 million gil and the market is pretty healthy. Those of us that helped each other back them still remember because as one character per server we have the same name and -for the most part- face and the reputation that goes with it. Something that also happened to the douchebags that were forced to flee.


So while i can understand how people can black mark people undeservedly at the same time i dont know what could have been done without bans to solve Shiva's issues back in 2013 so its not always undeserved.



-Also i do have to concede being english we do have some of the same 'shame' and 'politeness to the point of severity' that the japanese have so it might seem less severe because my own countries culture to a lesser degree has the same sentiments.

[Florena]

All I ask for in duty finder is a basic competency with your job and an honest effort.

I don't care if someone's rotation is 'perfect.' I make mistakes too. But if you're just hitting random spells, playing the 'ice mage' sterotype, refusing to aoe when applicable, getting impatient and pulling bosses for the tank when they're trying to type a question before pulling etc, I'll have no remorse for kicking them. I'm very forgiving of someone that's say new to a job or came back from a break, is in the process of learning and giving a solid effort and looking to improve. If someone's just lazy and being an anchor, no need to carry them.

Yes you shouldn't expect perfection from duty finder. But you also shouldn't queue for duty finder if you have zero idea what you're doing or can't be bothered to try. Because when you play with others, you're not just wasting your own time if you play badly, but also taking time from three to twenty three other people depending on the content. It's not okay to join a dungeon and just spam blizzard 3. (Haven't actually seen this but an example people use a lot.)

Exactly where the threshold lies is subjective, but for me it ultimately comes down to if it seems someone is putting forth an honest effort to play well or not.

[Granyala]

@Granyala - yeah so SE decided before my 10 day forum suspension was up to make it permanent. Fucking RIP. I was so tilted I actually cancelled sub and uninstalled. I wasn't really playing anyway and found the $12 a month better suited to post on the forums LOL.

Lol, okay.
I got permabanned for using the term "Blizz(t)ard" in a discussion about why mining aggroes mobs.
I don't think SE is that much different in their forums in that regard.

Well, their loss, our gain I'd say.

Makes sense that you cancelled, there is no reason to pay if you don't play atm.
Did the same with WoW and only hop in sporadically to check out story and new zones.

[Graeham]

There's some interesting rumours about the moderation team on the official forum being compromised. I'm inclined to believe it, since the knee jerk reaction to punishing people on the official forum seems to be overly harsh and often ignores nuances.

[dope_danny]

There's some interesting rumours about the moderation team on the official forum being compromised. I'm inclined to believe it, since the knee jerk reaction to punishing people on the official forum seems to be overly harsh and often ignores nuances.

Honestly i dont use official forums for any game. The community members almost always end up being psychos who let the power go to their head. People were laughing at screamcaps of the bioware forums for years for a reason.

[Faroth]

Also back in 2.0 Shiva eu basically had no marketboard. French goons flooded it with trash and crashed the market saying "engliss spek pigs leave this FR server!" and they were the largest FC's who were totally dedicated to this (from what was said on the reddit at the time by upset french players saying 'please dont judge us all because of them' it all came from some chip on the shoulders of french hicks that live in the sticks that cannot deal with the fact english replaced french as the 'lingua franca' and they feel their bad life situations are because english speakers usurped frances place in the world, or something, so they go out their way to ruin the good time of english speakers even if its to their own detriment) and for a time nobody had any Gil because these 'fr' legacy players were aiming to destroy any economy until all none french speakers left.

Eventually 3 german FC's of players who were almost all disciples of land/hand went full Log Horizon on their ass and basically made a grey market where people who were polite to crafters and in need of gil were lead to a player made trade hub in the north shroud and people were privately trading gil for items outside of the marketboard. I found out through the dude who helped me get my stardust rod who offered to get me some good Gil if i could provide another player with skins i went on to farm in Coerthas.

This is now my new favorite story. I do love MMO stories where communities kind of have their own villains that they find ways in-game to work against. I'm also amused at just how much effort that required to go "full Log Horizon" on them as you said.

[Redzonetode]

Lol, okay.

Did the same with WoW and only hop in sporadically to check out story and new zones.

That's how MMOs should be played, honestly. The expectation to be able to play 24/7 365 days a year is absurd. Playing just when there's new stuff out, or things you want to do, and then quitting is the best way.

[lawow74]

I've heard the story of the FR players trying to ruin the game for others and then being battled off by the server community before. It's nice for sure, but it totally goes around the point I was trying to make. Never forgiving players for doing something actionable as a tempban seems ridiculous to me. That's like saying I can get the death penalty if I break into someone's house, rob them, then ten years later repeat the same crime.

If someone wants to be a little fucktard and hammer away until they get permabanned, that's on them. But someone who says something inappropriate once and then behaves for x amount of time should be forgiven that mark, not have it hung over their head for all eternity. I think after a period of time (six months to a year) a mark should be rescinded.

[Granyala]

That's how MMOs should be played, honestly. The expectation to be able to play 24/7 365 days a year is absurd. Playing just when there's new stuff out, or things you want to do, and then quitting is the best way.

That doesn't work when you are a member in a raid team. Your spot will be gone.

[Granyala]

XIV is better than most in this regard, at least.

Unless you have a house...

[dope_danny]

Unless you have a house...

Oh yeah the sub ransom house

- - - Updated - - -

Man levelling dps alt jobs right now is suffering. Heaven on High has 20-30 minute ques per floor and every job left is stuck doing bardams mettle in the dungeon finder.

Maybe its time to step back into pvp for the first time since the Garo event

[Katchii]

Oh yeah the sub ransom house

- - - Updated - - -

Man levelling dps alt jobs right now is suffering. Heaven on High has 20-30 minute ques per floor and every job left is stuck doing bardams mettle in the dungeon finder.

Maybe its time to step back into pvp for the first time since the Garo event

I focus entirely on roulettes and beast tribe dailes. You can get ~1.5 levels a day just from that, though it does take a while. Main story roulette is totally worth the trouble, the daily xp bonus is ridiculous. I also found a workaround for the non-skippable main story roulette cutscenes. Just force close the game and log back in and you're out of the cutscene.

I won't touch HoH because of how long the queues are, which is really sad, I was hoping to use that almost exclusively to grind levels on alt jobs.

[lawow74]

On XCal, HoH queues are still pretty decent. Now and again I hit a snag and have to wait 5-10 mins, usually it's a couple mins or less.

[dope_danny]

I focus entirely on roulettes and beast tribe dailes. You can get ~1.5 levels a day just from that, though it does take a while. Main story roulette is totally worth the trouble, the daily xp bonus is ridiculous. I also found a workaround for the non-skippable main story roulette cutscenes. Just force close the game and log back in and you're out of the cutscene.

I won't touch HoH because of how long the queues are, which is really sad, I was hoping to use that almost exclusively to grind levels on alt jobs.

Yeah but muh genesis tomestones tho

[Katchii]

On XCal, HoH queues are still pretty decent. Now and again I hit a snag and have to wait 5-10 mins, usually it's a couple mins or less.

What time of day do you usually do it? I'm on Excalibur too and see queues of 20+ minutes or more....at least that's what the estimate says, I don't wait to see if that's how long it will actually take.

Yeah but muh genesis tomestones tho

Fair enough.