Should i stop taking crap from people and just start reporting?

[Serilda]

No one simply camps a fate for 2 hours for it to spawn when they could be checking the others on the other maps frequently.

Thanks for being so condescending with me (I have had my zeta a long time now, and I'm starting to see why the other people were so snippy if you approached them with that attitude right out of nowhere). But the point I was trying and failed to make is that there are lots of perfectly reasonable circumstances that would lead people not to hold a FATE for you; you might well disagree with them but that won't change their mindset. I'll explain with more words in the hope that it helps reduce future clashes.

- Language. I'm guessing you shouted something like 'Please hold In Spite Of It All for me!' (insert the actual FATE name as you will, the point is the same). The thing is, if the other player was using the DE, FR or JP client the FATE's name would be completely different. Like, completely different. Hunts use similar (not always identical) names across clients and most people can figure out which one is meant because hunts are well-publicised, but FATEs? Nobody using a different client to you has any chance of figuring out which one you mean from the name alone. Please be more considerate of this - and I wish the developers would be, too, because there's a real lack of awareness with people using a dominant client language and assuming everyone else understands their unique 'Koji Fox'-isms. Even if the other players spoke good English - and there is zero reason to assume that a stranger does in a worldwide game - they still might struggle to understand if you don't consider the huge language barrier between people using different client languages with different localisation teams.

- Not everyone uses the chat box avidly while FATEing. FATEs are boring and mindless and can be won while mentally AFK if you're strong, so there's no need to pay close attention. If they're synced really low you hardly have any buttons to press on some jobs. On the flip side, weak players who are poorly geared might be really struggling to clear the FATE - the last thing they want is to fiddle around chatting or 'holding' it for some unknown period of time while someone else rides up and grabs credit without having bothered camping in the first place (being in another zone does not count as camping). They might die. Your book clear isn't worth it to them.

- No reason for them to do it. Holding the FATE for you directly inconveniences them for your personal benefit. If you don't like camping the classic way, did you try offering a reward for holding it or ask in a really polite way so they knew you were doing their best? Most people I've met in the game are very reasonable. Those who aren't usually have a price.

- Shouting is rude. Some people think this. You don't think this, and that's fine; it's a communication tool anyone can use, but that's your personal opinion and they aren't obliged to listen to people doing it any more than you're obliged to respond to tell messages from random FC recruiters or gilsellers. We're all from different cultures here. If I shouted something only relevant to me on my server and didn't immediately apologise, people would actually blacklist me. Different cultures.

It's all just my opinion, and there are clearly cultural differences here between us. But I don't think it's a bad idea to look within for improvement before confronting some strangers who were just trying to play a game then getting upset when they were jerks to you. Life's too short to pick fights over FATEs.

[Reinha]

- Shouting is rude. Some people think this. You don't think this, and that's fine; it's a communication tool anyone can use, but that's your personal opinion and they aren't obliged to listen to people doing it any more than you're obliged to respond to tell messages from random FC recruiters or gilsellers. We're all from different cultures here. If I shouted something only relevant to me on my server and didn't immediately apologise, people would actually blacklist me. Different cultures.

While I agree with some of your other points, this one seriously confuses me. You're saying /shout is completely "banned" on your server? I have never heard of such a thing and honestly I'd be happy if such petty people would blacklist me so I never hear from them again. Shout is a zone wide channel and the appropriate use is zone wide communication between people who don't know each other's character names (and therefore can't /tell). Such as OP's situation, hunt invites, hunt location shouts, assisting with finding Odin, fate party information, LS and FC adverts, asking about a vendor location or requesting a link for a new Anima weapon. Personally I would move away from a server where sharing game information publicly and cooperating with random people in the open world is frowned upon.

OP, as long as you yourself are polite it's worth it to report targeted profanities. It may not always work but if the same person gets reported by other people they could get penalties over time. The filter is there but I feel there is a difference between general swearing and calling someone names, and the latter definitely doesn't help maintain a good community.

[Serilda]

While I agree with some of your other points, this one seriously confuses me. You're saying /shout is completely "banned" on your server? I have never heard of such a thing and honestly I'd be happy if such petty people would blacklist me so I never hear from them again.

It's a cultural thing, and I know it's a bit weird as described but I personally prefer it. Shout is certainly not banned but it is reserved for specific situations where shouting is in the interest of the wider community - for example, all of these things would be fine as most people in the zone could be reasonably expected to be interested:

- A hunt mob has been sighted in that zone (PF is also used but it makes sense to shout to nearby people too). Announcing HW B-ranks is also ok as multiple people might be searching elsewhere and it's regarded as helpful.
- Odin has been sighted somewhere in the Shroud (or any other special FATE people like to rush, same as above).
- Time-sensitive event information in general (e.g. a new seasonal event comes out and nobody knows where anything pops as everything is new).
- Not really an issue in FFXIV as nothing is scary, but warnings about things that may involve imminent widespread death (e.g. mob trains in FFXI).
- Finding other people in Diadem because the Diadem party system is pretty useless for this.

Whereas these things are considered generally inappropriate because they only benefit one person and just spam everyone else within earshot:

- 'I arrived late for something and want strangers to stop what they're doing and wait for me.' (For hunts, if you're late you send one of the people broadcasting the position a /tell...)
- FC/LS advertisements (PF is used for these, shouts can rarely be used at appropriate times e.g. hunt LS advertisements during a S-rank hunt, but they will annoy people).
- FATE party recruitment (again, PF).
- Asking for NPC locations or gear information (Google, or PF if it's to get a link or something in-game).

You can get away with it now and then but you need to be extremely apologetic and it's considered very rude/disruptive to force everyone around to listen to your personal request. I've played on both styles of server and prefer this type. The coordination still happens, it just only involves those who opt-in.

[Lambdafish]

It's a cultural thing

I was going to get annoyed at this post, but then I stopped because I saw your server, and realised why you take issue with the OPs actions. It is fascinating really, I didn't realise the JP community was so different in their approaches.

On the NA/EU servers, shout chat is used often: FC recruitment, hunt marks, open-to-the-community questions, party invitations, and idle chat in Idyllshire and Mor Dhona, it is extremely normal to see and is widely accepted.

[Serilda]

I was going to get annoyed at this post, but then I stopped because I saw your server, and realised why you take issue with the OPs actions. It is fascinating really, I didn't realise the JP community was so different in their approaches.

On the NA/EU servers, shout chat is used often: FC recruitment, hunt marks, open-to-the-community questions, party invitations, and idle chat in Idyllshire and Mor Dhona, it is extremely normal to see and is widely accepted.

I remember when I was 'auditioning' servers for my friends I tried out one of the EU servers and even before I had zoned in fully after the tutorial bit at the start I was overwhelmed by how much shout chat there was. Some people definitely benefit from that but I find it quite overwhelming and knew my friends definitely would too; I'm one of the more social people in my little group!

I came via WoW where there was a ton of shouting and I definitely found it a bit rude to be 'invited' to things via public broadcast rather than a more personal approach; XIV is worse in a way because you have people from dozens of different cultural backgrounds all playing together and what comes across as friendly/casual to one person sounds outright aggressive to others (even in cultures where English is the main language - the four letter c-word in the topic title is considered a profanity to a lot of native English speakers even though it's considered nothing of the sort in NA). I think that's why fights over trivial things seem to escalate so ridiculously when they're recounted on the forums :/

People are weird.

[Reinha]

It's a cultural thing, and I know it's a bit weird as described but I personally prefer it.

Thanks for clarifying. So you are basically allowed to help others but you aren't allowed to ask for help in return and should use PF also for something other than finding parties. Each to their own I guess.

Something to consider though: the OP is not on a JP realm. Getting offended by OP's request is not normal on NA/EU realms, so isn't the offended person then in the wrong for not accepting the culture he/she is surrounded by? I can be blacklisted on JP realms for asking if anyone has seen the B rank and I find that stupid, but that doesn't justify me lashing out at people who disagree with me. The same should apply in reverse. If someone dislikes seeing certain /shouts on NA/EU realms for cultural reasons then they should either keep their profanities to themselves or hop to a different realm.

[Serilda]

Getting offended by OP's request is not normal on NA/EU realms, so isn't the offended person then in the wrong for not accepting the culture he/she is surrounded by?

Definitely, but in this particular case he has no idea if these three random strangers are from his culture or not since NA/EU servers cover a colossal number of different regions. He has no idea if he's talking to someone who thinks 'crap' is a profanity due to their country and responds in kind (I'm making a massive leap here for argument's sake as he didn't ever mention what he actually said in the confrontation, but using the thread title for the purpose of comparison). There are other strong words I don't consider profanities at all that would stress some NA players out for their religious nature, for example. Strong language is a minefield...

There are vast real-world rifts even between different 'NA' or 'EU' regions, which are intended to encompass all players outside of the tiny exceptions in JP/KR/CN; people from older generations react very differently to confrontations and shouting compared to younger players. I don't think that all servers should have the same local atmosphere that mine does - the outgoing atmosphere of a big English-majority server is just as good, only different; you certainly get a feel for the 'regular' players and feel a sense of community with that kind of background noise. But if a cantankerous person found him rude for shouting in the first place, then ruder still for confronting someone for just playing the game and not going out of their way to help, I can see why they might lash out in what they thought was a similar tone.

Mizunoko: I don't think anyone strongly disagrees with your idea of reporting someone who was nasty to you. That's why the report feature exists. It's more that there's not really anything to discuss about it; only you know exactly what was said, and it wouldn't be appropriate for staff to give you background information about other players' accounts. That leads to a situation where some 'reporters' start bossing people around and using reports as a threat, which makes the toxicity even worse - the bullies end up getting vengeful even if it means losing their accounts. Nobody wins. It's best to report them quietly, blacklist them from your life and put the experience behind you. If they start getting a lot of reports on their history it will look bad for them. If you did absolutely nothing wrong and didn't act insensitively as I suggested may have been the case, you probably just ran into someone with a bad attittude; if it happens often, then maybe you should look within to see whether you're unintentionally winding people up because from my experience deliberate bad attitudes are a tiny minority. It could just be that the way you're confronting people is escalating a situation rather than achieving your actual goal, which was simply to figure out what happened, right?

[Mizunoko]

Definitely, but in this particular case he has no idea if these three random strangers are from his culture or not since NA/EU servers cover a colossal number of different regions. He has no idea if he's talking to someone who thinks 'crap' is a profanity due to their country and responds in kind (I'm making a massive leap here for argument's sake as he didn't ever mention what he actually said in the confrontation, but using the thread title for the purpose of comparison). There are other strong words I don't consider profanities at all that would stress some NA players out for their religious nature, for example. Strong language is a minefield...

There are vast real-world rifts even between different 'NA' or 'EU' regions, which are intended to encompass all players outside of the tiny exceptions in JP/KR/CN; people from older generations react very differently to confrontations and shouting compared to younger players. I don't think that all servers should have the same local atmosphere that mine does - the outgoing atmosphere of a big English-majority server is just as good, only different; you certainly get a feel for the 'regular' players and feel a sense of community with that kind of background noise. But if a cantankerous person found him rude for shouting in the first place, then ruder still for confronting someone for just playing the game and not going out of their way to help, I can see why they might lash out in what they thought was a similar tone.

Mizunoko: I don't think anyone strongly disagrees with your idea of reporting someone who was nasty to you. That's why the report feature exists. It's more that there's not really anything to discuss about it; only you know exactly what was said, and it wouldn't be appropriate for staff to give you background information about other players' accounts. That leads to a situation where some 'reporters' start bossing people around and using reports as a threat, which makes the toxicity even worse - the bullies end up getting vengeful even if it means losing their accounts. Nobody wins. It's best to report them quietly, blacklist them from your life and put the experience behind you. If they start getting a lot of reports on their history it will look bad for them. If you did absolutely nothing wrong and didn't act insensitively as I suggested may have been the case, you probably just ran into someone with a bad attittude; if it happens often, then maybe you should look within to see whether you're unintentionally winding people up because from my experience deliberate bad attitudes are a tiny minority. It could just be that the way you're confronting people is escalating a situation rather than achieving your actual goal, which was simply to figure out what happened, right?

Regardless of what the start of what you're saying says. Culture is not an excuse for breaking the rules and taking things too far by swearing and harassing. Also if this were the case and they thought shouts like that were rude.......well buddy there's going to be a LOT of rude shouts they are going to be seeing and if they start treating people like crap because of that they will be getting reported alot im sure. Because on NA servers we don't work that way.

[Ama_Hamada]

if it happens often, then maybe you should look within to see whether you're unintentionally winding people up because from my experience deliberate bad attitudes are a tiny minority. It could just be that the way you're confronting people is escalating a situation rather than achieving your actual goal, which was simply to figure out what happened, right?

Lul.. must be a server thing.
I find bad attitude somewhat common, ill never forgot the time I did Labyrinth of the ancients being chewed out because someone was salty over dying, and telling me how to cast what spells and when to cast and how he did not like me casting succor at X moment. Just now I got into a DF where I was the only AoE damage, no one spoke when I commented about the MNK having low AoE dps (more like nonexistent, they would go full out on a single target and pull hate) and someone was trolling not loting so I could not vote kick.

I am not sure if I am fully understanding your culture with the shout rules but I like to see less toxic spam in uldah and iddy, talking about ERP and random stuff, but I do find it odd.. really people blacklist you if you ask anyone seen X B rank hunt? (while in that hunt zone)?

[TouchandFeel]

Thanks for clarifying. So you are basically allowed to help others but you aren't allowed to ask for help in return and should use PF also for something other than finding parties. Each to their own I guess.

It's sort of like that, but not exactly. It's really just an extension of an aspect of the Japanese cultural mentality, specifically "do your best not to be a potential burden on or annoyance to others". Making yourself noticeable to everyone around you for your own benefit, such as using shout to get help, can be seen as acting in this way. Asking for help is not taboo, it is just done differently.

As has been stated , cultural differences, which have their pros and cons and differing people will have differing preferences. Myself, I lean more towards the Japanese mindset on stuff like this most of the time.


As for getting your feathers ruffled over rude people in a videogame or on the internet, as the Japanese say, "shikata ga nai". It's not worth prolonging your unhappiness by getting all in a huff over a momentary unpleasant occurrence that has passed.

If a person was really out of line such as repeatedly swearing at you and intentionally obstructing you from normal gameplay, especially without provocation, then by all means report them. Minor things though are not worth souring your mood over.