The "Wow Refugee's" impact on the FFXIV Community?

[ElciaDeiLinus]

Regarding some of the posts here, why is there a stigma against expecting people to have some basic ability to play the game moderately decent in group content? What's sad is that there is another post in General Discussion complaining about how inept the Trust NPCs are, instead of taking responsibility for the runs failing.

Adding to this, I know several people who are FF14 vets that regard people who use jump potions and fail mechanics as "WoW refugees." The elitism goes both ways.

I don't think there's a stigma against expecting people to have basic ability in groups- but I do think there's a stigma against treating a total stranger like garbage. If you are jumping into a PuG, whether in FFXIV or WoW, there are expectations that you'll be trying to do well, but there also is the expectation that you don't know what you'll get. Not everyone plays at the same level, some players are bad and some very good.

It may be a bit different if a player is intentionally screwing the group (but that's toxicity on their part, not lack of skill), or, if a player is genuinely so bad the content cannot be completed. Thing is, almost all of the toxicity I see or groups falling apart I see in WoW are with groups that are completely capable of doing the content; just perhaps not at the most efficient speed, with pulling five packs at a time, or that heavens forbid might wipe once.

Also, keep in mind that WoW below heroic raid or M+ which only the more elite players do lacks mechanics. An average fight in FFXIV might have a death mechanic, adds, and something else like something to hide behind. Even something fairly easy, like the first allied raid right now, has an instant death mechanic on almost every boss.

WoW casual content doesn't have mechanics, or has perhaps one such as an add wave or a fire to not stand in- and players still can't do that. I think it's understandable most refugees are going to fail mechanics in this game. Heck, I do heroic raids in WoW and I've still died to most of the instant death mechanics here at least once or twice.

But even if players aren't good in your pug group- a group you joined, by the way, fully realizing it's luck of the draw- I don't see why cussing them out or demeaning them is fine. I think there should be a stigma against that, because it's not the sort of behaviour I'd want to see in casual content in a game I play for fun; it's not fun to be the target of, it's not fun to watch someone else endure.

[Hyrist]

Aggressive and negative behavior period shouldn't be tolerated. You can understand being frustrated at content you're not clearing because someone is clearly not performing well - but the stigma against expecting players to be good is the fact that such a statement is done in full ignorance of the intended recipient. Some people are simply have a reason why they are not playing well that day or have an ongoing medical reason why some parts are particularly difficult.

What should be stressed is the standpoint of outreach and understanding is what should be assumed above expectation of some subjective measure of performance (That differs from person to person in my experience.) If it doesn't seem to be working out, leave. A break is probably what everyone needs anyways if people are getting hot under the collar.

A video game is not worth breaking the tenants of basic human decency towards strangers. (If it's among your friends, that's on you.)

[Kaethra]

Adding to this, I know several people who are FF14 vets that regard people who use jump potions and fail mechanics as "WoW refugees." The elitism goes both ways.

The irony is the 'casuals' are some of the most elitist players out there. Always have been.

This trend started with the Planed of Power expansion release back in 2002. It used to be you could find a group, and do fine in even the harder Luclin areas. But that changed in the PoP expansion when peeps outside some of the tougher Velious and Luclin gear were getting wrecked. You simply needed decent gear to even do the regular group content. So this brand new expansion was unplayable for those players who didn't spend the time and effort to get the gear needed from 2-3 expansions before hand.

They didn't blame the devs. They blamed the groups that would turn them away because they weren't geared enough. And rightfully so, the groups simply couldn't complete objectives without everyone being suitably equipped. Imagine if you did Shinryu and your tanks were in item level 110 gear. And hence the term 'casual' came about. It meant that these players 'only played casually' meaning they 'had a life' outside the game unlike those who were better equipped. Or so they claimed.

It was a dig at what they called the hardcores. Hardcore meaning you had no life, lived in a basement, ect.

In its own way it was elitist. Not because they were elite at the game and snubbing others. But that they believed they were better than those better equipped in RL avenues. And now we see it here, 17 years later. Of course many of these players didn't experience this 17 years ago, they simply are regurgitating the same vitriol that started back then. But the judgment continues. If someone plays at a higher level of play, it must because they must be a no-life hardcore. They don't play casually, they story skip, cutscene skip, rush rush wall to wall boss to boss pull everything. They meta every little detail and judge everyone with their evil parsers and mods and macros and computer hardware that costs more than a small car.

Even the perception is enough to be judged this way. I mentioned a few days ago, that I had completed the MSQ in two days time. Not played, but over all two days, from June 28th to June 30th. And I was accused of skipping story, which I did not. I watched every cutscene, read every dialogue. I didn't do sidequests, as I normally do not (as I prefer dungeons to level). But it didn't matter, their mind was already made up. I'm one of those elitist no life hardcores that wants to make their lives miserable in anyway I can to them.

So yes, this elitism goes both ways.

The ironic thing.. is these players will put far more time into the game then those of us they call elitists. They'll play 3-5 hours a day 4-6 days a week. While once we've unlocked the raids we'll be pretty much playing 1-2 days a week for 1-2 hours at a time. Waiting for the weekly lockout. So much for 'hardcores' being no lifes.

[Elamys]

There is no phrase I hate more than "WoW refugee." I mean, come on. Refugee? As if they're fleeing some horribly broken game that's ruined MMOs for them? Come on. You may not like modern WoW, you may think it's the worst game in the world, but the fact is that it is still enjoyed by a lot more people than this game currently is.

There has been little to no observable difference between this community and WoW's community, at least not since I started playing in 2015. I still play WoW so I get to see how the communities act real time and, well, everyone's the same, why? Because there's nothing special or unique about XIV players, most of us have played other MMOs, most of us play other games, many of those games the same ones we deride constantly as being super toxic, so why should I expect the players of XIV to be different when they're pulling from the same pool of people?

I will say there is one, and only one, difference I've seen between the two communities: XIV players sure do care a lot if you admit to liking WoW, usually in a negative way. But nobody who plays WoW cares if you like FFXIV. Of course, I will put in here that these are my own personal observations and so generally meaningless when it comes to proving anything.

I have seen people say that the DDoS attacks we've had in the past were orchestrated by angry World of Warcraft players who were mad that this game is successful (false). A number of people here actually believed a fake "leaked" internal Blizzard document supposedly saying that FFXIV was a banned discussion topic at work because it had a negative effect on "employee morale." Nobody on WoW forums is making threads obsessing over the impact XIV or the players of XIV has on their game. Nobody who plays WoW gets up in arms when an XIV player expresses interest in the game, yet for some reason here on these forums you get told to stay in WoW or go back to WoW as if we can't have these filthy WoW players clogging up our great game.

Which is unfortunate, because I'd wager a HUGE chunk of the playerbase consists of former WoW players.

There are people here claiming they have hard, factual evidence that the community is worse, and yet I don't see it. Your stories don't count, and have you considered that there are a lot more people playing the game now, and therefore, a lot more chances to run into an ahole?

You hate WoW? Fine. But why treat WoW players like they're some kind of bogeyman? They are different games, people will enjoy different things about them, and some people won't enjoy them at all.

[Hyrist]

There is no phrase I hate more than "WoW refugee." I mean, come on. Refugee? As if they're fleeing some horribly broken game that's ruined MMOs for them? Come on. You may not like modern WoW, you may think it's the worst game in the world, but the fact is that it is still enjoyed by a lot more people than this game currently is.

I don't think the term "WoW refugee" is made with any innate degradation in the term. I view it rather neutral. Players who are unsatisfied with a game leaves it and comes to another in large quantities have usually been termed 'refugees' in gaming culture. Wildstar, ESO, etc. They've had their various refugee phases. Heck, even those in Warframe refer to people who shift from the Destiny Games to them refer to it as "D2 Refugees"

I think the perception of the word may have been altered by more political motivations outside the world of gaming. But generally it's not meant to be demeaning.

[van_arn]

I don't think the term "WoW refugee" is made with any innate degradation in the term. I view it rather neutral. Players who are unsatisfied with a game leaves it and comes to another in large quantities have usually been termed 'refugees' in gaming culture. Wildstar, ESO, etc. They've had their various refugee phases. Heck, even those in Warframe refer to people who shift from the Destiny Games to them refer to it as "D2 Refugees"

I think the perception of the word may have been altered by more political motivations outside the world of gaming. But generally it's not meant to be demeaning.

What's true is wow is a boogeyman for everything from the community to content to elitism for the players that think XIV is unique.

The problem is the playerbase, which has always shared people with wow.

[Shurrikhan]

Conversations about skill expectations and results have been here since early the days of MMOs. I just roll my eyes at them and continue to play as comfortable for me. If that's not good enough for some players, I don't have to play with them. Their expectations are not my concern. Improvement should be self-motivated, not peer-pressured. If you're doing a roulette, you're rolling the dice. The gamble theme is implicit in its name.

So when 3 people roll the dice and get you, you somehow didn't also roll the dice and get them? They must bow to your expectations, but they can't pressure you towards theirs?

[ElciaDeiLinus]

I don't think the term "WoW refugee" is made with any innate degradation in the term. I view it rather neutral. Players who are unsatisfied with a game leaves it and comes to another in large quantities have usually been termed 'refugees' in gaming culture. Wildstar, ESO, etc. They've had their various refugee phases. Heck, even those in Warframe refer to people who shift from the Destiny Games to them refer to it as "D2 Refugees"

I think the perception of the word may have been altered by more political motivations outside the world of gaming. But generally it's not meant to be demeaning.

A big part of it may also be that streamers and such for this game and WoW use the term, so it catches on pretty quickly. But there's no question that the quality of BfA is making a lot of players look to other games, and the atrocious 8.2 patch only made things worse- despite Blizz trying to release it to directly compete with Shadowbringers.

[Hyrist]

What's true is wow is a boogeyman for everything from the community to content to elitism for the players that think XIV is unique.

The problem is the playerbase, which has always shared people with wow.

I've avoided painting with a broad brush here as a point of call, as I expected that argument.

The moment you make an "All x Players" comment, you become the guilty party. Be cautious of that.

I've seen vocal people on the forums of every camp of thought. There is a natural rivalry between WoW and other game in the industry, and that is a product of the wild success WoW was in its day. But to make the assumption that the 'playerbase is the problem' is to ignore the forest for the trees. I've read countless positive commentaries of people from other MMOs that actually compliment FFXIV's community regardless of game of origin - and I would gather that sort of story is heard for every game in which someone approaches something new hat-in-hand with an open mind, even a new WoW player.

So the problem is less any group of people, and more a trend of behavior with a nebulous connection to various factors never quite nailed down by any gaming community. This is why I target behaviors, not groups.

So when 3 people roll the dice and get you, you somehow didn't also roll the dice and get them? They must bow to your expectations, but they can't pressure you towards theirs?

If it's three to one as you say, they're free to vote-kick. I'll be salty for all of the time it takes for me to re-queue - and be sure to take note of them if their behavior sticks out and try to avoid them in the future. If I find it to be an abuse of the system, I'll report it. Otherwise, it's okay to disagree.

But, as I said, improvement should be self-motivated. My motivation reaches as far as making adjustments to complete the duty to the point of comfort. The choice between optimization and ripping my tendon further is always going to favor my real life health.

[Alucard135]

There are logs now, there are people screaming at others to carry their own weight, even when the group is clearing content. There are people getting *really* upset with (and insta-kicking) people who have opted out of the log program.

Because content has changed since 2.0. It's not the same difficulty. Savage has changed from 2.0, and we have ultimate fights added in SB. With higher difficulty, carrying your own weight is essential to the group's success. Even if you clear said content, those that are under performing need to be addressed.

Those hiding their logs the majority of the times are doing so because it's bad. There are exceptions, but those are rare. If we assumed there was no FFlogs, then what would prevent a player that barely cleared a savage fight and isn't good about its mechanics from joining a farm group that want to clear the fight fast to prog the next fight? They wouldn't know, until they pull multiple times and realize that they're bad at this fight. And in the case of door bosses, if they passed that boss, then that's more time wasted. And if the other kicked that player or called him bad, they'd come here to the forums and say "WoW refugees are toxic and elitist!"

Let me give you an example of an actual log I saw. A party farming Suzaku EX managed to kill it 3 times with two DPS performing even lower than the tanks in some of the fights. They barely killed it before enrage at one fight because the SAM and the BLM had were pulling 7k+ DPS those fights (the SAM had a gold parse and the BLM a purple parse in some of them). So according to your logic, this OK because they killed it. And if they were to tell the other two DPS to carry their own weight, they will be toxic, right?

Anything outside of high end duties is fine if they were to follow your baseline. But in high end duties, then be prepared to be criticized and asked to actually put in the effort.

1, ctrl+1, ctrl+2, 6, 7, 2, 3, 1, 2, ctrl+3, 1, shift+1, ctrl+5, 6

All while managing enemy positioning and dodging AoE areas.

- I have to use a freaking 12 button mouse, I do not expect that from others - I do that to better myself and myself only - I'm not going to look at someone else and say, "Bro do you even lift?"

I'm a mouse clicker and I manage to clear content normally lol.

I have tested this, by the way, the basic dodge three hit (depending if AoEing or Single Targeting) works for every dungeon so far 1-70.

Let me ask you this.. Is it OK if I queue to Ala Mhigo with ilvl 270? We're still gonna clear the dungeon, there's no doubt about that. But do you consider it OK to do so?