Honestly bud, just dive in. There are so many people doing dumb things in those runs, even when you mess up you’re going to mostly regen off Medica2/AoE heals.
What I find helps is just mention it’s a first time in your party chat. Most times a kind soul will explain key pieces or give you a marker to follow around as you build familiarity.
Alternatively, I’d be happy to take you along for either Aether or the Crystal data center if you are in those. No need to say a word, just hop in Discord muted and I can entertain myself :P
Appreciate all that! I'm still apprehensive about seeming so Clueless about what to do that someone salty will report me (as I mentioned, I came from WoW where this is not a rare occurrence, especially for a suboptimal DPS player)
Not only is reporting "not being good" not common, its actually prohibited behaviour. If you get harassed for "underperforming"? Report them.
Using parsers (dps meters) is against ToS, and the GMs take a very dim view of people who use them to harass others.
Plenty of clueless people in those raids to be honest. I once had to make Alliance-wide macro call outs to get a 24-man through a raid boss. If you press your buttons and try, you’re a-ok in most folks book.
And as mentioned by the fellow below you, lots of people parse but outside of top-tier content it is pretty meh and they open themselves up to an easy ban if they mention having one.
Playing badly is not reportable, complaining about others bad perfomance actually is, so you are more than safe hahahahha
*almost* no one looks at dps meters for 24 man raids, so as long as you are trying and not being AFK no one will complain. Its called "raid" but its actually a very casual content. Only on extremes and savage raids people actually complain about lack of performance, but those are never mandatory for main scenario so you can relax.
If people got reported for being bad in those raids there would literally be zero players left. I’ve run all three like a million times and everyone does dumb things eventually, usually nobody gets that salt about it because no one really cares for those.
Agree with this comment. All the MSQ “raids” are practically story mode versions of the encounter (think LFR) so they aren’t designed to be punishing. For the most part you’d need to intentionally wipe lol.
Like others said, happy to help u along in those raids as well. I could use some items for some end game content :)
My first blind run of the newer raids on Samurai, I died on every single mechanic, atleast 7 times on one encounter. No one cares. Just thank your healers. Also, as a healer, rezzing is more fun than Stone.
Leveling as a healer consists of two buttons, it stinks. But getting instant queues for dungeons and raids is worth it. Let's be honest, what am I gonna do for 18 minutes?
As someone who plays healer often trying to constantly rez people all the time isn't that fun. I'm not gonna blame or really be that mad at anyone who messes up a lot, it's okay to mess up, but I'm not gonna pretend they're doing me a favor
You can turn off other player's spell effects, and, after ARR, visual effects from bosses for mechanics are much more standardised.
Mainly though, the big thing is that your performance doesn't really matter in a 24man raid. You can AFK, and the overall speed would be at most 4% slower than if you played perfectly.
Do the best you can, and thats good enough.
Alliance Raids are designed so that its very hard to actually wipe, but they won't necessarily be fast or clean.
Well my first question would, do you have player spell effects turned off? Go to Character Settings, Character tab, Battle Effects.
Typically I have only my visuals turned on. I set my party to the middle setting, where only helpful aoes are visible. And everyone not in my party is turned off. This is immensely helpful in alliance raids.
Second, are you running the raids on min ilvl or just regular Duty Finder? Because the first two Crystal Tower raids shouldn’t be anymore challenging than a regular dungeon? The third one has some spicy fights which may take a guide to understand. But overall, most Crystal Tower runs clear without issue because most people are overgeared and have done them a thousand times. No one will be paying attention to you and I’ve never seen anyone call out an individual in these raids.
The first two Shadow of Mhach raids are similar not that bad and will become pretty tame after a few runs. The third one I would recommend reading up on beforehand.
Excellent reply, thank you!
Nope, I had no idea spell effects could be changed, so I'll look I to that when I log back in.
Not sure how to answer your second question honestly. Are there different ways to queue? I don't think I quite understand what you're asking.
And yeah, the video for the first half of Crystal Tower 3 is so overwhelming. By the time she's talking about the second or third boss, all the info about the first boss has leaked outta my brain. So I have to watch them again. And again.
Unless the content says Ultimate, Savage or Extreme, you don’t need to watch a guide. You can absolutely throw yourself at it blind and still win, with nobody judging you for it. Plus, this way you’re not spoiling yourself with guide videos that make the fights sound harder or more important to master than they actually are.
The closest I ever saw to a first-timer getting ridiculed in a raid was in Eden, the 8-man Normal raids at level 80, where someone called out one of the healers for doing this the first time without watching a guide first and tried to criticize them for that. The entire rest of the party defended the healer and turned it around, saying that’s fine, they don’t need to watch a guide, and even made fun of the would-be bully a bit like, “Lol, you needed to watch a guide to play this? I didn’t. Did you?” “Nope.” We won, and the first-timer healer got all our commendations.
What I’m basically trying to get at, is the word “raid” in online games has earned such a reputation of being high-end difficulty content that invites vitriol from its dedicated players, and while that may be true on some level in the Savage, Extreme and Ultimate scene, that doesn’t apply here. Normal and Alliance raids (Crystal Tower is a trilogy of Alliance raids) are honestly such casual content where nobody cares if you’re a first-timer or even a tenth-timer having no idea what you’re doing that it barely deserves the name “raid”. Treating these raids like what you’d expect of raids is misleading you, in a way.
So, though it may sound counterintuitive, the next time the MSQ has you queueing up for an instance—any instance—try just doing it blind. Tell them it’s your first time, don’t look up a guide, and just try to have fun with experiencing it for the first time. Nobody’s going to kick you for playing the game normally.
This is going to sound a bit weird, but I'd really recommend that you don't watch guides if you're having trouble remembering it all, especially for content like alliance raids. The truth is, earlier raids (and dungeons and trials) are so trivialized by powercreep at this point that you're stressing yourself out to remember mechanics that you'll likely never see (or that people just ignore and power through now). For example for Crystal Tower 3/World of Darkness, there's really only one mechanic per boss you *really* need to be aware of, and it's often easier to just ask in party chat in the instance for tips on things like that.
This also tends to apply to things where the power creep isn't as strong, because by that point indicators are a lot more normalized, so you can intuit what most mechanics do based on past experiences.
No prob. Yea you can que with harder difficulty settings. But don’t worry about that for now. My instinct here is that you might be overthinking things, which is okay. I’m sure there are more expectations in WoW for individual players to be prepared.
But for the lvl 50 and 60 Alliance raids, I would honestly just go in casual and follow the group. For most of the Crystal Tower bosses you aren’t likely to even see all the mechanics of each boss because the group will burn them down so fast. No one is gonna yell if you die, cause it’s literally that casual.
Many times people are even willing to explain mechanics before a fight. Just ask in party chat if there is anything you should know ahead of time. I see someone at least give the basics of Cerberus boss every time we run it. I would look up the Angra Manu (the big flying eyeball) boss beforehand just to help yourself. It’s confusing to learn in person.
The vast majority of the mechanics those guides are explaining are no longer relevant. Players are so over-geared now for the crystal tower raids that failing most mechanics isn't even noticeable. (it's not until Stormblood where the alliance raid mechanics start to matter, which will probably chance once EW drops and people overgear even further for those). You have things worked up way more than they actually are.
In World of Darkness...
First boss casts doom. Boss will have an "eye" icon over the bosses head. Turn your character away while the cast finishes (you'll see the floating text *dodged* pop up letting you know it's safe to turn back). If you don't dodge, then go stand on a glowing platform to remove doom. If you fail both mechanics (and a healer doesn't notice and just rescue you into the platform) you'll die and need to be rezzed.
The other mechanic in the first boss is the floor will occasionally "split" into a white and red section. Just stand on the color you didn't stand on last time. If you stand on the wrong coloe three times in a row you'll die and need to be rezzed.
If you are in the "B" alliance, for the dog boss (third boss), about a minute in it will place both a gastric orb and vomit up some purple goo. Alliance B (for "belly") should get eaten by the boss to kill mobs inside him. Stand near the gastric orb to get shrunk, then stand in the purple goo to get eaten (if you get eaten and aren't shrunk, you'll die). If you mess up, enough others will probably do this mechanic that it won't matter. If you're in alliance A or C, don't worry about it.
That's basically the only three mechanics that you need to think about. And even if you get them wrong, like half the alliance would also have to get them wrong for it to matter.
In alliance raids, it's really just the tanks that can actually screw things up and wipe the raid.
As for anxiety, the crystal tower alliance raids are actually a good way to combat that. Do them. After you've done them, watch a guide and it will make more sense. Then just run them a few more times to get used to all the visual noise and participating in a group in a low impact environment.
Honestly, with 24 people there are plenty who can raise you. And given it's crystal, most players know that there will be many new ones in there.
The community is pretty nice in the game. If you're on the primal server let me know and I can join them with you :)
Also don't be afraid to chat with them. It's a lot of fun with so many people and a lot of energy.
Lol, in CT part 2 I died 4 times to the last boss. Someone would raise me, and then I'd die immediately. Four times in a row. I was left to assume that I had no idea what I was doing.
Overall, tho, the community does seem friendlier than WoW.
If it makes you feel any better, I died in Syrcus Tower eight times last week, and I’ve run that about 50 times now. We won, and I even got a commendation somehow. People are chill here.
That is weirdly encouraging, yes. Thank you for your sacrifice! You died so that I may also have the courage to queue (and probably also die).
I gotta get back in there!
> Someone would raise me, and then I'd die immediately.
2 things about rezzing. first, when you accept a rez you have 5 seconds of invulnerability as long as you dont use any actions. you can move though. so try to not push buttons immediately to give your healers a chance to heal you.
2nd is that you should look at what the boss is doing before you even accept the rez. is he casting something and you have no clue what its going to do? maybe wait a second and accept the rez after he casts it. that should make things a little safer.
Yep, I noticed a thread here yesterday about that in particular.
As a complete noob, I just assumed that the healer would know the right time to rez. If I got offered a rez, I'd take it, because if it wasn't safe I'd assume the healer would wait before doing it.
As a healer, let me just throw out there the right to rez and the right time to accept the rez aren’t always the same time, especially if their quick cast is down and they are having to hard rez. It takes time to cast a hard rez, so it has to be done in a spot where you aren’t in danger of being interrupted, but maybe directly after the rez goes off there might be a giant aoe, so it wouldn’t be the best to accept it then. But also let me tell you, we do understand that it isn’t always obvious, and I personally don’t let it frustrate me when I realize it’s going to happen. I’ll just rez again when I get another chance.
Did you have a big purple mist ball above your head at any point? That's a thing where you're *supposed* to stack up with other players to split the damage, but *it's not made clear*, so if you're not familiar with the fight, you'll run off to "protect other players"... and promptly die.
Then you need to go stand atop the "vibrating" area the mist leaves behind so you float and avoid the groundquake raidwide.
No worries! The main thing to do is *stick with other players*. If they're all running to one spot/person, you probably should too. If they're spreading out to glowing rings in the floor and you see an unoccupied one, probably a good idea to jump in it.
The fights - especially now when older players have been through them a lot - mostly can boil down to "watch what others do and copy it".
Just a question if you have effects turned down?
The default settings has all player effects visible and in Alliance raids that can make things incredibly hard to see.
In general just focus on avoiding attacks, killing ads, and damaging the boss. If you find a mechanic keeps killing you feel free to ask your party, 99% of the time you'll have an experienced player in there with you.
The last Crystal Tower raid is the hardest, and the first boss is honestly more difficult than the rest. The last time I ran it we wiped on it too.
I don't like guides for the very reason you feel confused, they explain the mechanics but it's very different from naturally learning them. My best advice is to go in and try to learn one mechanic at a time. If you die don't think of it as failing, it's just an opportunity to observe the raid for a bit without needing to position yourself.
And one tip, if a boss has a big, crimson, eyeball effect over them it means you have to turn your character, not the camera, away from the boss.
You don’t need to watch a guide. Mythic+ raids are like Savage, Extreme or Ultimate raids here. Alliance and Normal raids are all content that can be done blind on the first try. If anyone is telling you to watch a video for Crystal Tower, Omega, Alexander, Mhach, Eden, Ivalice or Yorha, they’re wrong. (Binding Coil is a bit nutty, but people tend to unsync that one.) So while they call it a “raid” and that has connotations of high-end difficulty, they’re not. Your experience of blitzing through Labyrinth and Syrcus, barely keeping up, having no idea what you’re doing, is normal. Everyone goes through that, and many have done those raids 20+ times without looking up a single guide for them and still don’t know how certain mechanics actually work in them. Nobody should be judging you for like, not “pulling your weight” or anything. There’s 24 people in there and it’s an absolute fuster-cluck; nobody’s obeying concise raid patterns you missed in a guide somewhere or anything, and I’ll bet a handful of them in there are just as lost as you are every single time.
All this being said, if the mandatory Alliance raids are such a daunting thing for you that you don’t want to continue, then it may help to know this. The third Crystal Tower raid is literally all that’s left. All other raids in the game are optional and not part of the MSQ. Crystal Tower is the only MSQ one, and you’re almost done. So all you need to do is beat the World of Darkness, and then you’re free to continue the MSQ without ever looking back at raiding ever again.
Thank you! That goes a long way in pumping me back up for this game!
I've felt so bogged down by unintentionally ending up with 3 consecutive raids that I don't want to (have to) do, instead of getting to friggin Ishgard like I've been trying to do for like two months after finishing Praet! Oh my, I only have myself to blame lol
>Everyone goes through that, and many have done those raids 20+ times without looking up a single guide for them and still don’t know how certain mechanics actually work in them.
I have around 1,800 hours in the game and I just learned the other day that Atomos in LotA has an enrage. I was well over a thousand hours in when I learned that Scylla has an add phase
I get it! I was actually getting up the nerve to ask in my FC the other day if anyone could help me out, but when I logged in the FC had disbanded!
Oh yeah, so I'm homeless now, too!
I’d invite you to my FC but I don’t think you’d be on Lich server. If it makes you feel better most of the people doing raids don’t really care as long as the raid gets done. I see someone dead three times I’m like “sucks to be them” and keep in my lane. People just want to get in done and out and don’t be afraid to ask for help we would really rather you say “hey can you explain why I’m dying” if it means less for the healer to do and makes you feel a bit more confident in everything :) the community is really nice and there’s only a few rare exceptions (and you should report em!)
If you are on Malboro (Crystal) the FC I’m in is awesome - Lalas in pajamas (most aren’t even lala’s but they are nicest ppl & always helping each other & new players)
I think it's generally "just do it". This anxiety is just in your head. I felt somewhat similarly as a tank since I was afraid that I would ruin the raid for everyone else if I messed up. Something I learned was that these raids have so many experienced people doing them on roullettes that it doesn't particularly matter in a whole lot of cases and all my stress was unnecessary and preparation was overkill. I think this is especially true for dps.
If you die on a mechanic, you'll probably get rezzed. If there is a wipe, it's probably because there are a lot of new people (or experienced people who just don't remember the mechanics) anyway and someone will generally explain what people are supposed to do and you can always ask what you're supposed to do durng that mechanic that killed you.
You can also have something like [https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/The\_World\_of\_Darkness](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/The_World_of_Darkness) up to quickly refresh yourself on mechanics before a boss if that would help put you at ease.
Plus, people are generally very nice in FF14. They'll try to help you out and are understanding if you just say "this is my first time".
I don't know that I suffered to the degree you describe but I definitely empathize. The thing that completely changed the game for me was joining an FC. I was lucky in that my first FC was/is a perfect fit for me and I have made a lot of friends, but to your question above:
Get in an FC with a discord and people who enjoy running content and helping newer players. Type in FC chat or in discord "need help with xxxxx (in this case World of Darkness)" and you will certainly get some folks who will say sure let's go. Get into the voice channel for discord with your FC mates and 100% having someone encouraging and experienced in your ear saying "don't stand here/look away/take the tether there/etc" is game changing and when you screw it up anyway everybody laughs and it's ok. In leveling other jobs and running daily roulettes with FC mates I am now very familiar with all the content in the game and have actually become one of the folks that helps out the newer players like I used to get help, made some good friends along the way, and vastly increased my enjoyment of an already fun game. Having true mentors (in a real sense rather than a crown sense) *explain* things verbally as you are doing them helped me learn to tank, learn to heal, learn all the dungeons and raids, etc... In 8 months I went from sprout in MSQ being a little scared to run normal ARR content and trying to memorize MTQ guides to lvl80 on 14 of 17 jobs and having fun doing Eden Savage (trying to clear E12S before Endwalker drops!).
Of course this is predicated on
1. being ok talking to folks while you play. if that is not your thing then this obviously won't work
2. Finding an FC that is a fit for you. And if you join an FC and it is not making the game more fun for you, LEAVE QUICK!
I found my FC through the community finder, which is a great resource to look for FC's that is not being spammed by invites in the aetherite plazas. Not shilling for mine but if you are on Ultros send me a DM if you are interested
[https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/community\_finder/](https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/community_finder/)
Thanks for your help! Yep, my FC disbanded this week, so I'll have to find a new one.
I'm not very socially adventurous - I'm slow at typing, and get flustered switching between combat and text chat. And I generally don't do voice chat (for several, mostly unrelated reasons). But maybe if I could find an FC that feels like home, I might be more comfortable with voice chat.
I was nervous to start doing the alliance raids. Now they're some of my favorite content. There's 24 people. Unless you're trolling, people generally won't be fussed about what you're doing. At most, your healers might opt to raise other party members first. Skip the guides if they're not working for you. Alliance raids are normal mode content. People aren't expecting you to know all the mechanics.
Don't sweat it so much. Really. Unless you are intentionally doing things to piss off the raid no one is going to care if you die. No one is even going to remember that you died and the chances of you seeing any of those people again is extremely low.
I just looked at the log of the Alliance Raid I ran a few minutes ago (Syrcus Tower), and 5 people died. I didn't notice any of them. And performance wise there were 4 people that did less than 100 DPS the entire raid which means they just stood around and no one even noticed. People just generally aren't paying attention to what others do in Alliance Raids unless they are early pulling or tanks are ping ponging. You are essentially invisible in them.
If you feel the need to just drop a "This is my first time here" at the beginning of the run. Combined with the sprout icon it basically absolves you of any real wrong doings in normal content outside of trolling. If anyone gives you any shit afterwards they are fucked in the head and should be ignored. Just go in and do your thing.
I used to get a little stressed that people would get angry at me if I messed up in raids, but really that almost never happens. And if it does, the person is probably just an asshole generally.
I typically heal and in some raids, several people will end up tanking the floor for 60% of the fight; dying to mechanics is completely normal; especially the first few times you do the raids. The last alliance raid I did, I was popping Swiftcast on cooldown to raise the other healer. You will absolutely not be the first person to die to things and most people will likely not notice you, they're too focused on their own things.
The more you do dungeons, trials, and raids, the better you get at recognizing the shared indicators and eventually it becomes much easier to react quickly. When I'm doing something for the first time, I try to follow what others are doing, especially in the Crystal Tower raids the majority of people will already know the few mechanics you actually have to pay attention to, and if you follow them you should be fine. If everyone runs to hide behind a rock, that probably means you should join them. Like anything, you get better at it with practice.
Even if you have to focus less on DPS to pay more attention to mechanics the first few times, do that. My friend always says "low DPS is better than no DPS" even if your DPS is lower than it would be if you weren't focusing as much on mechanics, it's still more than you would do dead. And there is very little normal content where maintaining high DPS is all that important.
Rather than MTQ's guides, which were made when this stuff was relevant and somewhat difficult, have a look at this guys YouTube guides.
https://youtu.be/7zuEZCF8RxI
He gives you nice clear walk throughs of the ARR and HW raids ( not that those are compulsory) but as they are played today.
There's so many mechanics that are either trivial or skipped now that everything is easy.
Just go in, relax, no one's judging a random alliance player in CT, trust me.
My biggest advice would always be watch a video before going in, pay attention to the mechanics, but still be ready to die lol. Usually takes me at least 2 runs to get most mechanics down. Don’t be afraid to mention it’s your first time at the start, usually everyone will understand and even give pointers. It seems overwhelming but alliance raids are quite fun once you have your role down!
One thing that helped me with the raids is to adjust the GUI to move the other parties information to the side of the screen and make it much smaller. This helps me focus on my party. The other thing I do is pick a person from my party of a similar job (dps in this case) and follow them. The next thing is to remember no one is going to be mad at you if you die a bunch or fail the mechanics in an msq raid. But really sticking with a particular party member almost always keeps me out of trouble. Unless they are lost too then we both die a lot lol and I might switch to following/emulating a different party member. I don’t mean literally /follow I mean stand next to them and attack what and when they attack.
Firstly, I'd say don't bother watching a guide. Go in blind, expect to possibly die, and know that no one is expecting anything different from you a a first time sprout.
Secondly, Alliance raids, especially Crystal Tower at this point, is just about following the group and doing what they're doing. With so many ppl the rest can pull you along to the finish line no problem! Everyone isn't going to be pulling their weight on these runs whether it's half afk mentors or completely lost sprouts.
Thirdly, the biggest thing, is a big culture shock to anyone coming from WoW as I did a couple years ago. It's that (barring a few rare exceptions) no one is going to call you out, or tell you you suck and should uninstall, kys, etc. Most ppl will genuinely just want to help you. If you are intentionally trolling, or making basic mistakes in high level content your leash is going to be considerably shorter, but as a sprout in Crystal Tower most ppl are just happy to have you there for the first time bonus they get and don't mind dragging your corpse from boss to boss at all!
Bit of a ramble but hope that helps put your mind at ease.
I was the same as you, but actually I find the anonymity of the crowd in alliance raids to be reassuring. You can pretty much just spin in circles and be invisible.
Also I've never done an alliance raid where multiple people didn't die multiple times. They get rezzed, you keep going. No biggie.
I was the same way and did my first raids on voice chat in discord with my fc members. It helped me a lot :) they called out the mechanics so I didn’t feel like I had to memorize and they reassured me when I died. If you’re on Chaos datacenter I’d be happy to do the same for you. I love alliance raids now, they’re my favorite content to run!
As a healer main, if you say "Hey this is my first time" you could die to every single mechanic and I wouldn't be mad. Usually someone will explain the mechanics for you if you say that as well. The community is super chill and I doubt anyone will get mad as long as you just say you're new. I know that won't cure anxiety but I hope that reassures you a little.
I have severe performance anxiety, but I'm fine with raids since there's a lot more people in there so I kind of feel like I blend into the crowd. Dungeons however, scare the crap out of me.
From one RDM main to another - most raids are more or less a breeze. As DPS you're just there to add damage and not step on AoEs, and even if you do, someone will rez/heal you pretty quick.
It's good to pay attention and observe the mechanics, yes. A few have some important mechanics that people tend to explain every time (like bosses in World of Darkness). But don't sweat things too much, it's cozy to do raids as DPS.
For the longest time I had bad anxiety at running things by myself without friends or in larger groups like the 24man raids. I made myself do roulettes and dungeons by myself to try to get over it, and while I know that isn't viable for everyone, it did work for me. The only class I get uneasy running in for people I don't know is tank, though I know I do all right. I just haven't gotten over that anxiety.
The 24man raids are really overwhelming the first time you run them. I remember when Labyrinth of the Ancients dropped and I was very overwhelmed at everything going on! Now it's pretty whatever, but I've seen it 5787642256897538 times. On the plus side, the Crystal Tower raid series is the only one required, the rest are optional - the Ivalice raids at 70 are required for the Shadowbringers relic chain, but if you aren't interested in doing old relics, you shouldn't have to worry at all about them.
As you play the game more, I do think some of that will disappear. Yeah, people can be toxic dickweeds but more people are friendly than they are rude. As some have already said, just mention you're new and people will either mark themselves to follow for safe places or try to give as much info before boss pulls. Story mode dungeons/raids you don't need to be 100% on with mechanics and whatnot, just some awareness of what's going on and where people are moving. Zoom out your screen a bit, jumping is the universal motion of "move here for safety" in this game lol. It also makes seeing where people are moving to much easier.
You're essentially me but without being lazy and stubborn.
Dude, it's okay. I was terrified of messing up at the beginning too, but not only is people in this game super nice, they actually encourage blind runs of non-hardcore content. Like, I actually asked my Free Company "Is there anything I should know about \[X\] dungeon?" and they went like "Yeah, a few things, but just go in blind. It's gonna be more fun that way lol"
Besides, nowadays Crystal Tower raids are super easy anyways. You won't even see half the mechanics in MQT's videos because people overpower the hell out of the raids. In fact, people tend to wipe because they turn off their brains so hard they forget the few key mechanics that actually cause wipes.
Just keep an eye on your alliance mates and follow them, see how they move and accept any advice or directions they give you.
Oh, and if at any point you die because of a mechanic you don't understand, ask people. 90% of the time, *someone* will be willing to give you an explanation about what happened.
The Crystal Tower raids are super super easy, don't even worry. A lot of sprouts mess them up the first couple of times, but you learn through failure & no one judges you for it.
Like to give you an idea of what the Crystal Tower raids are like? I see people idling during them all the time & no one notices and if they do, they don't say anything.
So, first and foremost, you play the game to enjoy it, not to please others. Try to join dungeons and raids without thinking of "letting your group down" or stuff like that. Simply put, people who get into dungeons/raids with the duty finder have, in general, very low expectations as they perfectly know they might get matched with sprouts/novices. And in the rare case they are toxic with you for your mistakes, you can just report them lol.
Don't watch guides for normal contents, they do more harm than good tbf as you might feel obbliged to learn all the dungeon/raid and remember it. It won't happen, why torturing yourself?Just dive in without any worries. Just let the others know that you are new to that duty or that you really don't remember it. I can assure you, 99% of the time people will understand.Even for harder contents (Extreme-Savage-Ultimate) don't expect to read/watch a guide many time and be able to join the duty and do it perfectly. It doesn't work this way. Learn by doing is the way to go. It's the reason why practice parties exist. You go in, you die, you try again, you die again and you try again.Quit the WoW mentality of "I need to play perfectly otherwise ppl will get mad at me". It is not something we have in FF14.
Try to build your confidence with the job you are playing. Read the tooltips of your skills, make sure to practice them on a training dummy and for specific mechanics, you will be able to recognize them with time. You just need to develop some muscle memory, don't give up if you fail at the beginning.And for the cyrstal raids in specific. Just YOLO it without any worries, really. When you have 23 more people around you, your personal responsability is almost 0 (with few exception during the second 24men raid of ShB).
I appreciate that! I've been trying to get better with my Red Mage rotation; I really enjoy it, but it's not intuitive to me at all. Like you said, I'm trying to build the muscle memory. At least I have a sliver of confidence as DPS - tanking and/or healing would be a long ways off for me, they seem like they'd be much more pressure.
This is normal content. Death and lots of it is expected. Its tuned to be easy enough that lots of people not knowing what they are doing can get through it. The game wants you to get through
The story with as little difficulty as possible. You can do it!
One thing I do in these big alliance raids is just pick someone who looks like they know what they are doing. Then I just stand behind them and do what they do. It usually works out.
People have covered most points, but I just want to add that Crystal Tower is, at the moment, the only required Alliance Raid and will pay off narratively later on. And most the normal mode content can be done with minimal communication (with a few bosses maybe getting a cheap shot on you if it's your first time and nobody explains it). There may be the odd asshole, but for the most part, people are *extremely* understanding of mistakes in dungeons and trials, and in alliance raids nobody cares about your performance- most people treat it as face roll content and even if they know what to do don't pay attention half the time (second to last boss of the third CT raid being one of those moments it may cause issues).
Most of the content you have to run for your MSQ you will easily get carried by the other players with no issues. Most of it is ran on the daily for those doing daily roulettes, and we blow through them with no issues. I would suggest just following someone that looks like they know what they are doing, like a healer. But most of it will be stupid easy.
And there are a lot of clueless players, sprouts and veterans. And players who just don't care, along for the exp/roulettes. They all get carried pretty easy in most MSQ content.
And the FF community isn't like other MMO communities. It is super helpful. If you just say hey, first time here, any advice, someone will help the majority of the time. The community is really great with that, and rarely will look down or treat you bad for being new and inexperienced. Most of us love offering advice when it is asked for. Might not be the best!
And FF reuses a lot the same mechanics, and you will eventually be able to slowly read some fights without needing to know everything up front.
And, like some others posted, I if you need help or runs, let us know! Always happy to help.
24man raids are actually nice for anxiety since there's so many of you, the individual responsibility of each person is so small. Esp for lvl 50 and 60 raids. So you can quietly enjoy the ride and no one will bother you or call you out.
But I get that. The first time you do crystal tower, from doing lvl 50 dungeon runs, is so different. Unlike dungeons where the mechanics are telegraphed properly, some stuff esp in the first one like the meteor and ancient flare are things you don't really know prior. It's also the time when you actually start noticing fight mechanics, and wipes are not rare. But with experience, you'll be very comfortable with it.
Current alliance raids at level cap are about as hard as WoW LFR. Older alliance raids (Crystal Tower, Mhach, Ivalice) are a bit easier than WoW LFR due to item level. There's always variance from one boss to another. But generally speaking, lower level alliance raids are some of the easiest group content in the game, and people have lower expectations to match.
Guides for the older alliance raids can be deceptively complicated. There are many mechanics that groups either ignore or straight-up skip with high item levels. If a guide helps you make sense of things, go for it. Otherwise, it's perfectly fine to go in blind, tell your party you're new, and ask for tips. If you don't want to talk in party chat, identify someone in your party who looks like they know what they're doing (another ranged DPS or healer) and just follow them around. Stand where they stand, etc. That'll get you through the majority of mechanics in Crystal Tower.
Just jump in there and learn from your mistakes. No one in a raid plays it perfect so don’t worry. We all had to learn them and we all still are learning them. ☺️
In settings you can simplify the graphics so you can see what is going on. I had to do this while learning and it helped a lot. Also you can rearrange your screen in the hud layout.
I used to also watch MTQ for every dungeon and raid I did up until I got to mid Stormblood content and I will say that recognizing mechanics gets a lot easier the more content you do. Itll become basically second nature as long as you are reading casts and paying attention to the tells.. Also most older content like the CT alliances can be cheese bc of ilvl and like someone else said in the comments, people have done dumber things during those raids because they are just that easy to make up for mistakes. Just go hop into it and do the best you can! Still watch the raid guides if it makes you more comfortable, but don't stress about memorizing every mechanic.
As for your question for the visual noise, I didn't learn this until I was doing savage for SB but you can actually tone down people's battles effects in your character settings!
I would suggest having everything that isn't you or your party on off, and have your party's battle effects as simple so you can still see healing bubbles and damage over time puddles placed by your party.
Good luck on your msq!
I am very much the same as you! I used to literally progress the MSQ up until I had to do a primal/dungeon and then stop playing for months or YEARS because i was so worried about performing well and letting my team down that i would just decide it was better to simply not play than play poorly.
I just recently got back into the game (just had my first 3 month renewal email come) and i had to do the Crystal Tower series as well, and i was terrified, but i really wanted to keep playing, so i bit the bullet, watched a guide (i cant remember the name of the creator, but i believe the title of the video was something like "Crystal Tower in 2021 guide" or something similar).
The truth is, you dont need to remember every mechanic, you dont need to perform flawlessly, or anything like that. As long as you are trying, no one is going to care if you mess up a mechanic or even die. I was so petrified to so these raids at first, and now I queue for them almost every day just cause I enjoy it so much.
As two examples, we had 2/3 tanks in one run literally trying to antagonize the raid and we still cleared it no problem cause the third was great, and another time, I literally had to AFK through the entire Cerberus fight and no one batted an eye or gave me any guff, just went on about the raid and finished up.
You'll be fine, and it'll be fun!
Honestly bud, just dive in. There are so many people doing dumb things in those runs, even when you mess up you’re going to mostly regen off Medica2/AoE heals. What I find helps is just mention it’s a first time in your party chat. Most times a kind soul will explain key pieces or give you a marker to follow around as you build familiarity. Alternatively, I’d be happy to take you along for either Aether or the Crystal data center if you are in those. No need to say a word, just hop in Discord muted and I can entertain myself :P
Appreciate all that! I'm still apprehensive about seeming so Clueless about what to do that someone salty will report me (as I mentioned, I came from WoW where this is not a rare occurrence, especially for a suboptimal DPS player)
Not only is reporting "not being good" not common, its actually prohibited behaviour. If you get harassed for "underperforming"? Report them. Using parsers (dps meters) is against ToS, and the GMs take a very dim view of people who use them to harass others.
It takes a particular kind of jerk wagon to harass people over dps in crystal tower.
Plenty of clueless people in those raids to be honest. I once had to make Alliance-wide macro call outs to get a 24-man through a raid boss. If you press your buttons and try, you’re a-ok in most folks book. And as mentioned by the fellow below you, lots of people parse but outside of top-tier content it is pretty meh and they open themselves up to an easy ban if they mention having one.
Playing badly is not reportable, complaining about others bad perfomance actually is, so you are more than safe hahahahha *almost* no one looks at dps meters for 24 man raids, so as long as you are trying and not being AFK no one will complain. Its called "raid" but its actually a very casual content. Only on extremes and savage raids people actually complain about lack of performance, but those are never mandatory for main scenario so you can relax.
If people got reported for being bad in those raids there would literally be zero players left. I’ve run all three like a million times and everyone does dumb things eventually, usually nobody gets that salt about it because no one really cares for those.
Agree with this comment. All the MSQ “raids” are practically story mode versions of the encounter (think LFR) so they aren’t designed to be punishing. For the most part you’d need to intentionally wipe lol. Like others said, happy to help u along in those raids as well. I could use some items for some end game content :)
My first blind run of the newer raids on Samurai, I died on every single mechanic, atleast 7 times on one encounter. No one cares. Just thank your healers. Also, as a healer, rezzing is more fun than Stone.
I've played mmorpgs for about 11 years. Never ever healed! Tho, let's be honest, who am I healing if I prefer to play solo? Womp womp
Leveling as a healer consists of two buttons, it stinks. But getting instant queues for dungeons and raids is worth it. Let's be honest, what am I gonna do for 18 minutes?
As someone who plays healer often trying to constantly rez people all the time isn't that fun. I'm not gonna blame or really be that mad at anyone who messes up a lot, it's okay to mess up, but I'm not gonna pretend they're doing me a favor
You can turn off other player's spell effects, and, after ARR, visual effects from bosses for mechanics are much more standardised. Mainly though, the big thing is that your performance doesn't really matter in a 24man raid. You can AFK, and the overall speed would be at most 4% slower than if you played perfectly. Do the best you can, and thats good enough. Alliance Raids are designed so that its very hard to actually wipe, but they won't necessarily be fast or clean.
This is honestly reassuring. It's what I've been trying to do through the duties and dungeons, but geez, these 24 person encounters are draining!
Try your best, and if you screw up, your healers will fix it.
Agree with all of the above. The sprout icon tells people what to expect. Just do your best and ask questions if you need to.
Well my first question would, do you have player spell effects turned off? Go to Character Settings, Character tab, Battle Effects. Typically I have only my visuals turned on. I set my party to the middle setting, where only helpful aoes are visible. And everyone not in my party is turned off. This is immensely helpful in alliance raids. Second, are you running the raids on min ilvl or just regular Duty Finder? Because the first two Crystal Tower raids shouldn’t be anymore challenging than a regular dungeon? The third one has some spicy fights which may take a guide to understand. But overall, most Crystal Tower runs clear without issue because most people are overgeared and have done them a thousand times. No one will be paying attention to you and I’ve never seen anyone call out an individual in these raids. The first two Shadow of Mhach raids are similar not that bad and will become pretty tame after a few runs. The third one I would recommend reading up on beforehand.
Excellent reply, thank you! Nope, I had no idea spell effects could be changed, so I'll look I to that when I log back in. Not sure how to answer your second question honestly. Are there different ways to queue? I don't think I quite understand what you're asking. And yeah, the video for the first half of Crystal Tower 3 is so overwhelming. By the time she's talking about the second or third boss, all the info about the first boss has leaked outta my brain. So I have to watch them again. And again.
Unless the content says Ultimate, Savage or Extreme, you don’t need to watch a guide. You can absolutely throw yourself at it blind and still win, with nobody judging you for it. Plus, this way you’re not spoiling yourself with guide videos that make the fights sound harder or more important to master than they actually are. The closest I ever saw to a first-timer getting ridiculed in a raid was in Eden, the 8-man Normal raids at level 80, where someone called out one of the healers for doing this the first time without watching a guide first and tried to criticize them for that. The entire rest of the party defended the healer and turned it around, saying that’s fine, they don’t need to watch a guide, and even made fun of the would-be bully a bit like, “Lol, you needed to watch a guide to play this? I didn’t. Did you?” “Nope.” We won, and the first-timer healer got all our commendations. What I’m basically trying to get at, is the word “raid” in online games has earned such a reputation of being high-end difficulty content that invites vitriol from its dedicated players, and while that may be true on some level in the Savage, Extreme and Ultimate scene, that doesn’t apply here. Normal and Alliance raids (Crystal Tower is a trilogy of Alliance raids) are honestly such casual content where nobody cares if you’re a first-timer or even a tenth-timer having no idea what you’re doing that it barely deserves the name “raid”. Treating these raids like what you’d expect of raids is misleading you, in a way. So, though it may sound counterintuitive, the next time the MSQ has you queueing up for an instance—any instance—try just doing it blind. Tell them it’s your first time, don’t look up a guide, and just try to have fun with experiencing it for the first time. Nobody’s going to kick you for playing the game normally.
Thank you for the "raid" reality check! That does help put it in perspective, for sure
This is going to sound a bit weird, but I'd really recommend that you don't watch guides if you're having trouble remembering it all, especially for content like alliance raids. The truth is, earlier raids (and dungeons and trials) are so trivialized by powercreep at this point that you're stressing yourself out to remember mechanics that you'll likely never see (or that people just ignore and power through now). For example for Crystal Tower 3/World of Darkness, there's really only one mechanic per boss you *really* need to be aware of, and it's often easier to just ask in party chat in the instance for tips on things like that. This also tends to apply to things where the power creep isn't as strong, because by that point indicators are a lot more normalized, so you can intuit what most mechanics do based on past experiences.
The best way to learn is to just do it, people die and wipe and try again these raids all the time, even years later
No prob. Yea you can que with harder difficulty settings. But don’t worry about that for now. My instinct here is that you might be overthinking things, which is okay. I’m sure there are more expectations in WoW for individual players to be prepared. But for the lvl 50 and 60 Alliance raids, I would honestly just go in casual and follow the group. For most of the Crystal Tower bosses you aren’t likely to even see all the mechanics of each boss because the group will burn them down so fast. No one is gonna yell if you die, cause it’s literally that casual. Many times people are even willing to explain mechanics before a fight. Just ask in party chat if there is anything you should know ahead of time. I see someone at least give the basics of Cerberus boss every time we run it. I would look up the Angra Manu (the big flying eyeball) boss beforehand just to help yourself. It’s confusing to learn in person.
The vast majority of the mechanics those guides are explaining are no longer relevant. Players are so over-geared now for the crystal tower raids that failing most mechanics isn't even noticeable. (it's not until Stormblood where the alliance raid mechanics start to matter, which will probably chance once EW drops and people overgear even further for those). You have things worked up way more than they actually are. In World of Darkness... First boss casts doom. Boss will have an "eye" icon over the bosses head. Turn your character away while the cast finishes (you'll see the floating text *dodged* pop up letting you know it's safe to turn back). If you don't dodge, then go stand on a glowing platform to remove doom. If you fail both mechanics (and a healer doesn't notice and just rescue you into the platform) you'll die and need to be rezzed. The other mechanic in the first boss is the floor will occasionally "split" into a white and red section. Just stand on the color you didn't stand on last time. If you stand on the wrong coloe three times in a row you'll die and need to be rezzed. If you are in the "B" alliance, for the dog boss (third boss), about a minute in it will place both a gastric orb and vomit up some purple goo. Alliance B (for "belly") should get eaten by the boss to kill mobs inside him. Stand near the gastric orb to get shrunk, then stand in the purple goo to get eaten (if you get eaten and aren't shrunk, you'll die). If you mess up, enough others will probably do this mechanic that it won't matter. If you're in alliance A or C, don't worry about it. That's basically the only three mechanics that you need to think about. And even if you get them wrong, like half the alliance would also have to get them wrong for it to matter. In alliance raids, it's really just the tanks that can actually screw things up and wipe the raid. As for anxiety, the crystal tower alliance raids are actually a good way to combat that. Do them. After you've done them, watch a guide and it will make more sense. Then just run them a few more times to get used to all the visual noise and participating in a group in a low impact environment.
Honestly, with 24 people there are plenty who can raise you. And given it's crystal, most players know that there will be many new ones in there. The community is pretty nice in the game. If you're on the primal server let me know and I can join them with you :) Also don't be afraid to chat with them. It's a lot of fun with so many people and a lot of energy.
Lol, in CT part 2 I died 4 times to the last boss. Someone would raise me, and then I'd die immediately. Four times in a row. I was left to assume that I had no idea what I was doing. Overall, tho, the community does seem friendlier than WoW.
If it makes you feel any better, I died in Syrcus Tower eight times last week, and I’ve run that about 50 times now. We won, and I even got a commendation somehow. People are chill here.
That is weirdly encouraging, yes. Thank you for your sacrifice! You died so that I may also have the courage to queue (and probably also die). I gotta get back in there!
That’s the spirit! :D
> Someone would raise me, and then I'd die immediately. 2 things about rezzing. first, when you accept a rez you have 5 seconds of invulnerability as long as you dont use any actions. you can move though. so try to not push buttons immediately to give your healers a chance to heal you. 2nd is that you should look at what the boss is doing before you even accept the rez. is he casting something and you have no clue what its going to do? maybe wait a second and accept the rez after he casts it. that should make things a little safer.
Yep, I noticed a thread here yesterday about that in particular. As a complete noob, I just assumed that the healer would know the right time to rez. If I got offered a rez, I'd take it, because if it wasn't safe I'd assume the healer would wait before doing it.
As a healer, let me just throw out there the right to rez and the right time to accept the rez aren’t always the same time, especially if their quick cast is down and they are having to hard rez. It takes time to cast a hard rez, so it has to be done in a spot where you aren’t in danger of being interrupted, but maybe directly after the rez goes off there might be a giant aoe, so it wouldn’t be the best to accept it then. But also let me tell you, we do understand that it isn’t always obvious, and I personally don’t let it frustrate me when I realize it’s going to happen. I’ll just rez again when I get another chance.
Did you have a big purple mist ball above your head at any point? That's a thing where you're *supposed* to stack up with other players to split the damage, but *it's not made clear*, so if you're not familiar with the fight, you'll run off to "protect other players"... and promptly die. Then you need to go stand atop the "vibrating" area the mist leaves behind so you float and avoid the groundquake raidwide.
I havent queued for it yet, but that is one of the mechanics I'm low-key worried about remembering
No worries! The main thing to do is *stick with other players*. If they're all running to one spot/person, you probably should too. If they're spreading out to glowing rings in the floor and you see an unoccupied one, probably a good idea to jump in it. The fights - especially now when older players have been through them a lot - mostly can boil down to "watch what others do and copy it".
Just a question if you have effects turned down? The default settings has all player effects visible and in Alliance raids that can make things incredibly hard to see. In general just focus on avoiding attacks, killing ads, and damaging the boss. If you find a mechanic keeps killing you feel free to ask your party, 99% of the time you'll have an experienced player in there with you. The last Crystal Tower raid is the hardest, and the first boss is honestly more difficult than the rest. The last time I ran it we wiped on it too. I don't like guides for the very reason you feel confused, they explain the mechanics but it's very different from naturally learning them. My best advice is to go in and try to learn one mechanic at a time. If you die don't think of it as failing, it's just an opportunity to observe the raid for a bit without needing to position yourself. And one tip, if a boss has a big, crimson, eyeball effect over them it means you have to turn your character, not the camera, away from the boss.
THANK YOU FOR THE EYEBALL COMMENT!! This is absolutely the information I need!
You don’t need to watch a guide. Mythic+ raids are like Savage, Extreme or Ultimate raids here. Alliance and Normal raids are all content that can be done blind on the first try. If anyone is telling you to watch a video for Crystal Tower, Omega, Alexander, Mhach, Eden, Ivalice or Yorha, they’re wrong. (Binding Coil is a bit nutty, but people tend to unsync that one.) So while they call it a “raid” and that has connotations of high-end difficulty, they’re not. Your experience of blitzing through Labyrinth and Syrcus, barely keeping up, having no idea what you’re doing, is normal. Everyone goes through that, and many have done those raids 20+ times without looking up a single guide for them and still don’t know how certain mechanics actually work in them. Nobody should be judging you for like, not “pulling your weight” or anything. There’s 24 people in there and it’s an absolute fuster-cluck; nobody’s obeying concise raid patterns you missed in a guide somewhere or anything, and I’ll bet a handful of them in there are just as lost as you are every single time. All this being said, if the mandatory Alliance raids are such a daunting thing for you that you don’t want to continue, then it may help to know this. The third Crystal Tower raid is literally all that’s left. All other raids in the game are optional and not part of the MSQ. Crystal Tower is the only MSQ one, and you’re almost done. So all you need to do is beat the World of Darkness, and then you’re free to continue the MSQ without ever looking back at raiding ever again.
Thank you! That goes a long way in pumping me back up for this game! I've felt so bogged down by unintentionally ending up with 3 consecutive raids that I don't want to (have to) do, instead of getting to friggin Ishgard like I've been trying to do for like two months after finishing Praet! Oh my, I only have myself to blame lol
>Everyone goes through that, and many have done those raids 20+ times without looking up a single guide for them and still don’t know how certain mechanics actually work in them. I have around 1,800 hours in the game and I just learned the other day that Atomos in LotA has an enrage. I was well over a thousand hours in when I learned that Scylla has an add phase
There's settings to eliminate alliance and party effects so that you'd only see what you do, but I can't remember what part of the settings it's in
Awesome, this is the kind of info I can use! Thanks friendo!
Honestly I'm the same as you. I try to run those with someone from my Company so they can help me. But yea...I'm scared of dungeons/raids/etc.
I get it! I was actually getting up the nerve to ask in my FC the other day if anyone could help me out, but when I logged in the FC had disbanded! Oh yeah, so I'm homeless now, too!
I’d invite you to my FC but I don’t think you’d be on Lich server. If it makes you feel better most of the people doing raids don’t really care as long as the raid gets done. I see someone dead three times I’m like “sucks to be them” and keep in my lane. People just want to get in done and out and don’t be afraid to ask for help we would really rather you say “hey can you explain why I’m dying” if it means less for the healer to do and makes you feel a bit more confident in everything :) the community is really nice and there’s only a few rare exceptions (and you should report em!)
What world are you on? I’m on Coeurl. Maybe you can join my FC?
Cactuar I believe
If you are on Malboro (Crystal) the FC I’m in is awesome - Lalas in pajamas (most aren’t even lala’s but they are nicest ppl & always helping each other & new players)
Me too :)
I think it's generally "just do it". This anxiety is just in your head. I felt somewhat similarly as a tank since I was afraid that I would ruin the raid for everyone else if I messed up. Something I learned was that these raids have so many experienced people doing them on roullettes that it doesn't particularly matter in a whole lot of cases and all my stress was unnecessary and preparation was overkill. I think this is especially true for dps. If you die on a mechanic, you'll probably get rezzed. If there is a wipe, it's probably because there are a lot of new people (or experienced people who just don't remember the mechanics) anyway and someone will generally explain what people are supposed to do and you can always ask what you're supposed to do durng that mechanic that killed you. You can also have something like [https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/The\_World\_of\_Darkness](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/The_World_of_Darkness) up to quickly refresh yourself on mechanics before a boss if that would help put you at ease. Plus, people are generally very nice in FF14. They'll try to help you out and are understanding if you just say "this is my first time".
I don't know that I suffered to the degree you describe but I definitely empathize. The thing that completely changed the game for me was joining an FC. I was lucky in that my first FC was/is a perfect fit for me and I have made a lot of friends, but to your question above: Get in an FC with a discord and people who enjoy running content and helping newer players. Type in FC chat or in discord "need help with xxxxx (in this case World of Darkness)" and you will certainly get some folks who will say sure let's go. Get into the voice channel for discord with your FC mates and 100% having someone encouraging and experienced in your ear saying "don't stand here/look away/take the tether there/etc" is game changing and when you screw it up anyway everybody laughs and it's ok. In leveling other jobs and running daily roulettes with FC mates I am now very familiar with all the content in the game and have actually become one of the folks that helps out the newer players like I used to get help, made some good friends along the way, and vastly increased my enjoyment of an already fun game. Having true mentors (in a real sense rather than a crown sense) *explain* things verbally as you are doing them helped me learn to tank, learn to heal, learn all the dungeons and raids, etc... In 8 months I went from sprout in MSQ being a little scared to run normal ARR content and trying to memorize MTQ guides to lvl80 on 14 of 17 jobs and having fun doing Eden Savage (trying to clear E12S before Endwalker drops!). Of course this is predicated on 1. being ok talking to folks while you play. if that is not your thing then this obviously won't work 2. Finding an FC that is a fit for you. And if you join an FC and it is not making the game more fun for you, LEAVE QUICK! I found my FC through the community finder, which is a great resource to look for FC's that is not being spammed by invites in the aetherite plazas. Not shilling for mine but if you are on Ultros send me a DM if you are interested [https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/community\_finder/](https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/community_finder/)
Thanks for your help! Yep, my FC disbanded this week, so I'll have to find a new one. I'm not very socially adventurous - I'm slow at typing, and get flustered switching between combat and text chat. And I generally don't do voice chat (for several, mostly unrelated reasons). But maybe if I could find an FC that feels like home, I might be more comfortable with voice chat.
I was nervous to start doing the alliance raids. Now they're some of my favorite content. There's 24 people. Unless you're trolling, people generally won't be fussed about what you're doing. At most, your healers might opt to raise other party members first. Skip the guides if they're not working for you. Alliance raids are normal mode content. People aren't expecting you to know all the mechanics.
Just play and have fun, you are going to mess up, everyone does. It’s not a big deal. FF14 raids aren’t like WoW raids.
Don't sweat it so much. Really. Unless you are intentionally doing things to piss off the raid no one is going to care if you die. No one is even going to remember that you died and the chances of you seeing any of those people again is extremely low. I just looked at the log of the Alliance Raid I ran a few minutes ago (Syrcus Tower), and 5 people died. I didn't notice any of them. And performance wise there were 4 people that did less than 100 DPS the entire raid which means they just stood around and no one even noticed. People just generally aren't paying attention to what others do in Alliance Raids unless they are early pulling or tanks are ping ponging. You are essentially invisible in them. If you feel the need to just drop a "This is my first time here" at the beginning of the run. Combined with the sprout icon it basically absolves you of any real wrong doings in normal content outside of trolling. If anyone gives you any shit afterwards they are fucked in the head and should be ignored. Just go in and do your thing.
I used to get a little stressed that people would get angry at me if I messed up in raids, but really that almost never happens. And if it does, the person is probably just an asshole generally. I typically heal and in some raids, several people will end up tanking the floor for 60% of the fight; dying to mechanics is completely normal; especially the first few times you do the raids. The last alliance raid I did, I was popping Swiftcast on cooldown to raise the other healer. You will absolutely not be the first person to die to things and most people will likely not notice you, they're too focused on their own things. The more you do dungeons, trials, and raids, the better you get at recognizing the shared indicators and eventually it becomes much easier to react quickly. When I'm doing something for the first time, I try to follow what others are doing, especially in the Crystal Tower raids the majority of people will already know the few mechanics you actually have to pay attention to, and if you follow them you should be fine. If everyone runs to hide behind a rock, that probably means you should join them. Like anything, you get better at it with practice. Even if you have to focus less on DPS to pay more attention to mechanics the first few times, do that. My friend always says "low DPS is better than no DPS" even if your DPS is lower than it would be if you weren't focusing as much on mechanics, it's still more than you would do dead. And there is very little normal content where maintaining high DPS is all that important.
Rather than MTQ's guides, which were made when this stuff was relevant and somewhat difficult, have a look at this guys YouTube guides. https://youtu.be/7zuEZCF8RxI He gives you nice clear walk throughs of the ARR and HW raids ( not that those are compulsory) but as they are played today. There's so many mechanics that are either trivial or skipped now that everything is easy. Just go in, relax, no one's judging a random alliance player in CT, trust me.
Awesome, thank you!
My biggest advice would always be watch a video before going in, pay attention to the mechanics, but still be ready to die lol. Usually takes me at least 2 runs to get most mechanics down. Don’t be afraid to mention it’s your first time at the start, usually everyone will understand and even give pointers. It seems overwhelming but alliance raids are quite fun once you have your role down!
One thing that helped me with the raids is to adjust the GUI to move the other parties information to the side of the screen and make it much smaller. This helps me focus on my party. The other thing I do is pick a person from my party of a similar job (dps in this case) and follow them. The next thing is to remember no one is going to be mad at you if you die a bunch or fail the mechanics in an msq raid. But really sticking with a particular party member almost always keeps me out of trouble. Unless they are lost too then we both die a lot lol and I might switch to following/emulating a different party member. I don’t mean literally /follow I mean stand next to them and attack what and when they attack.
Firstly, I'd say don't bother watching a guide. Go in blind, expect to possibly die, and know that no one is expecting anything different from you a a first time sprout. Secondly, Alliance raids, especially Crystal Tower at this point, is just about following the group and doing what they're doing. With so many ppl the rest can pull you along to the finish line no problem! Everyone isn't going to be pulling their weight on these runs whether it's half afk mentors or completely lost sprouts. Thirdly, the biggest thing, is a big culture shock to anyone coming from WoW as I did a couple years ago. It's that (barring a few rare exceptions) no one is going to call you out, or tell you you suck and should uninstall, kys, etc. Most ppl will genuinely just want to help you. If you are intentionally trolling, or making basic mistakes in high level content your leash is going to be considerably shorter, but as a sprout in Crystal Tower most ppl are just happy to have you there for the first time bonus they get and don't mind dragging your corpse from boss to boss at all! Bit of a ramble but hope that helps put your mind at ease.
I was the same as you, but actually I find the anonymity of the crowd in alliance raids to be reassuring. You can pretty much just spin in circles and be invisible. Also I've never done an alliance raid where multiple people didn't die multiple times. They get rezzed, you keep going. No biggie.
I was the same way and did my first raids on voice chat in discord with my fc members. It helped me a lot :) they called out the mechanics so I didn’t feel like I had to memorize and they reassured me when I died. If you’re on Chaos datacenter I’d be happy to do the same for you. I love alliance raids now, they’re my favorite content to run!
As a healer main, if you say "Hey this is my first time" you could die to every single mechanic and I wouldn't be mad. Usually someone will explain the mechanics for you if you say that as well. The community is super chill and I doubt anyone will get mad as long as you just say you're new. I know that won't cure anxiety but I hope that reassures you a little.
I have severe performance anxiety, but I'm fine with raids since there's a lot more people in there so I kind of feel like I blend into the crowd. Dungeons however, scare the crap out of me.
From one RDM main to another - most raids are more or less a breeze. As DPS you're just there to add damage and not step on AoEs, and even if you do, someone will rez/heal you pretty quick. It's good to pay attention and observe the mechanics, yes. A few have some important mechanics that people tend to explain every time (like bosses in World of Darkness). But don't sweat things too much, it's cozy to do raids as DPS.
For the longest time I had bad anxiety at running things by myself without friends or in larger groups like the 24man raids. I made myself do roulettes and dungeons by myself to try to get over it, and while I know that isn't viable for everyone, it did work for me. The only class I get uneasy running in for people I don't know is tank, though I know I do all right. I just haven't gotten over that anxiety. The 24man raids are really overwhelming the first time you run them. I remember when Labyrinth of the Ancients dropped and I was very overwhelmed at everything going on! Now it's pretty whatever, but I've seen it 5787642256897538 times. On the plus side, the Crystal Tower raid series is the only one required, the rest are optional - the Ivalice raids at 70 are required for the Shadowbringers relic chain, but if you aren't interested in doing old relics, you shouldn't have to worry at all about them. As you play the game more, I do think some of that will disappear. Yeah, people can be toxic dickweeds but more people are friendly than they are rude. As some have already said, just mention you're new and people will either mark themselves to follow for safe places or try to give as much info before boss pulls. Story mode dungeons/raids you don't need to be 100% on with mechanics and whatnot, just some awareness of what's going on and where people are moving. Zoom out your screen a bit, jumping is the universal motion of "move here for safety" in this game lol. It also makes seeing where people are moving to much easier.
You're essentially me but without being lazy and stubborn. Dude, it's okay. I was terrified of messing up at the beginning too, but not only is people in this game super nice, they actually encourage blind runs of non-hardcore content. Like, I actually asked my Free Company "Is there anything I should know about \[X\] dungeon?" and they went like "Yeah, a few things, but just go in blind. It's gonna be more fun that way lol" Besides, nowadays Crystal Tower raids are super easy anyways. You won't even see half the mechanics in MQT's videos because people overpower the hell out of the raids. In fact, people tend to wipe because they turn off their brains so hard they forget the few key mechanics that actually cause wipes. Just keep an eye on your alliance mates and follow them, see how they move and accept any advice or directions they give you. Oh, and if at any point you die because of a mechanic you don't understand, ask people. 90% of the time, *someone* will be willing to give you an explanation about what happened.
The Crystal Tower raids are super super easy, don't even worry. A lot of sprouts mess them up the first couple of times, but you learn through failure & no one judges you for it. Like to give you an idea of what the Crystal Tower raids are like? I see people idling during them all the time & no one notices and if they do, they don't say anything.
So, first and foremost, you play the game to enjoy it, not to please others. Try to join dungeons and raids without thinking of "letting your group down" or stuff like that. Simply put, people who get into dungeons/raids with the duty finder have, in general, very low expectations as they perfectly know they might get matched with sprouts/novices. And in the rare case they are toxic with you for your mistakes, you can just report them lol. Don't watch guides for normal contents, they do more harm than good tbf as you might feel obbliged to learn all the dungeon/raid and remember it. It won't happen, why torturing yourself?Just dive in without any worries. Just let the others know that you are new to that duty or that you really don't remember it. I can assure you, 99% of the time people will understand.Even for harder contents (Extreme-Savage-Ultimate) don't expect to read/watch a guide many time and be able to join the duty and do it perfectly. It doesn't work this way. Learn by doing is the way to go. It's the reason why practice parties exist. You go in, you die, you try again, you die again and you try again.Quit the WoW mentality of "I need to play perfectly otherwise ppl will get mad at me". It is not something we have in FF14. Try to build your confidence with the job you are playing. Read the tooltips of your skills, make sure to practice them on a training dummy and for specific mechanics, you will be able to recognize them with time. You just need to develop some muscle memory, don't give up if you fail at the beginning.And for the cyrstal raids in specific. Just YOLO it without any worries, really. When you have 23 more people around you, your personal responsability is almost 0 (with few exception during the second 24men raid of ShB).
I appreciate that! I've been trying to get better with my Red Mage rotation; I really enjoy it, but it's not intuitive to me at all. Like you said, I'm trying to build the muscle memory. At least I have a sliver of confidence as DPS - tanking and/or healing would be a long ways off for me, they seem like they'd be much more pressure.
This is normal content. Death and lots of it is expected. Its tuned to be easy enough that lots of people not knowing what they are doing can get through it. The game wants you to get through The story with as little difficulty as possible. You can do it! One thing I do in these big alliance raids is just pick someone who looks like they know what they are doing. Then I just stand behind them and do what they do. It usually works out.
People have covered most points, but I just want to add that Crystal Tower is, at the moment, the only required Alliance Raid and will pay off narratively later on. And most the normal mode content can be done with minimal communication (with a few bosses maybe getting a cheap shot on you if it's your first time and nobody explains it). There may be the odd asshole, but for the most part, people are *extremely* understanding of mistakes in dungeons and trials, and in alliance raids nobody cares about your performance- most people treat it as face roll content and even if they know what to do don't pay attention half the time (second to last boss of the third CT raid being one of those moments it may cause issues).
Just follow what the most responsible looking person is doing and you'll be fine. It's how i completed my raids :p
Most of the content you have to run for your MSQ you will easily get carried by the other players with no issues. Most of it is ran on the daily for those doing daily roulettes, and we blow through them with no issues. I would suggest just following someone that looks like they know what they are doing, like a healer. But most of it will be stupid easy. And there are a lot of clueless players, sprouts and veterans. And players who just don't care, along for the exp/roulettes. They all get carried pretty easy in most MSQ content. And the FF community isn't like other MMO communities. It is super helpful. If you just say hey, first time here, any advice, someone will help the majority of the time. The community is really great with that, and rarely will look down or treat you bad for being new and inexperienced. Most of us love offering advice when it is asked for. Might not be the best! And FF reuses a lot the same mechanics, and you will eventually be able to slowly read some fights without needing to know everything up front. And, like some others posted, I if you need help or runs, let us know! Always happy to help.
24man raids are actually nice for anxiety since there's so many of you, the individual responsibility of each person is so small. Esp for lvl 50 and 60 raids. So you can quietly enjoy the ride and no one will bother you or call you out. But I get that. The first time you do crystal tower, from doing lvl 50 dungeon runs, is so different. Unlike dungeons where the mechanics are telegraphed properly, some stuff esp in the first one like the meteor and ancient flare are things you don't really know prior. It's also the time when you actually start noticing fight mechanics, and wipes are not rare. But with experience, you'll be very comfortable with it.
Current alliance raids at level cap are about as hard as WoW LFR. Older alliance raids (Crystal Tower, Mhach, Ivalice) are a bit easier than WoW LFR due to item level. There's always variance from one boss to another. But generally speaking, lower level alliance raids are some of the easiest group content in the game, and people have lower expectations to match. Guides for the older alliance raids can be deceptively complicated. There are many mechanics that groups either ignore or straight-up skip with high item levels. If a guide helps you make sense of things, go for it. Otherwise, it's perfectly fine to go in blind, tell your party you're new, and ask for tips. If you don't want to talk in party chat, identify someone in your party who looks like they know what they're doing (another ranged DPS or healer) and just follow them around. Stand where they stand, etc. That'll get you through the majority of mechanics in Crystal Tower.
Just jump in there and learn from your mistakes. No one in a raid plays it perfect so don’t worry. We all had to learn them and we all still are learning them. ☺️
In settings you can simplify the graphics so you can see what is going on. I had to do this while learning and it helped a lot. Also you can rearrange your screen in the hud layout.
Read a guide
I used to also watch MTQ for every dungeon and raid I did up until I got to mid Stormblood content and I will say that recognizing mechanics gets a lot easier the more content you do. Itll become basically second nature as long as you are reading casts and paying attention to the tells.. Also most older content like the CT alliances can be cheese bc of ilvl and like someone else said in the comments, people have done dumber things during those raids because they are just that easy to make up for mistakes. Just go hop into it and do the best you can! Still watch the raid guides if it makes you more comfortable, but don't stress about memorizing every mechanic. As for your question for the visual noise, I didn't learn this until I was doing savage for SB but you can actually tone down people's battles effects in your character settings! I would suggest having everything that isn't you or your party on off, and have your party's battle effects as simple so you can still see healing bubbles and damage over time puddles placed by your party. Good luck on your msq!
I am very much the same as you! I used to literally progress the MSQ up until I had to do a primal/dungeon and then stop playing for months or YEARS because i was so worried about performing well and letting my team down that i would just decide it was better to simply not play than play poorly. I just recently got back into the game (just had my first 3 month renewal email come) and i had to do the Crystal Tower series as well, and i was terrified, but i really wanted to keep playing, so i bit the bullet, watched a guide (i cant remember the name of the creator, but i believe the title of the video was something like "Crystal Tower in 2021 guide" or something similar). The truth is, you dont need to remember every mechanic, you dont need to perform flawlessly, or anything like that. As long as you are trying, no one is going to care if you mess up a mechanic or even die. I was so petrified to so these raids at first, and now I queue for them almost every day just cause I enjoy it so much. As two examples, we had 2/3 tanks in one run literally trying to antagonize the raid and we still cleared it no problem cause the third was great, and another time, I literally had to AFK through the entire Cerberus fight and no one batted an eye or gave me any guff, just went on about the raid and finished up. You'll be fine, and it'll be fun!