I absolutely feel your pain on this.Â
While I realize that the *vast majority* of people one will encounter using the Duty Finder will be polite and forgiving (especially if you're open to tips and aren't making the same basic mistakes over and over again), there are those few bad apples that ruin the fun of it. Especially for those of us who have anxiety issues even out of game. The idea of even potentially running into one of those folks is enough to turn us off to PUGs all together. While some people can brush that sort of thing off without it affecting them, not everyone is hardwired the same way.
In my own case, I've see the worst of the worst of the MMO community from working as a customer support rep for one of the major titles for over two years. Often times, at that job, I mostly had to contend with those very people-- the trolls, the ragers, the keyboard-gangsters who, when they're online, will say some of the meanest, nastiest things because they're safe behind a monitor and have themselves convinced they won't be held accountable.
I honestly think it was that work experience, more so than ANY of the bad PUGs I'd actually dealt with, that wound up sapping what little patience I had left for those kind of people in general. These days, I've developed such an aversion to that type of personality that tools like the Duty Finder are all but ruined for me, even though the logical part of my brain is completely aware of the fact that the ARR community is significantly less toxic than the game I used to work for and that it's not likely I'll run into those sorts regularly. Yet every time I think about queueing up for a random, I work myself up like crazy thinking "but what if I get one of *those* sort of groups? What if I make a mistake?" And then, ironically, "What if I'm so stressed out I just suck??" (as I often do, because I've worked myself up so much! It's a vicious cycle.)Â It's positively unnecessary of me, but yet I can't help but do it. D<
In FF, I've just been fortunate in having joined up with a bunch of friends who I can run the content with and who can tolerate my aversions (luckily, I seem to be a decent enough tank that they put up with me and regularly feel the need to vent to me about the awful and/or rude PUG tanks that THEY'VE dealt with via DF, haha). That said, I'm aware of how only playing with one group can mean missing out on some learning opportunities, and I have been trying to wean myself back into randoms for that reason.Â
TL;DR: Hang in there! You're definitely not alone in having these anxieties. For some people, it's super easy to brush off and move on like nothing happened-- but it's okay if you're not one of those people who can naturally do so. We're all hardwired a little differently and all we can do is our best while trying to stay open to ways we can improve.
While I realize that the *vast majority* of people one will encounter using the Duty Finder will be polite and forgiving (especially if you're open to tips and aren't making the same basic mistakes over and over again), there are those few bad apples that ruin the fun of it. Especially for those of us who have anxiety issues even out of game. The idea of even potentially running into one of those folks is enough to turn us off to PUGs all together. While some people can brush that sort of thing off without it affecting them, not everyone is hardwired the same way.
In my own case, I've see the worst of the worst of the MMO community from working as a customer support rep for one of the major titles for over two years. Often times, at that job, I mostly had to contend with those very people-- the trolls, the ragers, the keyboard-gangsters who, when they're online, will say some of the meanest, nastiest things because they're safe behind a monitor and have themselves convinced they won't be held accountable.
I honestly think it was that work experience, more so than ANY of the bad PUGs I'd actually dealt with, that wound up sapping what little patience I had left for those kind of people in general. These days, I've developed such an aversion to that type of personality that tools like the Duty Finder are all but ruined for me, even though the logical part of my brain is completely aware of the fact that the ARR community is significantly less toxic than the game I used to work for and that it's not likely I'll run into those sorts regularly. Yet every time I think about queueing up for a random, I work myself up like crazy thinking "but what if I get one of *those* sort of groups? What if I make a mistake?" And then, ironically, "What if I'm so stressed out I just suck??" (as I often do, because I've worked myself up so much! It's a vicious cycle.)Â It's positively unnecessary of me, but yet I can't help but do it. D<
In FF, I've just been fortunate in having joined up with a bunch of friends who I can run the content with and who can tolerate my aversions (luckily, I seem to be a decent enough tank that they put up with me and regularly feel the need to vent to me about the awful and/or rude PUG tanks that THEY'VE dealt with via DF, haha). That said, I'm aware of how only playing with one group can mean missing out on some learning opportunities, and I have been trying to wean myself back into randoms for that reason.Â
TL;DR: Hang in there! You're definitely not alone in having these anxieties. For some people, it's super easy to brush off and move on like nothing happened-- but it's okay if you're not one of those people who can naturally do so. We're all hardwired a little differently and all we can do is our best while trying to stay open to ways we can improve.
![[Image: mO8aEaH.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/mO8aEaH.jpg)
Always looking for new connections!
