The Vent Tent - Poor PuGs and Other Terrible Tales

[Kellach Woods]

Hey FFXIV.

 

CAN YOU STOP PERIODICALLY CRASHING ON BOOT I AM FUCKING TIRED OF THAT SHIT.

[Kou]

1) As I was leveling White Mage...

 

I was placed into a Brayflox run with a tank so bad that they had less health than I did. And I wasn't even level-synced. Didn't communicate, didn't ask questions, didn't understand why he was dying, didn't listen to anything we said, and didn't understand that monsters being sleeped shouldn't be poked.

 

Many deaths were had. Eventually we kicked the guy because holy crap, how can anyone be that bad? We thought he as trolling, but I'm pretty sure he was really that bad. Q_Q

 

2)Then another time in... what's it. Stone Vigil? The tank didn't use Flash, didn't keep agro off me, and kept insisting he was doing fine and it was the rest of us that were doing terribly.

 

That one ended up rage-quitting. I was so relieved that I all-capsed in party chat: 

 

"GOOD. MAYBE WE CAN FINALLY FUCKING HAVE A TANK THAT ISN'T ALSO THE FUCKING HEALER."

 

 

The group laughed. I let off steam.

 

.........

 

Frustration was high on both accounts.

 

3) Not quite so terrible. Mostly to do with the laggy laggity lagness that plagues FFXIV and my own interwebs. Sibling? Using Netflix while I'm trying to play a few hours that I normally can't? AND THEN STEPDAD BRINGS HOME WORK TO SUCK MORE BANDWIDTH?

 

FAMILY. OUR INTERWEBS ARE BETTER, BUT THEY AIN'T THAT GOOD.

 

4) Flopping mudras. jfc, I flopped so many mudras so hard today and it made me want to laugh and cry. Laugh, because bunny. Cry, because it kept happening. Q_Q

[Warren Castille]

Far be it from me to begrudge anyone who has IC party macros. I will judge you behind my screen, but I won't give anyone guff over it.

 

BUT PLEASE. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY. IF YOU INSIST ON HAVING A THREE-POST LIMIT BREAK MACRO

 

SPELL

 

YOUR

 

SHIT

 

CORRECTLY.

 

YOU ARE NOT THE GOD DAMNED "HABRINGER" OF LIGHT. YOU ARE NOT TO "ANIULATE" THE DARKNESS. USE A GOD DAMNED CAPITAL "I" WHEN REFERRING TO YOURSELF. AND "U" IS NOT A WORD.

[Steel Wolf]

Far be it from me to begrudge anyone who has IC party macros. I will judge you behind my screen, but I won't give anyone guff over it.

 

BUT PLEASE. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY. IF YOU INSIST ON HAVING A THREE-POST LIMIT BREAK MACRO

 

SPELL

 

YOUR

 

SHIT

 

CORRECTLY.

 

YOU ARE NOT THE GOD DAMNED "HABRINGER" OF LIGHT. YOU ARE NOT TO "ANIULATE" THE DARKNESS. USE A GOD DAMNED CAPITAL "I" WHEN REFERRING TO YOURSELF. AND "U" IS NOT A WORD.

 

...oh....

 

...oh man, that just...Warren, you're a far greater man for not saying anything in-party about it. I would be up the freakin' WALL over that.

[Warren Castille]

Conditioning from FFXI. It became a sort of joke on linkshells; you'd just sigh, type "/l WHM with party macros" and post any egregious ones.

 

That was just the cherry on my Expert Roulette sundae. 5.2k HP WHM, 6k HP DRG and a 5.5k HP BRD and I couldn't pull big packs in Qarn because I'd die. I guess the emergency maintenance last night was to patch back in the AoE they somehow disabled.

 

/fume

[Steel Wolf]

Conditioning from FFXI.

 

....aaaah, that explains it. Yea, the "clever" macro'ing that dominated the parties I've been in that game...still makes my eye twitch.

 

*gives Warren an ice cream cone* <3

[Kellach Woods]

Last night's Qarn HM...

 

Like, self-blow up. Why are you typing in Shifting Sands? Fine.

 

BUT WHY THE FUCK WERE THE NINJAS ARGUING ON HOW TO PROPERLY HANDLE EMPERATRIZ'S THIRD 100,000 NEEDLES? YOU KILL GUARDIA YOU NUKE EMPERATRIZ IS THAT SO HARD?

 

Or, the SCH without Protect. I didn't even know you could get to SCH without learning protect! Stoneskin is w/e but Protect? C'MON THAT DOESN'T VANISH AFTER THE FIRST HIT.

 

* * *

 

Also the clever macroing in this game isn't clever for the most part

[Berrod Armstrong]

Far be it from me to begrudge anyone who has IC party macros. I will judge you behind my screen, but I won't give anyone guff over it.

 

BUT PLEASE. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY. IF YOU INSIST ON HAVING A THREE-POST LIMIT BREAK MACRO

 

SPELL

 

YOUR

 

SHIT

 

CORRECTLY.

 

YOU ARE NOT THE GOD DAMNED "HABRINGER" OF LIGHT. YOU ARE NOT TO "ANIULATE" THE DARKNESS. USE A GOD DAMNED CAPITAL "I" WHEN REFERRING TO YOURSELF. AND "U" IS NOT A WORD.

This made me laugh so hard oh my word. I even imagined the toon screaming it out in a derp voice. "NURRR!"

 

I have a few macros for my abilities as well, but nothing like that. Just chakra shit. 

("Open the fourth! The burning heart!" for fists of fire, or "Open the seventh, the crown breaks the limit!" for LB, those are fun.)

 

I learned my lesson about long macros in WoW when I was but a babby, playing ret Pally as an off spec. I'd have my BLOW ALL THE COOLDOWNS macro with a few lines of crap that went something like, "Bla bla blah Light something something something transgressor! Repent, and disappear!" 

 

I got so much flak for it that I cut it down to just "Repent, and disappear!".

 

While I was healing I had a few. Holy radiance, "Rally to ! The Light has favored them!" and a couple for the protective spells. Those were more indicators of what people should do while the spell was active, anyway -- just flavored a bit.

 

...and I have rambled off topic.

 

I suppose the only woe I have in PuGs these days -- shiva hard and extreme. I understand that sometimes people get hit with stuff even when they're trying to avoid it. That's fine. Eating stuff they really oughtn't and then yelling at the healers...no.

[Warren Castille]

KISS. Knights in Satan's Service Keep it simple, stupid. I've got no problem with the effective IC macros. It's the long-winded, often-used ability macros that drive me nuts. Don't have a Cure I macro, for example. Don't have an Adlo macro. DON'T HAVE A FAST BLADE MACRO.

 

Amateur Psyche time: I remember the last time I used IC party macros. Was a party in Garlaige Citadel and we ended up with linked bats, so I hit my Invincible macro, which was something along the lines of "Let's see you go through me now!"

 

Delay caused my ability to not fire until I was dead, so my corpse boasted to the party how awesome I was. We had a good laugh about it and then I gutted that macro to just be /p {Invincible}

 

I swore never again! The end.

[Steel Wolf]

I tried to set up a series of skills as a macro in this game on my PLD, complete with some flavor text. Basically it was Bloodbath, Convalescence and Fight or Flight with a "Your blood shall grant me strength..." say and named it "Panic Heal". The idea, of course, is to have a series of skills to keep me upright a bit in case heals are falling behind or when I'm in solo trouble.

 

The damn thing never ticks off all the skills, despite /wait commands.

[Warren Castille]

Macroing multiple skills often necessitates mashing the macro to make them all fire. There's a couple reasons for this.

 

First, while Off-GCD skills are be used in succession, there's a roughly-one-second internal cooldown on skills. In WoW, a macro consisting of 9 off-GCD buffs would all fire at the same time. XIV doesn't allow you to do that, so a macro consisting of Internal Release, Blood for Blood and Raging Strikes requires three different presses to activate, each bringing that 1~second cooldown. This is why theorycrafters weave Off-GCDs into normal GCDs; As soon as you've used two off-GCD buttons back to back, you've effectively lost an attack due to lag/input/etc.

 

Second, while XIV allows you to buffer abilities by hitting them early, macros are not subject to this. "Buffering," if anyone is unfamiliar with the mechanic, means you can press the button for your new skill before the GCD is up and you will automatically use that skill as soon as you're able. The window isn't huge, but it isn't small, either; Usually around .5~seconds in advance, maybe more. I mash my buttons anyway, so I can't tell how big it actually is.

 

Thirdly, macros with /wait timers cannot split half-seconds. XIV harbors a 2.5second GCD, but /wait macros can only do whole numbers. Macroing multiple attacks to a single macro means you're going to be stuck waiting 3 seconds after every attack, which is not a good idea for obvious reasons. Admittedly, this isn't what you're doing, Steel, but I'm including it for posterity!

 

So yeah, in short: Those sorts of macros require you to 1) mash the key and 2) lose attacks to process everything. What you could do in that situation is mash the macro, then hit an attack button, then mash the macro again to fire off the second ability, then hit an attack button, then mash the macro again to get the third skill.

[Steel Wolf]

Oooh, that makes a great deal of sense. Thanks a ton for that breakdown. :3

 

Since a Macro was intended to save time as well as de-clutter my hotbars, I'm just better off manually ticking them off instead of macro'ing them out. Probably save a few split-seconds if I just bind the keys to a series of numpad buttons instead.

 

So yea, that's a new vent tent addition--this game sucks at macros.

[Berrod Armstrong]

Oooh, that makes a great deal of sense.  Thanks a ton for that breakdown.  :3

 

Since a Macro was intended to save time as well as de-clutter my hotbars, I'm just better off manually ticking them off instead of macro'ing them out.  Probably save a few split-seconds if I just bind the keys to a series of numpad buttons instead.

 

So yea, that's a new vent tent addition--this game sucks at macros.

I have my johnfuckingmadden abilities set to numbers 1-7 on my keyboard. DADDY LONGFINGERS HAS NO ISSUE. Plus, they look so neat on the hotbar.

[Warren Castille]

Controller set with double-crossbars. I've got 32 buttons available at all times, and I'd say 99% of them are muscle memory. It's just like using alt/ctrl modifiers with triggers, and I love it.

[Steel Wolf]

I have my johnfuckingmadden abilities set to numbers 1-7 on my keyboard. DADDY LONGFINGERS HAS NO ISSUE. Plus, they look so neat on the hotbar.

 

I've gots me normal finguz, but I also have a SteelSeries keyboard with this lovely gamepad on the side. That said, the second hotbar, upper right, has skills that defy even that setup. Thus. Numpad for clicky skills that are purely panic/situational.

 

lol'd at "johfuckingmadden abilities", by the way.

[SerialX]

Not quite sure what's going on here but... I'm guessing bots. And I hate bots. Especially ones that get in my way.

 

[Sounsyy]

All you Big Fishers out there will understand this one.

 

Last night was Shoni weather. I caught HQ Cloud Cutter right at weather change and an HQ Mahar very first pull of Blizzards, but lost the Shoni with 409G. Didn't catch another HQ Cloud Cutter the entire rest of the window, until... 15 in game minutes before window close and weather change I caught another Cloud Cutter HQ... then miraculously an HQ Mahar right at weather change... cast it out and didn't breathe for like a solid minute. Shoni bit... and got away.

 

/cries for six weeks.

 

 

 

Also on the macro topic, I tend to avoid macros all together for abilities. Macros sometimes get weird delays if you don't mash them, and it became a problem with Provoke not going off when I needed it to so I just went back to manually pressing all abilities.

 

But as Warren wonderfully explained, there's a 1 second hidden GCD on all off-GCD abilities so you can't insta-cast a million abilities at once. Depending on your Skill Speed you can usually weave 2 off-GCD abilities in between your GCD action skills without penalty. If you are slow to press them or lag, using 2 abilities may set your next skill back an extra second, which is not fun.

 

Two abilities is usually safe though on my WAR since I have 0 skill speed, but on BRD (which unfortunately has a little SKS) I have to be careful to time my weaves perfectly.

 

 

 

WAR Opener:

Heavy Swing > Skull Sunder > (Brutal Swing) > Butcher's Block > (Vengeance) > Heavy Swing > Maim > (Bloodbath) > Storm's Eye > (Berserk) > (Unchained) > Heavy Swing > (Infuriate) > (Internal Release) > Skull Sunder > Butcher's Block > Heavy Swing > Skull Sunder > (Brutal Swing) > Butcher's Block > Fracture > Inner Beast

 

BRD Opener:

(Quelling Strikes) > (Hawk's Eye) > (Bloodletter) > Straight Shot > (Raging Strikes) > (Blood for Blood) > Heavy Shot > (Internal Release) > (DEX pot) > Windbite > (Barrage) > (Blunt Arrow) > Venomous Bite > (Flaming Arrow) > (Repelling Shot) > Straight Shot > Windbite > (Bloodletter) > Venomous Bite > Heavy Shot

 

 

[Dogberry]

I've been feeling this for a while, and I just need to get this off my chest.

 

I am so sick of doing the same things over and over every day. Log in. Check my plants. Check my retainers for gil from my auctions. Queue up for roullette. Oh look, Snowcloak again. Oh, I need more Poetics, OK. Queue up for a trial. Titan HM. Again. Do my dailies. Do my hunts. Oh, my alt needs a piece of gear. Time for Baby Brayflox. Again.

 

I honestly feel bad for my little digital avatar dudes. If they were real people, they'd be living in a Groundhog's Day style nightmare where every day is the same.

 

I like to RP and ruin Coil. That's pretty much where the joy in this game comes from. And yet I spend so much of my time in this game not doing those things. Just day after day of the same stuff. The repetition is driving me mad.

[Berrod Armstrong]

I've been feeling this for a while, and I just need to get this off my chest.

 

I am so sick of doing the same things over and over every day. Log in. Check my plants. Check my retainers for gil from my auctions. Queue up for roullette. Oh look, Snowcloak again. Oh, I need more Poetics, OK. Queue up for a trial. Titan HM. Again. Do my dailies. Do my hunts. Oh, my alt needs a piece of gear. Time for Baby Brayflox. Again.

 

I honestly feel bad for my little digital avatar dudes. If they were real people, they'd be living in a Groundhog's Day style nightmare where every day is the same.

 

I like to RP and ruin Coil. That's pretty much where the joy in this game comes from. And yet I spend so much of my time in this game not doing those things. Just day after day of the same stuff. The repetition is driving me mad.

Grab friends and do it with them! Get on voice maybe, have some banter while you slug through stuff. Even in party chat, if voice isn't an option! Experiment with your rotations, your cooldowns, whatever you can do! Go through different in-character scenarios in your head...I do all that and some more when it comes to the daily stuff, and before I know it -- IT'S PATCH TIME.

[Gegenji]

I know that feeling. I feel the drive less and less to cap poetics with each passing week.

 

Would you believe I used to run ALL the Roulettes on Gogon to ensure caps? That includes Story Roulette. I've managed to trim it down to just Expert and Trial (with Guildhest and Low-Level for leveling the two non-50 combat classes, which will fade out as soon as that's done). And even then I sort of... phase out when I do them. I even find myself having trouble doing the Beast Tribe dailies on both characters.

 

It's all that MMO repetition. I think that's why I enjoy the RP so much, and why I find Chachan more fun than Gogon. Gogon is log on, do roulettes, complete any of the x0/x5 class quests when I hit them, and all that humdrum. With Chachan, I'm in a much more active location - roulettes can be done with FC-mates and friends, where we can rush and joke and goof off... and I can always just say "Nah, I just wanna RP today."

 

Which makes me extra when I want to RP and everyone's busy with raids or Zodiac grinding or something.

 

It's at that point I just usually goof off in LS and FC chat while I mindless craft stuff.

 

... Or wander around as Ser Hemoth and add more to my growing pile of creep shots.

[Kage]

^ Honestly, this is why I rejoice when my FC mates go "anyone down for T9 farm?" and I'm not running FCOB myself or about to go to sleep. People ask me "why are you running t9?" It's fun with us. I mean it's not fun wiping to mechanics like the divebombs because the one who really knows it isn't in the group and I'm a scrub divebomb marker. But oh man clutch saves in t9! "oh shit, we killed the other two golems and this one has 3 rocks... there's STILL A FUCKING METEOR GAIZ" Kill it just as it becomes a super golem. 3rd heavensfall because of lazi dps? oops. Nael takes out her claws during 2nd heavensfall because of dps who wanted to smack her in the face? oops. 1 tank 1 blm 1 whm to bring back the whole party in elementals? Fucking fun as well. Way to break up the monotony of the game -and- running T9.

 

It breaks the monotony of my days where if I'm done with my roulettes I just go to sleep because I'm past the point where I'm not interested in walk up Quicksand RP (that's only a maybe).

 

Hit me up if you wanna run a dungeon or something.

 

I'll let you know if I'm busy. Hell the only times I turn down a roulette queue with a friend is with low levels because stupid roulette .

[Telluride]

I'm having a day where I feel the need to vent, apparently. So, here goes, and apologies if these have shown up earlier (I only read as far back a page seven )

 

May Bahamut drop his leavings upon...

 

- The Manderville as the universal Troll Tool. Yes, I AM looking at certain people, and a couple of entire guilds, apparently, who think it great fun to pop the game's most annoying dance (an opinion I will hold and will never, never, never, never yield, and I am not listening to you Hildibrand fans, nyah) and occupy good RP places with it... and then AFK for hours. It's gotten to where I even see people I like doing the dance, just for fun, and want to punch them for it anyway, like trauma flashbacks.

 

- For that matter, constant unsolicited guild invites from guilds I KNOW are filled with RP trolls. Grrr. New alts, new blacklists, every time.

 

- AND for that matter... people who RP Troll in the first place on an RP server, ESPECIALLY a Legacy one. Look, nobody is on Balmung by accident - you had to wait and wait and wait for a window to be there, OR you have been on it long enough to know you're a troll, so I have no patience or sympathy for your types. When I roll on some PVP server and then spam every chat channel about Griefers, then you can retort... and that ain't happening.

 

- Having finished 50 Monk, finally, AFTER Ninjas were added, and trying to get gear drops from ST. No Monks in the party.... wait, three Ninjas? *sigh* Go get your own Striking gear! Why didn't I go Lancer...

 

- Craft ingredients as loot drops in HM/EX dungeons. Good idea in Theory. In practice? "Yay, beat Fenrir, and I get... Raziqsand. Hm, I could sell it... TEN GIL? WTF?" The rarity of these things is pointless when we're all spamming duties, SE!

 

- To nod to the rest of the thread, people who complain about the dungeon performance of people who have announced, at the beginning, that it's their first time doing that dungeon.... and then no tips or anything get offered.

 

- Trying to negotiate with a party's mages when they do or don't want Mage Ballad.

 

*whew* Got those out of the system.

[Kage]

Manderville train don't stop. Can't stop. Won't stop.

 

Tanks who bitch in QARN story mode. Yeah. It's my BRD's low level roulette. It's also this WHM's. If you aren't going to do your job cause you're lvl 35 wearing < 30 DoW gear and not GLA/PLD gear with a i30 weapon and no fucking accessories, don't be bitching and use your fucking cool downs and Flash. Also, fuck you for having like 600 less HP than an avg tank would and bitching about not getting regen. You're getting it, I see the WHm put it on you. Start fucking flashing because you can't keep them off the WHM WHO PUT REGEN ON YOU LIKE YOU'RE BITCHING ABOUT NOT GETTING. Also, never fucking say "adapt bra" to me or your party, especially the person even remotely keeping you alive.

[Sounsyy]

Manderville train don't stop. Can't stop. Won't stop.

 

Tanks who bitch in QARN story mode. Yeah. It's my BRD's low level roulette. It's also this WHM's. If you aren't going to do your job cause you're lvl 35 wearing < 30 DoW gear and not GLA/PLD gear with a i30 weapon and no fucking accessories, don't be bitching and use your fucking cool downs and Flash. Also, fuck you for having like 600 less HP than an avg tank would and bitching about not getting regen. You're getting it, I see the WHm put it on you. Start fucking flashing because you can't keep them off the WHM WHO PUT REGEN ON YOU LIKE YOU'RE BITCHING ABOUT NOT GETTING. Also, never fucking say "adapt bra" to me or your party, especially the person even remotely keeping you alive.

 

/p "Adapt to no heals... bra"

/wait 1

/enjoy tank rage quit

[Melodia]

Manderville train don't stop. Can't stop. Won't stop.

 

Tanks who bitch in QARN story mode. Yeah. It's my BRD's low level roulette. It's also this WHM's. If you aren't going to do your job cause you're lvl 35 wearing < 30 DoW gear and not GLA/PLD gear with a i30 weapon and no fucking accessories, don't be bitching and use your fucking cool downs and Flash. Also, fuck you for having like 600 less HP than an avg tank would and bitching about not getting regen. You're getting it, I see the WHm put it on you. Start fucking flashing because you can't keep them off the WHM WHO PUT REGEN ON YOU LIKE YOU'RE BITCHING ABOUT NOT GETTING. Also, never fucking say "adapt bra" to me or your party, especially the person even remotely keeping you alive.

 

/p "Adapt to no heals... bra"

/wait 1

/enjoy tank rage quit

*Makes the macro*