How does FFXIV fare against other modern MMORPGs?

[Maeka]

How is WoW toxic if you don't mind expounding? Clear examples/insight please.

As an avid MMO player and long time WoW player, it's not very toxic at all, unless the only thing you do is LFR, but that's a hilariously isolated content form to paint an entire playerbase with.

Here's an example:

Just the other day, family member went to Stormwind City to do the daily Fishing/Cooking quests.

Some guy was /yelling Anti-Semitic remarks over and over and over again.

Or how about all the /spit emotes from opposite-faction players back in the day when accidental flagging was a thing, they would run around us while flagged and we'd go find a safe area to wait for the pest to go away, and they'd start spamming /spit on us because we wouldn't fight them (because yanno we're on a PvE server for a reason).

How about the plethora of times that I've seen wipes happen in LFR ToT and SoO back in MoP when I did those, there'd be a wipe and people would finger-point and argue with each other about who was to blame and then people'd start spamming DPS parses in the chat until people started leaving the raid.

yadda yadda.

EDIT: on the wiping subject.... I've seen lots and lots of wipes in XIV in 8 player content too..... rarely does anybody point fingers. Heck a lot of times nobody says anything, and sometimes people will even politely give pointers... "nobody should stand underneath meteors except for tank... lb3 the tear" etc etc. The only times I've seen toxicity is after 3 wipes then people start sounding a little annoyed.

But in WoW.... back in MoP when I used to LFR back when the rewards were worth doing LFR for, the toxicity in LFR was ridiculous. One Wipe was all it took to get people to lose their crap.

[Shurrikhan]

Here's an example:

Just the other day, family member went to Stormwind City to do the daily Fishing/Cooking quests.

Some guy was /yelling Anti-Semitic remarks over and over and over again.

Or how about all the /spit emotes from opposite-faction players back in the day when accidental flagging was a thing, they would run around us while flagged and we'd go find a safe area to wait for the pest to go away, and they'd start spamming /spit on us because we wouldn't fight them (because yanno we're on a PvE server for a reason).

How about the plethora of times that I've seen wipes happen in LFR ToT and SoO back in MoP when I did those, there'd be a wipe and people would finger-point and argue with each other about who was to blame and then people'd start spamming DPS parses in the chat until people started leaving the raid.

yadda yadda.

EDIT: on the wiping subject.... I've seen lots and lots of wipes in XIV in 8 player content too..... rarely does anybody point fingers. Heck a lot of times nobody says anything, and sometimes people will even politely give pointers... "nobody should stand underneath meteors except for tank... lb3 the tear" etc etc. The only times I've seen toxicity is after 3 wipes then people start sounding a little annoyed.

But in WoW.... back in MoP when I used to LFR back when the rewards were worth doing LFR for, the toxicity in LFR was ridiculous. One Wipe was all it took to get people to lose their crap.

Have you met XIV /shout chat?

As for PvP gank-hards, for every couple of them, there's also a guy who will use their Death Grip to pull you out of certain death, and then tank the rare for you... Likewise, I've placed my Mammoth mount over LoSed corners (as tab targeting will require line of sight) so they couldn't be clicked on, if even seen, and given how many new the strat in order to get away from corpse-campers long enough to heal and remount, I'm sure I wasn't the only guy on my side who didn't care for the few ****s among us. Not to say I didn't enjoy World PvP when its purpose was fully just that. Heck, there are few things that draw more nostalgia, especially back in Vanilla / Burning Crusade times.

Back in BC, I hadn't realized I was on a 90% Horde server til I already had a couple 60s. I just assumed the population was lower than it was. So when I went into Hellfire Penninsula, there were very few Alliance to do the group quests with. Yet there were plenty of Horde who'd duo them with me, alternating who gets the first tag. (This was a PvP server, mind you, which I joined because a friend had randomed onto it.) While I was relieved that PvP/PvE servers became an in-game choice with War Mode, despite that overwhelming Horde population I still was rarely attacked even as the naive little Alliance guy questing in the middle of 5+ Horde, so it was rarely any real problem.

[Maeka]

Have you met XIV /shout chat?

Maybe it's just Lamia, but people rarely shout.

I think I've seen toxicity, maybe once in a /say conversation in Limsa, once. But I wasn't sure if it was actually toxicity or just a couple friends jokingly talking smack.

As for PvP gank-hards, for every couple of them, there's also a guy who will use their Death Grip to pull you out of certain death, and then tank the rare for you... Likewise, I've placed my Mammoth mount over LoSed corners (as tab targeting will require line of sight) so they couldn't be clicked on, if even seen, and given how many new the strat in order to get away from corpse-campers long enough to heal and remount, I'm sure I wasn't the only guy on my side who didn't care for the few ****s among us. Not to say I didn't enjoy World PvP when its purpose was fully just that. Heck, there are few things that draw more nostalgia, especially back in Vanilla / Burning Crusade times.

I think that's kind of an exaggeration... I've not seen anywhere near that amount of friendliness compared to how many toxic players there are. I just haven't.

Back in BC, I hadn't realized I was on a 90% Horde server til I already had a couple 60s. I just assumed the population was lower than it was. So when I went into Hellfire Penninsula, there were very few Alliance to do the group quests with. Yet there were plenty of Horde who'd duo them with me, alternating who gets the first tag. (This was a PvP server, mind you, which I joined because a friend had randomed onto it.) While I was relieved that PvP/PvE servers became an in-game choice with War Mode, despite that overwhelming Horde population I still was rarely attacked even as the naive little Alliance guy questing in the middle of 5+ Horde, so it was rarely any real problem.

It does seem like the community has gotten more toxic over time? I don't recall the BC days that well. Well, yeah you know what I recall?

Before the days of Dungeon Finder.... we had to use the LFG chat channel. I recall terrible game design and me arriving at Lv70 when Black Temple was current content and being brick-walled in progression because I needed Normal Dungeons and nobody would do Normal Dungeons because everybody was on Heroics. I couldn't do Heroics.

So I was dead in the water until Wrath.

But I won't hold that against Blizz; they fixed that crap since. But yeah. I don't remember the community that far back to be honest. I do remember some toxicity starting in Wrath, but it really got worse in Cataclysm as a lot of people hated that expansion. Then as Pandaria was rather popular (despite the people whining about it) moreso than Cataclysm, in-game population shot up and more toxicity spread.... then WoD came out, I took a couple year hiatus, came back in Mid-Legion and... yuck.

General Discussion over there is just a cesspool of incessant whining, just like it is today.

People think XIV General Discussion is bad? Hooo boy. They've never seen WoW o-boards.

10000% this lol. Not only that you can go into the WoW community and see just how much they think blizzard actually cares about them even with all the new systems (that are broken or just not fun btw) that have been added. I play a shadow priest in WoW and it's a dumpster fire of a spec yet blizzard still has yet to say a single word on the spec since like early beta regardless of all the community feedback. And that's just one spec.

To say SE doesn't care is laughable. If we're saying that then no game developer cares about their playerbase just because a handful of people didn't get what they wanted or some crazy new system isn't added every new patch.

ETA: Most of this was in response to the "if SE actually cared" comment btw.

YES! I freaking HATE that.

Why oh why do they have to reinvent the wheel every stupid expansion? Arms Warrior. MoP Arms was great. WoD entirely destroyed it making it nigh unplayable. Legion was "so-so" and now BfA decided to slow it down (like they slowed everybody down).

Or, say, Ret Paladin. They can't make their mind up! We had Selfless Healer way back I think it was Cataclysm. They got rid of that and gave us Word of Glory in MoP and kept it for WoD. Then in Legion, they nerfed it heavily by giving it 2 charges and a massive cooldown, but gave us Justicar's Vengeance for our main heal.

Then BfA they go "Let's nerf JV... and hey you remember that talent you once used way back in Cataclysm? Here you go, you can use that again."

.......sigh. I got used to NOT having to stand and cast to heal and having to wait for HoPo spending before I could heal and now I gotta do that all over again for the first time in 6 years because they just can't make their minds up on what they wanna do.

[KaldeaSahaline]

Here's an example:

Just the other day, family member went to Stormwind City to do the daily Fishing/Cooking quests.

Some guy was /yelling Anti-Semitic remarks over and over and over again.

Or how about all the /spit emotes from opposite-faction players back in the day when accidental flagging was a thing, they would run around us while flagged and we'd go find a safe area to wait for the pest to go away, and they'd start spamming /spit on us because we wouldn't fight them (because yanno we're on a PvE server for a reason).

How about the plethora of times that I've seen wipes happen in LFR ToT and SoO back in MoP when I did those, there'd be a wipe and people would finger-point and argue with each other about who was to blame and then people'd start spamming DPS parses in the chat until people started leaving the raid.

Oh - I was hoping you had real examples. LFR doesn't count. I already conceded that point. LFR is just what happens when you put a bunch of terrible players with elitist attitudes (not actual elitists, just misguided attitudes) in a room together.

The reason I never see toxicity in WoW is because I've done LFR once in my entire life. I also don't consider trivial stuff toxic either, like someone saying something stupid in trade chat, something FF14 has PLENTY of by itself.

Calling people talking in public chat toxic is a new low. It's not toxic, ESPECIALLY if it's not directed at you personally.

/Spit on enemy factions for not being pvp toggled is also not toxic.

If you find stuff like that toxic, how do you survive real life? I ask that not only as a curious person, but I'm minorly concerned for your well being.

ESO is a beautifully crafted world with decent voice acting, so you might enjoy it. The thing that I disliked the most about it is how you had to "animation cancel" to be effective in combat (the way I understand it, it's basically spam-clicking to attack while weaving skills in between them), so for me it got pretty senseless very fast. If that's not a problem for you, though, I hope you enjoy it!

I have no experience playing ESO, but that sounds identical to weaving oGCDs. is it just more frequent in ESO?

[Rymm]

Oh - I was hoping you had real examples.

I wasn't going to jump into this conversation, but I can't help but feel that you have a very narrow definition of "toxicity" in games. That's all based on opinion though and just because you don't feel it something is a "real example" of toxic behavior, doesn't mean that everyone agrees with you.

For examples of toxicity in WoW that fits your criteria... Early Legion when the chests you got in M+ dungeons were based on how quickly you completed them, I used to run into a lot of people who would drop group the second it became apparent that we weren't going to 3-chest the run, thus screwing 4 other people out of at least getting 1-2 chests and ruining the key for whoever's dungeon it was. Five-man content was pretty awful in general; it's where I tended to see the most toxicity outside of LFR which you seem to think "doesn't count." But that is because most people only PuG LFR or 5mans. In that case, of course you aren't going to see toxicity in actual raid tiers- who is going stay with a guild or run with a raid group on a regular basis if they are toxic?

Battlegrounds were another hotspot for toxicity. The first thing that went wrong in the BG and the real fighting would start- between the players on the same team. Arguing, finger pointing, name calling, swearing, refusing to help or even move...

Ugh, thanks for reminding me why I quit.

[MomomiMomi]

I have no experience playing ESO, but that sounds identical to weaving oGCDs. is it just more frequent in ESO?

It's basicaly FF14 auto-attacks that hit between your abilities, except instead of auto-attacks, you have to actually hit the attack button, then immediately hit an ability to cancel your attack's animation. In a way, it's similar to oGCDs. You do it for every ability. It's something like a 30% dps loss if you don't.

[Maeka]

It's basicaly FF14 auto-attacks that hit between your abilities, except instead of auto-attacks, you have to actually hit the attack button, then immediately hit an ability to cancel your attack's animation. In a way, it's similar to oGCDs. You do it for every ability. It's something like a 30% dps loss if you don't.

That sounds like the dumbest thing I've ever heard of to have in a game.

You have attacks... and you can use them, but you have to try to use another ability to cancel out of the animation just so you can squeeze more attacks in... *sigh* Really, now. Glad I don't play that game, that would drive me crazy just by how fundamentally stupid it is. Do they actually support that, I mean, is that SUPPOSED to be a feature? Or is it just simply gaming the system and dodging limitations?

Really wish video game makers would actually realize that the animation is supposed to actually mean something, that the animation is your character actually performing the attack and cancelling out of it should also mean cancelling your attack too because you know if you go to swing a sword at someone and you stop in mid-swing, that you're going to do jack all other than maybe a feint (and that's only if you're actually trying to do a feint).

I know a lot of 2D action games love that crap too, but at least in those games, if you use an attack cancel, it's to stop your attack and dodge getting hit and you do actually forfeit the attack in so doing, or at least part of it.

EDIT: IN FACT, Animations are partly WHY a Global Cooldown exists in the first place, lol. It's one of the reasons why WoW took a lot of buff abilities off of oGCD and put them on GCD because they said that they were tired of making these animations that nobody saw because people would use 2-3 abilities in one second which did not allow the game to actually display said animations.

[MomomiMomi]

Do they actually support that, I mean, is that SUPPOSED to be a feature? Or is it just simply gaming the system and dodging limitations?

It was unintentional design, but they've adopted it as is.