Stuck Up or Wise?Follow

I have an interesting question. Haven't noticed it being talked about before, and it's probably just a common sense issue, but I figured I'd give it a whirl.


I decided to take a break from DRK. I was starting to loose intrest in the game as i was spending way too much time with my flag up waiting for a party. So I'm now lvling WHM.
I've basically sunk a good portion of gil into this just so I could get to lvl 25 for buffs. (Figure I'd go explore some of the harder to reach areas with invisible and sneak.)

So here's the dilemna. For the past few lvls of of DRK, if you mentioned party, I was there. I didnt care how crudy the party was, I would join and I would make the best out of it. Heck 5 hours and 100 xp is better than sitting there waiting.

But now, as a WHM, the second I log on I immediately get hit with umpteen msgs for "Party?" some folks don't even send messages (but thats a rant for another thread)

My question is, am I being stuck up for weeding out the bad parties and interviewing the folks wanting me to party with them?

Many times I get invites from folks saying "Start a party up and invite me" Honestly I don't want to.. not when I have 4 or 5 other invites from existing parties.

I could go through the list of parties I've been invited to but you know enough to know what they are. Some without DD some without Mages, some without a tank, some with all underleveled no gear, no clue. I also get the invites from people who are WAY above me lvl wise, or WAY below me lvl wise. They always say "We don't care about the bad xp we just want to party" yeah, but I care about the xp.

I had a run in yesterday where a French player told me to F** off after the leader kicked her out of the party. I had nothing to do with it. I guess she couldn't take constructive criticism and thought I was the reason she was out.
Later that night I received an invite from her and I declined. She msged me back stating, "I hate you, but we need a whm, please join"
I told her she should have thought about it before going off on me.

nuff said.. just wanted to know is it considered being stuck on yourself to decline invites, or are you considered a wise player for examining your choices. I'm more prone to the 2nd answer.

Discuss amongst yourselves

Mattea

Hehe, welcome to the wonderful world of being a Mage...I've recently staged a melee stint as warrior (almost 37) and the only reason i get invites is because of my gear and that rank 10 next to my name. (that and i am sososo cute with a great axe) when it comes to being a mage, you dont have to have the best gear, even though its not all that expesive. You've seen how clueless many melee are about how to do their job, ive met lvl 30 thf who didn't know what Sneak Attack was. So you can be picky, after all you are needed and .... When i was lvling bard it was very often that i was the only one LFG in my level range, so if a JP pt didn't pick me up first, it was very common that i would try to party with people that i knew were good. It may seem like you are being greedy to others, but it should be more incentive to learn to play better. Although honestly the reason so many lower level parties are bad is mainly due to their set up. 5 warriors and a redmage are going nowhere fast. Also the mentality of XP is XP doesnt' really fly by me, if you dont have the patience to wait for the right jobs to show up, then you are just going to have bad parties. This set up becomes even more important as mobs get harder and harder. So when you get those invites at lvl 50 with a pt of 2 thf, you (Run Away!)...and oh, all bards are allowed to be stuck up :P

Being a whm as opposed to a dark is a total 180 degrees!

as in the many many parties ive been in, I can tell who the good players are, its not hard, but anways that besides the point.

being that your in your 20's as a whm, yeah its pretty easy to get a pt, and i must say, at lvl 53, its just as easy. I cant tell u how many times i simply log on in my mog house and bam i get this {Party} {Quicksand Caves} we could use ya!

but as for your dark, i really wouldnt give up on it. Ive heard so many people speak of quitting dark around the 50's because of your very reason.

I guess at the 60's they are what pt's want for they do much damage and they are tough to find because so many quit.

I say have your flag up and skill up in places or do somehing else and the invites will come!

What is the point of having all of those "Bad Player--Beware" posts if you are expected to accept all invites without question?

A couple of weeks agao I would have called you "stuck up". But leveling WHM myself (now at lvl 17), you are definately wise. Although as a tank/WAR I did my best to commidate the WHM (and have been complimented for doing so) by voking early and often, I have yet again found a new appreciation for mages.
As a melee fighter, a foolish party meant you died maybe more one time than originally planned. As a WHM, a foolish party means you die and so does the whole party as a consequence.

Don't give it another thought. Just remember the good players and try to stick with them.

I'll take a shot at this as being a fellow Ohioan. I must first apologize on the length of this and if you have any popcorn left from reading Mattea's other thread it may help. I'm not a scholar like the rest of you so I can't put it all into, so few of words.
I've been a whm or rdm for the majority of my ffxi career(*cough* er been low lv for to long due to having limited online accessibility and play time). You will come across a lot of people that find you as beening stuck-up/arrogant from my experiences for: a)Checking to see if the levels of the party are comparable to your level; b)What classes the party consists of; c)Is everybody's equipment up to par with their current level/job; d)How is everyones attitude and are they working good together/doing their job; e)Finding out what the group will be fighting. These are the most common questions I got when I asked higher level mages and other classes what they looked for before joining a party. That seems about right if I would ever choose to do some 'serious' exp grinding.
This is how I look at it: a)Having similar levels help out with keeping everyone happy with getting even exp rate and leveling up, rather annoying when you have one person is too high or too low, especially if it's you, the whm; b)For now I usually don't care what classes are in a group as long as we have atleast one good-tank/meat-shield unless you have 3-4 good mnk/war's to spread out the damage a bit(exp is very nice with a full group in a 3-4 mnk/war party if they have the best equipment, mind you this was in the dunes); c)Obviously this helps tremedously, even though I don't follow this much, is when people have good equipment and good weapons, warriors wearing leather and bronze at lv15+ or scalemail at lv18 just doesn't cut it, I've been in groups where the theives had better armor than the warriors, one of my petpeeves(sp?) is the people that say "I'm just use this character to farm" and have half a suit of armor and no rings or earings is just BS; d)Personally I look for a rather carefree party, as long as no one chews someone out for ******** up or atleast has a sense of humor about it and we are getting atleast ok exp I don't mind getting beat on by the critter we are fighting every once in awhile, helps keep shield and evasion maxed out and to get everyones attention; e)I don't care what we are fighting just as long as it is something that won't tap everyones resourses completely out in one fight unless it drops something good or we get like 200 exp from the kill, critters that drop gil is always a plus though.
I myself have an (f), it is this: Another one of my petpeeves(sp?), is getting an invite before I get a /tell first from one of the party, even if it's not the leader. I don't care if they have the best equipment in the game at low levels, I find it very disrespectful and rude to get multiple invites from groups before I even get a /tell. You may eventually find yourself to be only one of about a half dozen whm in the dunes while there is hundreds of people in the zone. Then it's time to do a /shout and say something like, "Plz don't even send me an invite without sending me a tell first and plz don't be rude about it or don't even send one at all", trust this does happen.
In a final note, I come to play this game for fun and to be serious about something other than RL. But some people are just to ****-ly serious about it and I sometimes think that playing a whm is just as stressful as my RL or sometimes it seems more. Be as cautious as you like; I don't blame you for asking what's up with a party before you join it. People don't fully understand "What's the healers problem?", until they have actually have played one. I played EQ for a number of years and never played a 'true' healer class and I didn't always understand why the healers were/acted the way they did until playing a white mage on this game. So the only thing you can really say is "... you can't really understand a whm unless you've walked a mile or two in the dunes in our shoes...". -just my 2gil and then some....

As a Mage I understand your situation... I never join parties unless I can get a member list out of the party leader, and a general idea of where we'll be hunting, and how we'll get getting there.

It's surprising how many bad parties there are...