My impression of English Forum

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Originally Posted by R041

Now I definitely don't believe you. Older F2P MMOs are the most toxic to each other, and the devs. Players absolutely hate Nexon.

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I don't know much about what's happening in the international severs. In my local/national servers, while we did have a lot of disgruntles toward Devs, such as Nexon or the local publisher. I 'd not seen the negativity to the degree of labeling devs or other players with something they're not, yes, we called the devs or publishers greedy and stuff, but I'd not seen they being called racists or any form of -ist before.

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Originally Posted by R041

Nvm, you started playing post-Shadowbringers, quit after a week? Then started up again during the WoW Exodus. This all tracks, carry on.

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For clarity, I tried the free trial during the Shadowbringer, in which allowed me to play up to level 30 without paying a dime. I then purchased the game during the so called "WoW Exodus" after seeing Rich Campbell's Brute Justice video, I have a huge soft spot for good soundtracks, as well as after being bombarded by my friend telling me that I can play up to Lv.60 and Heavensward now.

I've fallen in love with FFXIV and its community ever since, and while I may sometimes troll/shitpost on Discord servers, FFXIV forum is the place where I will never EVER shitpost on, for it's the part of the community of the game that I hold close to my heart, the game that saved my life and inspired me to move forward. I wish nothing but the best for FFXIV and its community, and I would like to apologize if my post or thread has caused any of you to feel discomfort.

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Originally Posted by NiceNox

I don't know much about what's happening in the international severs. In my local/national servers, while we did have a lot of disgruntles toward Devs, such as Nexon or the local publisher. I 'd not seen the negativity to the degree of labeling devs or other players with something they're not, yes, we called the devs or publishers greedy and stuff, but I'd not seen they being called racists or any form of -ist before.

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This is the internet, that's not new. It's been a thing since forever. Those are trolls.. Also, it's happening all around us on every forum everywhere. The Racist shit because X race isn't prominent? That's also old but kinda hip today. But trolls have always existed.

1. Character has a fat face? "I guess beautiful women don't exist anymore!"
2. Fat body? "Gross, nobody in combat should be fat!"
3. Skinny body? "Why am I anorexic!?"
4. Different races? "Too many color X!"
5. Not enough races? "Racist!"

And I suggest you read what I said above about criticism. These will all apply to you, and you have to mostly ignore them and learn how to filter to the productive feedback. The fact that you even created this thread, and feel stressed out about a random pocket community for a product you had no hand in creating, already tells me you're not ready to present something to the world that can take criticism. You're too pure right now, we gotta break you in. lol

Try this out.. https://old.reddit.com/r/ShitpostXIV/

Also, if you've ever owned or been on a private server for any game. LOL super toxic.

https://www.esportsbets.com/news/tox...g-communities/

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Originally Posted by NiceNox

the game that saved my life and inspired me to move forward. I wish nothing but the best for FFXIV and its community

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That's great dude, and I'm proud of you - But, you can't really expect humanity to stop and be kind to each other on a multiplayer notepad all of a sudden because you had a moment. You know? We all got problems and deal with them differently. XIV is just a game, a product by a corporation, and has several pockets of communities.

It's also not healthy to grip and evangelize 1 specific thing because it held you down to earth. Might be time to find some more anchors. If this helped you find an FC/community that plays several different games, even better.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Honestly, I would love the forum sanctions to be tied in with in-game sanctions. Banned on here? Should be banned in-game too, frankly.

Might actually help simmer down some folk.

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But noone gets banned here anyway

Honestly? When I took my 2-3 year break from the game at the start of COVID lockdowns, the English forum seemed pretty heavily moderated at the time, or at least it felt like it. I remember there even used to be a thread trying to open dialogue with the moderators over concerns that the forum moderation was too strict, as a fair number of contributors and guide writers over the years even got permanently nailed for getting too sassy at other people at times. Some bans were even being handed out for posts that had existed for YEARS on these forums before the actual bans came, and others for posts being made in the Duty Finder thread that would have only made sense if the moderation staff took things very out of context.

Now? I've basically returned to the forums devolving into a total free-for-all, where a circle of trolls has basically sucked all the energy out of the room. Even the lore forum had people squabbling at each other over petty personal arguments, which is something I remember Anonymoose was openly trying to curb years ago. I'm not sure what happened to the moderation staff over the years, but this place is an utter cesspool and a complete joke now.

You don't come on a forum to talk about what's good. You come to talk about what seem problematic to you. That goes far beyond video games.

Forums tend to be a place for people to vent when something is not how they wished it was, which is why the tone tends to be quite harsh most of the time. And also there is people trolling. That's pretty much it.
There are some threads with players just having a good time, but it's not that many.

Because of this, these forums can be a very unappealing place to be. I imagine the culture shock already being hard enough, when visiting other countries for a longer period of time - you now, when people actually DO behave themselves, due to fear of consequences. But having this forum as a first impression of sorts, must have been a devastating experience >.<.

I honestly feel kind of sorry for this. There is probably better places to talk about FFXIV-related things, exchanging opitions and such. Since I personally stick to my friends most of the time, I cannot point towards any tough =/.

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Originally Posted by Shinkuno

But noone gets banned here anyway

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People have, and most recently a certain poster has actually been banned.

That being said, in any circumstance, I think the potentiality of it alone would be enough to encourage people to spend less time berating, and more time engaging in an actual discussion.

Very occasionally there's some reasonable discussion and feedback here but most of the time it's spam, trolls and hatred. The biggest hatred topics are from the trolls, not genuine displays of anger at the developers. Some people think it's funny to make over-the-top outrage topics with accusations of racism and xenophobia. When those people grow up, there's always new kids born to take their place and a lack of moderation to clean that stuff up. The general feeling is the S-E staff abandoned this place and the post quality reflects that. They also will seemingly never update the forum software for the entire lifetime of the game so it's not a very good experience especially on mobile; most of the English community prefer to use reddit/r/ffxiv which is one of the most popular subreddits in all of gaming.

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Originally Posted by Shinkuno

But noone gets banned here anyway

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Bans are definitely issued. I can personally vouch for it since I got banned for a typo, which goes to show that if you're a circle jerker in these parts you can say whatever you want with very little worry. I think that is what you mean to say. We don't get notifications when someone gets a temporary or permanent ban. You will only see this if the person being banned is yourself.

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Originally Posted by Xelanar

I honestly feel kind of sorry for this. There is probably better places to talk about FFXIV-related things, exchanging opitions and such. Since I personally stick to my friends most of the time, I cannot point towards any tough =/.

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It's sad. It is saddening that some people have it so good irl to be able to even play FFXIV from a heated/air conditioned comfy home, behind a monitor and are able to access to internet while sipping back their favorite beverage, yet can still possess so much vitriol towards something they supposedly love. Then also go off feeling justified about it because the internet in general is a giant cesspool of toxicity.

There is a better place to talk about FFXIV, and it is among friends and companions within the game itself. Whenever a major patch is released, many players will congregate to converse in their FCs, discords, or other social mediums about what they enjoy about it and give honest constructive criticism about their dislikes with out it sounding... well, like these forums. The very mention of the OF is typically met with, "Yeah, that's why I stay away from there."

people here never post something to discuss, but to angry or rant about something.

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Originally Posted by kevin_satron

people here never post something to discuss, but to angry or rant about something.

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You'll find that this happens most often when players come in to leave feedback, as this is supposedly the place where YoshiP and his crew wants feedback to be left, and then other players will come into the thread and either agree or disagree, and in most cases try to add their 2 cents. Whether they feel justified in doing so, it always turns into an argument because "discussion," on either side of the proposed feedback, devolves into an "us vs them" mentality of those in support of the feedback vs those not in support.
Which, frankly, shouldn't even be happening because feedback, at least in my opinion, should be something given in private to prevent this scenario from happening so often. Feedback isn't meant to be discussed amongst players, because players cannot determine the value of the feedback on behalf of the developer; therefore, discussion over feedback, about its validity or otherwise, is just an effective way for feedback (mostly negative, but also the positive as a direct result) to be scrubbed away without Squeen needing to involve themselves.

Basically, if you want people to "stop being angry" on the forums to the dramatic degree you're thinking of, then Squeen needs to make a place to provide feedback that doesn't subject said feedback to a public trial. An email inbox, for an extremely simple example.

The forums, and specifically the GENERAL forums are an exceedingly poor representation of the community. I'd say a good third of the regular posters in general here are only here to argue and troll (and a good third of THOSE are the same person).


If you actually want discussion about a feature or lack of feature or game mechanic I suggest finding the subforum dedicated to that arm of the game. Those people actually want to talk about things for the most part.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Honestly, I would love the forum sanctions to be tied in with in-game sanctions. Banned on here? Should be banned in-game too, frankly.

Might actually help simmer down some folk.

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This actually already happens. Just not for every forum ban. It like most things depends on the severity of the situation. Some things are a ban in just the game. Some are a ban on just the forums, and other times you can be banned on both at the same time. Though it takes something really extreme for a forum ban to result into an in-game ban. There's a reason that most people use Reddit and Twitter instead of the official forums. They can't have their feelings/complaints/passive aggressive behavior traced back to their characters.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Honestly, I would love the forum sanctions to be tied in with in-game sanctions. Banned on here? Should be banned in-game too, frankly.

Might actually help simmer down some folk.

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All that would accomplish is killing any and all activity on this forum. It simply wouldn't be worth risking your account on the whims of very random and inconsistent moderation. Just off my own anecdotal experience from various friends and people I've played with, some of been permabanned for a single swear word offense... yet if I type that same four letter word in the search box right now, I'll find... oh, let's see: five pages of it showing up. A friend of mine was flagged for mentioning that website we all know and love some time back despite the fact we've seen threads dedicated to talking about parsers and just about every other third party program under the sun. In fact, someone made a thread naming literally all of the major plugins that lasted for weeks.

Moderation here often comes down to mass reporting, which will encourage witch hunting.

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Originally Posted by NiceNox

womp womp

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Final Fantasy XIV is a video game, not a religion.

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Originally Posted by NiceNox

however, the more I looked into the English Forum, the more my curiosity turned into sadness, and interest into horror; the amount of hatred toward not only other players, but also the game and developers themselves are very scary to see, for, in my 20 years of gaming, I'd never seen such a hatred from the community that "loves" the game before. What I saw were not constructive criticisms, but abuses, guilt-tripping, gaslighting, and hatred towards not only the players but the people behind the game and the game itself, calling and labelling them with something they are not, strawmaning their statements and actions, as well as various forms of fallacies, as well.

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Yep, welcome to the English forums. It's honestly like wandering into a debate club where everyone is here to argue arbitrary points for no real reason.

A large part of this is really that it's just a vicious cycle. When I first started using these forums this was the behavior that I was greeted with, and this was what seemed to be the only tool you had to fight back.

On a personal note I've been trying to be better about responding to these people and being better when I do respond to them. Dropping to their level in responses isn't healthy and it probably gives them a lot of satisfaction. I don't think a lot of them are genuine trolls. They believe what they're saying, but most of them are willing to go to extreme lengths to prove themselves right. You're not going to make any headway with these people so the best that you can do is hope that any onlookers understand the non-sense you're dealing with.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

I tend to find that those people equate the message with the messenger..always a fatal flaw. Doesnt matter who says it, if what they say is true or accurate, whoever says it isnt important. I had one poster call my posts "rage filled" which is hysterically funny, considering they are nothing of the kind.

This forum has this weird idea that they "represent the community"..which they dont. I wont agree on "tribalism", more a hivemind that doesnt approve of others disagreeing with their "meta" on what they believe people should think of the game. Caliing someone a "white knight' is also a pejorative, to some people here, the cold brutal fact is some of them will NEVER be satisfied, no matter what the devs do.

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I can't say enough how much I agree with this post.

In one thread, someone told a lie about me. I exposed the lie outright. They repeated the lie in a reply. Now, because in that forum area, a lot of the people disagree with me (that I don't think Healing is horribly broken and while I think SCH and AST need big changes, I think WHM and SGE are in pretty good places and only need minor tweaks), they will Like/upvote any post bashing me. So even with me outright exposing someone as lying about me and that they were trying to derail a legitimate discussion, their posts got 7-10 Likes despite having zero value to like, all because they were attacking me (the messenger) of a message they collectively disagree with.

And yeah, the "u mad" and such is just hilarious (I usually just laugh at those and respond in a similar vein at the absurdity of it) considering how my posts are generally neutral in tone and offering direct and dispassionate arguments and/or rebuttals.

And it's also insane to me how a handful of 5-10 people (it's usually no more than that) of consistent posters in various parts of these forums somehow think they speak for the vast majority of the playerbase. A playerbase which is so content with the game they don't even bother coming to post on these forums, and may not even know they exist, and for whom those people definitely do not speak.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

All that would accomplish is killing any and all activity on this forum. It simply wouldn't be worth risking your account on the whims of very random and inconsistent moderation. Just off my own anecdotal experience from various friends and people I've played with, some of been permabanned for a single swear word offense... yet if I type that same four letter word in the search box right now, I'll find... oh, let's see: five pages of it showing up. A friend of mine was flagged for mentioning that website we all know and love some time back despite the fact we've seen threads dedicated to talking about parsers and just about every other third party program under the sun. In fact, someone made a thread naming literally all of the major plugins that lasted for weeks.

Moderation here often comes down to mass reporting, which will encourage witch hunting.

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It's more than five pages, the forums only display at most 5 pages from your current page.

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

Final Fantasy XIV is a video game, not a religion.

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I do understand your sentiment and message. I can assure you that I don't see Final Fantasy XIV in the same light as the religion or take it seriously as a kind of spiritual guidance. With that said, I do however have a special place in my heart for Final Fantasy XIV. As I've stated before, Final Fantasy XIV has helped me from the nasty place in the past, and well as has inspired me to live better and see life in a more positive note. And because of that, I do care quite a lot for, not only the game, but the official community around it as well, after all, I see Eorzea as another home, and if I feel like something is wrong with my home, I will not shy to express my opinion in a polite and careful manner.

I am grateful for your comment and reminding me to not get too attached to the virtual world. If my post has made you uncomfortable in anyway, I would like to apologize for such inconvenient as well.

Took another peek at the WoW forums and theyre much saner than us. We desperetly all need to seek help and do better as a community.

"Our actions will speak louder, than words. Please look forward to us"

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Took another peek at the WoW forums and theyre much saner than us. We desperetly all need to seek help and do better as a community.

"Our actions will speak louder, than words. Please look forward to us"

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Those forums are more heavily moderated now, I think.

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Originally Posted by NiceNox

I do understand your sentiment and message. I can assure you that I don't see Final Fantasy XIV in the same light as the religion or take it seriously as a kind of spiritual guidance. With that said, I do however have a special place in my heart for Final Fantasy XIV. As I've stated before, Final Fantasy XIV has helped me from the nasty place in the past, and well as has inspired me to live better and see life in a more positive note. And because of that, I do care quite a lot for, not only the game, but the official community around it as well, after all, I see Eorzea as another home, and if I feel like something is wrong with my home, I will not shy to express my opinion in a polite and careful manner.

I am grateful for your comment and reminding me to not get too attached to the virtual world. If my post has made you uncomfortable in anyway, I would like to apologize for such inconvenient as well.

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A look at the other side of the coin, if you don't mind. I started in HW. FFXIV was not only my main game, it was something that kept me sane in a horrific spiral of unfortunate circumstances. I put a lot of hours in the game back then, was very active in my free company, tutored new players actively, did savage, did ultimates, absorbed exploration content like a sponge. Even when I started to ween off the game in Shadowbringers due to gameplay changes I didn't really agree with, I still challenged myself by going for Saint of the Firmament, Delubrum Delver, and eeking out as much depth as I could in my lobotomized job. (6/2 Dark Knight compared to sub 2.00 SkS Dark Knight).

It was for nothing, man. There is a gaping void in my heart where FFXIV was, apologies for the dramatics, that I've been constantly filling with other things. My life is in a slightly better position now, but there is nothing but apathy I feel towards XIV. My friends and comrades have quit. I'm a hold out of maybe, half a dozen, when before I was in a large community. I would be gone myself if that hold-out didn't keep paying a month sub for me, begging for me to stay and play every once in awhile as one of the only two tank players who remained. The reasons they all left became pretty similar after a point. "I don't like healers, I'm a healer main, I'm not listened to." "I don't like the reworks, they ruined all my jobs, I'm done." " I HATED Endwalker, ruined the Ancients, my investment was pointless." "The game is boring, I'm not interested in venues, I wanna play an actual video game that has a midcore scene ffs."

When people like say, Renathras (not going after him in particular, just an example), say that my feelings and experiences are not representative of the entire community, I have to think, well no **** they're not. God, I hope not! This has been AWFUL! At the absolute best, Odinel is a representative or epitome of a niche of Heavensward Dark Knight mains who are eternally bitter the game went in a different direction who just cannot let go.

Look, when it comes to things people want changed, it took seven years for Living Dead to not be a bad skill. That was a good win for my side. But it's also a great litmus test for the extreme in what it'll actually take for Square Enix to make sensible decisions from my perspective. That's one skill. Are tanks and healers ever going to get more depth? Is encounter design ever going to ask more of the players outisde of back-breaking ultimates? Is the skill ceiling ever going to allowed to be raised for jobs? Is the story going in a direction I find interesting? Are we ever going back to Heavensward/Stormblood? Those are big, systemic asks that would make me quite happy.

The answer is almost certainly a firm no. We will never go back, by their own admission as development staff. So, when it comes to things like the Official Forums being toxic, or whatever, I don't see why it's such a big deal, existentially. Square Enix will continue doing what they are doing, because there's literally no reason why they shouldn't. Eventually, the people who aren't masochists are going to leave if they don't like it. That's the natural order. We've been losing ground, and have lost much over the last two expansions, and it isn't coming back. I do not see the point in offering feedback when it goes the way of Kaiten or the "Just play ultimate" messes. There just isn't a point to it. So what's left? Screaming into the void, and at each other, since screaming at SE has minimal effect. And that's without getting into the chronic amount of trolling, and deliberate bad faith flinging going on.

You seem happy with things, and are trying to bring back a bit of compassion back to the board. That's admirable, but it's for the best that you go and enjoy yourself elsewhere instead of lamenting like some of us, or bickering meaninglessly like all of us. You're not being inconvenient, and there's no need to apologize. But you're just not the part of the community that feels like it was abandoned in the sweeping changes over time, however small that portion is. Wish I was never a part of that contingent, but c'est la vie.

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Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

I still challenged myself by going for Saint of the Firmament, Delubrum Delver, and eeking out as much depth as I could in my lobotomized job.

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I did that sort of stuff in HW and like you I found whatever achievement or completion things I could over time to occupy myself, although for me personally they have been enough.

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Odinel is a representative or epitome of a niche of Heavensward Dark Knight mains who are eternally bitter the game went in a different direction who just cannot let go.

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I can relate to how Dark Knight was fun and dynamic, with something completely different for each situation instead of just doing the same thing all the time. I remember in A12S I was doing completely different things at different parts of the fight, whereas now I would just be spamming my 1-2-3 combo or my 2-button aoe combo with no thought, and the MP management is still there with edges and floods but it's braindead compared to then, effectively just another ogcd.

I suppose that, I just take an objective view of the whole thing. Dark Knight felt buggy and unpolished, like all jobs in HW. RNG mitigation that procs RNG mitigation that is locked behind certain stances which involve MP management that I could imagine many new players not even grasping long into their journey through the game. Not to mention we had players asking for parry buffs to go, for useless actions to go, and for cross-class to be overhauled somehow, and all of that is exactly what happened. Then Dark Arts got meme'd out of the game by players.

The only decision really that wasn't effectively asked for by players was the removal of DPS stances, but it wasn't hard to see how half of players used tank stance all the time and half of players used DPS stance all the time on tanks, and how people were fundamentally abusing the stat system to give tanks more strength than they were meant to have. So there was a long term project to overhaul it so that this wasn't possible which was completed by Shadowbringers by making tanks have the exact same amount of stats but then alter them through traits. Objectively, all these things created a giant skill gap among tanks that was far bigger than it is today, and a skill gap still exists but it's not as bad as it used to be because they are easier to play.

Because you could get a PLD in tank stance spamming Rage of Halone and another tank in their DPS stance with full strength accessories doing only their DPS rotation with food and pots and that was the sort of crazy difference you could see and although it's fun to have the ability to optimize and be better than someone who isn't trying or putting any work in, it seemed like a mountain someone had to climb to turn from an anxious tank that spams an enmity combo in tank stance to the latter. The pathway is a lot more straight-forward now, because when you jump into high-end content you are probably doing a lot of things right and just need to learn about food, pots and swaps.

I liked stance dancing, but I just gulped and accepted the skill gap needed addressing and I personally still enjoy tanking.

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Originally Posted by EliaStormblade

Those forums are more heavily moderated now, I think.

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I wouldn't say heavily but they are moderated.

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Originally Posted by TitanMenII

Agreed. The amount of homophobia and transphobia on these forums is alarming.

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Thank you for your contribution TitanMen, i would have been unable to read the OP without your colors. Now im finally able to read.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Took another peek at the WoW forums and theyre much saner than us. We desperetly all need to seek help and do better as a community.

"Our actions will speak louder, than words. Please look forward to us"

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I do at work probably every day cuz bored....they are not saner

I feel like FFXIV has done more harm to my life with the people I met through this game and ended up associating with than it has good. Unfortunately for me, I am way to addicted to this game to get off. Even though I have taken breaks and played other games, I always return to this place to realize nothing has changed and it probably never will.

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Originally Posted by N_GON

My theory,

Reddit has an upvote downvote system that silences dissent. Discord communities and twitch lobbies ban people who don't fit in. The forums are the only place that allows all posts to get equal representation. Therefore, they get the people that don't get attention for their hot takes elsewhere.

To be clear, I think reddit's visibility formula is disastrous for society in ways we do not yet understand. But it has caused official forums like these to get much worse.

Basically. Everyone here has a hot take. Most of these posts would be downvoted into oblivion elsewhere.

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Reddit is a ceasepool with that too. I've had completely harmless posts downvoted into oblivion. Which begs the question if people just downvote to troll, witchhunt, or bots are used to do it. I don't really know. But for that reason, I can't ever support a downvote that filters posts out.

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Originally Posted by N_GON

My theory,

Reddit has an upvote downvote system that silences dissent. Discord communities and twitch lobbies ban people who don't fit in. The forums are the only place that allows all posts to get equal representation. Therefore, they get the people that don't get attention for their hot takes elsewhere.

To be clear, I think reddit's visibility formula is disastrous for society in ways we do not yet understand. But it has caused official forums like these to get much worse.

Basically. Everyone here has a hot take. Most of these posts would be downvoted into oblivion elsewhere.

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I don't know that places that allow majorities to suppress minorities is better. Reddit is a huge echo chamber because of this. You could have someone with a very keen or truthful observation get downvoted just because it doesn't fit the narrative the thread is going for. This in turn causes negativity, hate, and depression in a person who was attempting to be rational.

It's true the forums have their downsides but at least it leaves it up to people to determine what information is worth interacting with instead of systematically eradicating voices.

The harsh way people talk on the EN forums has come from the fact that most EN feedback is put directly into the shredder in favor of JP feedback. EN players feel like nobody listens to what they post so it gets harsher and harsher without any recognition from the devs that they're listening.
There have been severe ping and latency related issues for the life of the game, especially for certain jobs that rely on double weaving, and the root cause has yet to be even addressed or acknowledged by the devs because JP is mostly unaffected.
Live Letters are in JP only and EN players have to wait for a translation or rely on amateur translators to get information about the next patch.
Housing has been an issue in NA for years but only when it affects JP do we get action.
Patches drop at 3AM NA time which is incredibly inconvenient for NA players on every single patch.
It feels like EN is an afterthought and JP is what the devs really care about. That's why the forums end up like this.

and also Titanman loves to make bait threads.

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Originally Posted by N_GON

Just to be clear, I was not supporting Reddit or implying that it is better. What I was saying is that these kinds of sites have caused problems that extend beyond that particular site. In other words, Reddit is so bad it causes problems even outside of Reddit itself. There is a large sociological impact.

I grew up in TES 3 online forums. The official forums and php third party forums from this era had virtually zero problems. Occasionally a troll had to be banned, but the general community was full of thoughtful people that were interested in genuine discussion.

Now to be fair, another element that had changed is the internet has gotten increasingly younger.

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Make sense. The FFXIV reddit is downright insane. They are unwilling to hear or accept anything that they don't like. I will never forget this post from a while back where someone merely pointed out Viera's have human anatomy when they were discussing Viera's posture.

https://i.imgur.com/yXTfBid.png

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Make sense. The FFXIV reddit is downright insane. They are unwilling to hear or accept anything that they don't like. I will never forget this post from a while back where someone merely pointed out Viera's have human anatomy when they were discussing Viera's posture.

https://i.imgur.com/yXTfBid.png

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The FF14 Subreddit is just a YoshiP worship cult.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Make sense. The FFXIV reddit is downright insane. They are unwilling to hear or accept anything that they don't like. I will never forget this post from a while back where someone merely pointed out Viera's have human anatomy when they were discussing Viera's posture.

https://i.imgur.com/yXTfBid.png

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Reddit is one of the worst sites in general for actual discussion; every subreddit becomes a circlejerk around the subreddit's predominant opinion and the awful upvote/downvote system stifles discussion and essentially functions as a "agree or else" measure. I don't like a system of likes in general, but the XIV forums themselves are better at discussion than Reddit is for the simple fact that no matter how many people like a post, it doesn't prevent people with unpopular opinions from sharing their opinion and having their posts seen. I have no clue how anyone can use that site in any capacity; even Twitter manages to be a better place for discussion than it.

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Originally Posted by Remish

Reddit is a ceasepool with that too. I've had completely harmless posts downvoted into oblivion. Which begs the question if people just downvote to troll, witchhunt, or bots are used to do it. I don't really know. But for that reason, I can't ever support a downvote that filters posts out.

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It's a bit of everything. Some people troll on their own, and there are plenty of bots downvoting people in the pinned questions thread on reddit.

Witchhunting is done by everyone now days though. I feel like we're all a part of it. Your friend posts a link to their comment/post in a friendly discord and suddenly you have a handful of upvotes in support and downvotes else where(and we know how that snowballs since a lot of people don't read and mindlessly upvote/downvote). If anything I'd say discord is the real problem. Any time large groups of people are allowed to congregate in a single location most of them tend to end up being absolutely uncivilized and they sit there enabling each other's poor behavior.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

every subreddit becomes a circlejerk around the subreddit's predominant opinion and the awful upvote/downvote system stifles discussion and essentially functions as a "agree or else" measure.

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That's just the western world, bby~! Cancel culture is just downvoting if you think about it, lmao.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Reddit is one of the worst sites in general for actual discussion; every subreddit becomes a circlejerk around the subreddit's predominant opinion and the awful upvote/downvote system stifles discussion and essentially functions as a "agree or else" measure.

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This statement right here is so sig-worthy that it hurts.

If there is one thing for sure about the subreddit, it's moderated by bunch of gposers and anime artists. Every guide or help thread gets buried under a storm of uninteresting artist creations of characters with oversized boobs. Don't even start and try to post any critism about the game, unless you like negative karma farming or waste your time with threads getting locked.

I feel the same, OP. I don't visit the forums much because the vast majority of topics are either trolls or people complaining about every minute thing. A bit disheartening.

For the record, there are many of us who truly love this game and appreciate the devs' work! We're just not as active here ;;

Edit: I don't visit reddit either, so I have no idea of how the situation is over there.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

The harsh way people talk on the EN forums has come from the fact that most EN feedback is put directly into the shredder in favor of JP feedback.

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Take a look at the Japanese forums and some of their discussions about the game on social media. We're definitely more vulgar in our communication strategies over here in the west, but the JP folks are absolutely scathing in their commentary; and they needn't resort to vulgarities to get it across. So trust me, they're just as salty as we are. The difference lies in how that salt is conveyed.

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Originally Posted by Shinkuno

The FF14 Subreddit is just a YoshiP worship cult.

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I think Reddit managed to turn Yoshi P. into a primal at some point. It explains a lot.

When games start including systems that encourage people to keep playing beyond what is healthy, it causes toxicity. MMOs tend to use a lot of these systems to give incentive to keep playing and spending money on the game, such as time limited events or rewards, daily grinding of resources, etc. World of Warcraft bit the bone hard on this but they aren't exclusive. Technically, the harder the content is to complete to get the reward and the more time someone has to sink into getting it, the longer lasting the impression becomes and it can drive someone into playing the game completely differently to how they used to.

It's not that any one system is toxic, just the culmination of having too many grinds at once to deal with can be a problem.