The integrity of the player base has fallen drastically.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

^ Biased answer, especially considering I've only seen JP players actually attempt to do shit in a non-burn/stack setup and actually succeed, versus NA players who go full-retard when you so much as mention doing something other than stacking ARC(BRD) or THM(BLM) on things.

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Too kind...it was flat out incorrect lol. Some of my best experiences are with JP pugs. Real cool and respectful.

People seem to feel they're entitled to things, we're paying for the game, yeah we're entitled.

Elitist players are annoying, yes the ones that take it too far, blist them.

PLing is present, people will use it, they will NOT, for the most part, learn after hitting 50 to play the job by doing non-EG stuff. Who cares, kick them if they don't pull their weight.

This game suffers because people in general can be pretty nasty to one another when there's no real consequences, well that's the internet, suck it up. Find people you get along w/ make/join an LS and fuck the rest of em.

PUGs tend to fail once or twice because people aren't used to one another, if someone bails because of a single fail that's their problem, rep them, and continue.

PUGs made w/ or by elitist players WILL kick you for not being elite yourself, that's them, it's part of being elite, let em have it, they put in the time to be in that clique, move on.

JPs vs. NAs has/is/will always breed some tension, there's ages old ideals at play there, it isn't true of everyone because everyone isn't the same, and no 2 PUGs are the same(statistically), so the experiences had will vary, if one isn't working move on.

Great thing there is it's really all up to you in the who you do/n't play with.

The broken ass classes/jobs need to be addressed, WAR is OP for the content, not just other jobs. Don't stop sharing thoughts and ideas but don't whine about them trying (sometimes in vain) to balance content or classes/jobs.

The whole of the media and gaming industry like much of the world has shifted to a "Consumers opinions matter" stance, WoW get and holds the record for active accts because they give the people what they want, not in all things, and we shouldn't expect everything, but they see some things from what players offer up and people WANT to stay. That's just good business.

FFXI and at launch FFXIV ignored thier players, FFXI now holds ~10k active accts, not counting the flux from trials, this fell from what 100k+ copies sold, and they all had 2 registrations, so potentially 200k+ at release, to 10k. You know what they both had in common? They ignored the players, when did everyone start saying good things and trying to get friends to return to this? When they started listening to us, started implementing things we had asked for? I think so, I quit until they started to make the changes that players were asking for.

I wouldn't consider many of these points a flaw of the community but rather the way the game is designed. Sure, you could go for a diversified party but why would the average player want to take that risk when he can play it safe and be rewarded exactly the same? The most obvious solution would be, of course, to balance the classes and make content which doesn't cater to any specific set of roles. I've still to find a company with the aptitude to do that however.

Another failing I've found in this game is the Materia system and the way equipment is handled in this game. As was stated in this thread, Materia is purely based on luck and the amount of money you possess. This would be fine, a nice little addition and money sink so the wealthier players could have a small advantage. As it stand though, it's practically a necessity to have double or triple melds on your equipment to be considered well-geared. And that's just for one class, potentially millions wasted for one piece of equipment for one class. Other than that, you can get the AF gear which the community as a whole seems to regard as sub-par or... well, as far as I've seen, there's no alternative. Either have money or bust. At least the primal weapons seem to be on par or at least not completely horrible compared to melded items but we all know the drop rate on those.

Why talk about this? Well, from my observations this system just widens the gap between the "elitist" players and the "casual" ones. You're either well geared or you aren't. There's no in-between. And, frankly, a system which relies so heavily on money and not on group coordination or player skill for gear rewards is simply shameful.

For last, I do agree on the point that you should not need to have all classes leveled to be considered useful, but again, I do not see this as the communities fault but rather as the game. There's a very important thing called versatility. Why choose one player who can perform a role when you can choose another which can perform all roles? Another facet of this is needing certain skills from other classes for certain jobs. For example, you'd never invite a BRD with no Stoneskin or a WHM with no Sentinel. But, again, this is no fault of the players but rather of the current job system.

Bottomline is, the community simply adapts to the unique mechanics of the game it's playing. If those mechanics are flawed, people will not go out of their way, nor will they hassle themselves to do it "the way it should be done". This isn't an utopia. You can't expect a perfect community in an online game but when the game is flawed at such core principles so too will the community be even more than it should.