Unfair/unbalanced party responsibilitiesFollow

Small example, stay with me here:
You are an office manager. You have 6 employees - three that are, generally decent workers but never really excel; two that do just enough to get away with not doing anything; and one who is extremely efficient and actually likes getting things done. A new project comes up and you need to assign someone to the project. To whom do you give it?

The point is that the people who are capable will always, in nearly any circumstance, get the most work. If you have a party with only one or two capable people, then those two people will manage everything.
Part of this is self-inflicted - the "I'd rather do it myself rather than delegate to someone who may ***** it up" mentality. I tend to do this, especially at work (level 35 systems architect with subbed DBA17). I do it in the game, too - I'll pull/lead/pick camp locations/monitor health/etc. if no one else is simply because I want to enjoy the game.
If you know what you're doing, and someone else seems to be taking all the load, let them know you know what you're doing and ask if you can help by assuming a role. If you're lucky and in a party where more than half the group is competent, then everyone can share the balance - rotate positions, say have one person pull one mob, then another grabs the next when the first is nearly dead.
Unfortunately, there seems to be 4 major positions in what are usually 6-person parties; this can tend to leave two people "slacking off". However, realize that everyone in the party is there for a reason - to help gain the maximum exp with the minimum impact. Even if someone isn't a puller, nuker, tank, or healer, they still help with the kill and, therefore, still help the party.
If you're in a party and feel like you're doing all the work, let people know. If no one asks to help, simply tell them "I'm not pulling another mob, I need to *whatever*; someone else pull" and stick to it. If no one does anything or they complain about you not doing "your job", ditch 'em. I'd be glad to have someone as industrious as that in a group with me, and a lot of other people would agree.

I'm actually surprised by how the balanced the different jobs are. There's a job for every kind of personality and play style, and every job can contribute quite a bit. In addition, few jobs are sufficient on their own (for maximum efficiency) -- a good sub is required to be effective. I know exactly what Melancoholic is talking about, but that same thing never bothers me, since it's more fun to run around, pull stuff, and take damage, then just wait there and do some damage when the monster arrives. I know what I'm talking about, too, since I was MNK at first -- an easy, safe class -- the downside being it's not as fun (you deal damage, and usually just die last if anything goes wrong). The moment I got WAR's Provoke, it became a whole different game; I was able to become a scout/puller/tank, which is a lot more responsibility. I saw what I didn't like about my class and was able to fix it simply using a subjob. Similarly, Melancoholic can switch to a different job pretty quickly if he's tired of putting himself in danger all the time.

I think the only trouble is some people are content cruising through the game without much responsibility placed on them in party combat. But really, it's up to them.

The only thing that really bothers me is how critical a WHM is to any good party. (OK, I know a WHM is not strictly necessary, but be serious... It's just a lot better if one is there.) Not so much that fact itself, but because WHMs then get into a position when they'll leave after a couple of battles because the EXP is just not up to their high standards. I'm not saying all WHMs are like that, but many are. It sucks; it makes WHMs look superior when really they're just less frequent. To me, that's the only serious imbalance in the job system.

yurik (Unicorn) MNK/20 WAR/9 -- Windurst

Edited, Tue Jan 13 14:19:23 2004 by yurik

I agree with a lot of what you wrote - luckily I tend to get into reasonable parties. One thing I feel is that a party should have 1 "main tank" and 1 "main puller", and they should not be the same person.

For example, a thief with a ranged weapon (run out, shoot, run back) makes a great puller. When the mob arrives the tank provokes it off the puller. In general, I look for the person with a ranged weapon to be the puller.

If no one has a ranged weapon, then anyone other than the main tanker with a main or subbed war (for provoke) should be the puller.

If you only have 1 tank and no one else has ranged weapons, I would still ask the red mage, say, to cast bio and run back before I'd ask the main tank to provoke. Just me though.

It is pretty helpful in those kinds of situations to have a steady group of friends that you party with each night. It gets rough at times trying to get everybody on at the same time and in the same general location, but it is definatly worth it once you build up a core group of players that know what their job is and everybody has a role. I'm not speaking of Job roles either.

In my steady group we have the person that picks a zone to fight in and organizes the battle plans, another to organize the people and search for additional party members, another to put the skillchain and tactics together, and another ready to look things up, etc. So each night we get together we already know who is doing what and we don't have one person that is running the entire show.

Roles in a party can vary as well.. and WHMs don't ALWAYS have to be indispensible. But yeah, I agree.. it can sometimes be pretty unbalanced.

Example: Last night, we had a 5 person party in Valkurm, L14-15. PLD/WAR (me), DRK/WAR, MNK, MNK and BLM/WHM. With no WHM main, and only two of us even able to cast Cure, we were able to score about 3k xp in an hour. We added a RDM later and ended up with another 2.5k in an hour before I had to go sleep. I had just ding'd to 14 prior to joining this party, and was most of the way to 16 by the end of the two hour mark.

Why did it work out? DRK/WAR pulled, I tanked, BLM/WHM nuked. In fact, the two MNKs were in essence newbies. Neither knew how to skill chain, and only one knew how to stun bombs off of goblins. But it still worked just fine, and I still ended up just doing the tank job.

I don't see anything wrong with that. 6 member parties, you have to expect some people with more experience than others, and if you somehow end up with 6 experienced people, good for you. But I enjoyed teaching and practicing renkei chains with the monks... all the while racking up xp.