How has your mindset changed with regards to other players since your started the ga?

My perception of people has differed greatly from ARR time.

General Players:
I've gotten more cynical over the years and just move on, someone's doing something stupid gee must be a day that ends in y, but I do still have fun with random people even to this day just now more people seem to be afraid to open their mouth.

Tank players:
I come to expect big pulls as an automatic thing now, by making things more accessible I expect more from the individual since it is not as hard as having to Flash spam anymore.

Healers:
I expect healers to dps as a given now, anyone not even attempting DoTs I find incredibly selfish and wasting my time no matter how good healing they do, this wasn't the case when og cleric was thing because of how punishing it was on a misclick, harpens back to tank note by making it more accessible I expect more outta people.

Dps:
I expect them to eat more aoes than ever before, idk why my opinion is so low but I certainly didn't expect them eating dirt as much years ago


Just how I have gradually changed through the community how about you all?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

My perception of people has differed greatly from ARR time.

General Players:
I've gotten more cynical over the years and just move on, someone's doing something stupid gee must be a day that ends in y, but I do still have fun with random people even to this day just now more people seem to be afraid to open their mouth.

Tank players:
I come to expect big pulls as an automatic thing now, by making things more accessible I expect more from the individual since it is not as hard as having to Flash spam anymore.

Healers:
I expect healers to dps as a given now, anyone not even attempting DoTs I find incredibly selfish and wasting my time no matter how good healing they do, this wasn't the case when og cleric was thing because of how punishing it was on a misclick, harpens back to tank note by making it more accessible I expect more outta people.

Dps:
I expect them to eat more aoes than ever before, idk why my opinion is so low but I certainly didn't expect them eating dirt as much years ago


Just how I have gradually changed through the community how about you all?

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When i started: oh boy the people in this game are so friendly and nice, there is no toxicity at all
When i start progging a tough fight in pf: Meh we are all humans its ok were training mistakes happen
7 days later trying to clear(varies from person to person): If i see 1 more godamn fcking death in this piss easy fight on the first part of this fight i swear to god im gonna find you and get really family friendly on your ass
Me after going to the forums: This community isnt league of legends toxic, Its my kid brother who is moms favourite asks to play on my game and deleted my 100% save and i cant slap his stupid face kind of toxic.

Edit
Oh and ive also gained an appreciation for new players doing ex, most are better than some older players ive seen, i just wish the game would have a better auto translate tool cause language barrier is pretty hard to deal with and can screw over even the most basic of guildhests.

When I first started playing, I used to get a bit frustrated with people messing up.

Now I kinda like it. It's more entertaining, uneventful runs are the norm, so when something is a little bad/different, it instantly becomes more fun.

When I started, I was worried everyone was judging my every movement. I thought they cared so much about what I was doing.

Now, I realize they don't care. As long as I'm doing what I'm supposed to and own up to it when I do mess up.

I've become less jaded. When I started, these people are just here for me to get Tomes or tokens or whatever. Now I'm like, these are precious babies and I'm the only thing standing between them killing themselves and me.

When I first started playing I really didn't know what to think simply because I didn't know much. I didn't have clear expectations. I joined late HW and played SCH up until around Lakshmi before I started maining DRG. I still preferred larger pulls back then but couldn't really give any opinions on anything because I didn't know enough. I only really knew SCH and DRG, that was it.

Nowadays my expectations are far higher and it does help that I have a sturdy understanding of most jobs in the game. I expect significantly more from players that have other jobs at 80, especially other jobs within the same role. Most of my expectations come from, similar to the OP, that most of the jobs/roles have been simplified significantly and made far more accessible. I expect players with more play time to be able to carry their weight at a bare minimum. Please keep in mind I'm talking about 71+ content, as lower level content is very different.

Tanks I expect big pulls most of the time. With how many additional strong cooldowns have been added to the game (Arms Length, Reprisal) there should rarely be an issue with taking damage to the point that it becomes overwhelming, especially considering some tanks (DRK, WAR at 76+) are incredibly powerful in dungeons and should almost never die. Tank stance no longer contributes to damage or defense so that's completely free now. Positioning... I'd just hope tanks understand enough to keep the boss more or less in one spot and not continuously rotate the boss. If they have other jobs at 80, god forbid other melee DPS, I expect this even more.

Healers are far more accessible this expansion (not in a good way, in my opinion). The topic of "Healers should DPS" isn't even a question to me, I expect healers to use DoTs at a MINIMUM regardless of experience in all content, and that's something I'll regularly comment on if i see healers not doing that.

DPS I only ask that I don't carry the damage contribution in the group. DPS I generally have the most gripes with in Duty Finder, especially in leveling dungeons because so often I see them not using their full kit remotely. I've lost count of the amount of times I've had BRDs that don't use songs at all (I got in an argument with one at 75 two days ago), or people just not using AoE skills. I shouldn't have to tell people when they should be AoEing... and don't get me started on players who have other DPS at 80 meanwhile I do double their damage on NIN........ Oh, and ranged physical/casters being in Narnia while I try to heal on AST.

Leveling dungeons frustrate me far more than raids ever have. It blows my mind how people think it's justifiable to queue into content with 0 knowledge of their job and literally just don't care. Leveling jobs is the sole reason why I've come to be progressively more frustrated with the community/players these days...

I started on the 12th.
I think the game is fun.
Until I got yanked into a pull by rescue, and that revealed a lot of things to me about the players. 'You aren't playing in an expected way, so I'm gonna make you play the way I want you to play.

Then I joined my first FC. It was a girl trap, just a bunch of losers recruiting female characters and then badgering them for gender confirmation. Then because I was level 80, it was expected that I already had ALL things unlocked and ready to go, much to peoples disappointment when I didn't.. I bailed after 3 days, just..no. Feels like that too - what you're born as is a biggggg deal in this game, but why..? Why should it matter?

Raiding and MSQ roulette appears to be all anyone wants to do.
I feel like all around me don't like the game.

I don't expect much from others except treat me and others around me well.

Things went on a rapid decline and that scares me.

Can't say I've developed a more cynical take on the playerbase over time. Nothing really dictates that a game will somehow not have rude people, especially when it's popular. I could tell right away that overall the community is friendly, but of course not everyone is going to abide by that. It's the internet. Though all in all, the only thing that has changed about me is, having played everything to cap and explored almost every facet of the game, is that I can better rationalize my empathy. That is to say, I know the common mistakes, and I know what people of a certain job want to achieve, and I know how first time experiences for things usually look. It means I am better able to support them or catch them on their fall.

Generally I have only had my perception of the community better over the near two years I've been here. I never had an illusion some people won't somehow have bad behaviour; you see it on the forum, Reddit, social media, etc. Of course it can happen in game as well when you have millions of active players where some of them can have undiagnosed mental health problems, experience a bad day, a super toxic mindset, or in general just a really bad attitude. Life will have people with circumstances they struggle with, can't help, or have no interest in doing anything about, and you'll find them on FFXIV or out in the wild. For me that doesn't diminish the fact that for a really popular online game FFXIV's community is relatively good.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Quintessa

I started on the 12th.
I think the game is fun.
Until I got yanked into a pull by rescue, and that revealed a lot of things to me about the players. 'You aren't playing in an expected way, so I'm gonna make you play the way I want you to play.

Then I joined my first FC. It was a girl trap, just a bunch of losers recruiting female characters and then badgering them for gender confirmation. Then because I was level 80, it was expected that I already had ALL things unlocked and ready to go, much to peoples disappointment when I didn't.. I bailed after 3 days, just..no. Feels like that too - what you're born as is a biggggg deal in this game, but why..? Why should it matter?

Raiding and MSQ roulette appears to be all anyone wants to do.
I feel like all around me don't like the game.

I don't expect much from others except treat me and others around me well.

Things went on a rapid decline and that scares me.

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I feel ya, the game community comes off clique-y, like ff11 has bad apples, but ouch. No one likes to have open dialog in this game. Im questioning if i should continue playing as dungeon after dungeon ive been expected to pull big, or deal with big pulls regardless how i feel. No one talk, and any form of talking outside of hello is met with hostility.
Most i try to say is im new, ask questions, or try to point out my difficulties due to their gear, or asking tank to aoe, as my face was getting munched due to them single targeting in 3+ groups.

Had several people come at me in pm after dungeons to berate me too, not even doing anything wrong either. Just asked they vote kick me since we has difference in playstyle, or thought my request to aoe was an offense to god.

Ever since the desaster that was the Gordias raid tier back in Heavenward the players changed. Before that it was alot more relaxed even in ex/raid content compared to nowadays where it's already the end of the world if you dare to make a mistake after seeing a mechanic once which is why I stoped doing them.
Even in dungeons people are so obsessed with efficiency that I either turn chat off or just go in with trusts.

I don't think the XIV community is actually any less toxic then the average MMO community.

It's just that GMs being aggressive when it comes to social hostility means that most of it takes place in private chats instead.

As far as how I view people goes, I'm more critical of people playing their classes properly now that I've maxed out everything and understand the fundamentals of every class, but I'm not going to say anything to them unless it's actively hindering the group to a huge degree (Like tanks not provoking or healers not using Esuna when it's needed).

When I first started I was told that I needed to always have cutting edge gear or I would get kicked from dungeons. This was advice, and I adhered to it, coming from FFXI's minmaxathon, which I took to be MMORPG-norm. When I met people in FFXIV who were taking it easy on gearing, and getting by just fine, I started to soften up. I'd been in the process of softening up about gearing and minmaxing for a few years, as I'd played FFXI since 2003.

When I started I expected that everyone was trying to be like me, gearing to the best they could, and always putting their best foot forward. It seemed to be true. WHMs loved to Holy spam, SCHs like to brag about DPS for the whole dungeon while Eos heals. Everyone seemed to work torwards going to Binding Coil. There were shout groups for PUG raiding. It felt familiar.

I never had a problem with PUGs, but in the earlier years, I was much more prone to call someone out, and to make a fuss about poor performance. In recent times I generally don't bat an eye and start to think up excuses as to why they might not be performing. I generally default to either, "They used a jump pot/leveled via Fates, so they aren't as experienced as their gear/level indicates." or "They are drunk." Both are common.

I've always loved fast dungeon runs. I always strive for them, as it shows complete understanding of your job/skills, as well as full effort, if you're clearing a dungeon in roughly 15 minutes. I remember my goals for expert dungeons being to do a dungeon in 11 minutes, and I have before, with friends. It was Sohr Khai.

I've become disenchanted with raiding in the game over the years. Don't get me wrong. I love the more complex fights, but PUGing has been getting worse and worse for PFing, and since I stepped out of my statics, returning to raiding almost seems like a non-option. It's funny, I don't really miss it that much. It doesn't seem important at all. In earlier years I was jonesing to keep up with my friends who were in other groups, as it always seemed like we were all silently competing to be first group to beat a tier or make it farther in the tier than others. But the more brutal fights in raiding took their toll on me pretty early with A3S. It's why I refuse to do Ultimate. My group took 5.5 months to beat A3s, and by the time we beat it, on myself and the SMN were original members of the static from the day we started prog... I don't view high effort, low reward scenarios as a pleasurable experience, even if you get gloating rights and trophies.

Nowadays I view myself as able to do any role, any job, to a high level of play. When I first started I was scared to heal. Nowadays I can say I've healed entire Savage tiers, but I would rather tank or DPS. I still lean heavily towards Melee + Tank, my first jobs were DRG/WAR.

I guess I'm a lot more patient for the playerbase on the casual side, and a lot less patient with the raiding side. Quite the shift for me.

I realised that the reports of the FFXIV community being one of the nicest in gaming was a lie.

Its nothing more than a facade; in reality its just like every other gaming community, albeit neutered by a rather strictly enforced ToS that limits what people really want to say.

I hate the fakery. I hate the anti-improvement attitude that is ingrained in the playerbase. I hate the idea that people are seen as villains for simply wanting fair effort from teammates in a cooperative game.

I stopped regularly doing Duty Finder content about 2 months ago. It's not fun anymore. Especially considering how the jobs are now.

Actually, I don’t remember how I behaved at the beginning of my ffxiv journey. But currently, here is my behaviour: I stopped bothering. The time I bothered myself into teaching good practice or awaiting good performance is long gone.

Basically, I do my best and ignore others behaviour. This only applies to 71+ content. oh and a level 70+ sprout is not a sprout to me (if you bought a jump potion, it’s your duty to know how to play your job prior entering an instance, not mine). For lower level content, I’m “activating” those points accordingly to the level of the content. For instance, big pull on Sastasha makes no sense. Or sprout dying on mechanics they never saw is fine.

• As a tank, I do big pulls, pop my def cd, don’t dance around the boss, avoid aoe, mitigates unavoidable aoe.
• As a tank if the healer doesn’t dps, I don’t use my def cd and doesn’t avoid aoe. This, of course, to prevent the healer to die from boredom. Joke aside, I’m not gonna do thing if other don’t.
• As a tank, I wait for other to be ready before each “section” of the instance but as soon as they are, it’s rush time. I accept 1-2 pulls from others. But more than that and I let them tank.
• As a healer, I keep people alive and I dps as much as I can.
• As a healer, I rez all the time. The rest of the group is not gonna do the work for other. If someone dies multiple time because they fail at their job, it’s kick time. “We’re not here to do your job.”
• As a dps (note that I’m bad at dps role so I rarely play them), I avoid aoe and do as much dps as I can.
• As a dps or heal, I don’t pull and let the tank pace the dungeon. I prefer big pulls but don’t mind single group pulls.
• As a dps or heal, if the tank doesn’t wait for others to be ready, I take my time to join the fight.

I await the same from the rest of the party. If I’m in bad day and fail mechanic and die and don’t get rez’d or being kicked, fair enough for me. If I forgot def cd on a tank buster, I apologize and thanks the healer who had to deal with my incompetence. If I totally fail my dps rotation and I’m as useful to DPS as a fork to eat a soup, I apologize and try to do better.

From a chat point of view, I say “Hi” at the beginning of the dungeon and “bye” at the end. If the mood is good and people are joking and laughing in chat, I participate with enthusiasm. If someone ask for advice and I got the info, I answer and try to help them. If someone insult/complains/is mean, I ignore and blacklist them (as soon as I exit the instance) (On the other hand, I must admit that I like people raging for no reason, it’s one of my guilty pleasure) If someone has a request I can fulfil, I do it, for instance an under geared healer asking for small pulls is not a problem for me. In any case, I never say mean stuff. If something doesn’t suit me, I just stay silent and leave. Otherwise, I happily participate to the discussion.

In “HL” PF (understand ex and savage content), my rule of thumb is: “If the group suits me, I stay. Otherwise, I leave without a word”.

In train PF,

• As long as there is progress, wiping is all ok. But if the group wipes multiple times (>10 times) on the same mechanic. That’s a no go for me.
• If someone fail the basic of its job, I leave.
• No dps healer or tank, is ok in train. Low dps DPS is fine too.
• As a healer I try to keep everybody topped (and shielded if necessary) and don’t mind people eating damage.
• If I’m in a bad day but joined anyway and I’m failing at my job, I apologize and leave. I’m not here to make others waste their time.
• Tank rushing multiple times after the same wipe before we’re able to figure out what is going on, is a no go.

In farm PF, I’m more demanding.

• Wiping 1-2 time per try is fine, more is a no go.
• No dps healer/tank is a no go.
• No def cd tank is a no go.
• People eating avoidable damage too often is a no go.

So yeah, to summaries: I do my best and await minimum competence from other. If a group doesn’t fit me, I leave. If the chat is cool, I’m cool. If the chat is mean, I’m mute.

To finish on a good note, I must say that the vast majority of the groups I end up with, both df and pf, are fine. I rarely start a vote kick or leave group. And I trained myself to ignore and forget bad experience and try to remember the good one, that’s helping a lot.

And the most valuable thing I learned is: “Don’t play with people if you’re not in the mood for it”. There is plenty of solo content in ffxiv to avoid people when you had a bad day and your tolerance level is too low.

Each expansion I have become more jaded, both to players at the top end and to certain chunks of the devs. Though part of that is me as a person I think... regardless, I do also feel like I'm kinder to low level sprouts these days and people who ask for help.

ARR: everyone for the most part was great. Everybody was here to have fun, with raiding being something you did not just for gear, but for story and for a challenge. WHM's healed and holy their way through dungeons then joked while waiting for mp back at the bosses. The blm rezzed the poor sod who got erased by Ifrit's charges. The DRG emergency tanking Titan when the pld fell. The game was great, you were rewarded for levelling more classes as you got more abilities to share between them. Far superior to the role action system now. No parsing or rd party tools. You made progress by getting skilled
People actually crafted manually and a good crafter was respected and rare.
Back then I disliked low level people because they never paid attention to the story and were always asking me how do I get X cross class

HW: Sadly, this was where the dps above all mentality came in and parsers appeared. Skip soar or disband. Abuse server ticks to skip Nisi. It was hushed, but there was a welcome disrespect of those dps above all mentalities because of incoming damage being very heavy at times and healing that was tricky. Skill in your role mattered. You were expected to be at least competent, but otherwise in most regular groups, you were supposed to have fun. Unfortunately that changed as the patch cycle progressed, SE didn't learn their lesson. Allowing full sized parties to enter below minimum Ilvl was a mistake.
Oh and you were expected to be fashionable if you were rich enough to afford glamour items.
Sprouts were good, they paid attention and listened so they could get to hw.

SB: You were now given stares for playing certain jobs because of what they had been wrecked to. WHM MONK and DRK especially. 3rd party tools became commonplace, sprouts stopped listening because road to 60. in any level 70 duty you were expected to have fun second and play what was good first. SB was a shit expansion and the playerbase skill level also plummeted due to lack of difficulty and lack of engagement.

SHB: Efficiency is all that matters these days regardless of skill level. Fun is no longer important either to your party or the devs. But the story matters and is awesome.
Sprouts are divided into two camps. Those that got skips or powered their levels, and those that don't. The former should be treated with contempt. The latter should be taught and thankfully actually listen.
Everyone's a crafter now, so forget making money. Raiders expect you to have logs and ACT installed. IF you're on ps4 you aren't welcome.
Luckily everyone does have a good side to them- the fashion game nowadays is on point, and people can and sometimes do judge you for your glamour.

2015:
Tank: I will keep you alive at all costs. I am going to over heal you with my cure bombs like there is no tomorrow. If you die; I die.
DPS: All you care about is math, mas deeps. There's more to the game than just optimization, you know?
Healer: This isn't a competition to see who can raise faster dude.

2020:
Tank: Pull everything! I am disinterested in playing WAR because the axes are too big. Oh! Almost forgot about you, as did my co healer; Here's a heal. What is this 'tank swap' y'all do. So interesting!
DPS: I'm really sorry. The demand of you guys is no joke. Some of you still piss me off though, but for different reasons now. Like when my drinking bird can do more damage than you. Are you in this farm party to troll?
Healer: It really might be best I don't say anything here. My thoughts on healers are as divided as their community.

My thoughts on the general player hasn't changed all that much. Most of us are here to get the most out of our sub fee and cost of the game. I respect everyone, and for the most part get that same respect back in return. It's been that way since I started playing so likewise, my view also has not differed. Most peeps are pretty cool.

Im a current patch cycle gen player so Ive not established any real changes to the player base. I guess the one thing I am aware of is the 3 differences i see , personally, with these mentor players.

1 - The rare helpful friendly type. Mostly say a greeting and thats all and the dungeon goes well and a GG said at the end. Will say NP if you make a mistake, or maybe throw a mechanics tip your way. I like these types.

2- The more common silent type that is playing a DPS role and eats almost every boss damage type and need to be revived more than the other sprouts im with , or a healer role just spamming cure 1 or 2 and not much else.

3- The much more common type I come across is the arrogant mentor. Thinks its poop doesnt stink, is abrupt and rude and more often than not , depending on the role , is the major cause for the bad situations that can arise. Doesn't actually mentor when you ask what went wrong and states over and over that they always do this dungeons this way and that its your doing that the dungeon went south with a frog pull in AV or something else similar.
Or seem to be the ones that are alt+f4ing MSQ roulette's ( we can check battle chat window pane to see who is receiving and causing boss damage when were stuck in a cut scene,)

I don't see much difference in game. I don't raid or do extremes for the most part so I can't comment about that community. I will say the forum has changed a lot over the years in my opinion and not for the better.

I think I have less patience overall, especially with healers / co-healers.

The "casual" content is much easier than it was before.
Remember when Titan was a big progression blocker? Healing was better because as a SCH, we had WAY more importance.
You could not pass Titan without a good SCH, point.
I liked that sense of responsibility and I needed to know the fight by heart and that was a regular fight, not a raid.
Healing was tougher and MP management really was a thing.

Now healing is easy, you can YOLO everything, your skills are overpowered and your mana near limitless.
I cannot stand seeing AFK healers. I now try to politely encourage healers to DPS, especially in higher level dungeons.
I don't think you should be at lv80 and not using a single DPS skill.

I played for years simply ignoring everything everyone did or didn't do in dungeons/trials, because the only reason i played was to waste time. Start a new character, play trough the game just to have something to do while i wait for something more interesting. I always played for 2 months max until break.

The last time i played, i started another new character but this time i decided that i'm going to get all disciple of war/magic to 80 with the preferred world exp bonus, maybe crafting too (turns out it's dull). So i played for 4 months straight and it was like an awakening. I don't want to do all the work for lazy people who simply watch netflix or whatever they are doing instead of playing. So, i simply told them that they suck (a little more explicit than that, of course). That is also why i made this forum account, to state for everyone the obvious. Now that i have done that, i can spew a little less bile all over the place, hopefully.

Now i have simplified my question to "if the game is too boring to play, why do you keep paying for it?" so far i have gotten no answer.

And now that i'm here again, i ask all of the people on the forum who watch netflix and leave the job for other people the same question: if the game is too boring to play, why do you keep paying for it?
I realize that not everyone is lazy or burntout or whatever but when i tried a little to see if anything has changed (no, i did not expect it would) in dungeons i still see mostly people with their friends/FC members covering for them as they do the minimum. All i can guess for the reason is that they REALLY want to keep their house, which means that the seemingly foolish decisions of SE on housing are actually working beautifully. I don't do dungeons anymore for that reason unless it is required, like for the relic quests and daily trial, at least they are usually short.

After coming back and learning the mechanics. I've found something strange. Every time I join a raid, I say...

"Anyone new, or don't know mechanics around?"

And I get a weird amount of crap for that. I've been told to shut up a couple times while I'm trying to explain mechanics to someone. Its really weird.

On one hand, FF14 has some of the friendliest people I know in an MMO (Aside from CoX). On the other, there are people who are weirdly offended by the strangest things.

I played in 2013, and rejoined late 2019. For me the biggest change is in how people handle disagreements or criticism. And by that I mean the inability to handle either. At all.

I'm someone who loves to be told when I mess up, but I know it's too dangerous for people to assume its safe to assist me. So I end up just researching most of the things I need to know and tracking my own stats. I keep in-game chatter civil and minimal and just keep to my own circle of friends to avoid a lot of the drama I see unfold over nothing in parties I join.

I'll say everyone is a lot nicer these days, but it feels more like a mask of kindness than a genuine happiness. I dunno. Always feels like people are one wrong move away from snapping from having to swallow any grievances without a way to expel it. Maybe I'm crazy.

There's still some genuine humans out there too, they're just harder to find.

You mean the toxicity of the community? I think it's more or less on par as when I had started a few years ago. Actually, it was worst when I started out in ARR. I remembered I was fighting Odin in a party. Some of them were calling me names due to me being bad at avoiding mechanics. They were throwing insults rather than criticizing my game play which kinda sucked.

Nowadays I rarely encounter such toxic players which is a good thing, and the FFXIV community are actually quite nice these days.
We messed up, we are ok with it and we fight on to clear the instance. That was an awesome experience especially with the clear.

I was expecting some WoW refugees coming in and destroy the existing harmonious and friendly FFXIV community with their toxic attitude but nope, all is still very peaceful and harmonious. I'm glad that the overall FFXIV community still remains friendly and not extremely salty over the years that makes me feel at home again despite being away for a few weeks from the game. Of course there are a few bad apples from time to time, but always just move on or block them. They might already forget what they did to you in the past when you bump into them on the next instance/raid.

Realized how sensitive FFXIV players are. Don't chat in-game anywhere close to how I used to in other MMORPGS before, and even now I will chat more openly in other games rather than this one.

Actually, since I'm not even done with Heavensward's post MSQs yet, I've experienced generally friendly players. There was a time where I queued for a trial and got Shiva EX and we all voted to bail on it with 3mins left coz we kept getting wiped. The players were chill about it. However, upon signing up for the forums and reading most of the topics, I find out now that endgame content as well as savage and extreme stuff are where the toxic players are. I'm now considering if I should renew my subscription or just avoid that content since I left online games (MOBAs, MMOs, competitive shooters etc) years ago due to toxic players in the first place.

TLDR: The forums showed me where the toxicity is, and it's making me reconsider playing XD

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kelevra13

TLDR: The forums showed me where the toxicity is, and it's making me reconsider playing XD

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No Honey! People who enjoy the game are in game, enjoying it,
Forums are a place to vent and whine, don't assume that the forum reflects the in-game community ;)
End-game is not that toxic either.

If FFXIV is toxic, I wonder what adjectives we could use for other online games... like... F2P Shooters... ew....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kelevra13

Actually, since I'm not even done with Heavensward's post MSQs yet, I've experienced generally friendly players. There was a time where I queued for a trial and got Shiva EX and we all voted to bail on it with 3mins left coz we kept getting wiped. The players were chill about it. However, upon signing up for the forums and reading most of the topics, I find out now that endgame content as well as savage and extreme stuff are where the toxic players are. I'm now considering if I should renew my subscription or just avoid that content since I left online games (MOBAs, MMOs, competitive shooters etc) years ago due to toxic players in the first place.

TLDR: The forums showed me where the toxicity is, and it's making me reconsider playing XD

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Honestly as someone at the endgame, my experiences have been positive. I do a lot of PvP, housing, Gold Saucer, and roulettes with friends. To no surprise, the most toxicity there comes out of PvP, but even then that's minor compared to other MMOs.

Most of the toxicity and poor behaviour comes from high-end raiders, though there's a lot to enjoy with FFXIV outside of that; in fact, the % of players especially on NA who actually raid are a small minority, and there's a lot of fun to be had at 80 without that. Even if you want to get into raiding, you can always avoid PF and find a more relaxed group of people to participate with. In general PUGs have less accountability, which makes it easier for people to ditch or be rude.

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Originally Posted by Esmoire

Honestly as someone at the endgame, my experiences have been positive. I do a lot of PvP, housing, Gold Saucer, and roulettes with friends. To no surprise, the most toxicity there comes out of PvP, but even then that's minor compared to other MMOs.

Most of the toxicity and poor behaviour comes from high-end raiders, though there's a lot to enjoy with FFXIV outside of that; in fact, the % of players especially on NA who actually raid are a small minority, and there's a lot of fun to be had at 80 without that. Even if you want to get into raiding, you can always avoid PF and find a more relaxed group of people to participate with. In general PUGs have less accountability, which makes it easier for people to ditch or be rude.

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No it doesnt.

I've gotten kind of burnt out from dealing with people; I'm not sure if it's the community that's declined, or simply my patience.

I used to run learning discords and host a lot of learning parties simply because I enjoyed watching newer players learn and become passionate about playing the game. It gave me a kind of vicarious enjoyment that allowed me to relieve some of my best triumphs/memories...

I started to notice people becoming very agitated and unappreciative in these types of parties towards the end of Stormblood. People began to reject well-intentioned advice and often became verbally abusive towards me in my own parties, it even happened a handful of times in voice chat. Fresh learners even started raging if your strategy deviated from what was in the video guides, even when the guide strategies weren't actually being used in PF (o12s MTQ dash strat I'm looking at you >.>; ). The more of those experiences I had, the less I was able to hold onto that joy that teaching gave me.

People generally seem to have less respect for other peoples time, all the while hiding behind a fake-nice facade and feigning some kind of moral superiority. It's become almost impossible to point out when someone is obviously taking advantage, as people will trip over themselves to defend the behavior for some reason. I've been called an elitist for asking someone in a 70+ dungeon why they were only auto-attacking 75% of the time (They were tabbing out to type in discord during most pulls, by their own admission). I've been called toxic and kicked from a Memoria "clear party" for asking why they were explaining the first mechanic in the entire fight to their friend. I've been told "It doesn't matter" when people try to fully afk through MSQ roulette. I've been called salty for asking someone to help fight mobs in palace instead of remaining afk in the spawn room until the gate was opened. You'll just have to take my word for it that nearly all of these situations were approached with a reasonable, often softened tone. I probably even have screencaps of some of them, somewhere.

Don't get me wrong here, struggling with the game is fine. I have a lot of friends who would be considered "bad", but I still find a lot of joy in playing with them. My own SO was stuck on the SB Hien solo duty for three days xD! Rather, these kinds of cases I'm increasingly encountering are situations in which a player who knows better is actively trying to take advantage. I honestly hope I'm just unlucky, and that this isn't a trend in the community.

Well over the years my wish to not run stuff with strangers just got stronger thanks to some really horrible runs and the attitude of the players there. I dont need people to be the very best or to always play near perfect but the amount of really bad players in duties annoy me. Overall though I just got more and more into crafting and solo stuff so I still somewhat enjoy the game.

My biggest change was towards the devs and SE. At first I was really "soft" on them when they did stuff wrong or when we got more cash shop items. (Heck I even bought some myself to support them) But over time that changed. I mostly see them as someone that simply want to just earn as much as possible with the least amount of work. The increase in cash shop items and the decrease in ingame content really helped that. Also going against your own words doesnt help either. So I guess the biggest mindest change was towards them.

Its not even that , I can understand bad nobody is good at everything or even if they play one thing they can be new or dont know how to look for stuff, But actively avoiding advice? then we got tanks who have 1000s of hours of experience and good gear actively doing single pulls on dungeons then if someone asks for more or if frustrated rescue them be called elitist, and that their justification is that they just have a different playstyle? Then we got the whole ACT situation where people ,even after yoshi p went to lengths to explain they dont add something like that to the game cause of the toxicity it would create not cause of the info, ask that yoshi bans people who use it? People who want for savage and super savage to be nerfed or removed cause they want bis despite bis being useles for anything but supersavage? I mean damn ive raided quite a bit in pf i have only seen someone be a complete jerk only once and i have had 6k+ hours on this game. I think the situation has been worsened with the current job/role design as well, make a job simpler and people who were lazy find a reason to be even more lazy.

Definitely when I started I thought the community was really friendly, things like Novice network and commendation systems leave that impression. Now I'd say it's equally toxic to WoW. Not particularly in a terrible way either, both WoW and FF14 have their mix of friendly people who just want to enjoy the game and the bad apples who hurl abuse and gogogo through everything. I can safely say no parsers and super easy friendly content doesn't make the slightest difference, jerks will be jerks and nice people will be nice.

The community is fine regarding performance. I think PF Savage groups do rather well all things considered, pulling 7 other random people into endgame with almost no communication and even coming close to clearing is impressive. I do feel it's a little sad that a lot of the people who under-perform to the point of being unable to beat enrage likely have no clue because Enix goes to great lengths to hide that information. But the fact I can clear anything in PF with a bit of patience is great.

There IS a mentality here that I haven't seen in other MMO's, where it's almost looked down on to want to accomplish things. The community will defend things being dumbed down and turned into once and done 5 minute content, like Normal mode or dungeons or beast tribes or crafting or the relic. If you give the opinion you want to work for things, you're shunned for "excluding" others or showing off. I've also noticed FF14 is the only community that will argue against literally any suggestion for QoL whatsoever, which baffles me.

But overall I've met nice people here. It's a nice game to play.

i shouldnt post this in this thread but since we opened that can of worms might as well

I am honestly tired of the whole sodding thing to be fair. First i got insulted for being a mentor not cause i did anything but people just went fuck mentors and every mentor is there for the crown and it should be removed and novice network shouldnt talk unless its to help otherwise they just ignore every newbie and if any mentor says anything back he is another mentor, Then i go in game and get insulted twice cause if i die people go lol mentor or if they do something extremely stupid and i ask wtf was that theyll go youre a mentor you should know but i cant answer back else im supposedely toxic. Not only that if i dont say anything im yet again a bad mentor for not explaining and if i explain alot of the time if they arent completely new they either dont listen or dont understand english and yet again i am called a bad toxic mentor. Thankfuly and unfortunately there are exceptions to this i had some pretty good new players who were thankful for helping them with their ex as well as actual mentors who insta left.


Then i get insulted a second time being called an elitist for thinking that a healer who rescued the tank that was single pulling siting on 480 gear and watching his stream instead of tanking isnt a reason to remove rescue or to report the healer as a griefer

Then i get insulted thrice for trying to get into raiding cause of the difficulty and asking for that difficulty to remain cause if i am asking for that im an elitist

Then i get insulted for the fourth time for having a medium house because only cheaters should be able to get one and that means that i should also be a guy with many alts that keeps stealing houses . Im neither of those yet people would rather believe that i am cause then ...??????

Then i get insulted for the fifth time albeit not directly for simply being a lore nerd for my job and after trying to explain to people who skipped it why stuff makes sense they simply dismissed them cause them existing means that their arguements for changing the job are completely false and not only that what i got back from them after that were half truths and bullshit. Saying stuff like , (why would you try to find logic) and (we should remove the dots so that people who like them go to another job) or showing a log to say look dots outdo summons only to check the numbers and find out they had added ruin spells in as well, and basicly destroying the job so that each one could insert their own fanfiction. The most annoying of them all is when people are willingly blind , if you agree with their views alot of people will just not care what you say afterwards, the moment someone disagrees with something that you said theyll either defend it or act like it was never said . The more i think about those stuff the angrier i get tbh but anger doesnt lead to hate like yoda said it leads to disappointment and then apathy and unless Yoshi p and his squad sees this problem as a problem the game will just become worse and worse, and i dont want that, i dont want ff14 to become the second WoW i want it to learn from its mistakes and become better. Yet my friends who played
WoW tell me it already follows the same exact road WoW did.....



I know its just generalization but when i or anyone who this generalization doesnt apply goes and says that maybe they are generalizing too much and the numbers are many times more smaller than they make it look only to be answered with what amounts to basicly : i dont believe you, you are one of them ,i bet you eat babies, Screw you, Death to the aristos . with nobody telling them that hey you went too far then yes its an insult and its a much heavier insult than any swear i could ever get in league , at least there people arent hypocrites trying to sound morally right while being selfish and very much immoral .


I should stop ranting i dont like being mad it makes my head feel wobbly.

as tank: other tanks are not to be trusted (are either directly incompetent/die without using their cooldowns or fight me for aggro and THEN die without using their cooldowns). it's become a bit of a game to see whether i can get aggro back off of them without using taunt or if they die first, because it's always one of the two.
as healer: other healers are not to be trusted (i'm the only one who seems to know how to res, or heal after a big group hit). going through susan EX in early stormblood and having to basically soloheal it broke any trust in other healers I had
as dps: nothing's changed, I'm still doing my own thing from start to finish (throwing out utility stuff where appropriate/helpful, but the rest of the team's actions have very little impact on me overall). much less stressful.

Honestly? My mindset has overall improved.

When I first started playing, I was terrified of any group content. I wanted to keep playing because I liked the atmosphere, the world, and was interested in the story, but I avoided grouping like the plague! I'm socially anxious and introverted on the best of days, so for years grouping in content without a friend backing me up was akin to crawling into a den of starving bears (in my mind). This was even as a DPS, nevermind tanking, and the concept of healing was laughable at best.

Now, it's been a long time, and I have become familiar enough with the ins and outs of the game that I am happy to group up, say hello, greet people. For the most part, I've had great experiences with random players in the game. I still can't heal worth a dang, but I'm learning. DPS and tanking, however, are now easily so fun, and I wish I'd gotten over my fear sooner. I thank the trust system for helping me cure my weird anxiety about duties.

Are there groups where things go south or people have no idea what they're doing and run around like chickens with their heads cut off? Of course! Those times can be frustrating, but they can also be SUPER fun.

There are definitely salty people, especially closer to endgame. There are people who bow out of duties that they got in roulette because they didn't get what they wanted. There are people who seem to be waiting for the MOMENT somebody messes up a mechanic or the party wipes ONCE just so that they can fly into a rage. But really, those encounters are few and far between, and when the salty rage monsters end up being the source of their own troubles, all I can really do is take a breath and move on.

So yeah. I went from fearing people and party-centered content to actually genuinely loving this community and the friends I've made in this game.

When I started, I thought the community was friendler, more open and welcoming and less toxic than others because of things like mentor system, novice network, commendations, FC housing, people generally greeting each other in party chat, new player notifications in dungeons, no expectation to watch guides etc.
I thought it breeds a more close-knit community where you can learn and improve at your own pace with the main source for help and improvement being other players.

Over the years I noticed the friendliness to be a very shallow one and the FFXIV feeling very clique-y. Little is said openly, escpecially with the ToS getting stricter, giving the GMs the option to ban people for a myriad of reasons but a lot is said behind closed doors. Been in various FCs and it was always the same story: if you weren't already part of a group it was difficult to impossible to be part of a group. Escpecially newer players have a really hard time because of all the "cool kids gangs" that are friendly enough but won't let anyone be part of their inner circle.
The lack of expectations and aversion against advice and constructive criticism didn't lead to an overall more pleasent and relaxed experience. On the contrary, I came to dislike this constant tip-toeing around glaring issues or the lack of respect for each other's time with "my fun" often being the excuse. It's almost as if there is an underlying "anti-improvement" and "anti-effort" mentality here which I have never seen in any MMO. It's really odd what kind of things get defended and how quickly you get shunned for suggesting something even if it's vital for the group's success (not talking about minor rotation mistakes here).

DF is a mixed bag where I met some really nice and helpful players and others that are so hilariously bad and toxic on top of that that it really left me speechless.
PF is... interesting. It's great tool for people without statics and the way it works with various tags, seeing which classes are already present, being able to write strats in the comment etc. is great and makes finding a group for you really easy.
A lot of people join who are clearly not ready for endgame content but unfortunately, they rarely get told so because it might start an argument and someone could get banned for it. Once the player got booted I've heard a lot of nasty things about them.
It can be frustrating hopping from one party to the next because of the influx of players tackling savage while still lacking vital knowledge about the fights and their class but at least it's possible to clear without a static and that's really good! And over time, you get to know plenty of people who do a good job, get invited to linkshells or discords and have ways to minimize the times you spent hours over hours wiping on the same boss to get a reclear.

It's a fun game to play and the community isn't bad just odd when it comes to certain topics.
From the time I started to now I felt a bit disappointed with the community but that has long passed and really, I should've known better than to expect a somehow miraculously superior community.
Humans are humans after all.

I've noticed that in FFXIV people seem more passive aggressive and whiny, whereas other MMO's tend to be bluntly insulting. Not sure which I prefer, honestly.

I've also noticed this community seems far less patient with new players than other MMO's, which is weird for a more casual MMO like this. It might be because of the level synching and specific mechanics, which make it more obvious when someone is playing poorly.

Either way, I don't play this game for it's community. As far as premier MMO's go it's basically between FFXIV and WoW, and, although I think this game has the worst community of the two, I like it's world, visuals, characters, story, etc. better.

Edit: Would actually like to expand on WHY WoW has a better community, at least from what I've seen.

First, I'll point out that I haven't done any Savage or other serious content in this game; so maybe this games raiding scene is less toxic than WoW.

In most casual content however, it's amazing how different the communities are. In WoW, for better or worse, people are generally willing to carry new players through easy content without getting pissy about it. I rarely, if ever saw people taking little cheap shots at struggling players, taking a whiny tone with them, or trying to force them to do things they're not comfortable with.

In this game, however; so much whining. It's like a new player ruined everyone's day if he made the run take 5 minutes longer than it had to. It's all over the forums to, how the community views playing poorly as "disrespectful to the group for wasting their time," lol.

Adding to what OP and Rilifane (comment 35) already said:

In my case, it's not just me getting more and more cynical, but also me as a pseudo-senior in the game noticing how the behaviour of new players changed in the last 5 years.

When I was new, there seemed to be nobody in our merry "we are green behind the ears"-boat who would get upset when veterans gave an advice on mechanics, how to use some skills or explaining general stuff about instances. To be blunt, all we amateurs on big-old Chaos were happy when people took the time to teach us something.

Now, it's 50/50 whether a new player will be glad or angry. You can be as polite as you want to, there's still the chance someone will behead you for giving an advice. The word "Elitist" flies so careless out of the window that it's baffling.

The greatest annoyance considering mentioned oddity, from my experience, are the LV50 24-people-raids.
->I have seen everything from the classical "Shut up" to very impolite phrases I will better not quote here. Worst is, that even players react that way who have maybe cleared these raids once or twice yet definitely haven't understood what to do when.

And the stuff many players will excuse on the contrary makes everything just weirder and weirder.

->Like a tank yesterday, who kept in World of Darkness the dragon close to the entry and didn't even go North after his healer tried to Rescue-pull him there.
You think people told him he was doing something wrong?
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Nope.
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But the vocal ones attacked ME when I informed the tank about his mistake. Half my group had to die thanks to AOEs everywhere until the tank finally brought the dragon at least to the middle of the field.

I can't talk about the US-/JPN-datacenters, but the servers here are sometimes filled with new people who just want to rush stuff and don't understand they have to learn mechanics on the way in order to have already mastered them in endgame-area.

->From my point of view, gaining massive EXP for a character can't replace the experience a player must gather themselves to understand stuff just by looking at it. But obviously it's more important to reach LV80 as fast as possible without getting used to standard-mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

My perception of people has differed greatly from ARR time.

General Players:
I've gotten more cynical over the years and just move on, someone's doing something stupid gee must be a day that ends in y, but I do still have fun with random people even to this day just now more people seem to be afraid to open their mouth.

Tank players:
I come to expect big pulls as an automatic thing now, by making things more accessible I expect more from the individual since it is not as hard as having to Flash spam anymore.

Healers:
I expect healers to dps as a given now, anyone not even attempting DoTs I find incredibly selfish and wasting my time no matter how good healing they do, this wasn't the case when og cleric was thing because of how punishing it was on a misclick, harpens back to tank note by making it more accessible I expect more outta people.

Dps:
I expect them to eat more aoes than ever before, idk why my opinion is so low but I certainly didn't expect them eating dirt as much years ago


Just how I have gradually changed through the community how about you all?

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not a new player friendly set of opinions. What if someone is learning a new Class/Job? Those are some really obnoxious and fairly toxic WOW level opinions. My take, go play World of Warcrap, you'll fit in with that amount of judgment.

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Originally Posted by Goji1639

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Personally I disagree: I'd say this game's playerbase is shockingly patient with newbies in this game... provided they have the sprout icon (at least on my server/DC).
once that's gone all bets are off, and I find the returner status is often ignored despite filling a similar role of telegraphing "hey i probably don't know things".

Savage/EX content is an exception since it's hard content for everyone and implies/demands a certain level of preparedness and technical skill, which is why [duty complete] exists to help separate that iirc.

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Originally Posted by Gothicshark

not a new player friendly set of opinions. What if someone is learning a new Class/Job? Those are some really obnoxious and fairly toxic WOW level opinions. My take, go play World of Warcrap, you'll fit in with that amount of judgment.

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Context is everything. If I'm put in sastasha because of DF and I see my healer is a level 16 CNJ and that's the only class they have unlocked, yeah I can put 2 and 2 together and figure out they're probably not going to be the best healer I've ever had.

Meanwhile if I go into expert roulette and I see you have most classes as 80 and you're a level 80 SCH that spams adlo like no tomorrow and can't use a single bio, yeah, I'm going to think you're trash.