Tag Archives: FFXIV

Greed-Only in Alliance Raid

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All-Greed 24-people Raids

I’m angry about this. ☹

Why? Yoshida, why?

Currently, when I try to farm a gear for my new level 50 job, I already have quite a thin chance to obtain one…. Because of the drop rate. It might not drop the gear for MY job. Or even when it drop for my job, it might not be the specific piece I am looking for (for example, I want a pair of pants, but it drops gloves, the slot which I already have or already bought from Tomestones or Gil). I have to already fight against the damn RNG. On top of that, if the party have someone who is the same job/role as I, and they want the same piece of equipment I want. That decreases my chance even further.

That was bad enough.

However, Yoshida-san, you don’t seem to think so. For you have announced something that will worsen is drastically.

Are you sure you want us to compete with the whole party? One against 7? Regardless of current job?

Currently we might have to run the dungeon 5 times before the RNG bless us with the piece which has both the correct job and correct slot for us. If you let non-job party members compete loot with us, I might have to go in 30 times before I am lucky enough to win the loot.

With the new system you’re proposing, let’s see, for example, if I am a WHM, and I want a WHM hat from an Alliance Raid dungeon, I go in as ANY job. And pray that the hat WILL drop. Let’s suppose it DOES drop, I have to pray that no one else will greed it. If someone competes me and greeds it, I have to gamble with the loot roll score. What if I lose? I play until the end, it does not drop again, and I re-enter to a new alliance. New Alliance might have 1, or 7, competitors who will loot my hat against me. And then I lose the roll contest again. Oh yes I re-enter again. Until both of these are true at the same time: it drops, and I win the loot.

Unlike the old system, there is no guarantee that I will eventually get the drop. In old system, I might be lucky enough to be the only one who push the “Need” button, because my pair healer doesn’t want the item. In new system, I have to assume that I’ll always loot against 7 people.

This is ridiculous. This is uncool. This is cruel.

I want WHM gear. I practice my WHM. I go into the Alliance using my WHM. I have the rights to higher loot priority than those non-WHM. That is the way it should be. It is unfair to make us, who can afford and also make effort to use the correct job to go to Alliance Raid, have lower loot priority and match it with those who don’t bring the job.

You want a loot, you work for it, as the correct job or correct role. Yes, please.

Please reconsider your All-Greed system, because it is unfair.

But, if you REALLY MUST make loot rule “greed-only” in Alliance Raid, please also consider these options…

  • Remove job restriction of the gear. Make it for all job. Like the “Antique” set from dungeons level 50. It is an item. Anyone can loot it. Any job can get it. Give us an NPC who trade the piece for something else we can actually equip. And then let the player decide for themselves what job’s gear they want to trade it for. This way, you eliminate the problem of, for example, “Oh, the hat dropped but it’s not for my job! Damn it!!!”

And

  • Also make the gear piece unique and untradeable. So that when someone already received a body piece, they cannot loot a 2nd body, allowing other party members to have a chance at the body as well.

Or…

  • Make the Alliance Raid dungeons drop a token for EVERYONE at the end. We can spend the tokens to buy anything of any job from an NPC outside of the dungeon. This way, after 1 run, for example, I can buy a belt, or 2 runs for a hat, or 3 runs for a body, instead of having to gamble with the treasure drop RNG and number of competitors and RNG of the “roll for loot” button.

 

Sub-par tank with big attitude

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Expert roulette today was full of drama, again. Frankly, that is why I tried to avoid DF solo and only go when I have at least one friend with me. Today, though, I was with Corn and Bray, and we went in as a party of three, then were matched with a stranger who was a DRK.

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Right off the bat, without any heads up, he or she stood there for like a minute, seeming AFK. We went ahead and pulled a group of 3 enemies, having Corn’s Titan-Egi tank. The tank came back a bit later, when enemies were almost dead. Tank said sorry and helped us kill 2 out of 3 enemies, and ran off to grab next group before last one died.

Bray said “go big” so the tank kept going…..up the stairs where it was a dead end. We fought there and proceeded to next set of mobs. Tank pulled all the way to the monkeys’ room. I had difficult time keeping up with the cure. This tank was strangely squishy. I wasn’t sure if DRKs are squishy by nature, or if this person had bad gear, or if this person had bad skill rotation. I couldn’t Cleric Stance properly. I had healed DRKs before. I felt DRK is quite hard to heal and I’m more accustomed to healing a PLD. And in level 60 content (non-sync) I can also heal a WAR alright. But DRK is another story. However, this DRK seemed a little bit squishier that others. So, I selected to focus on healing instead.

Boss room was ok. I couldn’t DPS and tank didn’t 100% dodge the Folio AoE, but that’s fine. Everything was manageable.

This DRK kept quietly going AFK (or at least seemed AFK) every once in a while, without notification, too. So we crept forward slowly using Titan-Egi tank, which complicated things because when the tank arrived late at the scene, it was harder to secure enmity. I almost got mowed to death a few times due to my Medica II pulling hate from Titan-Egi.

Then, in Liquid Flame boss, I made a bad decision and spent Benediction on Bray when he was dying. Bye-bye my cool down. Ugh!

Next mob after flame boss was in a room where vision is blocked by a narrow door. Corn wandered too far into the room and was seen. (I did this twice, because I forgot and didn’t see the enemies visually.) So we started fighting.

The tank (back from being idle) ran in, said “Ffs” and grabbed all the 3 enemies, and headed further up the stairs. I used Sprint to follow. We reached the next room, where there are many statues. Inside the room, near the entrance there are 3 more enemies. Once tank reached the enemies, Corn placed Shadow Flare there. I spent my Divine Seal and used Medica II. But lo and behold, the tank didn’t stop there, he or she continued to the end of the room, missing Medica II and waking up first set of statues, which spawned 2 3 more enemies. That’s 8 (I was wrong, it was actually 9 enemies) in the fray.

I followed immediately and Swiftcast, reapplied my Medica II to help with tank’s HP. I also landed Tetragrammaton on the tank for 7888 HP and placed Asylum. Meanwhile, one or two loose enemies whacked on me because of my too-early Medica II. (I usually let tank secure enmity first, but this tank had me panicked because he or she ran off for more enemies when I wasn’t expecting it, and tank’s HP gushed like water.)

Tank used Convalescence but from that point on, I could only land 1 Cure. I tried to Cure II, as Benediction and Tetra were both on cooldown. We all dodged a bunch of cluttered AoE and either I was hit or my Cure II was interrupted by damage, and in a blink, tank died.

I was shredded into pieces right after. And then Corn, and then Bray.

Tank was like “Great” then said “Can pull cant heal.”

Um? I didn’t pull. And wait, you were the one who decided to take a bigger bite than you can chew, no? We wanted to stop at the front of the room. You dragged the mobs all the way to the back of the room. YOU.

And where’s the oh-shit emergency skill, Living Dead, that could have extended your death for at least 10 seconds?  And not all enemies were on you, yet you still died. =_=;; That means your tanking skill, in combination with my healing skill, cannot withstand that many enemies.

I was so miffed and replied “Where’s your Living Dead? :P”

Corn got pissed off, too, and called the DRK out on those mysterious AFKs. The DRK said “I was trying to type”  (I thought to myself, type what? You’re not supposed to type while engaged in battle.) On my second thought, though, maybe the DRK meant he or she was trying to type to tell the party that he or she needed to go AFK. But….how long does a person need just to type “Wait” or “BRB” or “AFK” or “sec” or to type wa [and tab, for auto-translation of “Wait, please.”]. After 3-letter notification to make the party listen, one can have plenty of time to explain the situation or the need to AFK or to pause the pull.

Anyway, after everyone went to HP and ran back again, the DRK darted forward without waiting for Protect (probably was too pissed off to care). So I had to cast Protect on them again, at the same time the DRK aggroed first group of enemies, and my Protect stole enmity right off the bat. DRK didn’t even care and kept running forward for the 2nd group. I had to Sprint to catch up and heal, etc.

Unhappy.

While we were fighting through the room full of statues that gradually spawned enemies, the argument went on and on. The tank was angry that Corn pulled. (Honestly, I would, too. I always hate DPS that pulls before tank.) Corn was pissed that the tank kept going AFK unannounced. (In this case I regrettably sided with Corn, because going AFK unannounced is very rude, IMO. And to top it off, the tank was so squishy and died from pulling too many mobs without consulting the party, and then immediately blamed me, I was infuriated.)

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I also had to use Benediction there (like, what the!?! I only used Benediction there on Dew when and if we pull 8 enemies at once.) The tank seemed so occupied in exchanging angry messages with Corn and didn’t focus on tanking AT ALL. It was even worse than before. Tank was always on the verge of dying, even when I fully focused on healing and switched to bombing Cure II instead of Cure as usual.

I finally snapped and said “You’re squishy enough when not typing, please focus.” Which is very mean, I know. But I just really can’t tolerate that attitude. A sub-par tank who’s not trying to do the job properly, but focusing more on typing an argument…

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After that, 4 enemies spawned, and the tank seemed to be mad at my remark, and seemed to intentionally neglect to take back the aggro. I tanked 2 of them the whole time until they died. I spent Tetra on myself. I cure bombed myself. I refused to die. Meanwhile Corn threatened to vote kick the tank, to which the tank replied “Kick me u crybby” and “Like i care” so after the mobs died, we voted kick the tank.

Good riddance.

There was just one enemy on the way to last boss room, if I remember correctly. We got past that just fine and got to the boss room. Corn waited for a bit, but no tank came in. I was unwilling to wake Dew up, so I just stood there, trying to not get mad at what happened. =_= As you can see, apparently, I failed to stay not mad.

Corn eventually decided to tank with Titan-Egi.

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And of course, we won without casualty.

Titan-Egi, tanking a boss better than a real person Dark Knight. =_=;; WTF.

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Being way sub-par in a DF is rude

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Alright…. it’s not often that I would go to leveling roulette with strangers, because I find random party hard to deal with. So I usually don’t brave any DF unless I’m desperate, or in a really good and confident mood, or have a friend or two tagging along.

Yesterday I went to Leveling Roulette with Dew and Lulu. We were unlucky enough to get Qarn, the worst nightmare of 2.0 low level dungeons, pre-adjustment (Qarn used to be much harder before a patch where they made some dungeons easier.) And we were unfortunate enough to get this random ARC in our party.

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He was new, but that wasn’t the problem.

He was slow in targeting the enemies, but that could be excused.

He had moderately sub-par gear:
Main hand – level 32 (NQ)
Head – level 15 (Pirate Bandana)
Body – level 30 (NQ)
Gloves – level 23 (aetherial)
Pants – level 23 (aetherial)
Boots – level 30 (NQ)
Right side he had a level 1 neck, a level 1 earring, and a level 1 ring.
Other 2 slots were empty.

(I didn’t check his gear until later, when we had TERRIBLE struggle in Golem boss room, and when we finished the dungeon, I didn’t remember exact levels of his equipment (except his bow, and the fact that he had a mix of lv 20ish gear and level 30 gear), until I compared the screenshot below to his Lodestone profile which hadn’t updated yet.)
When I first peeked at his gear and took mental note of roughly what he wore, I decided to not say anything, since I always feel guilty for secretly judging people by their equipment. Plus, I could understand that some people might come in the dungeon via roulette and get something higher/harder than they expected. So I can forgive unprepared people who’s slightly undergeared. To me 5-8 levels undergear is excusable. Also, Aetherial gear tend to be about as good as normal gear of 3-5 levels above it.

As we went on, a headgear (aetherial lv 35) and a pair of pants (aetherial lv 35) dropped, and the ARC immediately changed to those. So I decided once again that he deserves some credits and a forgiveness.

I also noted that in first boss room, when we all got Doom debuff, this ARC tried and ran to a lighted platform, but failed because the light was being a jerk and moved to the other platform instead. He didn’t follow to the new one. This is a common mistake among the newbies, so he died even though I tried to guide him there while telling him to come {This way.} I forgave that death, because at least he knew what to do and he tried. After raised, he didn’t miss a Doom cleanse again, either.

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But in the last boss room, we did HORRIBLE. Adds stayed alive like forever even though Lulu was fast and switched target and/or jumped into the box very quickly. Dew swore up and down that the ARC’s max HP dropped from start. I said impossibruuuuuuuuu because he got 2 new pieces of equipment, his HP should go up, not down. But the fight was brutal. It was painful. It was even more painful than the Golem room where I ended up having 0 MP (after raising the ARC once and Lulu once) even after using an ether of some sort.

So when we won, I peeked at his gear again….

And….

What….

Do…

I…

See…?

He sneakily swapped out the level 32 bow and had been using a level 15 Aetherial bow since WHO KNOWS WHEN.

I got really mad and screamed into my Skype call with Dew. Dew cursed a few words and we both left without commending the douche. Lulu was pretty fed up with him at some point in the dungeon, too. Because he pulled a group of mobs before Dew could run in, so the mobs were scattered when Dew provoked and stuff, and Lulu slept them, but the ARC woke them up.

I was too baffled to say anything to the ARC. I was afraid I would come out extremely mean and rude if I were to say something to his face, so I just left without saying anything.

Guys, it is ok to come in unprepared and be slightly undergeared, if you put enough effort in contributing to the party, it’s forgivable. It is, however, a douche move, to come in with decent or forgivable gear but then swap to other equipment which is more than 10 levels below the dungeon. (And in this specific case, the weapon was level 15, the dungeon is level 35, so it was 20 levels below the dungeon!!!! Just WTF, man.)  It is beyond rude. You’re leeching our labour and effort. I, as a healer, had to nuke the shit out of everything because you cannot make decent DPS. It is unfair to us. It is selfish.

I disapprove. :(

 

Teamwork is important!

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Yet another rant post. :'(

I got bold (or more like desperate for Tomes of Esoterics) and joined an Expert Roulette alone. And of course, unfortunate event befell. I got into a party where the tank neglected minor details and made the run very rough for me.

Once again it emphasizes to me that gear and stats aren’t helping much if the wearer doesn’t  work hard enough to bring out its best potential.

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As you see, this tank has at least a body piece of iLV 240, while other gear are at least 200, 210, or 230, as I didn’t look at every piece and I can’t tell from just the picture. Maximum HP was over 24k. When I see tank with above-average HP, of course I feel a little bit at ease.

But you know what? I could hardly switch to Cleric Stance to help nuke during this run.

I know I’m finicky and I’m a spoiled healer, but I don’t just randomly complain or get ticked at other people’s play style or player skill. But this one just….made me grunt so many times. I don’t know precisely what went wrong that made the tank less efficient than average. All I could notice were minor details where this tank failed or neglected to exercise.

A few examples:

– Not rounding up the mobs properly, sometimes letting one or two stray mobs hit tank from behind (this makes your shield blocks and weapon parries become useless, because you can’t block or parry attacks coming from behind you)

– In Hullbreaker Hard, not bringing the enemy (or enemies) away from the ground buffs (ATK up and Haste, if I remember correctly) making the enemies hit very fast and hard as a truck. I switched to cast Aero III just for 3 seconds and the tank was dying, making me use Benediction near the start of the dungeon.

– Not bringing melee enemies towards ranged attack enemy, so the mobs aren’t grouped properly and sometimes an enemy would try to kill me, because tank’s Flash couldn’t reach it and I kept gaining enmity from Cure and Medica II and Regen.

– Not watching the healer, letting an enemy beat on the healer without protecting (Provoke or Cover) the healer. I don’t expect a tank to move from battle spot to grab a mob off me, because that WILL ruin the battle flow and mobs placement, which can cause trouble or hassle to the DPS and the tank. I usually run to the tank when something attacks me and I know that the tank is too busy. But this one just made no attempt to provoke or cover at all. Made me frown so much.

Tanking isn’t just wielding the sword and the shield (or the axe) into the battle and being the meat shield. It requires A LOT. You need player skills, teamwork, adjustment to the party, quick reaction to the circumstances, and sound judgment of the situation. You have to support and protect your party. You have to cooperate with your team members and work with them, execute decent strategy. You don’t need to be precise and be perfect in every move and every action. You just have to read the whole situation and adapt or improvise when things go wrong.

Enemies not following you to the spot you want because they are ranged attackers? Move yourself and melee enemies to the ranged enemies, or go out of their range (or hide from their sight) to force them to move to where you want. An enemy is hitting a DPS or a healer and you can’t take back enmity and already spent your Provoke? Cover that person (if you are PLD) or change target to that enemy and do enmity combo on it. Or if you are a PLD, you can Clemency that party member to keep them from dying.

Too many enemies at once and the healer seems to struggle in topping you off? Use stun on one or a few of them, or pop your defensive buff(s), or you can also spend your offensive buff and rush one enemy so that it dies fast, relieving the damage load. You can also put a mark on an enemy or request your party to defeat that one first. Usually people aim to kill the weakest one first, or the one that hits the hardest, or the one with very bad AoE move, or the one that can cause bad debuff on tank or the party. It depends on party setting and the situation.

DPS choosing wrong enemy or different enemy from you, causing a trouble in mob control or enmity control? Put a number(s) on the enemies so they know which one to focus first. DPS using AoE attack and stealing enemies from you because you didn’t focus or combo on them? Use Flash a lot. You can also try to switch target to gain enmity on the 2nd or 3rd enemies, if you have already secured enmity on the 1st one.

There are myriad of things to do as a tank, and it’s overwhelming. I am not a very good tank and I’m just a learner. I don’t main on any tank job. All of the comments above were what I observed through DPSing and healing. But I can say tank is a tough job to learn, especially if tanking isn’t in your blood. I know I can’t play a good tank in high-end content. I think I am fine as a PLD in level 34 dungeon, but that’s it. If you throw me in a level 50 or 60 dungeon, I will probably kill my whole party and fail the run. I only know the basics, and I say these from a healer’s perspective.

HP and stats aren’t the only thing you need to be a good tank. I’ve seen so many lousy tanks who are terrible despite uber gear. I’ve seen lowbies tanks who still struggled to learn the job, and yet had wonderful performance. I’ve seen averagely geared tanks in high-end content who tanked like a pro and were surprisingly easy to heal for me. I’ve seen overgeared tanks who were overly confident and overestimated themselves who splatted under my care, or took bigger bite than they could chew.

I’ve even met tanks who thought their through-the-roof iLV could save them from everything and anything. So they don’t dodge shit and just ate AoE and/or debuff, thinking the healer can always carry the additional weight of responsibility. That puts extra, unnecessary workload on the healer. I despite that kind of tank. I would forgive if it’s inevitable or the tank has a reason to fail in dodging (like, lag, or if they lost focus for just a second, or you were dealing with other enemy and didn’t see the AoE, or your Stun happened to fail you), but if you CAN dodge it, yet selected to stand in the AoE, then you’re a burden. If there’s a strategy or a tactic what can be executed to mitigate the damage, like dodging, interacting with the mechanics, or tank swapping, then please do it. Don’t just go “Oh the healers can heal through, so I’ll be lazy and don’t deal with mechanics.” No, please just no. Because that, in my eyes, makes you a lousy tank who doesn’t do the job role correctly.

Also, sometimes very high-geared tanks thought they were gods or were invincible, and pull big or play through the dungeon as they please without taking the strength of the whole party into consideration. You can’t cycle your buffs forever, and the healer cannot keep curing forever, if the DPS is too weak or lack the jobs/skills/tools to quickly kill a large horde of enemies, then it is perhaps a bad idea to pull big.

The other day I met a WAR tank who kept pulling 2-3 groups of mobs in Tam-Tara (level 16 dungeon) when the 2 DPS persons were LNG and DRG, without any AoE attack due to level cap. The only person who could AoE was the tank…. And what? After a pull, the tank ran out of TP, yet continued on to pull 2 or 3 next groups. The tank could only use Overpower like once or twice before running out of TP again. Then what? Tank just stood there with the axe drawn, relying on auto-attack and the slow regeneration of TP. I was like *roll eyes and face palm*. It’s just so useless. The mobs enmity was everywhere because the tank ran out of TP and couldn’t attack. And the kills were so damn slow because I and the LNC could only stab one enemy at a time.

That, also, was not a good way to play tank. Of course we won and the healer didn’t have trouble keeping us alive. But while having no TP, the tank lost the efficiency and couldn’t inflict as much damage on the enemies. So I feel it was so useless thing to do (pulling big groups without having TP). The tank wasn’t exactly a dead weight  to the party, but did not maximize the job skills and abilities as he should. To me it felt like, by neglecting the basic strategy/mechanic, the tank was leeching on my hard labour.

Tanking is difficult. There are so many things you have to consider. You have to adjust your strategy to suit the situation and party setting. It’s not that a very very strong tank can do everything by himself. You still need a teamwork. So, support your team. You’re not playing solo, do not use brute force. Don’t ignore mechanics.

Dear SE, please improve outdoor furnishing “Morning Glories”

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Sent this today because the system wouldn’t allow me to place Morning Glories closer to the edge.

—————————————————————————————–

Dear SE and FFXIV development team,

There is an outdoor furnishing named “Morning Glories” which is a rack of plant/flowers in 2 flower pots, with a climbing frame for the plant. This furnishing is pretty and all that, however, how the placement grid works is terrible.

When placed on the lawn, this furnishing will leave a big gap in the back. The gap is about 10 times wider than of those other furnishing. It leaves a gap about 1 fulm wide, which is a dead space that makes my garden look unforgivably ugly.

Please, for the love of housing aesthetic, get rid of that space in the back of the climbing frame. There is nothing sticking out which would require space. The back of the frame can rest against, or stay very close, to a wall or the fence of estate just fine (and be more sensible and suitable). There is no reason that this piece of outdoor furnishing to leave such a gap. Please consider this request, and I will love you forever.

Best regards,
Aleczan.

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Goodbye Bahamut!!!

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Goodbyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Bahamuttttttttttttt!!!!!

OMG I’m freaking out!!! We finally downed Bahamut, CoB T13 (Final Coil of Bahamut, Turn 4).

Today we gathered again and tackled T13 once more. Corn needed a minute, so I took that opportunity to take some group pics. XD Sorry, Kuji, first pic has you with very evil face HAHAHA.

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Must love /gpose new feature that allows party to stop looking at the camera. :D

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During the fight, I was derping really badly, even managed to die TWICE, and only remembered to take 3 pics.

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Today we surprisingly took only 1 attempt to win.

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It’s really nice to beat Coil of Bahamut with close friends. :D (We always go in as small group, partly because I fear drama. I heard about drama and endless drama involving endgame raid and I’m scared. The fight is very intense, and everyone could be on the verge of flipping shit. So I guess we kind of never wanted to struggle with recruiting more raid members ><;; You know, even with this tight-knitted, laid-back and light-hearted team, we yelled at each other or got pouty on occasions during Coil runs. We prevailed while managing to preserve good relationship only because we’re very close, whereas I don’t have the same confidence for loyalty and forgiveness from other people as I have with these guys. We’re also casual players and other average raid players won’t like us or our messy/random schedule, hahaha!)

FC: En Taro Adun <4Aiur>

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Today after an Expert Roulette, I got a brief opportunity to try to get a group pic. But Kuji had to leave the house in real life, so he dove off so I only got just 1 group pic in my folder LOL.

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Yeah we have 4 regulars nowadays. PZ doesn’t log on every weekend anymore. He’s kind of addicted to some other new games (or his old, unfinished games, LOL!) We can still ask him to hop on to help with stuff, like Dew’s CoB clear the other day. While Bray seems to have completely quit since the rise of 3.1.

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Anyway, look at this pic. It’s not easy to set a male Au Ra in the same picture frame with a Lalafell. XD Hard to balance the crop, you know.

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If I want to zoom in at this distance, and want to see the whole body of Dew, Corn’s head will be cropped off at the top. Like the pic above. But if I want to see the sky, and Corn’s SMN horn, Dew is cropped at the waist. XD

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Solution? Dew jumped onto the rail of the Living Arch and eliminate the height difference. All happy now. If Kuji were there, he would have to go on the rail on the opposite side, next to me. XD

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Really love the newly added functions in /gpose

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Today I was able to steal some nice shots of Corn and myself at Vanu Vanu beast tribe. All thanks to the /gpose thingie.

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It’s been difficult to really take good screenshots of Corn, because when he’s out in the sun, he hardly stays still, due to the demand of beast tribe quests. And when he goes AFK in the house or in front of the house, it’s usually either too dark or raining, or he’s not in PLD outfit.

OK it’s now 4 A.M. and I need to make myself sleep XD Night night all.

 

Fisher, Folklore and Blue Scrips Token

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Sent this just now:

Dear SE and development team,

I’d like to make a plea to you to please look into FFXIV Fishing a little bit more.

Currently we Fishers have tougher time than other Disciples of the Land. Not only that we cannot right out select what fish we wish to catch, like BTN and MIN select slot of the specific node, we do not own any offhand tool and thus our stats suck and, despite all the effort in donning up to boost Gathering rating, the tougher fish can, and will, escape. While BTN and MIN can spend 250 GP (for +50%) and perhaps 50 more GP (for +50% +15% on top of that) to ensure 100% success rate, overgeared Fisher can still get “The fish got away.” message randomly.

While I am alright with these and see these challenges as an entertainment, there is other aspect of Fisher (or the lack thereof) that I am extremely unhappy with. The Folklore information on Fisher’s Fishing Log (or Fish Guide).

There is no way to tell, without going out of our way to farm 99 blue tokens to test it at the vendor, which tomes we have already acquired. Since the blue token cannot be exchanged for something else (as the other Blue scrips purchases are done by directly spending the Blue scrips) if now I have exchanged 99 blue scrips tokens, and find out that I actually have all the 3 tomes already, I am pretty much screwed. Because I would have 99 x 50 = 4,950 scrips that I can no longer spend anywhere in any way.

I know we can also check folklore we got by going to the folklore fishing spot to try to catch those legendary fish, and see if we could catch it or not. But this could take hours, because the target fish won’t always bite, and even if it bites, there is no guarantee that we could land it.

Unlike Botanist folklore page and Miner folklore page, we Fishers have no separated page for the folklore fish. The fish from folklore tome are put together, mixed, with other fish.

Please, I do not want you to pamper us and make fishing easier, but at least for user interface – the Fish Guide – please improve it regarding the Folklore information. Add a separated Folklore page, or make it possible to check, in a glance, which folklore we’ve already acquired and how many fish are in those pages (it can be blacked out like normal uncaught fish, that is fine), and, like BTN and MIN folklore item information in the Gathering Log, tell which map that fish is in.

Or, if that is unmanageable, please at least make us (everyone) able to trade Rowena’s Token (Blue scrips only, for both the gatherer and the crafter, if you’d please) back to Blue Scrips.

Terrible Void Ark Run

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I was just in a terrible Void Ark run.

But it was somewhat tolerable, mainly because no one yelled or threw insults at others.

Our own party seemed to have 2 persons who don’t know how to dodge. 3rd person in our party kept dying because they wouldn’t stand in Medica range and kept missing the Medica effect. And I had a hard time running around to find them and get in Esuna/Regen range. And many people in party B seemed to be either slow in dodging as well, or they didn’t know the mechanics too.

First boss, at the second time where the boss chases and bombards a target, my party suddenly half-wiped in a blink. T_T The other party had so many dead people too. I barely managed to stay alive after getting jump surprise with a drop of water bomb….all because I couldn’t see who got marked. I guess others died because of that, too. Or the marked person ran the wrong way, I have no idea which.

We had noticeably low DPS and killing speed, in comparison with average Void Ark runs I’ve been in.

Cuchulainn was especially bad. First attempt we had so many deaths due to people not dodging the slamming tentacle, the green vomit from hell, and two of my own party members kept dying to the Bile from Under or something (can’t remember name).

I didn’t have enough time to try to communicate because our tank was the main tank. I think I might have to start making short macro lines to explain the key attacks that need to be dodge… So if someone keeps dying to the boss mechanics, I can just hit the macro button. T__T

Then our BLM died and accidentally, I believe, home pointed. So we were 1 DPS short. Then I saw an attack I’ve never seen before. I believe we were too slow in killing, so the boss raged. Like, the tank got bitch slapped to death, somehow, which happened while everyone else got stunned in the middle of jumping up to hide on the platform from the whole room Bile. Can’t really tell whether it instantly killed the tank and froze us, or if the tank died because all healers were frozen. The status was “Bind” and “Out of action.” The tank home pointed, perhaps accidentally, or perhaps decided to home point because boss rages and people were already dead. So I tried to raise party B’s tank, while trying to survive and healing the rest of my party.

Then I saw that the boss had 5% HP left, while the LB gauge was 3 bars full! I waited and waited for someone to LB while running around like a headless chicken looking for party members to save from death. Then, I realize I was the only person alive, and decided to use healer’s LB. I raised 5 people in my party and thought they would be able to finish it alongside other parties’ survivors.

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But nope, everyone got severely attacked and we died. I truly believe that the boss was raging. :(

It was very exhausting. But at least on 2nd attempt, we managed to win.

Last boss wasn’t too painful, to say the least.

Now, I’m the type to stick around until the bitter end or until we succeed, if I see even the slightest ray of hope in it. When people fail and die, and keep dying, even after I said “Please dodge the tentacle” and when you would expect a person to already learn how to dodge from all the past deaths…. but there is no toxic attitude or comment or insult being thrown around in the party OR in the alliance, it is much, much more tolerable.

Like, if people don’t throw a tantrum and stay civil, I would have almost zero stress dealing with the situation, even after 2 or 3, or even 5 wipes. On the contrary, if we wipe once or twice, or even if we only half wipe and could recover, but people become salty and rude about it, yelling at each other, blaming other people without being constructive, my stress level rises dramatically, and all I want is to get out of that hell hole.

This alliance was bad in performance, but people stayed civil, and friendly. And we managed to win. No insult, no kicking and screaming, no spewing bad attitude. This is enough to make me willing to stay and try more attempts with them. I don’t mind failures as much as I mind bad manners and rudeness.

P.S. I think I’ve raised (not counting LB) people at least 20 times in just one run.