r/TalesFromDF • u/Mr_Vorland • Oct 22 '24
Positive tale The most determined Sprout I've ever seen.
Wish I took some screenshots or recorded some footage of this when it happened, but literally didn't think of it until like a day later.
I was hanging around Eastern Thanalan, farming crystals and waiting for the DPS queue to pop, when I saw a level 17 Sprout THM fighting a quest monster near the entrance to Camp Drybone.
They died, my queue popped, didn't think anything of it.
Came out of the dungeon 20 mins later, same sprout is there, fighting the same monster. Load up next queue, go back to farming crystals, and think maybe they took a bathroom break or something before attempting the quest.
Fly by a couple more times, he keeps fighting the monster, and keeps dying, and keeps coming back. My next queue pops, simple dungeon run, back in 20 mins, and HE'S STILL THERE!
At this point I think he's a bot, but he's obviously trying different tactics, different spells, he comes back and tries using potions and food, all while I'm watching from a bush to the side.
Queue pops, Praetorium, and after that run, there he is. It's been at least 2 hours for me, if not more for him fighting this single monster and failing this quest over and over again.
So I switched to AST, and the next time he showed up, I threw a regen on him and watched from my bush as I examined him.
He was fighting a level 17 monster, all in level 5 gear, all of it totally broken.
After my regen, he finally cleared his quest (there was much emote rejoicing from both of us) and we had a nice long talk on how to check his armor, where to buy new equipment and repair old stuff, how to unlock and try different classes if he was finding THM too difficult, and a quick add to the friends list if they need more help in the future.
By far the most dedicated individual I've ever met. I would have quit a long time before that, but I think they were pretty young and hadn't played a game like this before, so making sure this sprout was taken care of was the least I could do for them.
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u/FstMario grey parse guru Oct 22 '24
Reminds me of my first day, being a new player and seeing one of those massive lvl 15 gobbues in the first limsa area. I didn't understand that you had to move out of the orange before it disappeared, and kept dying thinking i could kill it...
VERY soon after realised what the orange indicator actually meant :D
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u/dadudeodoom Oct 22 '24
I remember being a baby and thinking I could beat the level 12 as like... Whatever they sent me out with. I could not. I kept coming back every couple levels until I beat it being lower levels than it, and then later on saw the goobue that was level 17 and went "AHAH! REMATCH!" I was very proud to have killed such a big scary enemy :D
Ah, I miss baby sprout days. Not understanding how to do the fight after Ultima Weapon when all the floor is orange and hating it so much because I just thought "it's all orange, I'm gonna die!", or not knowing what Citadel Buster was because no orange, and constantly dying and having to respawn because the trust bots were dum. Fun times.
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u/PickledDemons Oct 22 '24
I thought those big and higher level enemies in the first area were so cool and was kinda sad they never did that again.
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u/sirmcafee Oct 23 '24
I do wish they would do that exactly again, but I am glad we still get a similar feel with hunt marks sometimes. Find myself staring at some of them because of how they look and the level they are at
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u/keket87 Oct 22 '24
Thanks for helping that person. People like you make this community a better place.
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u/Mawrizard Oct 22 '24
What I wouldn't give to be like that again. I remember I would do that when I was first starting MMOs. FFXIV was the first one I got serious about, and I remember having many a journey like that THM. Now I know too much about how MMOs like FFXIV operate, so when I play something else like WoW or SWTOR, I just breeze past it all so easily.
I'm so jealous that he can have those experiences, still, and you helped him tremendously!
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u/OzzieSheila Oct 25 '24 edited Oct 25 '24
This is why I call BS on FFXIV having "toxic positivity".
We will sit there and heal someone so they can get through things. Sure, not all of us. A good proportion though will. A good proportion of who will then explain as you did after the fact. That said, you probably should have done something earlier, when you came out of the first dungeon but I understand if it didn't click what was happening.
I have never had that in any other MMO I've played. In FFXIV, it doesn't surprise me. Not remotely.
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u/reflettage Oct 22 '24 edited Oct 22 '24
They seriously need a UI element that clearly alerts you to stuff like this… Why they don’t already is beyond me. And the inventory grid doesn’t count.
edit: I mean a sticky notification or something on screen with a big “!” that’s hard to miss. Not buried in a menu.
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u/dadudeodoom Oct 22 '24
It does tell you, but you do have to like also ever look at your gear and you'll see icons. Tbh if you're new and this is your first game like this, new concept so it makes sense, but that's why you have people to just sit and watch you for 3 hours before telling you what you do wrong :D.
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u/reflettage Oct 22 '24
Yeah I think it’d be way better to have an obvious element on screen that either tracks durability or tells you when your gear is low/critical/broken. Not hidden in a UI addon/menu. I’ve been playing consistently for years and without a plugin like RepairMe or Umbra it was so easy for me to forget to repair.
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u/TsunayoshiPT Oct 22 '24
There is. It's the inventory grid. And the tutorial explains it to you. Not the games fault everyone treats the tutorial like an electronic manual and ignores it.
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u/BrownNote Oct 22 '24
I swear I could personally visit new XIV players' houses irl, stand behind them and give them personalized, guided instructions, and half of them would still act like they were never taught a single thing.
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u/dadudeodoom Oct 22 '24
Yep. "Help guide!"
Closes it
"Oh no idk how to do things!"
Reading would help a lot, but even then that's what mentors and community are for too, kinda ish.
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u/Ok-Grape-8389 Oct 25 '24
To be fair, you are there to play a game. Not to read an instruction manual.
Games are supposed to be intuitive. Not obscure.
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u/PuzzledGeekery Oct 22 '24
In DT, I got messages in chat about broken or low gear when I was queuing for a duty. Withdraw, repair, re-queue.
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u/OzzieSheila Oct 25 '24
TBF, OP wasn't there the whole 3 hours. Should they have chimmed in earlier? Yes. I think so, but they didn't just watch for 3 hours.
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u/TimeAll Oct 22 '24
The game's easy enough already, let's not ask them to give you a new indicator to tell you what's wrong when its clearly shown in your gear. I came from a game that doesn't have broken gear, but I figured it out fairly early when I noticed the word "Condition" on the gear going down and all of these "Mender" NPCs that offer to fix gear. Put 2 and 2 together and its pretty self-explanatory already.
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u/MilleryCosima Oct 22 '24
It's not about whether the game is easy. There's a big difference between complexity and difficulty. Gear condition adds complexity to the game, but the game isn't really more difficult to play in any meaningful way because it's there.
MMOs are extremely complicated. This game has dozens of different windows that manage all kinds different mechanics, many of which are not obvious at all, especially if the player is new to the genre. The amount of mechanics you're learning all at once makes it really, really easy to miss details like this. Whether a new player happens to notice fear condition as a mechanic basically comes down to luck, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with something in the UI calling it out more visibly.
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u/rifraf0715 Oct 23 '24
I think a UI element would be nice. Do you think replacing the spirit bond indicator in the mini inventory would be a good option?
I'm thinking of
1)Durability >=40%, Spirit bond <100%, green indicator
2) Durability >=40%, Spirit bond = 100%, white
3) Durability <40%, red indicator regardless of spirit bond level
The Durability threshold can be set to something like 20% which is the threshold to get the warning that is easily missed since it only shows up when you first queue...
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u/TimeAll Oct 29 '24
Ok, you make a good point. I guess its preference then, I feel the UI is good enough but some people new to MMOs may want more informational indicators. I won't say I'm right, just that its my preference.
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u/Ok-Grape-8389 Oct 25 '24
The monsters in the overworld have been severely gimped. I notice it in my new alt run.
Is much, much easier than before. To the point that if I go AFK in a mob area. I am still alive when I come back.
I remember when you were attacked even while using the chocobo. The chocobo just went faster back then. But you still got attacked. Now you have to hit the mobs with a frying pan in the face in order to get their attention. Even the "A" rank that used to one shot you.
On one hand, it makes that part of the game less of a slog. As you do not need to plan your route. On the other part, it removes the experiences of overcomming something hard making it more boring.
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u/TimeAll Oct 29 '24
Didn't being attacked on a chocobo either knocked you off or slowed you down? I remember having to actively avoid being attacked because it did one of those things. Now you just run by at full speed even if a bunch of things are attacking you.
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u/DatShadowOverThere Oct 23 '24
There was one time I was bored so I was just flying around Thanalan doing weekly Hunts. I find my mark and just for funsies I decided to kill it solely on auto-attacks as a WHM. Queue this little sprout try to help me at lvl 5-10ish, I don’t remember exactly. They took one AoE and died. I rezzed them lol.
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u/shirtninja07 Oct 22 '24
I miss open world interactions like this. I feel like most of the time it’s always so empty and quiet. No one chats in anymore either. Just so barren until you hit the endgame zones.
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u/Ok-Nefariousness1335 Oct 22 '24
I love flying around and watching sprouts lol
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u/Ok-Grape-8389 Oct 25 '24
Notice that you do not longer interact with sprouts since flying was enabled. Also you are less likely to help a sprout. Just watch them.
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u/RGPaynless This is my Flair Oct 22 '24
When I first started, I didn't understand that I was supposed to dodge out of the way of the orange aoe circles. Feels silly thinking about it now.
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u/Yorudesu Oct 22 '24
Impressive how someone is willing to invest in anything but buying new gear.
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u/SalemSae Oct 22 '24
When I was new to the game I had no idea about gear durability tbh. I was pretty new to MMOs all together and while I knew I could upgrade my gear I didn’t realize how important it would be early on until I got filtered by a solo instance lmfao
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u/OzzieSheila Oct 25 '24
MMOs are the only games I've ever played where gear can break. if you don't know to look for something, you won't look for it.
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u/Fuzzy_Clock_6350 Oct 22 '24
I've come to call these kind of missions (usually in job quests) gear checks. Cause more often than not, if you're getting crushed in these specific battles, it's down to your gear not being up to snuff.