FFXIV Research

Hi everyone,
I am posting this recruitment flyer on behalf of a friend of mine, who is not a member of this forum:

I am a researcher interested in reward systems and group behavior. I am writing to ask your help in completing my master’s thesis at Texas Woman's University. I am studying the commendation system available to players of Final Fantasy XIV and I am interested in the likelihood of avatar gender differences in how these commendations are given out. All you need to do to help me complete my study is to simply post the total number of commendations you have received for your primary character as it is listed on this forum. For those who comment, I will also record information listed on the profiles of your avatars as they are listed on the Lodestone character search engine. I will be recording information on displayed class, presence in a free company, and avatar gender. (continued)

(cont.) I will not record any information that identifies players and all recorded data will be destroyed at the conclusion of this study. Participation in this study is voluntary and you may withdraw at any time. If you withdraw from the study, you may request that you information is not used in the study. If you have any questions or concerns, you may send an e-mail to twuffxiv@gmail.com with specific questions and concerns about this study – this is an account not associated with anyone other than the researcher. There is a potential risk of loss of confidentiality in all email, downloading, electronic meetings, and internet transactions. I will be posting this request to several different forums, so please only respond to this request once. I didn’t see any explicit rules regarding these kinds of posts, but if there is one that I missed or if the moderators for these forums would be willing to work with me to address any concerns, I would very much appreciate it. Thank you so much.

so do you just want commendation numbers or commendation numbers and gender?

Hello when I commend it has nothing to do with avatar gender. It’s about gameplay. If players play sticks out, I commend. If no one does I don’t commend at all. I’m a little confused why people would commend because someone is a male or female character

I think this is something more for general discussion.

Hi everyone,

Overall, I am just looking for a general trend in the way commendations are distributed. I'm not necessarily interested in why someone would commend a male or female character specifically - that is far beyond my interests. All I need for the purposes of research is just the number of commendations associated with the character you use most frequently.

Just a heads up, people use fantasia A LOT , i played as only a male character for maybe a year , then female of many different races for a year and a half.
And just to add my 2 cents, gender is definetly smtg i never value in giving comms, i dont even look what people look like in dungeons, and i can assume that most people think alike in this regard.

For the record, a players avatar is rarely taken into consideration, at least for me.
I joke about how terrible Lalafells are (and boy let me tell you...) but at the end of the game if you've done your job well it matters not. I rarely look at someones gender, they'd be lucky if I see their race. Let's not even get started on facial attributes! The game is designed to be played fully zoomed out, and not spent looking at finer details.

Basically, I'm a DPS and you're a tank you're getting my commendation for allowing me to actually participate, unless you're terrible. Then it goes to the healer.
Flip-side I've gotten 5,074 commendations, mostly as tank or healer. The trend to comm either the flashiest DPS, highest DPS, or the tank/healer seems pretty prevalent and has been since the start of this feature.

So I don't mean to dismiss your studies, but character gender very likely has little to do with commendations as a whole. But by all means take my data.
5,074 commendations. Female Miqo'te.

I'm all about getting empirical data on games, but the information you asked for will not yield the results desired.

You would also need to account for frequency. Person 1 having 1000 commendations and Person 2 having 500 means nothing. The Person 1 with 1000 could run commendation-giving activities 5x more than guy 2. Or have played for 3 years instead of 1. Either making person 2 the one more likely to receive commendations but not accurately represented in your study.

Raw numbers will not be very helpful for that kind of study without the number of commendation giving activities. You will likely just end up with a list of high commendation players that have played far more frequently and longer than the low commendation players nullifying any useful information for your thesis.

Gender plays no part in my commendations.
When I play a healer, I usually commend the tank. Unless the tank sucks during the run (like wearing non-plate armor that requires me to spam heal), then I commend one of the better played DPSes.
When I play a tank, I usually commend the healer. Unless the healer sucks during the run (such as letting the party die over and over), then I commend one of the better played DPSes.
When I play a DPS, I usually commend the other DPS. Unless the other DPS sucks during the run (such as sits in the corner and doesn't do much), then I usually commend the healer, unless the healer sucks during the run, in which I will commend the tank.
If the group quickly leaves the dungeon after the run, I usually commend the last person left, unless I'm the only person left, in which I don't commend anyone.
I've yet to encounter a situation where everyone sucked so bad I didn't commend at all.