My Catharsis in FFXIV

[Zorixas]

1) People rarely critize anyone, let alone a tank, for not playing optimal in any content beside Savage/Ultimate (...and maaaybe the latest EX-Primal). You can play the better part of the game without having to squeeze out every last bit of damage.

2) For Savage-content: Obviously, people will expect you to do your best, push yourself and improve - all of those are things you should actually want for yourself in the first place. I dont expect people to be perfect, but I expect them to strife for perfection if they want to participate in true endgame-content. And I expect them to be competent on their job and its basic in all the content.

3) The best solution to escape the enviroment of people expecting "to much" would be to find a group of friends to enjoy the game with - people who share similar goals and mindsets. Who'd rather have fun raiding - and not so much with clearing the top tier within the first week. But thats only my humble opinion.

4) You'll soon find that while the japanese might not call you out to your face, you'll run into a different kind of trouble, specially with your mindset. From all that I've heard about japanese servers and their culture, with your attitude of "I dont wanna give my best and/or improve" you wont last long. Because they expect that as much as the western servers do. They might seem more patient, but thats most likely because the majority of them has the mindset of "If I'm not good enough to do this content, I wont hold my team back by joining in the first place."

If the japanese servers are more to your taste - grats! Its great that you've found your place within Eorzea, but I cant help to point out that regardless of the server you're playing on you should absolutly try your best, squeeze out that extra bit of damage, try to improve yourself, your gameplay, your understanding of your job and the content you're taking it to.
Its a matter of respect - on both sides.
Personally, I dont mind new people or people who are still learning - but I mind people who refuse to do that. I'm not saying that thats the case with you, but your OP sounds very much like you've given up to an extend with improving yourself and trying to meet the "demands" of the people you met through DF. And quite frankly: That baffles me a bit... because usually those demands arent high. Usually people dont care what the rest of their group does in a normal dungeon. As long as some basic standards are met. Just wanting to do stuff doesnt work when you're playing with other people - you also need to do that stuff right and to an extend you need to know how to do that right before hand. If you end up with "toxic groups" or groups demanding "to much", you might need to take a look at your job and your skills again and spend some time learning those before you jump back into group-content - regardless of your server, its the right thing to do: Going into content prepared. And if you dont feel you are yet - or even more so: if you're clearly not - then you should improve before you join a group, specially a group of strangers.

Let me give an example of what I was referring to.
During Heavensward on the Gilgamesh server, I decided to finally try out raiding and take on Alexander, so I joined a static (I was a monk at the time). When we got to Cruise Chaser, we had more trouble than the other 2 bosses. I was doing all that I can to remember the mechanics and what to do to counter them, but I couldn't remember the exact rotations and timings for what mechanics were coming and when, so I made the decision of not using Shoulder Tackle for when I needed to get away from the boss, I can charge back in immediately when it's safe, my damage was great without it anyway, I made sure to not die as much as possible and follow the strategies as best as I could. The result was as we progressed; I died the least amount of times and countered the mechanics the most when doing good damage. When we finally beat the boss, they decided to have a meeting to discuss on how to deal with that boss before moving on to Alexander. Their strategy was to squeeze out as much damage as possible (I wanted to tell them that dying less would lead to more damage, but I decided to keep that to myself). When they got to me, they wanted me to use Shoulder Tackle on cooldown no matter what, I told them no because I wanted to stay on the boss and I haven't gotten down its rotation just yet for me to pull off that kind of min-maxing, 100 potency every 30 seconds would not be missed. So they kicked me from the static. Not because I performed poorly, but because I didn't want to completely maximize my damage with such desperate clawing to scrape up a minuscule damage increase. That was not going to change the result of the entire fight. That's what's I'm talking about when I spoke of criticism because I didn't squeeze out every bit of damage.

When it was that I talked with Japanese raiders about my scenarios like the one I mentioned, they all pretty much had the same response: They don't care. As long as you're doing all that you can to win and not die, they're fine with whatever play-style that you want. Seriously, I've encountered so many ninjas that use Doton on single targets for all levels of content, they do not care. Almost everyone just keeps to themselves, as long as you're polite, say the usual greetings and parting words when in a group (よろしくお願いします 'Yoroshikuonegaishimasu' at the start and お疲れさまでした "Otsukaresamadeshita" at the end) and not be a douche, you'll be fine. They only really care about communication in difficult content, some would rather not have to deal with non-Japanese speakers, but I've also encountered those that we really understanding and tried their best to speak what little English they knew. I've been a mediator many times to help with that lack of communication, but it's been difficult for me as well because I am only able to speak and read so little of it. There are many terms that are different than what English players use (e.g., what we call "savage", they call it 零式 "Reishiki", I can't read it at all, and the translators call it "Zero-Type" or "Zero-Formula" when I'm sure is incorrect, and there's so many shortened terms that they use which I still don't understand them, it's still rough). They're not really spiteful as they are disappointed when you're doing poorly, and you have to be doing really bad for them to say anything, more often than not it's just responses like, "Eh, you're new, you'll get the hang of it in time." with the occasional "Let's have fun!" and "Do your best!" sprinkled in now and then. There are some Japanese min-maxers, but they don't push their advice onto anyone, however, they are ready and more than happy to give advice when you ask for it. It's a different culture with different upbringings and customs, so they think and act different in many situations. They're not as spiteful as others would have you believe.

...also... can I ask why you put your info on a specific magic-crystal-ball-website that may or may not tell people how well you are performing on your Lodestone-page for everyone to see if you're feeling judged by people? Is this just some trolling or clickbait for that video?

Huh? Magic-crystal-ball-website? What are you talking about? The only link on my forum profile page is to my YouTube channel (which I should change because I'm not uploading anything. I'll set it to my twitter for now), and my lodestone profile has that code that FFLogs wanted me to put on it, which was for those Alexander raid runs. It no longer matters, the Japanese players don't really use it. I think that they use something else to check performance, but's it's used more for a personal performance analysis rather than analyzing others.