7 Reasons You Should Be Nicer to Tanks (And People in General)

[Memoriae]

I know they may have their reasons, but so far the most toxic players I've ran across are tanks.

[Ramzal]

I don't think there's really a single role in this game that's more ruder than others. There's just some really toxic and angry people that use the internet. For example:

I went into Garuda EX for the first time yesterday. I was completely honest beforehand and said "I don't know this fight. But I learn quickly if you have advice and I will adjust as much as I can." My fellow tank that was a Warrior proceeded to bring my lack of intelligence into the situation for not watching a video about it beforehand. I explained that I'm more of a hands on learner and less of an auditory and visual learner. I need trial and error to get better at something. It's not a disability, I just learn by doing. That and I enjoy the experience of trying out something new for the first time without it having been explained to me. He then spent the next 4 minutes ranting about how big of noobs people are for not watching videos in advance, even bashing a random bard in our party who hasn't experienced it either.

I don't think there's really a single role in this game that's more ruder than others. There's just some really toxic and angry people that use the internet. For example:

I went into Garuda EX for the first time yesterday. I was completely honest beforehand and said "I don't know this fight. But I learn quickly if you have advice and I will adjust as much as I can." My fellow tank that was a Warrior proceeded to bring my lack of intelligence into the situation for not watching a video about it beforehand. I explained that I'm more of a hands on learner and less of an auditory and visual learner. I need trial and error to get better at something. It's not a disability, I just learn by doing. That and I enjoy the experience of trying out something new for the first time without it having been explained to me. He then spent the next 4 minutes ranting about how big of noobs people are for not watching videos in advance.

At that point, I just decided to ignore him as all he was really doing was complaining for minutes on end and I pulled Garuda. I few mistakes as I didn't expect slipstream to go off so early in the fight and I aimed her the wrong way, and I didn't buff correctly during the 2 wicked wheels. After we all died, the other tank felt it was his duty to remind me of what "trash" I am, when I have level 90 gear but didn't tank her correctly (Again, I remind you that this was my first time against her.) I was then pelted with his verbal garbage in claims that I'm a spineless moron. (Which I found hilarious because I volunteered to be MT in a situation I never been in and he quit -right- after saying that.)

Tank on Tank crime.

But I've seen some DD's be pretty toxic to tanks, healers being cruel to tanks, and pretty much every role being rude to each other. I really don't think it's designated to a certain role or job, just really really angry people who happen to have internet connections and underlying issues with their personal lives that they take out on whoever they can with no actual repercussions... except him hopefully.

I reported the crap out of that guy.

[KaiKatzchen]

A lot of people in this game are rude, but especially comes out in dungeons and Duty Finder.

I am a DPS and a Tank. There is a lot of attitude from both sides. I have seen tanks be nothing but rude to the DPS and healers. On the flip side, when I am on tank I have seen DPS/Healers be not only off putting to me, but to other people in the party. It's a game people:

game noun \ˈgām\
: a physical or mental activity or contest that has rules and that people do for pleasure

People in this game need to just take a step back and look at how they are acting. Everyone needs to remember at one point they were learning this as well, and what if they were berated at every turn for wanting to learn. What if they were kicked out of a party or harassed because it was their first time. I swear... I know people that play this game are intelligent, so why does it seem that peoples intellect drops the moment they enter this game or a dungeon and we are reduced to 'lol n00b' as a response to most situations?

Ex: I was on an alt character and I go into a low level Copperbell for the 'first time' on that character. Obviously I know the fight, I know the dungeon and I was playing a class I love so I knew the job. I used Duty Finder to get in and there are 3 people in the fight all being 40+ and the WHM is in Vanya. Of course it's my 'first time', or so the message says. And one of the first things I hear is 'Damnit you have no clue what you're doing'. Then proceeds to tell me that this is a speed run and I need to keep up and he refuses to kill everything, just what he needs to.

This is a low level dungeon, of course parties going to get 'new people', why are they surprised the message comes up? They are the ones choosing to do the dungeon at 40+ so don't make the new players feel bad about being new! All in all, people need to relax... I play this for fun and half the time I'm stressed out in dungeons because of others lack of respect. Most of the time I wonder if they act like this in their FC's and if they are this bad, what must their FC be like... people forget that they are representing a group. If they act like that, they make their group look bad... and it's not hard to find out what server people are from or what FC they are in though Lodestone.

[Seif]

Nobody is perfect. As war I try my best to be the no.1 punching bag for mobs. However in situations with 3+ mobs hovering around with your party members names and hp bars flying over everything I have to admit that more than once I haven't seen that my overwhelm didn't hit all of the mobs.

In any case I appreciate costructive feedback from DF members and not full on diva-drama-because-you're-perfect attitude.

[mythicrose]

some tanks are simply too slow, they spend all their time talking about strategies when perhaps all they needed to do was proceed and tank.

Funny you say that. When HM Copperbell Mines came out, I ran it a few times with FC members before proceeding to use duty finder roulette. I stopped in an effort to explain the first boss as it was likely others first or second attempt at the boss. A BLM promptly told me to "STFU and tank".

I did just that. Pulled the boss, adds, everything clear to the end. When we wiped, the BLM had the nerve to ask what happened. I responded, "You told me to STFU and tank and so I did. You failed to STFU and dps." I apologized to the other dps and healer as they hadn't been there and appreciated me communicating what to expect on the next attempt. Dungeon went smooth from there on out.

I know they may have their reasons, but so far the most toxic players I've ran across are tanks.

I'll disagree. I've seen a few toxic tanks and healers, but toxic dps are far more common for me to run across.

[HakuroDK]

snippy-snip

GET OUT OF MY HEAD, GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!

But seriously, every point you bring up is valid and is what is wrong with the playerbase of this game. There are nice people in the game. I try really *really* hard to be one of them. However, there are some extremely nasty people out there. I wouldn't say they are a majority, but there is a healthy enough amount that it's 50/50 whether or not I'll run with one or not.

I have an i81 Monk right now, and am currently leveling a Warrior. Then once I do that, I'm going to level Thaumaturge and Conjurer to get all of their cross-class abilities, then level Arcanist to get Summoner and Scholar to cover every in-game role I possibly can (Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, Tank, Healer), and focus on the specifics later. Leveling my Warrior has taught me just how different various classes are.

And one thing many people in the game need to understand is that people are always learning. If I get into Duty Roulette as a Warrior and I run Sastasha, Tam-Tara, or regular Copperbell, I'm going to put on my Disney attitude and be as helpful and friendly as I possibly can, because that's how I would want people to treat me if I were new.

[KaiKatzchen]

Snippers~!

Sorry I was in your head, lol. But yes I agree... there are really nice people in this game and I try hard to be one of them. Have I snapped at people, yes. But 99.9% of the time it's because they have pushed me so far I can't help it. Even then I try... try to remain polite. Regardless of the dungeon, be it a starter or CT, I always try to say hello and be polite. Such as when I was in CT (playing BLM) and someone pulled a Valefor at the first trash mobs right on top of us and basically wiped us with tail swipe. It happens, so I politely say: Please don't tail swipe the party. I didn't see who did it, I didn't call anyone out and I wasn't rude... I was simply letting them know it had happened and to try not to do it again so people were aware. But yep, I got attitude back for saying it and of course the famous 'n00b' was in there as well.

Regardless of the fact that I am definitely not a n00b to this game (seeing that I have been playing since Alpha of 1.0) the comment I made did not warrant the response that was given. I see people try to be helpful, sometimes it's in a rude way... but I've seen people try and be polite, to help others and all they get in return is called a n00b and told to shut up. It's an issue and no one seems to want to fix it. If people don't wait to take the advice they can ignore it, or say 'got ya' and move on, but snapping at people and having attitude... honesty is that how people want to be viewed? Be it RL or the game... I doubt anyone wants to be known as someone who should be avoided at all costs.

[Bossycow]

This should be flipped to be reasons why tanks should be nicer to DD.

Or... OR.... try not to stereotype in the first place in claiming only DD are rude to Tanks (Gasp, how progressive!). Rude people are on all sides, not one more than the other. Personal experiences may vary.

[Craiger]

Everyone gets flamed in this game when they do wrong, not only tank.... Just that they have more responsibility. Not defending the people who brings hate...

You make the tank sounds like innocent players that does nothing wrong though. In my experience, the tanks are the most rude ones....

Tanks that I meet are usually the ones that leave after just one or two wipes....

[HakuroDK]

Le Snip

I absolutely agree. I mean, I don't have nearly as much experience with FFXIV as you do (playing since Beta 3 of 2.0, played a teensy bit of the 1.0 beta, but nothing substantial), but I am a very quick study and I try to use that to the entire party's advantage. It makes first-runs of brand new content so much more enjoyable when literally no one, not even yourself, knows what's going on. But that's just my own personal viewpoint on the subject.

But yeah. It doesn't matter if you're a tank, a DPS, a healer, a veteran, a rookie, or whatever. Everyone is either unbelievably nice, extremely nasty, or somewhere in the middle of that. The rage often comes, I find, from a combination of pride and impatience. If someone is impatient, they want to get through content as fast as possible, willingly ignorant of whether others would or could proceed through the content at the same pace. With the pride aspect, the pointing out of any imperfections in the strategy or approach could very easily lead to at least one person getting hyper-defensive, or someone who has a lot of pride in their own abilities talking down to someone who doesn't have that same level of skill as some kind of an ego boost, like "I'm better than you and you're a loser, so I'm going to talk to you like the loser you are and expect you to learn your place while I take precious seconds out of my time to educate you on how I'm superior." Which is utterly ridiculous.

If someone tells me I need to do something a certain way and I'm not 100% absolutely sure that they're wrong (i.e. being told to pull all enemies up to the top floor of WP just outside the final boss room, ignoring the fact that the Tonberry Stalker spawns the instant anyone gets that first set of stairs instead of pacing ourselves, taking out all the adds before the stairs first, then proceeding to do just that), then I'll usually be receptive to it, even moreso if they're polite about it, using words like "Please" or, a phrase I often phrase my suggestions around, "I absolutely hate to be a nag, but could you <insert suggestion here> for me, please? I'd greatly appreciate the help!" (i.e. "I hate to be a nag, but could you ease up on using Water on enemies, please? I'd really appreciate it!"), and sometimes I'll throw in a bland, dry joke to smooth over any possible tension (going off the previous example, "The cool water kinda clashes with my fiery demeanor.", which hints at the fact that I have modeled my entire character concept on a Fire theme.) I'll even apologize for any inconvenience it may cause.

I remember this one party with a guy. Really nice guy trying to learn how to heal on the PS3. He was having a really, really hard time with it, but he was still managing. He brought it up, and I asked him what the problem was (note for people trying to learn from this, I asked what THE problem was, not what HIS problem was. A huge difference in wording). He told me he had a hard time targeting for heals. Apparently, he was unaware of the fact that you can hit up/down on the D-Pad to target party members from the roster. I casually let him know that he could do that, he greatly appreciated the advice, and I felt proud of myself for helping a player overcome his difficulties, even though it was just a very small nugget of information.

Helping other people is a very good, very nice feeling. And for those who need even more incentive, that also increases one's chances of getting commendations from your peers. If impatience and pride can just be left at the door, then I see absolutely no reason why we can't simply be decent human beings to one another.