I hadn’t pre-planned any posts for this week as of yet, and I really do want to get back to my adventure through Super Mario RPG where I last left off as well as more Star Bunny. Over the past weekend, I was playing catch up and dealing with multiple RL objectives all while trying to get a model locomotive back up and running. An interesting incident happened to Aikirees on Friday evening. It was a very long day at work, got home, finally settled in for the evening, and we started off on our adventures to tackle our usual daily objectives in Eorzea.
As previously mentioned we’re leveling Dragoon and, as of this post, is sitting at level 55. We primarily are utilizing Alliance Raids (AR), Trials, and Frontlines(FL) roulettes to level said class. While not the fastest way possible, it is a nice slow burn of a pace and allows for acquiring Poetics: a kind of currency to buy goodies and gear. That and these are just plain fun as a nice relaxing (typically) contrast from Expert Roulette, which has somewhat evolved into a ‘go go go!’ kind of attitude. I could write up something about that, but this isn’t about ‘speed running’ dungeons.
Anyway, Aikirees is up for AR and gets Labyrinth of the Ancients, which is the first Raid in the Crystal Tower Series that everyone encounters and, along with the two after it, are now required to continue the main story. ‘Raid’ in Final Fantasy XIV is not necessarily mean the content is more difficult, it just means you’re running through a massive dungeon with mobs and bosses with 23 other folks divided up into three even teams. Aside from that, they’re pretty similar to a regular dungeon with four players, and slightly less mob groups. This raid, in particular, is considered very easy aside from one mechanic at the very end a lot of players try to speed through (and it usually doesn’t work).
We have been running Labyrinth of the Ancients on and off since late Stormblood, so I have seen how over that period of time tactics on certain bosses/areas has evolved and/or other Data Centers running it just a smidgen differently. All of this is perfectly fine and is the nature of any MMO that has been running for any given good length of time. The reason for stating that is this incident just seemed… peculiar enough to stick in my mind all weekend. Usually things like this I write off and move on, but there has been an uptick in these kinds of things happening: whether it’s directed at me, or another player.
The run is going pretty smoothly and then the Alliance hits an area where each of the three teams has to go down a different path and deal with a mini-boss at the end called an Atomos. The catch is there’s a pad of a different color representing a shield for another teams Atomos of said color that four players have to stand on to drop said shield while the other four players go smack the Atomos until it’s defeated.
Aikirees gets to go smack said Atomos (or, poke it rather) instead of pad standing. The Atomos spits out adds every few moments and the party has to deal with it, and Aikirees decides to pull it to the pad folks so they’d have something to do while the others smack said Atomos. The tank didn’t like that and told her not to pull said mobs to the back pad. That’s perfectly fine, and there’s nothing incorrect with stating this. There’s also nothing inherently incorrect with pulling said mob to the back so those waiting there can have some fun too, and the adds are pretty weak to begin with. Regardless it wasn’t anything to fuss over and the section was cleared without a hitch. While heading into the next part, the tank blatantly explain how that section is supposed to be done. To me, especially in this raid in particular, felt kind of uncalled for: it went perfectly fine, and it is a tactic the party can use to make it a bit more entertaining (sometimes quicker, depending on who stays back) for folks on the pad.
After that, it was back to quietness with a few call-outs for adds and where the teams needed to move to, like the ‘A,’ ‘B’,’ and ‘C’ in the above image. At the end of the raid, there’s a bigger boss-like mob that everyone goes and wallops on. Said boss has a nasty 1-Shot Area of Effect (AoE) that can and will K.O. the entire raid if not countered by the teams running back to a safety pad to put a big shield up. Looks kind of neat when first seeing it.
Same tank says the above to the entire raid team. This really isn’t necessary to say, and similar comments have been made elsewhere while running content. This is the first raid a lot of newcomers are going to see, so while it’s technically possible to burn down the raid boss if said HP is at 10% or less, it could have been said a lot more polite or not at all. Shielding for the final AoE only adds an additional few minutes of time to the run and it’s a guarantee non-wipe if done. Newer players more than likely are going to head back anyway because it’s just new content to them. In this case, the damage output was way lower so it was irrelevant to even bring up to begin with.
Normally things like this never really get to me, but hearing it more and more it’s just…. I don’t know. Every character one comes across has a face on the other side of the screen, and maybe they were just having a rough day and didn’t want to deal with this sort of thing (counter-point to this is just not run the content to begin with). Just choose kindness is all I’m trying to get at; everyone is going through their own thing & personal battles, and we’re all playing this game to have fun, relax, and maybe make a friend or two along the way.