I read through the responses on this post yesterday (thank you for starting the discussion @spotofmummery !) and I saw a common interest in wanting to do harder content but not being able to for several reasons. Some reasons were not being able to find a group and not knowing where to start.
This made me think, why not start hosting open calls for learning parties?
are you interested in joining casual learning parties for extremes if I host?
Yes
Maybe
No
Voting ended onMay 29
some potential questions and explanations below the read more!
What is a learning party?
Learning parties are parties made for the specific purpose of learning a fight; usually one or two people know the fight and can guide others as needed.
Learning parties are not expected to clear. The goal is to educate, grow confidence and prepare learning players so that they can join other parties at specific prog points and possibly enrage-to-clear runs.
How would this open call for learning parties work?
I plan for it to be super casual and informal, without a strict schedule or commitment. Very much a once in a while thing! Here’s how it will work:
I’ll put out an open call for a learning party for a specific extreme, with a date, time, and datecenter
I’ll share resources so people can prepare ahead of time if they want
DM me or comment in the post about your interest!
On the day, I’ll open a private PF listing (password shared in a tumblr DM)
I’ll wait for anyone who showed interest for a specified amount of time; If we don’t have eight people after the grace period, I’ll open the PF to other players
We go in, we learn, we have fun!
Voice chat will not be required, and no private links will be sent
Can anyone host learning parties?
YES PLEASE OMG. I encourage any experienced raider to lend their expertise and help introduce new players into the raiding scene. With more raiders to play with, we all win!
Let me know if you plan to host and I’ll boost!
What do I need to prepare for extremes?
I can share a list of resources depending on how this interest check goes. For now, the few tips I have are:
Choose to raid with a job you know and feel comfortable playing; playing a job you know will allow you more mental space to learn and remember mechs
Update your gear to the best of your ability; you do not need to have Best in Slot or all tomestone gear, but the higher your ilvl and better your gear, the more you will survive
Silly question possibly, but do non-ADHD folks just…remember the tactics for every boss fight you’ve ever done?
So when you find yourself randomly queued for a particular boss fight then you execute every mechanic with quiet confidence?
Because I have to watch and rewatch tactic videos multiple times before daring to try a new boss, and if I don’t do it at least weekly then I rapidly forget the mechanics. Hence, when I am queuing for random Trials and High-End Instances (for the Dawntrail relic quest for example), I am frequently faced with fights for which I have no recollection of anything useful.
This often does not go well in practice and other players are sometimes quite… direct in their feedback shall we say and I feel very ashamed and useless. Often I am trying to pull up a tactic video on my phone and desperately watching it whilst doing the fight at the same time, which has mixed results.
So I just thought I’d check whether this is an issue unique to me and my stunted frontal lobes, whilst presumably everyone else (bar a few other ADHD types possibly) is able to instantly recollect every mechanic for a fight they did once, four years ago, with crisp efficiency?
Any suggestions as to better manage this issue would also be welcome. I don’t think I could research every single fight, just in case it comes up, and if I did then I wouldn’t remember them anyway. I could try to work out how to make a playlist on YouTube for easier access maybe?
I walked away from my static of ~5 years tonight. Really not how I'd hoped things would go, but the vibes have shifted so much.
And I refuse to be made to feel less than.
I'm saddened. But with everything going on, I didn't have it in me anymore to argue with leadership. I'm told that a friend did try to call out the unnecessary meanness and passive-aggressive snipes; they still dug their heels in and denied any wrongdoing.
Ultimately, my lamentations really just boils down to this:
Friends should treat you with kindness, approach you in good faith, and offer grace when it is needed.
Friends do NOT have the right to be mean to you, or disparage you.
