Crystal Tower and the communityFollow

Greetings one and all!

I usually write on these forums with positive or constructive things to say, positivity breeds positivity after all, but I want to see how a balanced community like this one has found the CT community.

I'm a career tank. I play as often as is feasible, but I also hold down a fulltime job and spend what free time I can with my fiancée, so I am yet to participate in endgame content such as coil. I entered CT for the 1st time a couple of weeks back, making sure I stated at the start I was new to the instance and was unsure on some mechanics. The MT for my party was understanding, and used party chat to explain each encounter as we arrived at them while heals sorted buffs etc, and I thought to myself "this isn't so bad!".

And then a tank (not me thankfully) made a mistake, and all hell broke loose. Tanks turned on eachother, healers spewed bile rather than healing wounds, and the dps were more interested in using hurtful words than abilities.

It ultimately culminated in the aforementioned tank being vote kicked for literally one mistake, in an instance where it doesnt really matter, just dust off and try again.

The whole experience made me realise the community really isnt much better these days, the cracks are just hidden better.

This prompted me to lvl a dps class to lvl 50 for use in CT just for an easy ride and the anonimity it provides. As much as I love tanking, I'm not prepared to risk making one mistake and having the playtime I have spoiled by the self righteous asshats endgame seems to attract.

It does depend heavily on who you get stuck with. A lot of people simply dont care, like you mentioned, because in the end it doesnt matter. They find it anoying perhaps, but they could care less about the vote kick option.

Sadly there is a VERY vocal minority of people, who most likely originate from other games, that dont tollerate mistakes, most likely out of a sense of insecurity or they are very young and angry teenagers. Sadly they are also probably the people that have the most power and strangely enough them going on a hissy fit doesnt exclude them from a party, but rather the person they complain about :/

CT can be really friendly, but it can also be absolute hell. I've left a couple of times mid-run simply because people were insufferable. I'd rather have eaten the 30 minute penalty than spend one more minute with that group spewing forth their words.

I found that if i enter CT during my mornings, which equal 3AM to about 9AM US time, i encounter the least amount of jerks. You should try changing your playtimes for it perhaps?

I've only run it twice, and both times were great ><

I don't even have alliance chat turned on lol

I recently decided to level GLA. I made it up to the point where I can do dungeons. I've done a few runs of Sashtasha to practice up with friends. Decided to do one more run last night but only 2 of my friends were available so for the 4th, a DPS, I decided to use the DF since thats what its for.

I made it clear at the beginning of the dungeon that I was new to tanking so not to expect a speedy run and that I'd probably make some mistakes. Not a word was said from the BLM that the DF paired us with. This guy runs ahead, running past me, and pulls. Ok np I should learn to deal with this scenario. He does it again and again. The other BLM in group tries to sleep mobs we're not focued on and every time this douche starts hitting the slept mob. He starts throwing out AoE sh*t like he's in some FATE. I mention to please stop waking the slept mobs and this is the guy's response: "you dont sleep a level 15 dungeon". I ask if he read what I said at the beginning of the run and he says "yea and you dont sleep a level 15 dungeon".

This is Sashtasha. I made it clear this wasnt going to be a speed run or anything and he had ample time to leave. I just cant wrap my head around how someone can be so damn elitist in a level 15 dungeon.


Edited, Jan 16th 2014 9:33am by reptiletim

My wife was healing and actually said she was going to. I decided against it because I feel I'm going to have to learn to deal with people like that as a tank.

My main is BLM which is pretty much the opposite play style as GLA. Its very new to me so I need what exposure I can get if I want to get better.

We tried TamTara immediately afterward and the archer we got paired with was awesome. He was thrilled that the duty roulette didnt dump him into Copperbell again. He said he had been doing copperbell for weeks. I really enjoyed that run and wish I could've friended him to run with again sometime.

Edited, Jan 16th 2014 9:49am by reptiletim

Same thing here.. I have had good runs and bad runs.. It amazes me the dbags this instance draws though.. I suppose by now some people expect everyone to know it but do not realize there are still people new to it.. Still lots of drops mainly tanks as usual, had a whm drop the other day though. It is a mixed bag, One time we fly through and the next it is a grind.

The biggest issue is people are impatient, I dont know how many times someone starts the battle with out all the people being in and they get locked out... This is almost always a wipe and it ends up taking longer.. Wait for everyone.

Another issues is parties splitting up too much and get out of heal range. Like the level where we have to protect the pots, whm can not be running across the map to heal you, he needs to be near the pot to heal it.. Stay with your group that is why there are 3 groups. dont ***** you are dead if you run out of range of the healer.

That being said I like CT design and cant wait till they add more to it..




Edited, Jan 16th 2014 10:08am by Nashred

I agree with a lot of what is being said here. Too often DPS get away with placing the blame on healers or tanks and it makes it seem like healers and tanks have "harder" or "more important roles" in the party - which is simply not true.

1. DPS need to follow kill order if it is important. This doesn't apply so much at the lvl50 dungeons since tanks can keep threat on everything and it is often most efficient to AoE things down. If they don't follow the kill order - let them die - it's the only way to learn.

2. DPS need to know to stay in range of the healers. If they don't - let them die - it's the only way to learn.

3. DOS need to know to let the tank initiate the pulls. If they don't - let them die - it's the only way to learn.

All of these issues bear no reflection on the tank or healer. DPS need to know enough to follow these rules or they will die. Healers and tanks have responsibilities and so do DPS. It jut seems that DPS tend to blame these things (wrongly in my opinion) on the tanks and healers.

DPS in this game is no "easier" a role then any other. There are good DPS and bad, just like any role - it's just a bit harder to pick them out since there are usually either 2 or 4 in a group - twice as many as tanks and healers.

That's the thing though. It's not super hard to know the kill order (the tank should be marking targets), or to know to stay in range of the healers (basicly this would fall under the healers duties as well). All that's left is for the DPS to know is not to pull but let the Tank pull unless otherwise stated as such. And even the drunkest DPS post-level 20 dungeons knows that.

Realistically, all a DPS job needs to do is Deal as much damage in as short amount of time as possible. There's nothing else to it. Holding back at times not to surpass the Tanks hate on the target is trivial.

Meanwhile, Tanking (especially with the responsibilities that come with it) has to be the most stressful thing there is sometimes. Make a mistake, and people will die. It's as simple as that. You need to know every fight, every move, every effect, need to know what you can and cannot stun, when to use your abilities and on what targets and basicly make sure everyone does their jobs. All while trying to face the monsters a certain way not to kill anyone or knowing when it's ok to run from a move.

Healers too. Need to know exactly when to cure, what abilities to use, not to overuse abilities that generate a lot of hate, keep an eye on other people's HP bars and hundred more things.

I have both a PLD at 50 which is the job i love more than anything and a BRD at 50, with my DRG not far behind. But i can tell you unless people really need me to tank something, i am much more comfortable just being on a DPS job. No stress, no responsibilities, no paying attention outside of not hitting things that arent being attacked and all-in-all the easiest job in the world.

You might say DPS in this game isnt an easier role than any other, but compared to a Tank or Healer it's "blue skies and open grassfields in the summer" compared to "Midnight Minefield in a thunderstorm wearing a lightning rod on your back". Being a DPS in this game is a joke. It's fun, dont get me wrong, but yeah. Hardly taxing.

I know what you are saying but I still tend to disagree.

Tanks need to know the fights, sure. They need to know which abilities can be stunned, which can be silenced, which to run from and which to absorb/heal through and when to use their abilities, on this we agree. DPS need to know these things too - you might not think so, but then you are being too easy on your DPS members and/or playing with sub-par DPS. Some DPS jobs can stun and silence, the fact that we are asked not to doesn't change that fact. Some groups will use MNKs for silence, other DPS jobs for stun etc. DPS need to know to get out of the way of AoE damage, which status effects they might get hit with, where the safe spots to stand are, where the healers will stand etc.

DPS checks run abound in this game. If the DPS make a mistake in these cases, it spells a wipe for the whole raid, not just one or two people. Tanks have mistakes to make, and so do DPS. I wouldnt necessarily say one mistake is more dangerous than another.

Healers need to know when to heal? of course they do! That is the main aspect of the job... just like DPS need to know when to DPS... start too early and you take hate, too late and the fight drags out longer than it needs to. One thing healers have going for them is status removal, which in this game is quite dumbed down to a single spell (Esuna/Leeches) - not really that hard. Healers are NOT responsible for DPS being out of range - I covered this already in the post above - that is the DPS responsibility to deal damage while staying close enough to the healer to stay alive. Keeping an eye on the other member's HP bars again boils down to a deficiency in your DPS - if they knew the fight well enough they wouldn't really be taking damage - I'd say that blame lays in the DPS.

There really aren't "a hundred more things" for healers to keep track of if your DPS are on their toes and know the fights as well as everyone else.

I think a lot of people are just more relaxed on the DPS in their groups - you might just be playing with bad DPS. When I DPS I am keeping all of the above things you mentioned in check. Tanks keep hate, healers heal, and DPS deal damage... just about everything else is a commonality to all roles.

I've played all three roles in CT.

That place is douchebag hell about 50% of the time. I can recall a couple great runs and even some Flist adds from people I've met there. I can also recall last Monday's run where the WHM and SCH in MY PARTY were trolling the rest of the alliance. So the rest of the alliance started tail-swiping us back, not standing on the pad, etc.

It got so bad I started a votekick on the bigger of the two jerks and.... it failed twice. The rest of my party was perfectly fine with this clown doing his best to wreck the run and **** everyone else off. Then he runs into the Walk of Fire bosses, and uses that goddamned glitch that locks everyone out of the boss room with no one in it. The entire alliance had to drop and requeue, all starting over. My party didn't think he was so funny then. And the whole time he's in /a chat telling them how he got his drop for the week already and would be joining every CT run he could and ****ing us all up, so they'd better watch out, etc, etc. I sent a GM report, but he was still playing the next night (same server as me, it was a PF 8 man).

The good times in CT are worth it, but man the bad times sure suck. Don't even get me started on my first try at tanking it...

I didn't realise that was a glitch. I thought it was bugged when we got lock outed... I had that happen on Monday too... I wonder if we were in the same instance. I had to reque, that stunk.. So there was a reason they wiped the whole party.

One thing about SE is if you glitch and they find out they dont hesitate to perma ban you.. I remember the big perma ban in FFXI for allot of people caught glitching.....



Edited, Jan 16th 2014 1:57pm by Nashred

On average, I run into people who are just rude about 5% of the time.

Perhaps my level of tolerance for behavior on a MMO is high. 5% would include at least 2/24 people out of every CT run, which sounds about right. I typically just stay quiet until the dust settles and then move on. Sometimes I'll drop in a line like "Ok let's decide what to do next time" and mostly that is enough to steer the conversation back on track.

Sadly, sometimes players just reaching 50 get hit with the 5% as a first experience with Endgame. It's too bad because that 5% vocal minority does NOT represent the FFXIV community as far as I see it.

My suggestion, just keep using your Friend list to keep track of players that you really enjoyed playing with. Over time, this leads to a great network of Linkshell and Free Company friends you can call on for the most demanding content.

I find watching the train wrecks with a general attitude of amusement also helps.