Why is everyone so silent in the game?

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Originally Posted by Vav2021

so far from what I've seen in the thread, there's a consensus that there are some serious issues with people either getting easily offended or wanting to be speech police. I don't know how true this is, as i've never been banned despite several attempts to get people talking, but if this is the case, I am very shocked.

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Don't believe that tripe about people getting easily offended or wanting to be speech police. I have been playing for over six years and I have never seen either example of those behaviours in the game. You seem to be a polite person who knows how to behave around other people. You have nothing to worry about.

Most of the time I personally just don't feel like talking outside of my FC. Sometimes I'll chat in NN if there's an interesting topic, or if someone PMs me, though.

Why would I talk to random people on the street? Same logic applied here, random players in the world might as well be NPCs and I treat them as such.

No speech bubbles to let me notice when people are trying to be social, busy doing things instead of staring at the corner of my screen.

Socializing is dead in this game.

I kinda want to talk, but things I say sometimes aren't very well received by some people, so I don't really talk unless I know what kind of people I am talking to. Otherwise I do enjoy talking a lot with people I know. But randoms in dungeons, prolly not so much. I will say tho, I am more inclined to talk in extremes and savage runs.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Don't believe that tripe about people getting easily offended or wanting to be speech police. I have been playing for over six years and I have never seen either example of those behaviours in the game. You seem to be a polite person who knows how to behave around other people. You have nothing to worry about.

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Anecdotal evidence isn't a strong argument.

It’s 1 reason why I’m more inclined to quit .
I’ve always used mmos as a way to make friends because I live in corn. But this game is incredibly hard to make connections on so far.

Also everyone keeps saying people talk in Limsa , but it’s only to their friends or limsa cliques

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Originally Posted by Breakbeat

Imagine being a human who cannot communicate without offending someone else.

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You mean people with disabilities?

I've gotten reportbombed (elsewhere) over something as simple as trying to express that I don't like starbucks because they overroast the beans.

So yes, I DO try to be careful what I say in this game, I am rather intimidated by people, specially people like you who don't seem to get it and will assume bad faith automatically.

Personally, although I almost always say hello at the beginning of a duty, I'm not great at starting up a conversation. I'm one of the (I suspect) many people who will respond but won't make an effort to get others talking, myself. It's partly because I'm not naturally outgoing, but I also work in customer service and get my fill of initiating small talk. I do like to talk about movies or tv and books, but don't run across many fellow horror fans within the FFXIV community and so I don't try very often.

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Originally Posted by crimsonwitch

Also everyone keeps saying people talk in Limsa , but it’s only to their friends or limsa cliques

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For what it's worth, I've always found, whenever shout chat starts being... shout chat, it seems to more typically be Ul'Dah.

I keep to my inner circle of friends when it comes to chatting. Too many times I see conversations start up in a public channel and there is always someone that's going to be immature, disrespectful, obnoxious, rude, who thinks they are funny, and always takes it a step too far. That one person that makes you "roll your eyes".

People don't respect a good conversation with mild wit. There is always that one clown in the bunch to ruin a good thing for the rest. So why bother.

We are the Warrior of Light. Our neck muscles speak for us.

On a serious note, slot of people speak through FC chat, link Pearl's and whispers...whatever its called.

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Originally Posted by Vav2021

I know there *are* people out there that talk, but it seems so rare. Are people just shy of talking? Is it a cross-console thing so they can't do it effectively without it taking minutes at a time? Or is this another one of those things that discord effects?

It just doesn't seem alive, even in populated areas where the ambient chatter implies that there's a lot of talking and a cacophony of voices tries to add to what would be the discussions of other players.

What's the reason behind the lack of social interactions?

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I think it's the lack of any kind of a general channel. Which can be both a blessing and a curse. Apparently, according to the devs, the Japanese servers are even quieter.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Don't believe that tripe about people getting easily offended or wanting to be speech police. I have been playing for over six years and I have never seen either example of those behaviours in the game. You seem to be a polite person who knows how to behave around other people. You have nothing to worry about.

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Sadly it does happen, though. Just because you haven't encountered it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

I was chatting away in party chat with 2 of the 3 teammates in my roulette one day, just random, normal conversation. Talking about what we liked about the instance, favorite jobs, etc. Run going completely smooth. Pace was fine. The talking affected nothing. One of the randoms asked what my favorite healer was, and I said I liked SCH more than the other two because to me, I liked the whole "pre planning" heals and didn't like the reactive nature of WHM, wasn't the healer for me.

Our healer was a WHM, and flipped out at me out of nowhere, saying I insulted their class, accused me of saying they were terrible at WHM, and offended them (Which no one said one word about their play. Why would we? The run was going FINE). They reported me. Nothing happened, because I had screenshots if approached by a GM, but these types of people exist. If they were genuine or a troll, it doesn't matter. I never thought I'd encounter something like that and was completely flabbergasted at it, especially since I like to talk in party chat and BS with people if they talk back. I can do silent runs and just turn on music too, but I'd much rather actually talk to people.

Granted, these types are probably outliers and not the norm, but the fact remains there ARE people like this. Troll or genuine, they are out there.

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Originally Posted by ArkenaeuxBelmont

Granted, these types are probably outliers and not the norm, but the fact remains there ARE people like this. Troll or genuine, they are out there.

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I never said it doesn't happen and I did not mean to come across this way. I am just contesting the idea that these behaviours are common. Some people like to act as if there's some manner of plague of them in the game which makes a huge amount of players be deadly silent out of fear of getting banned. Which is no where near to being true.

Gamers are often introverts, there's no general chat channels, the game provides an easy way to make several private chat channels and discord has replaced game chat for many. These are the strong contributing factors to how the game chat looks. Not this bogeyman of a horde of easily offended malicious players who are actually an extreme minority.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

I never said it doesn't happen and I did not mean to come across this way. I am just contesting the idea that these behaviours are common. Some people like to act as if there's some manner of plague of them in the game which makes a huge amount of players be deadly silent out of fear of getting banned. Which is no where near to being true.

Gamers are often introverts, there's no general chat channels, the game provides an easy way to make several private chat channels and discord has replaced game chat for many. These are the strong contributing factors to how the game chat looks. Not this bogeyman of a horde of easily offended malicious players who are actually an extreme minority.

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Ah, apologies. I can understand that viewpoint. I think the bigger problem resides in the fact that it honestly doesn't matter if it exists or doesn't exist, it's that the perception of it is prevalent enough that it clouds people's thinking into believing it's far more common than it is. I know right after the TOS got updated, even though the harassment policy was already in there, many people took it as their queue to lower their heads.

I've been kind of nervous of party/alliance chats because passive aggression gets to me - maybe that's because I over-think too much, and I have a habit of not staying silent when BS is thrown about. Take yesterday: the tank of a Temple of the Fist group said they skipped the entire story when they entered the instance. The others in my group asked "why?" and the tank responded by saying they don't enjoy the story too much. Enter me and another saying "can't really judge before you play! :D" at the same time.

In this moment I had my watching partner instantly warn me not to say more, in case I incurred the ire of a report or a catty retort. I gave the WAR a chance and they stayed light-hearted about it, so the conversation ended soon.

Their first pull was nice and big, and I had nearly no problem keeping them up (AST is fun!). They said in chat, "I was a bit nervous there". I took the risk and jokily said "Use Raw Intuition and be fearless, my friend!". They listened to me next pull and it went even better, so I couldn't help throw out a "sick!". And this is where my overthinking began: WAR queried "what's sick?". I gulped, wondering if they misunderstood. "I meant it as a compliment ><" I nervously clarified; but seems I was wrong, because they then asked "I know, but what was sick exactly?".

It doesn't sound like a big deal but I hid my head in my hands for a few moments, embarrassed at myself. My partner was of course saying "told you so" in my ear. I turned off chat in fear and never looked at it again.

I probably screwed up in the conversation in some way. But honestly my partner was right: so much stupid overanalyzing and agonizing over a perhaps harmless remark making the talk not worth it. I imagine there's people like me out there nervous of a confrontation or being unfortunate enough of talking to someone who might just make fun of them. Being quiet is just easier, if stiff and boring.

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Originally Posted by ArkenaeuxBelmont

Ah, apologies. I can understand that viewpoint. I think the bigger problem resides in the fact that it honestly doesn't matter if it exists or doesn't exist, it's that the perception of it is prevalent enough that it clouds people's thinking into believing it's far more common than it is.

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Exactly this.

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Originally Posted by ArkenaeuxBelmont

I know right after the TOS got updated, even though the harassment policy was already in there, many people took it as their queue to lower their heads.

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The ToS about what sort of chat is forbidden is vague in places because if the ToS was written to be extremely precise some players would find a subject it doesn't cover, use that to harass people, and then get away with it because the ToS doesn't explicitly forbid it. By not being entirely clear as to what the forbidden behaviour is SE can take action on any behaviour they judge to be bad for the game whether it's something they're already aware that can happen or something they didn't expect to happen.

But some people took the above to mean "oh my god someone can get me in trouble if they get offended that I say my favourite colour is blue!". Though I think in many cases it's people pretending to be concerned about that, and what they're truly concerned about is they don't know exactly what awful behaviour they can freely do. I genuinely think if someone has a huge issue with being worried that anything they say could get them into trouble either have an anxiety issue or they're someone who is fully aware that they often say very offensive things.

I know alot of social interaction is happening in PMs and linkshells in city hubs. But if you want out in the open interaction you should look into RP houses on your DC. On mine i know of a casino, night club and fight club i goto and there's tons of socializing going on

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Exactly this.



The ToS about what sort of chat is forbidden is vague in places because if the ToS was written to be extremely precise some players would find a subject it doesn't cover, use that to harass people, and then get away with it because the ToS doesn't explicitly forbid it. By not being entirely clear as to what the forbidden behaviour is SE can take action on any behaviour they judge to be bad for the game whether it's something they're already aware that can happen or something they didn't expect to happen.

But some people took the above to mean "oh my god someone can get me in trouble if they get offended that I say my favourite colour is blue!". Though I think in many cases it's people pretending to be concerned about that, and what they're truly concerned about is they don't know exactly what awful behaviour they can freely do. I genuinely think if someone has a huge issue with being worried that anything they say could get them into trouble either have an anxiety issue or they're someone who is fully aware that they often say very offensive things.

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OK...I'm going to say what a lot of people are tiptoeing around.

If the chat turns to anything remotely political and your position isn't 100% hardcore leftwing you will be reported as engaging hate speech (whether it fits any rational definition of "hate speech" or not), but the attacks from the other side don't get the same classification. The way the new ToS update is worded supports that too.

If you comment on someone playing other than telling them good job, you will also often be reported.

Also, as much as most of us dislike Reddit, the advice they give constantly to anyone who gets even slightly offended or upset at something someone said is "report them". Literally that is their advice like 100% of the time.

EDIT: This community loves to scream across the internet about how awesome it is. But anyone who pays attention knows it's basically the "peace of the gun".

People can hate on other MMOs and their toxic communities, but none of them can hold a candle to the passive aggressiveness in this one and the attempts to silence anyone they dislike.

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Originally Posted by Vav2021

I know there *are* people out there that talk, but it seems so rare. Are people just shy of talking? Is it a cross-console thing so they can't do it effectively without it taking minutes at a time? Or is this another one of those things that discord effects?

It just doesn't seem alive, even in populated areas where the ambient chatter implies that there's a lot of talking and a cacophony of voices tries to add to what would be the discussions of other players.

What's the reason behind the lack of social interactions?

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That's the Discord effect, people talk in voice and forget about the rest of the world.

Rare are the players who still work in text and when you want to go fast in a dungeon, well, you don't talk.

People got used to the idea of convenient voice chats via stuff like discord (which is a lot less clunky than ventrilo and teamspeak, which was why it wasn't a "problem" back then) so the idea of stopping in your tracks to type in a tiny in-game chat box can feel irksome. You also have PS4/5 players without usb keyboards connected that certainly can't be expected to use the horrendous virtual keyboard.
In addition to that the game's combat doesn't leave time to type anything between actions, unlike in a slower paced combat like older MMORPGs or FFXI.
This game also encourages a culture of pretending this is anything like offline FFs, and some players embrace that by trying to ignore the MMO aspects of it as much as possible, including chatting with strangers beyond saying hi and goodbye for duties.

FC, linkshell, party chats, novice network and discord. If you would like discussion the easiest you could probably get some is with a /shout in a busy area.

Don't need to talk unless there's words that need to be said :/If everythings getting done, silence it is.

Doesn't seem alive ?
Have you been to Lomsa Lomisa ?
I'm going to make a huge assumption that you probably played WoW, op.

And honestly thank god there is no /2 Trade Chat in this game.
There's just no need for it. Honestly, even in WoW there was no need for it lmao.
Also, there's a general culture of moderation in this game so people are careful about "public" interaction me thinks.

Depends on the time of the day. If it is 2am, the most you're getting out of me is a hello. If its 10pm, I might be more open to random conversation.

Its a combination of sorts.

1. Discord. I am biased, I hate that thing. Its the reason, why I am still searching for a FC in my language that actively does not have one (probably forever).

With that thing in place you will often be left behind, but thats the consequence I have to live with.

2. Effective play in Dungeons. Every word you write is a dps loss.

3. Not every console player has a keyboard to write, although its not that complicated, actually.

__

The three things mentioned are not a bad thing. It depends on what kind of player you are. FFXIV by design encourages talkative and soloplayers alike.

But actually, try and initiate a conversation. People often will talk after breakinb the ice. A hello wont cut it though.

In my experience, people have mostly begun piping up when there's been a wipe, or something else has gone really wrong.
However, not in a negative way. I was in a dungeon yesterday where we all did the standard "hello" and "o/" stuff, then remained silent until the last boss.
We wiped a couple times on the boss, and that's when the "oops :D" and "haha i goofed up" comments started coming.

I'm fairly guilty of this myself in PuG content, I mostly remain silent until I feel like chatting is warranted. I also feel that people will get a little annoyed if they see me suddenly stop and lag behind the group and making them wait because I'm typing.

I'm the one who annoys their party members by chatting the whole dungeon when there isn't an active fight going on. :D

I'm on PC but use a gamepad, and don't always feel like setting it down to say something.

It's simply because there no "General" chat in game or there would be more chatter. I always hear more in main towns through /say and NN is constantly active.

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Originally Posted by Conundrum

OK...I'm going to say what a lot of people are tiptoeing around.

If the chat turns to anything remotely political and your position isn't 100% hardcore leftwing you will be reported as engaging hate speech (whether it fits any rational definition of "hate speech" or not), but the attacks from the other side don't get the same classification. The way the new ToS update is worded supports that too.

If you comment on someone playing other than telling them good job, you will also often be reported.

Also, as much as most of us dislike Reddit, the advice they give constantly to anyone who gets even slightly offended or upset at something someone said is "report them". Literally that is their advice like 100% of the time.

EDIT: This community loves to scream across the internet about how awesome it is. But anyone who pays attention knows it's basically the "peace of the gun".

People can hate on other MMOs and their toxic communities, but none of them can hold a candle to the passive aggressiveness in this one and the attempts to silence anyone they dislike.

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Like practically every discussion of politics everywhere. An objectively productive discussion can easily turn into a slugfest of adhominen regardless of the game, or place.

If you comment on someone that has the vibe of you being insulting or demeaning to another person then yes they are going to report you. Again, going back to the whole "Why was I banned I did nothing wrong" - despite more often than not the person is exhibiting a behaviour that goes against the terms of service.

Linking someone a guide is not going to get you banned. Encouraging people to get better is not going to get you banned. Suggesting that someone maintains their DoTs is not going to get you banned. Telling someone they suck at the game and they should uninstall the game is an offense, as is telling someone they don't belong in an area of content.

There's a lot more people that are utterly devoid of reflecting on their own behaviour that they don't see how their own actions are interpreted as to what there are people reporting you for telling them to keep up their DoTs.

Sure the community has toxic areas to it, very much so, in all areas of the game. But to even remotely infer that this is why people are silent is asinine, and going beyond with hyperbole. If anyone even feels like they need to never speak in-game due to your reasons then I would argue it has a whole lot more to do with them not being able to express themselves in a relatively polite manner than it does someone reporting you and getting you banned for linking a guide or telling them to maintain their DoTs.

FYI: There were no updates to the terms of service itself, at least the clauses of which people need to adhere to. They merely clarified their pre-existing terms. They've been reportable long before this. But seemingly people have an issue with understanding what actually constitutes as rude behaviour. Ironically, there was already a thread on this, and low and behold some of the people complaining that you could be reported for anything were also the folk subsequently pushing out passive-aggressive remarks, or even outright rude remarks.

In all seriousness the number one reason is, why use a chat at all if you don't have a <call.5>.

I'll be your friend!

I’m just quiet because i don’t want to risk people getting upset when i talk. Already had an issue where i used the word “triggered” and someone gave me an essay of a talking down to. This community is wild.

The game systems' heavy (much heavier than almost any other MMO except the first Guild Wars, really) focus on instanced duty content is a large part of it, I think.

The overworld, for all its beauty, goes almost criminally under utilized after MSQ is done. Sadly, I suspect this is necessary due to the limited facilities SE has for detecting bots; the Special Task Force is small and Japanese law severely limits cheat detection software as most particularly, scanning the user's system to automatically report suspicious software - the normally used method among Western and Korean games for cheat detection - is a privacy violation in JP. As a result, SE has more or less to design the game to mitigate the effectiveness of botting in order to keep its impact under control. So apart from a scant few beast tribe dailies a day, gathering, FATEs, and hunts, there actually really isn't a lot of repeatable overworld content in XIV, unlike even other GCD tab target MMOs like SW:TOR and WoW, to say nothing of Sandbox types like BDO.

As a result the vast majority of player activity is spent in instanced duty. This puts a damper on ingame communication in several ways; not only does it impact "outward" chat activity, it even has a noticeable effect on FCs and linkshells, which I have found tend to be much quieter than guild chat in any other MMO that I've played.

- Because you're usually in a party for instanced duty, by far the most active chat if any tends to be the Party chat. Even in busy FCs, people tend to much more often talk to their parties than the guild at large, which I've actually found to be a weakness in XIV as unless you are lucky or cliquey enough to get in on one of the day's FC roulette parties, even being guilded is often rather lonely.

- Because most activity takes place WITHIN an instanced duty, forming bonds in the first place can be difficult, not least because of the fact that XIV entirely forbids whisper/tell chat either into or out of a duty. Where a WoW player's DBM addon might let you know they're busy in a boss fight if you message them during a dungeon, XIV simply won't let you send such a message at all. (This appears to be a deliberate design decision; it isn't the server infrastructure at play since Cross-world tells are a thing, plus GMs can still send you tells whilst in duty).

- Even if there wasn't the aforementioned chat limitation (and no global general chat outside of Novice Network, which explains a lot about NN culture as well) the fact that most of the time you're actively playing you ARE in a duty party, and people prefer to run things at the fastest possible pace, simply leaves little time to chat unless someone is waiting in a queue as DPS or you're in a Praetorium cutscene. :(

People in this game spend more time hugging and licking and prodding and roleplaying. I'll pass.

Maybe its your server, Mine is constantly full of chit chat, Primal data center dungeon chit chat all the time as well.

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Originally Posted by Conundrum

OK...I'm going to say what a lot of people are tiptoeing around.

If the chat turns to anything remotely political and your position isn't 100% hardcore leftwing you will be reported as engaging hate speech (whether it fits any rational definition of "hate speech" or not), but the attacks from the other side don't get the same classification. The way the new ToS update is worded supports that too.

If you comment on someone playing other than telling them good job, you will also often be reported.

Also, as much as most of us dislike Reddit, the advice they give constantly to anyone who gets even slightly offended or upset at something someone said is "report them". Literally that is their advice like 100% of the time.

EDIT: This community loves to scream across the internet about how awesome it is. But anyone who pays attention knows it's basically the "peace of the gun".

People can hate on other MMOs and their toxic communities, but none of them can hold a candle to the passive aggressiveness in this one and the attempts to silence anyone they dislike.

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Well said.

Most people just use out-of-game apps to communicate with things regarding the game. Even then, most just aren't willing to do with strangers. Everyone's here to do our dailies and log off.