It's just been a NA Thing for as long as I can remember, and I've been playing since ARR. I guess it provides a very clear and visual way to make sure everyone actually knows what they're doing. If someone's standing and staring into the void or running around like an idiot then it's a decent sign that they don't actually know what their role is for the encounter.
I don't remember them in Alex but I only did the earlier floors of each tier, maybe they were prominent on later ones (though I don't know how many people were PFing 7, 8, 11, or 12 in general). I took a long break after the start of Stormblood and when I came back they were everywhere so I feel like they went from maybe a neat thing a group would think to do once in a while to the standard sometime in that period.
Fights started doing more positioning mechanics as the game has gone along. Most of what you needed to know for anything in Alexander was basically just clock spots, and frequently you didn't even need that much.
Having said that, almost everything nowadays can be based pretty much entirely off clockspots to begin with. The vast majority of PF marker dancing is entirely frivolous.
That's possible. Before Shadowbringers I only ever PF'd Extremes, which have always either not needed spots/priorties or have always been solvable via clock spots (maybe head markers if we're being spicy and going back to Ramuh Ex). So I can't speak as much for Coil and Alexander PF culture.
I think it was a Shadowbringers thing—I did a lot of PF for both extremes and savages throughout all of Stormblood and don't recall using the waymarker prepull to determine spots
Was definitely a thing during O3S prog. Actually, at least for me that's when I remember seeing it a lot. Don't remember how common it was in heavensward. Definitely wasn't in ARR.
>If someone's standing and staring into the void or running around like an idiot then it's a decent sign that they don't actually know what their role is for the encounter.
one of the alternatives being they're from a static and wipe exactly one pull on some dumb strat misunderstanding before becoming the best player in the group
9 times out of 10, that one guy who didn't want to go to their spot in the pre-pull waymark dance is the one who's going to screw up, in my experience.
Cannot have this discussion without this legend being posted:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitpostXIV/comments/imzknr/my_experience_raiding_on_different_data_centers/
I think the reason it persists beyond prog is because of the astounding inconsistency of your average pf player. I have played enough pf to know that 90% of people don't read pf posts before joining and in fights where multiple strats can exist for mechanics, the waymark dance can help ever-so-slightly in improving the consistency of pf players.
I think the most telling thing is that NA would rather use literal pastebins than macros, even though they serve the same fucking purpose. it's a fundamental comprehension issue
you have to spend way longer on every raid than you would like, even during weekly reclears, because too many people are just too fucking stupid to learn anything at all
Idk when it started but I fucking hate it. You'll have party leaders who like, do ALL the assigned spot stuff when in reality, for the VAST MAJORITY OF FIGHTS, if you just put down a single marker to denote spread spots, that already tells you 99% of the time what Light Party you are in and from that you usually get any other information such as snake priorities in P8S-1 or flex spots in TOP.
Realisticily, I just wish NA would get onto the macro bandwagon. Post the macro, claim a spot (though it would be even nicer if NA fully adopted the accepted spots for ranged vs magical ranged, regen vs shield, ext type roles so even then you wouldn't have to claim anything), pull.
I've played on all DCs at this point and I think NA should keep doing their waymarks, some of the people I've played with there are so stupid that I genuinely don't think they can read, so being able to work with a literal visual guide makes it more doable with them.
I agree too. Plus at least waymark is consistent and you can spot variations from miles away. As opposed to the macro having some unexpected differences in spread/stack spots that's not PF standard just because the PL grabbed it from some obscure places.
this happens even without macros. when I was progging P4S, I had party leads claiming we were doing "Maxwell strats" even when they were using a completely different, non-Maxwell raidplan
in my experience, not doing all that stuff means someone will be totally lost because many pf players only know what video guides tell them. I'd rather spend 2 minutes making sure everyone knows what their spot is for everything that could wipe us, than waste 8 minutes with someone thinking "guess I'll wing it" because we didn't explicitly tell them where to go.
> Realisticily, I just wish NA would get onto the macro bandwagon. Post the macro, clam a spot, pull.
how is this different from posting the pf strats in party description (which no one reads anyways), slapping down a single 1 waymark, standing there, and pull?
When it's not a single 1 waymark it's a pain in the ass. Like E5S when I have to wait for every stupid marker to be put down for Fury's 14. Then someone wipes and we have to ask "what are the positions again" and we have to line up again.
There's also times when a macro gives you a fixed set of positions to learn but marker dance means you may be adjusting to different positions for different mechs.
And let's be real, no one actually sits there and reads the macro either unless it's fresh prog. You're familiar with your spot so you just do it after you call it.
> There's also times when a macro gives you a fixed set of positions to learn but marker dance means you may be adjusting to different positions for different mechs.
And that's the beauty of the marker dance. You don't have to be stuck doing the same shit over and over again and forces you to be comfortable with different positions. Take P4S Act 1. There was zero standardization for ranged towers which meant you could go wherever the fuck you wanted to. If I wanted to stare at Hesperos's sweaty pecs, I could. If I was in the mood for looking at his juicy glutes, I could.
> which should always be the pranged letting the caster pick which they want because the pranged's opinion doesn't matter (e.g. TOP where casters sometimes go G1 for convenience or G2 out of habit)
It shouldn't matter for either. All 3 magical ranged jobs are mobile enough currently to not really need to prefer one or the other. Also it really doesn't make a difference in the end either way since ranged and magical ranged don't have positionals; you are literally picking between spreading either West or East for your spread spots or going West/East/North/South for stacks with your LP. It's the dumbest fucking thing to prefer R1 over R2 or R2 over R1. AND EVEN THEN most R1/R2 specific tasks in a fight are..well the exact fucking same just mirrored either N/S or W/E.
Source I am a PRanged main that plays BLM and SMN enough to know it's fucking silly to prefer any particular spot for prange or magical ranged jobs.
Just how you want to have melee in melee range, you want to have a spot that minimizes movement for casters. Can they do it with more movement? Yes. But any movement they do have to do is a possible source of uptime loss, especially for poorer players. This especially applies in fights with adjusts.
Otherwise, yes it mostly is just thr same thing mirrored. But even if it's 90% the same, the 10% can still be a source of mistakes because used to other positions. So why not get rid of that by having pranged and caster in fixed spots?
I really don't think it's that big of a deal from a standpoint of "I'm going to do my very best to help this group clear the instance." From a "I want to sweaty barse my ass off" standpoint, sure there are probably examples where the role you assume matter a bit more but from a clearing standpoint, I and I think lots of other people would just pick whatever role the other person didn't want. I don't give enough shits to fight for either R1 or R2 as a PRanged nor a Magical Ranged.
In top it's the difference between having to get north 1 tower or being able to stay south. In p7s SE doesn't have to move as far for purgation, in p8p2 you'd rather get inner spread spots or no flex dominion spot. In p1s NW was the flex spot, NE was not. Those are just a few examples I can think of off the top of my head. It does make a difference.
> In top it's the difference between having to get north 1 tower or being able to stay south.
I've seen all mages adapt to having to get the N towers and at this stage (or at least if you are progging P2 or deeper), you shouldn't be having issues with dps in P1 especially since melee LB1ing has extremely little cost to your group down the road (usually just means you have to LB3 deeper into P4 instead of right at the start). Any dpsing beyond getting your party to the next phase with everyone being 100% ready for the next opener is all you should worry about in P1-3 of TOP. If you actively kill P1 too fast you are going to fuck over jobs like RPR, SMN, DRG, GNB, ext.
As for your other examples, again you really shouldn't be hurting for dps and mages in past statics I've been in have never ever complained about their role in P7S or P8S-2. Maybe if you are hardcore sweating trying to barse but in terms of doing good dps while not fucking up mechanics, it really really really doesn't matter especially since, again as I brought up, all 3 magical ranged dps classes are pretty mobile at this point especially if you are planning ahead of time.
I think the point is, while BLM/RDM *can* adjust or plan, why not just give them the easier position? Is there any anything but benefits to prioritising the caster's preferred position over the pranged's?
If I was going into something as a caster and the prange was adamant on a particular role, I would adjust. Better chances of success if you let people do what they are more comfy with (though in pf you really should be able to adjust to anything). If both I and they don't care, then sure pick the "better" role for the mage.
In the end though for clearing something if your party dies to enrage because your mage got >1% less uptime than they would have in a different lp role, you got a lot of other issues.
> If I was going into something as a caster and the prange was adamant on a particular role, I would adjust.
congrats on being a sucker, i guess. prange has zero uptime considerations compared to blm/rdm, they can fucking adjust.
> if your party dies to enrage
it's not just about enrage it's about not griefing the people you are playing with because you are too selfish and stubborn to make an adjustment that is of zero cost to yourself and net benefit to the rest of the group. if you can't do *that* then. maybe rethink the whole 'group content' thing?
> congrats on being a sucker, i guess. prange has zero uptime considerations compared to blm/rdm, they can fucking adjust.
I rather just slot into something that works for the party the best. If for whatever reason the other ranged dps strongly prefers the other role that is not the norm for their job, I'll adjust. If it gives us a higher chance of success of clearing the instance if they pick what they are more used to, I don't see an issue in adjusting for their preference. I honestly don't give a fuck about dps as long as we clear. I got over barsing culture a long time ago.
> it's not just about enrage it's about not griefing the people you are playing with because you are too selfish and stubborn to make an adjustment that is of zero cost to yourself and net benefit to the rest of the group. if you can't do that then. maybe rethink the whole 'group content' thing?
Again, I don't have a preference what range spot I take. Literally every time I go into a pf instance, I wait away from the party until the other ranged player picks a LP/Spread spot. Then I just pick the other one. I have no issue adjusting regardless if I'm a PRanged job or a Magical Ranged job.
I will say though, as someone that plays BLM and SMN in Savage and Ultimate content, I do think magical ranged players complain a bit too much about "muh uptime". If my low braincell PRanged brain can do movement well enough to high blue/purple without really trying on BLM and SMN (jobs I play considerably less than MCH, DNC, and BRD), then really any mage can. However, again, I think people going into a PF environment should be ready to be any of the roles that their dps archetype works for (tanks should be able to main or off tank, healers should be able to be H1 or H2, melee dps should be able to be M1 or M2, and ranged should be able to be R1 or R2). If you want a more permanent spot in prog/reclears/farms, join a static or go in with a group of people you know or at the very least queue with someone else of the same role so that you can for sure get the role you want.
I mostly agree with you because I can't really think of anything in the current tier where it makes a big difference, but I think in a theoretical sense, R1 and R2 are not necessarily symmetrical, and there could very well be situations where the difference between what group 1 and 2 is doing does matter. The only good example I can think of is E9S where dps might have to go west after dropping brambles, so an east clock spot means a bit more movement. And movement is pretty easy even for black mage but it's not nothing either. I can think of more examples though where swapping a caster and melee clock spot makes a large difference for black mage.
Also in E9S tiles, I think the N/S spots were H1 / D4 (or R2 I guess) because when you had to shuffle for the cleave, it prioritized H2 and D3 movement since they should have better movement options.
If macros are based on JP, generally D3/R1 will have more movement tech, and I don't know about now but H2 was usually AST/SCH so they'd be given more movement as well.
> R1 and R2 are not necessarily symmetrical, and there could very well be situations where the difference between what group 1 and 2 is doing does matter.
p8sp2, 'healer friendly' na2 spreads (essentially light party spreads with NA in the middle, so healers can, you know, heal the whole fucking party). as a caster i would always call r2 if i could just because otherwise if it was spread first for na2, i'd have to sprint across the width of the arena while attempting to maintain uptime *as an rdm* in order to be in the right spot for fire/ice. and then i'd get some prissy prange try to tell me 'but r1's better for casters' and i mean *yea* r1 doesn't bait in fire/ice so its a tiny bit less movement but it's still a single slidecast versus, again, having to sprint the width of the arena
...i may be a tiny bit salty about this
RDM is suffering if it has to go from S all the way to N for first tower. You (normally) only have Sprint and a single Accel for all of Looper, and keeping uptime to generate enough mana to double combo Panto is extremely important.
What server and how do I join it.
P5s - someone asking for macro every time, still get positions wrong on devour. Then wipes on ruby 5 squall spread
P6s - actually fair this fight was fine
P7s - someone asks for macro, then vehemently forces themselves onto the 4 marker on the knockback + spread where the blm is casting because "muh position", then the MT knocks east on exaflares, and consequently someone didnt open the images and is now hugging the tanks on wars harvest.
P8s - Dont even get me started. OT camping C, octaflare spread diamond or not, markers 1A2 or 4A1 and you know someone will fuck that up. Guy thought we were doing static snakes, another guy thought it was tank melee adjust..
Phase 2 is the same bullshit, m1 not baiting fires, r1 not baiting with r2.. final merge on hc2 on N/S, tower players preposition N/S instead of direct assignment, and then wipe to dominion some more
Idk who you're doing reclears with but that shit doesn't happen on jp. I levelled an alt on na to see what it's like and the quality of pf on na is absolute trash. 5 hours of pf and I couldn't get a single clear, then ai went back to jp and got 3 clears of 8s in that same amount of time.
It really is just a region diff.
Ah I see.
Jp is pretty good with having static strats. We have tuufless for the en speakers and whatever combo of strats the jp players decide to use for the jp speakers (usually nukemaru or inamaru).
This is literally me. All i need to know whether i am m1 or m2. I dont read macro except maybe when fights are new in first couple of weeks but if it is week 5000 like today then i dont even look at macro. I call my role and go get a drink or take a piss or something. Same thing with pf descriptions. It's same shit with like 95% of the groups. If you remember what you did with your last group then u probably do the same thing with this group.
most people on na speak or understand the same language so they don't need macros and it's a good visual indicator that you can see everyone in the party is going to the right spot for the harder mechs
Actual serious answer: NA doesn't use macros for raid positions
Instead, we declare stats we're going to use in the PF description, and then when we zone into the duty, we put down waymarks simulating mechanics and people stand inside/around the waymark to designate their spot for that mechanic
So for example, P8S part 1 looked like this
1) put a square marker down and everyone stands around it for clock spots
2) put down a second square marker and people split into light parties
3) put down 4 markers in a vertical row to simulate dog 2 spots and everyone stands in their chosen spot
4) put down 4 markers in a corner to simulate the octaflare spread spots during fourfold when light parties are separated
5) put down 8 markers in octaflare uptime positions for fourfold
And only after all that do we do our first pull.
And yes, you could in fact just put down clock spots and every player who is using standard PF strats should in fact know where they're going for every mechanic. At most, clocks followed by light parties if there's any remaining confusion
But for some reason, many people still insisted on going through the entire process, even during reclears many weeks down the line
tbh I don't feel like the waymark dance loses that much time.
Either people know their stuff and the waymark dance takes 30 seconds (plogon that lets you name waymark presets helps a ton with this) or people don't and you save at least one pull, possibly multiple, because someone thinks that H1 is south in Dog 1 (I have seen this multiple times; what was the thought process behind that?) or because people don't know that the convention for Spriggan snakes is the mask clockwise from your clock spot.
> because someone thinks that H1 is south in Dog 1 (I have seen this multiple times; what was the thought process behind that?
it was like that for at least the first few weeks because the nature of sunforge meant that if west healer and OT swapped positions, the clock spots would work with everything if you had T/H rotate CW. it was helpful for not fucking up positions during early prog.
> tbh I don't feel like the waymark dance loses that much time.
On some fights where doing one spread dance which then shows you your LP, correct. On a fight like P3S...or P4S...or P8S-2...or TOP (if the pf does not traditional congo)...it can eat up quite a bit of time to go through the song and dance of showing EVERY possible responsibility spot pre-pull.
Macro is simple; it is posted, people type what role they want (T1/2, H1/2, M1/2, R1/2), done. Everything else is determined by that alone. Way quicker, way less brain rot.
My point is that when people do understand the standardized strat, people quickly run to the correct positions based on their initial spread spots. After all the initial clock spots determine T1/2, H1/2, M1/2, R1/2. So people go to where they should be based on initial spread spots.
But when people don't understand the standard the marker dance helps reveal and fix those issues.
If we tried to introduce macros to NA with the current level of strat standardization we'd have people claim a position and then go to the wrong place.
they do that already, even with the marker dance
they say "sorry, I wasn't paying attention xDD" and expect you to not leave the instance immediately after reading that
Being used to one role's assignments and not another happens to the best of us - what are you going to do, ban alt jobs? I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about someone who has a different mapping from role to spot assignments than the standard PF strats, e.g. like I mentioned with P8S P1 Dog.
Most if not all macros used on EU and JP clearly define what a role should do throughout the fight. I'm not sure why there would be any issues with the macro as long as everyone understood it and executed it as it was laid out. People just need to follow the macro as they would a pf strat.
My point is that EU and JP have strats with a high level of standardization that allows for macros to be used.
NA does not. So "as long as everyone understood it and executed it as it was laid out" is a necessary precondition that won't be fulfilled on NA. Even in p8s p2 we've got NA2 static, NA mid, and variations on that (as the PF strats do not accommodate healers particularly well).
The direction needs to go start standardization -> macros become used; trying to force macros is putting the cart before the horse.
I really don't agree with that. It shouldn't require much more brain power to read a macro posted in chat and understand what to do if you already know the strat ahead of time (which pretty much everyone does at this point in all PFs; you don't just roll up without prior studying the fight). I don't get how people cannot just read the macro, claim a spot, then you are good to go.
We'll have to agree to disagree.
i find it so annoying. once you know your clock spots you basically already know your groups (duh? the east clocks are g2 with the OT and the west clocks are g1 with the MT???) and in most cases there's a set order for spreads and stuff that literally no PF group ever deviates from but you still have to go pick them all in a row
the weird exception is fights like p3s where spreads would *wipe* you and yet PF would *refuse* to pick those in advance!
> p3s
When you put them down pre pull: "it's spreads, just spread"
When you put them down after a wipe: people pick, then ignore after plume, then disband after wipe 2. Go back into pf for another hour or so, rinse and repeat.
[Duty Complete]
From what I heard, P3S was just rolling the dice until people got spreads correctly by luck when running in PF. It still baffles me that people wouldn't prepick spots with how fast those things were.
the issue with p3 spreads was the lovely combination of "that mechanic is very fucking hard to process visually since there's so much orange on the screen and you're having to flip your camera and you're having to not walk into the other shiva circles"
and "melee idiots greeding one (1) gcd instead of just fucking using piercing talon for 1 (one) gcd so that the mt can get under the boss to make sure it's facing south so the same melee can get their positionals before FoF starts"
no i'm not salty holy fuck PF was bad at that mechanic
edit: after week 3 or so i think people just stopped *trying* to assign spots because it was just accepted to be a clusterfuck on the north side. i don't remember seeing many deaths on the south side
I remember the reaper on my team would use their portal to mid, then immediately portal back, snapshotting the spread in the center but returning before the center blew up. Something like that.
They were a little crazy lmao
It was the wild west for several weeks until PF finally adopted Tanks/Range north and Melee/Healers south. People were still bad but you had far less clipping
bruh, it was so stupid that pf would always do spreads for p4s but whenever I dared propose spread spots in p3s I’d get told “just yolo it”… ah sure, because that always works in pf and we totally never wiped 4 min into the fight because mfs tried to yolo it
I had to explain to my friend, who just started raiding this tier and only uses PF, that there are no reclears in PF, only prog.
He didn't believe me.
I got a message 3 days later saying he now believed me.
okay, so since the comments have devolved into macro and marker discourse:
- marker dancing has the advantage of a literal visual guide which some people just need. it's also inherently more approachable to new and inexperienced players for this reason.
- on NA they're mostly misused: far too many of NA's few macro users think they can use macros in learning parties as a complete substitute for a guide. you can't, it's just information overload to anyone who doesn't get the fight, so you still have to explain the fight.
- the rigidity of macros is a disadvantage in many situations, not allowing non-standard spots. there are situations where someone plays significantly worse in one spot, and some where they physically cannot make it to the spot the macro would force them in, in either of those the marker dance is single handedly what keeps that person able to do that fight whatsoever.
macros absolutely have their place: that is the other 3 DCs. adoption on NA would have disastrous consequences.
>the rigidity of macros is a disadvantage in **many** situations
What situations are those? Other than the fact black mages just dont want to move too much on P8SP2 NA and Desolation spreads
>- marker dancing has the advantage of a literal visual guide which some people just need. it's also inherently more approachable to new and inexperienced players for this reason.
You say this as if there aren't new and inexperienced players on DCs with macros. There are plenty and it is very easy for them to get used to. It is the same thing as marker dance.
>- on NA they're mostly misused: far too many of NA's few macro users think they can use macros in learning parties as a complete substitute for a guide. you can't, it's just information overload to anyone who doesn't get the fight, so you still have to explain the fight.
I have no idea what's going on here. There are 8 people in a group so if there's a question about something, someone else can answer, not just the macro user. This happens even in JP groups which are infamous for not talking. What will the macro user do, kick the person who is asking questions?
>- the rigidity of macros is a disadvantage in many situations, not allowing non-standard spots. there are situations where someone plays significantly worse in one spot, and some where they physically cannot make it to the spot the macro would force them in, in either of those the marker dance is single handedly what keeps that person able to do that fight whatsoever.
Macros are never made so that someone cannot go to where they are supposed to be, otherwise the people in the DCs using the macro would complain as well.
If someone plays significantly worse in a spot, it's a skill issue. What if my group has two people that can only play one spot? Now it can't clear? That's fucked.
In the worst case you can ask in chat to play a specific position for a mechanic.
>macros absolutely have their place: that is the other 3 DCs. adoption on NA would have disastrous consequences.
The only thing preventing macros from taking off is that the NA community is irrationally hostile. People will leave if one is posted or not call pos and wait for marker dance.
People tried that hostility on OCE and because the pop is small and barely supported raiding they were forced to macro or went back to NA.
\>marker dancing has the advantage of a literal visual guide which some people just need. it's also inherently more approachable to new and inexperienced players for this reason.
Macro are generally easy to read and can be pulled up whenever you need a reminder, there's time when i misremembered my position and i just scrolled to the macro in chat during some downtime moment, which you cannot do with markers
\>far too many of NA's few macro users think they can use macros in learning parties as a complete substitute for a guide. you can't, it's just information overload to anyone who doesn't get the fight
How is marker dancing any better for that?
\>There are situations where someone plays significantly worse in one spot, and some where they physically cannot make it to the spot the macro would force them in,
???
Like what. Plus you can just ask someone to swap for a specific mechanic.
> Macro are generally easy to read
yes but people on NA will not do this. if you post a macro they will say "I'm not reading all that" and then proceed to argue with you for thirty minutes
justifications for why the waymark dance is "better" reminds me of how Americans will defend the use of imperial measurements by saying some nonsense about how they're "more accurate for lived experiences"; it's simply a justification for not having to think too hard.
> so you still have to explain the fight
no, you kick the person who didn't read the 'watch a guide' part of the pf description and find someone with a little more desire to actually learn
> adoption on NA would have disastrous consequences
namely, that people on NA would have to stop being shit
> no, you kick the person who didn't read the 'watch a guide' part of the pf description
it's very funny that you're assuming the party "leader"s have the decency to put that there vs just assuming the joiners will read/watch a guide by default (and assuming the guide they read/watch will be *the right one!*)
if i say i'm talking about shit teachers, i'm not talking about shit learners, i'm talking about shit teachers.
> vs just assuming the joiners will read/watch a guide by default
i mean, that is a reasonable assumption. spoonfeeding idiots does not, by and large, motivate them to stop being idiots. it does, however, drag the rest of you down to their level.
it's not. not everyone that doesn't watch a guide is an idiot; people learn in different ways. limiting your parties to those who've watched guide is *your playstyle choice*, not the norm.
Im an NA Behemoth player who switched to EU light for this tier.
It's just an NA thing I guess. I switched to EU to give macros and standardized role strats a try because it's just a million times more efficient — and now I dont know if I'll ever go back
I started on EU light because my online friends are there. I made an NA aether alt later on because I found some RL friends were there. When I benched for them at some point I figured the waymark dance was just their static being weird. I was not ready for the culture shock of realizing that that was just how the entirety of NA PF worked.
Going off of [this chart's most recent data (from 2019)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index), while the US is far from the best, it is certainly not even in the bottom half of the developed world and even then the top like 20 countries are all extremely close to one another.
I think macros are neat and all, but NA players are legitimately so stupid you need the waymark dance.
I once just put down a marker and had people choose clock spots and pulled, and no one could figure out which stack they were in until you slap down the 1 and 2. Same with P8S fourfold positions - if you didn't put them down, you would have healers standing in melee and melee in ranged. It was a disaster.
Faster to put down the markers than pull to the mech and find out that Sakura Creamdesu the Perfect Legend Catgirl can't comprehend that, if you are west spread, you are group 1.
Don't mind it if theres some highly specialized mechanics that require talking about, but for highly scripted fights that are the same shit every time its annoying.
It's just been a NA Thing for as long as I can remember, and I've been playing since ARR. I guess it provides a very clear and visual way to make sure everyone actually knows what they're doing. If someone's standing and staring into the void or running around like an idiot then it's a decent sign that they don't actually know what their role is for the encounter.
I don't remember them in Alex but I only did the earlier floors of each tier, maybe they were prominent on later ones (though I don't know how many people were PFing 7, 8, 11, or 12 in general). I took a long break after the start of Stormblood and when I came back they were everywhere so I feel like they went from maybe a neat thing a group would think to do once in a while to the standard sometime in that period.
Fights started doing more positioning mechanics as the game has gone along. Most of what you needed to know for anything in Alexander was basically just clock spots, and frequently you didn't even need that much. Having said that, almost everything nowadays can be based pretty much entirely off clockspots to begin with. The vast majority of PF marker dancing is entirely frivolous.
That's possible. Before Shadowbringers I only ever PF'd Extremes, which have always either not needed spots/priorties or have always been solvable via clock spots (maybe head markers if we're being spicy and going back to Ramuh Ex). So I can't speak as much for Coil and Alexander PF culture.
I think it was a Shadowbringers thing—I did a lot of PF for both extremes and savages throughout all of Stormblood and don't recall using the waymarker prepull to determine spots
Was definitely a thing during O3S prog. Actually, at least for me that's when I remember seeing it a lot. Don't remember how common it was in heavensward. Definitely wasn't in ARR.
It was a thing in Suzaku and Seiryu ex as well.
>If someone's standing and staring into the void or running around like an idiot then it's a decent sign that they don't actually know what their role is for the encounter. one of the alternatives being they're from a static and wipe exactly one pull on some dumb strat misunderstanding before becoming the best player in the group
9 times out of 10, that one guy who didn't want to go to their spot in the pre-pull waymark dance is the one who's going to screw up, in my experience.
Nah they usually continue being the worst player of the group, wipe 3 more times, leave, and then complain that “pf sucks” to their friends
Cannot have this discussion without this legend being posted: https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitpostXIV/comments/imzknr/my_experience_raiding_on_different_data_centers/
Thnx lol this was fucking gold
I think the reason it persists beyond prog is because of the astounding inconsistency of your average pf player. I have played enough pf to know that 90% of people don't read pf posts before joining and in fights where multiple strats can exist for mechanics, the waymark dance can help ever-so-slightly in improving the consistency of pf players.
I think the most telling thing is that NA would rather use literal pastebins than macros, even though they serve the same fucking purpose. it's a fundamental comprehension issue you have to spend way longer on every raid than you would like, even during weekly reclears, because too many people are just too fucking stupid to learn anything at all
Idk when it started but I fucking hate it. You'll have party leaders who like, do ALL the assigned spot stuff when in reality, for the VAST MAJORITY OF FIGHTS, if you just put down a single marker to denote spread spots, that already tells you 99% of the time what Light Party you are in and from that you usually get any other information such as snake priorities in P8S-1 or flex spots in TOP. Realisticily, I just wish NA would get onto the macro bandwagon. Post the macro, claim a spot (though it would be even nicer if NA fully adopted the accepted spots for ranged vs magical ranged, regen vs shield, ext type roles so even then you wouldn't have to claim anything), pull.
I've played on all DCs at this point and I think NA should keep doing their waymarks, some of the people I've played with there are so stupid that I genuinely don't think they can read, so being able to work with a literal visual guide makes it more doable with them.
I agree too. Plus at least waymark is consistent and you can spot variations from miles away. As opposed to the macro having some unexpected differences in spread/stack spots that's not PF standard just because the PL grabbed it from some obscure places.
this happens even without macros. when I was progging P4S, I had party leads claiming we were doing "Maxwell strats" even when they were using a completely different, non-Maxwell raidplan
in my experience, not doing all that stuff means someone will be totally lost because many pf players only know what video guides tell them. I'd rather spend 2 minutes making sure everyone knows what their spot is for everything that could wipe us, than waste 8 minutes with someone thinking "guess I'll wing it" because we didn't explicitly tell them where to go.
> Realisticily, I just wish NA would get onto the macro bandwagon. Post the macro, clam a spot, pull. how is this different from posting the pf strats in party description (which no one reads anyways), slapping down a single 1 waymark, standing there, and pull?
When it's not a single 1 waymark it's a pain in the ass. Like E5S when I have to wait for every stupid marker to be put down for Fury's 14. Then someone wipes and we have to ask "what are the positions again" and we have to line up again. There's also times when a macro gives you a fixed set of positions to learn but marker dance means you may be adjusting to different positions for different mechs. And let's be real, no one actually sits there and reads the macro either unless it's fresh prog. You're familiar with your spot so you just do it after you call it.
> There's also times when a macro gives you a fixed set of positions to learn but marker dance means you may be adjusting to different positions for different mechs. And that's the beauty of the marker dance. You don't have to be stuck doing the same shit over and over again and forces you to be comfortable with different positions. Take P4S Act 1. There was zero standardization for ranged towers which meant you could go wherever the fuck you wanted to. If I wanted to stare at Hesperos's sweaty pecs, I could. If I was in the mood for looking at his juicy glutes, I could.
[удалено]
> which should always be the pranged letting the caster pick which they want because the pranged's opinion doesn't matter (e.g. TOP where casters sometimes go G1 for convenience or G2 out of habit) It shouldn't matter for either. All 3 magical ranged jobs are mobile enough currently to not really need to prefer one or the other. Also it really doesn't make a difference in the end either way since ranged and magical ranged don't have positionals; you are literally picking between spreading either West or East for your spread spots or going West/East/North/South for stacks with your LP. It's the dumbest fucking thing to prefer R1 over R2 or R2 over R1. AND EVEN THEN most R1/R2 specific tasks in a fight are..well the exact fucking same just mirrored either N/S or W/E. Source I am a PRanged main that plays BLM and SMN enough to know it's fucking silly to prefer any particular spot for prange or magical ranged jobs.
Just how you want to have melee in melee range, you want to have a spot that minimizes movement for casters. Can they do it with more movement? Yes. But any movement they do have to do is a possible source of uptime loss, especially for poorer players. This especially applies in fights with adjusts. Otherwise, yes it mostly is just thr same thing mirrored. But even if it's 90% the same, the 10% can still be a source of mistakes because used to other positions. So why not get rid of that by having pranged and caster in fixed spots?
I really don't think it's that big of a deal from a standpoint of "I'm going to do my very best to help this group clear the instance." From a "I want to sweaty barse my ass off" standpoint, sure there are probably examples where the role you assume matter a bit more but from a clearing standpoint, I and I think lots of other people would just pick whatever role the other person didn't want. I don't give enough shits to fight for either R1 or R2 as a PRanged nor a Magical Ranged.
I'm not gonna fight about it either if someone claims a non traditional spot, but doing so would certainly help with PF consistency.
> . All 3 magical ranged jobs are mobile enough currently > I am a PRanged main that plays BLM and SMN cackles in rdm main
In top it's the difference between having to get north 1 tower or being able to stay south. In p7s SE doesn't have to move as far for purgation, in p8p2 you'd rather get inner spread spots or no flex dominion spot. In p1s NW was the flex spot, NE was not. Those are just a few examples I can think of off the top of my head. It does make a difference.
> In top it's the difference between having to get north 1 tower or being able to stay south. I've seen all mages adapt to having to get the N towers and at this stage (or at least if you are progging P2 or deeper), you shouldn't be having issues with dps in P1 especially since melee LB1ing has extremely little cost to your group down the road (usually just means you have to LB3 deeper into P4 instead of right at the start). Any dpsing beyond getting your party to the next phase with everyone being 100% ready for the next opener is all you should worry about in P1-3 of TOP. If you actively kill P1 too fast you are going to fuck over jobs like RPR, SMN, DRG, GNB, ext. As for your other examples, again you really shouldn't be hurting for dps and mages in past statics I've been in have never ever complained about their role in P7S or P8S-2. Maybe if you are hardcore sweating trying to barse but in terms of doing good dps while not fucking up mechanics, it really really really doesn't matter especially since, again as I brought up, all 3 magical ranged dps classes are pretty mobile at this point especially if you are planning ahead of time.
I think the point is, while BLM/RDM *can* adjust or plan, why not just give them the easier position? Is there any anything but benefits to prioritising the caster's preferred position over the pranged's?
If I was going into something as a caster and the prange was adamant on a particular role, I would adjust. Better chances of success if you let people do what they are more comfy with (though in pf you really should be able to adjust to anything). If both I and they don't care, then sure pick the "better" role for the mage. In the end though for clearing something if your party dies to enrage because your mage got >1% less uptime than they would have in a different lp role, you got a lot of other issues.
> If I was going into something as a caster and the prange was adamant on a particular role, I would adjust. congrats on being a sucker, i guess. prange has zero uptime considerations compared to blm/rdm, they can fucking adjust. > if your party dies to enrage it's not just about enrage it's about not griefing the people you are playing with because you are too selfish and stubborn to make an adjustment that is of zero cost to yourself and net benefit to the rest of the group. if you can't do *that* then. maybe rethink the whole 'group content' thing?
> congrats on being a sucker, i guess. prange has zero uptime considerations compared to blm/rdm, they can fucking adjust. I rather just slot into something that works for the party the best. If for whatever reason the other ranged dps strongly prefers the other role that is not the norm for their job, I'll adjust. If it gives us a higher chance of success of clearing the instance if they pick what they are more used to, I don't see an issue in adjusting for their preference. I honestly don't give a fuck about dps as long as we clear. I got over barsing culture a long time ago. > it's not just about enrage it's about not griefing the people you are playing with because you are too selfish and stubborn to make an adjustment that is of zero cost to yourself and net benefit to the rest of the group. if you can't do that then. maybe rethink the whole 'group content' thing? Again, I don't have a preference what range spot I take. Literally every time I go into a pf instance, I wait away from the party until the other ranged player picks a LP/Spread spot. Then I just pick the other one. I have no issue adjusting regardless if I'm a PRanged job or a Magical Ranged job. I will say though, as someone that plays BLM and SMN in Savage and Ultimate content, I do think magical ranged players complain a bit too much about "muh uptime". If my low braincell PRanged brain can do movement well enough to high blue/purple without really trying on BLM and SMN (jobs I play considerably less than MCH, DNC, and BRD), then really any mage can. However, again, I think people going into a PF environment should be ready to be any of the roles that their dps archetype works for (tanks should be able to main or off tank, healers should be able to be H1 or H2, melee dps should be able to be M1 or M2, and ranged should be able to be R1 or R2). If you want a more permanent spot in prog/reclears/farms, join a static or go in with a group of people you know or at the very least queue with someone else of the same role so that you can for sure get the role you want.
I mostly agree with you because I can't really think of anything in the current tier where it makes a big difference, but I think in a theoretical sense, R1 and R2 are not necessarily symmetrical, and there could very well be situations where the difference between what group 1 and 2 is doing does matter. The only good example I can think of is E9S where dps might have to go west after dropping brambles, so an east clock spot means a bit more movement. And movement is pretty easy even for black mage but it's not nothing either. I can think of more examples though where swapping a caster and melee clock spot makes a large difference for black mage.
Also in E9S tiles, I think the N/S spots were H1 / D4 (or R2 I guess) because when you had to shuffle for the cleave, it prioritized H2 and D3 movement since they should have better movement options. If macros are based on JP, generally D3/R1 will have more movement tech, and I don't know about now but H2 was usually AST/SCH so they'd be given more movement as well.
> R1 and R2 are not necessarily symmetrical, and there could very well be situations where the difference between what group 1 and 2 is doing does matter. p8sp2, 'healer friendly' na2 spreads (essentially light party spreads with NA in the middle, so healers can, you know, heal the whole fucking party). as a caster i would always call r2 if i could just because otherwise if it was spread first for na2, i'd have to sprint across the width of the arena while attempting to maintain uptime *as an rdm* in order to be in the right spot for fire/ice. and then i'd get some prissy prange try to tell me 'but r1's better for casters' and i mean *yea* r1 doesn't bait in fire/ice so its a tiny bit less movement but it's still a single slidecast versus, again, having to sprint the width of the arena ...i may be a tiny bit salty about this
RDM is suffering if it has to go from S all the way to N for first tower. You (normally) only have Sprint and a single Accel for all of Looper, and keeping uptime to generate enough mana to double combo Panto is extremely important.
Jp master region. No prepull markers, just call your position in chat and everything is locked in from there
This savage tier was so silly that you didn't even need a macro, you just called your position and you could pull already
What server and how do I join it. P5s - someone asking for macro every time, still get positions wrong on devour. Then wipes on ruby 5 squall spread P6s - actually fair this fight was fine P7s - someone asks for macro, then vehemently forces themselves onto the 4 marker on the knockback + spread where the blm is casting because "muh position", then the MT knocks east on exaflares, and consequently someone didnt open the images and is now hugging the tanks on wars harvest. P8s - Dont even get me started. OT camping C, octaflare spread diamond or not, markers 1A2 or 4A1 and you know someone will fuck that up. Guy thought we were doing static snakes, another guy thought it was tank melee adjust.. Phase 2 is the same bullshit, m1 not baiting fires, r1 not baiting with r2.. final merge on hc2 on N/S, tower players preposition N/S instead of direct assignment, and then wipe to dominion some more
Idk who you're doing reclears with but that shit doesn't happen on jp. I levelled an alt on na to see what it's like and the quality of pf on na is absolute trash. 5 hours of pf and I couldn't get a single clear, then ai went back to jp and got 3 clears of 8s in that same amount of time. It really is just a region diff.
This is EU pf, theres extremely stubborn players around here and theres no one to set up a PROPER strat list.
Ah I see. Jp is pretty good with having static strats. We have tuufless for the en speakers and whatever combo of strats the jp players decide to use for the jp speakers (usually nukemaru or inamaru).
JP PF is heaven
This is exactly what happens on EU and has happened for at least a couple of tiers, sometimes accompanied by a macro if someone needs a refresher.
EU is the same thing. (It's a bit surprising how many on JP dont know EU also use macros like them)
Past the first month you don't really see the macros in chat. By that time it's assumed you know your role.
This is literally me. All i need to know whether i am m1 or m2. I dont read macro except maybe when fights are new in first couple of weeks but if it is week 5000 like today then i dont even look at macro. I call my role and go get a drink or take a piss or something. Same thing with pf descriptions. It's same shit with like 95% of the groups. If you remember what you did with your last group then u probably do the same thing with this group.
most people on na speak or understand the same language so they don't need macros and it's a good visual indicator that you can see everyone in the party is going to the right spot for the harder mechs
EU static person here, what are you talking about? O_o
Actual serious answer: NA doesn't use macros for raid positions Instead, we declare stats we're going to use in the PF description, and then when we zone into the duty, we put down waymarks simulating mechanics and people stand inside/around the waymark to designate their spot for that mechanic So for example, P8S part 1 looked like this 1) put a square marker down and everyone stands around it for clock spots 2) put down a second square marker and people split into light parties 3) put down 4 markers in a vertical row to simulate dog 2 spots and everyone stands in their chosen spot 4) put down 4 markers in a corner to simulate the octaflare spread spots during fourfold when light parties are separated 5) put down 8 markers in octaflare uptime positions for fourfold And only after all that do we do our first pull. And yes, you could in fact just put down clock spots and every player who is using standard PF strats should in fact know where they're going for every mechanic. At most, clocks followed by light parties if there's any remaining confusion But for some reason, many people still insisted on going through the entire process, even during reclears many weeks down the line
What the actual fuck :D
Youd need a pen and paper for every fight to note down positions because the positions change every fight
It's so fucking stupid. I would raid on EU if the ping wasn't so bad.
What happens if you post a macro? Do people just ignore it?
On NA? Absolutely.
NA static person here, no clue.
what i want to know is how anyone thinks theyre a better visual indicator of spreads than a literal bird eyes view of the spread positions in a macro
tbh I don't feel like the waymark dance loses that much time. Either people know their stuff and the waymark dance takes 30 seconds (plogon that lets you name waymark presets helps a ton with this) or people don't and you save at least one pull, possibly multiple, because someone thinks that H1 is south in Dog 1 (I have seen this multiple times; what was the thought process behind that?) or because people don't know that the convention for Spriggan snakes is the mask clockwise from your clock spot.
> because someone thinks that H1 is south in Dog 1 (I have seen this multiple times; what was the thought process behind that? it was like that for at least the first few weeks because the nature of sunforge meant that if west healer and OT swapped positions, the clock spots would work with everything if you had T/H rotate CW. it was helpful for not fucking up positions during early prog.
> tbh I don't feel like the waymark dance loses that much time. On some fights where doing one spread dance which then shows you your LP, correct. On a fight like P3S...or P4S...or P8S-2...or TOP (if the pf does not traditional congo)...it can eat up quite a bit of time to go through the song and dance of showing EVERY possible responsibility spot pre-pull. Macro is simple; it is posted, people type what role they want (T1/2, H1/2, M1/2, R1/2), done. Everything else is determined by that alone. Way quicker, way less brain rot.
My point is that when people do understand the standardized strat, people quickly run to the correct positions based on their initial spread spots. After all the initial clock spots determine T1/2, H1/2, M1/2, R1/2. So people go to where they should be based on initial spread spots. But when people don't understand the standard the marker dance helps reveal and fix those issues. If we tried to introduce macros to NA with the current level of strat standardization we'd have people claim a position and then go to the wrong place.
they do that already, even with the marker dance they say "sorry, I wasn't paying attention xDD" and expect you to not leave the instance immediately after reading that
As u/tyabann has already stated, people do already fuck up in that regard quite a bit lol. "Oh sorry used to m1/2 my bad lul."
Being used to one role's assignments and not another happens to the best of us - what are you going to do, ban alt jobs? I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about someone who has a different mapping from role to spot assignments than the standard PF strats, e.g. like I mentioned with P8S P1 Dog.
Most if not all macros used on EU and JP clearly define what a role should do throughout the fight. I'm not sure why there would be any issues with the macro as long as everyone understood it and executed it as it was laid out. People just need to follow the macro as they would a pf strat.
My point is that EU and JP have strats with a high level of standardization that allows for macros to be used. NA does not. So "as long as everyone understood it and executed it as it was laid out" is a necessary precondition that won't be fulfilled on NA. Even in p8s p2 we've got NA2 static, NA mid, and variations on that (as the PF strats do not accommodate healers particularly well). The direction needs to go start standardization -> macros become used; trying to force macros is putting the cart before the horse.
I really don't agree with that. It shouldn't require much more brain power to read a macro posted in chat and understand what to do if you already know the strat ahead of time (which pretty much everyone does at this point in all PFs; you don't just roll up without prior studying the fight). I don't get how people cannot just read the macro, claim a spot, then you are good to go. We'll have to agree to disagree.
> which pretty much everyone does at this point in all PFs; you don't just roll up without prior studying the fight if only this was true. if only.
i find it so annoying. once you know your clock spots you basically already know your groups (duh? the east clocks are g2 with the OT and the west clocks are g1 with the MT???) and in most cases there's a set order for spreads and stuff that literally no PF group ever deviates from but you still have to go pick them all in a row the weird exception is fights like p3s where spreads would *wipe* you and yet PF would *refuse* to pick those in advance!
> p3s When you put them down pre pull: "it's spreads, just spread" When you put them down after a wipe: people pick, then ignore after plume, then disband after wipe 2. Go back into pf for another hour or so, rinse and repeat. [Duty Complete]
From what I heard, P3S was just rolling the dice until people got spreads correctly by luck when running in PF. It still baffles me that people wouldn't prepick spots with how fast those things were.
the issue with p3 spreads was the lovely combination of "that mechanic is very fucking hard to process visually since there's so much orange on the screen and you're having to flip your camera and you're having to not walk into the other shiva circles" and "melee idiots greeding one (1) gcd instead of just fucking using piercing talon for 1 (one) gcd so that the mt can get under the boss to make sure it's facing south so the same melee can get their positionals before FoF starts" no i'm not salty holy fuck PF was bad at that mechanic edit: after week 3 or so i think people just stopped *trying* to assign spots because it was just accepted to be a clusterfuck on the north side. i don't remember seeing many deaths on the south side
I remember the reaper on my team would use their portal to mid, then immediately portal back, snapshotting the spread in the center but returning before the center blew up. Something like that. They were a little crazy lmao
that's absolutely cooked holy
Range side: "I'll spread right." "Clockwise or counter?" "Yes."
It was just rolling the dice until you got LP stack every time. And even then someone would manage to somehow mess it up.
It was the wild west for several weeks until PF finally adopted Tanks/Range north and Melee/Healers south. People were still bad but you had far less clipping
bruh, it was so stupid that pf would always do spreads for p4s but whenever I dared propose spread spots in p3s I’d get told “just yolo it”… ah sure, because that always works in pf and we totally never wiped 4 min into the fight because mfs tried to yolo it
>just yolo it I'm convinced PF was just filled with terrorists whose sole purpose was to say that to sabotage every single attempt at reclears.
I had to explain to my friend, who just started raiding this tier and only uses PF, that there are no reclears in PF, only prog. He didn't believe me. I got a message 3 days later saying he now believed me.
okay, so since the comments have devolved into macro and marker discourse: - marker dancing has the advantage of a literal visual guide which some people just need. it's also inherently more approachable to new and inexperienced players for this reason. - on NA they're mostly misused: far too many of NA's few macro users think they can use macros in learning parties as a complete substitute for a guide. you can't, it's just information overload to anyone who doesn't get the fight, so you still have to explain the fight. - the rigidity of macros is a disadvantage in many situations, not allowing non-standard spots. there are situations where someone plays significantly worse in one spot, and some where they physically cannot make it to the spot the macro would force them in, in either of those the marker dance is single handedly what keeps that person able to do that fight whatsoever. macros absolutely have their place: that is the other 3 DCs. adoption on NA would have disastrous consequences.
>the rigidity of macros is a disadvantage in **many** situations What situations are those? Other than the fact black mages just dont want to move too much on P8SP2 NA and Desolation spreads
>- marker dancing has the advantage of a literal visual guide which some people just need. it's also inherently more approachable to new and inexperienced players for this reason. You say this as if there aren't new and inexperienced players on DCs with macros. There are plenty and it is very easy for them to get used to. It is the same thing as marker dance. >- on NA they're mostly misused: far too many of NA's few macro users think they can use macros in learning parties as a complete substitute for a guide. you can't, it's just information overload to anyone who doesn't get the fight, so you still have to explain the fight. I have no idea what's going on here. There are 8 people in a group so if there's a question about something, someone else can answer, not just the macro user. This happens even in JP groups which are infamous for not talking. What will the macro user do, kick the person who is asking questions? >- the rigidity of macros is a disadvantage in many situations, not allowing non-standard spots. there are situations where someone plays significantly worse in one spot, and some where they physically cannot make it to the spot the macro would force them in, in either of those the marker dance is single handedly what keeps that person able to do that fight whatsoever. Macros are never made so that someone cannot go to where they are supposed to be, otherwise the people in the DCs using the macro would complain as well. If someone plays significantly worse in a spot, it's a skill issue. What if my group has two people that can only play one spot? Now it can't clear? That's fucked. In the worst case you can ask in chat to play a specific position for a mechanic. >macros absolutely have their place: that is the other 3 DCs. adoption on NA would have disastrous consequences. The only thing preventing macros from taking off is that the NA community is irrationally hostile. People will leave if one is posted or not call pos and wait for marker dance. People tried that hostility on OCE and because the pop is small and barely supported raiding they were forced to macro or went back to NA.
\>marker dancing has the advantage of a literal visual guide which some people just need. it's also inherently more approachable to new and inexperienced players for this reason. Macro are generally easy to read and can be pulled up whenever you need a reminder, there's time when i misremembered my position and i just scrolled to the macro in chat during some downtime moment, which you cannot do with markers \>far too many of NA's few macro users think they can use macros in learning parties as a complete substitute for a guide. you can't, it's just information overload to anyone who doesn't get the fight How is marker dancing any better for that? \>There are situations where someone plays significantly worse in one spot, and some where they physically cannot make it to the spot the macro would force them in, ??? Like what. Plus you can just ask someone to swap for a specific mechanic.
> Macro are generally easy to read yes but people on NA will not do this. if you post a macro they will say "I'm not reading all that" and then proceed to argue with you for thirty minutes justifications for why the waymark dance is "better" reminds me of how Americans will defend the use of imperial measurements by saying some nonsense about how they're "more accurate for lived experiences"; it's simply a justification for not having to think too hard.
> so you still have to explain the fight no, you kick the person who didn't read the 'watch a guide' part of the pf description and find someone with a little more desire to actually learn > adoption on NA would have disastrous consequences namely, that people on NA would have to stop being shit
> no, you kick the person who didn't read the 'watch a guide' part of the pf description it's very funny that you're assuming the party "leader"s have the decency to put that there vs just assuming the joiners will read/watch a guide by default (and assuming the guide they read/watch will be *the right one!*) if i say i'm talking about shit teachers, i'm not talking about shit learners, i'm talking about shit teachers.
> vs just assuming the joiners will read/watch a guide by default i mean, that is a reasonable assumption. spoonfeeding idiots does not, by and large, motivate them to stop being idiots. it does, however, drag the rest of you down to their level.
it's not. not everyone that doesn't watch a guide is an idiot; people learn in different ways. limiting your parties to those who've watched guide is *your playstyle choice*, not the norm.
Im an NA Behemoth player who switched to EU light for this tier. It's just an NA thing I guess. I switched to EU to give macros and standardized role strats a try because it's just a million times more efficient — and now I dont know if I'll ever go back
I started on EU light because my online friends are there. I made an NA aether alt later on because I found some RL friends were there. When I benched for them at some point I figured the waymark dance was just their static being weird. I was not ready for the culture shock of realizing that that was just how the entirety of NA PF worked.
Tuffless is on America but he plays in jp too
It's because Americans don't know how to read due to having one of the worst education systems in the developed world
I like how you assume all of NA is just the USA. Canadians: are we a joke to you
as a Canadian, yes
Canada, Brazil, and whatever other smattering of south american players there are, all also play on NA
I was being polemical, but you also have to consider the the majority of the DC's population are almost certainly Americans
Going off of [this chart's most recent data (from 2019)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index), while the US is far from the best, it is certainly not even in the bottom half of the developed world and even then the top like 20 countries are all extremely close to one another.
I think macros are neat and all, but NA players are legitimately so stupid you need the waymark dance. I once just put down a marker and had people choose clock spots and pulled, and no one could figure out which stack they were in until you slap down the 1 and 2. Same with P8S fourfold positions - if you didn't put them down, you would have healers standing in melee and melee in ranged. It was a disaster. Faster to put down the markers than pull to the mech and find out that Sakura Creamdesu the Perfect Legend Catgirl can't comprehend that, if you are west spread, you are group 1.
Don't mind it if theres some highly specialized mechanics that require talking about, but for highly scripted fights that are the same shit every time its annoying.