"Elitism" vs "Casualism"

[Lucy_Pyre]

No one's applying a negative connotations to criticism.

Yes they are. You in particular are doing exactly that.

[Kanjien]

I mean if we're being brutally honest here, a large percentage of XIV's playerbase is inept and incapable. It just so happens that most of the individuals who fit into that descriptor also happen to fall cleanly within the mindset of attempting to attach negative connotations to the sheer act of an individual giving another individual advice in an attempt to help better them as a player.

Be careful, the air up there where your head is will cause an oxygen deficiency. No one is saying that feedback is bad. I am not even saying that unsolicited advice is bad. The point is that if you give advice in a group setting unsolicited then don't be surprised or upset if many people get defensive with you. It is human nature, some people can't handle criticism well, especially in public. Is that a fault in their character? Probably, but we all have our strengths and weaknesses. By pointing out how inept you think the player base is, you just glaringly come across as arrogant and narcissistic. I love feedback, even when it makes me uncomfortable, because I can always improve in whatever I am doing. The key is how you give the feedback, are you really interested in helping the person get better or are you just venting about another inept player ruining your perfect game world? Even in text it is not hard to tell the difference.

[Goji1639]

Yes they are. You in particular are doing exactly that.

How so?

Here's the rest of what I posted, which explained what I am actually doing; in case you missed it.

No one's applying a negative connotations to criticism. I am explaining the already established negative connotation towards criticizing people in public. If the idea was to avoid criticism I'd be telling you not to do it at all; I wouldn't be telling you to simply do it in private.

Pulling someone aside to criticize them is just the polite thing to do. What I'm telling you about how to interact with people won't just help you communicate more effectively in this game; it's something you can apply to real life to.

You'll get a far more positive, receptive response if you're polite. That's what you want, isn't it... For casual players to be receptive of your advice?

[Arngrim_Greyashe]

I remember one time back in Stormblood when running expert, I got a tank that refused to take any feedback. As a tank main, it's the one thing I know I'm decent at. I ran healer on this particular rub and I noticed that the DRK was losing aggro to dps with tank stance on, so I decided to watch his pulls. He was only using unleash one time. So I said "Hey, I just noticed the dps hit pretty hard so you may want to use unleash a few more times on your pull to generate aggro." And the response I got was "Just stop. I know what I'm doing. I'm level 70." It was then I realized there was no helping this person so I quietly finished the dungeon and left. People are so against getting advice these days that it drives me insane. I love getting feedback on my performance so I know what to improve on. I don't get why so many others don't.

[Lucy_Pyre]

Be careful, the air up there where your head is will cause an oxygen deficiency. No one is saying that feedback is bad. I am not even saying that unsolicited advice is bad. The point is that if you give advice in a group setting unsolicited then don't be surprised or upset if many people get defensive with you. It is human nature, some people can't handle criticism well, especially in public. Is that a fault in their character? Probably, but we all have our strengths and weaknesses. By pointing out how inept you think the player base is, you just glaringly come across as arrogant and narcissistic. I love feedback, even when it makes me uncomfortable, because I can always improve in whatever I am doing. The key is how you give the feedback, are you really interested in helping the person get better or are you just venting about another inept player ruining your perfect game world? Even in text it is not hard to tell the difference.

By pointing out that a large percentage of the playerbase is incompetent is simple objective facts. After all, the bare average is always, in any setting, going to be at 50%. That means that 49% of the playerbase is below-average and, thus, falls into the previous subset. Of course, not every 'below average' player I would classify as 'bad'. To me, a bad player is someone who knows that they are playing poorly and has no interest or intent on improving; instead expecting the rest of their party to carry their weight in whatever content they may be doing, whether that be a simple dungeon run or an EX trial. At the end of the day most players in XIV I don't necessarily have issues with, and consequentially I would estimate around 70% of my roulette runs are 'fine' by extension. Maybe not as fast as I would like them to be, but nothing going so wrong or so poorly that I feel obligated to speak up about something. However, it's the other 30% (again, rough estimate) of the time that is where things go awry and, frankly, I would argue that noteworthy issues arising on such a high percentage as 30% is, in and of itself, an issue.

[Zsolen]

Been playing these types of games, since the 90s. This is the first mmo I played, where people got upset over advice I had given them. I don't call people names, and what I say is to the point. Tells don't help. They'll just accuse you of harassing them and not letting it go, if anything. People always assume I am angry and generally refer to me in a derogatory term, but that is not the case. And while I am blunt, I don't try to make anyone feel subhuman. I chose my words carefully. They don't.

It's not casuals that are the issue. Most casuals are great. But there are a few people that don't care about how their habits and attitudes affect others.

[Melichoir]

In a classroom the teacher student relationship is already established. In a roulette it isn't, but if you WANT to take on a party member as a student you should address them in the most courteous way you can. They'll be more receptive of your request to be their teacher if you're not rude to them.

A roulette is a cooperative environment, meaning the input of your fellow teammates does matter. This is like sitting in a work environment and letting a fellow colleague continue to do something that is slowing down the completion of your project and you are suggesting that "Oh, dont say anything publically, pull them aside and do it privately. Otherwise youre being rude." This makes even less sense because the actions of a fellow colleague may end up ruining hte project and it cannot wait til after wards to be addressed. Life is complicated, sometimes things have to be addressed on the spot. Now how you do that is in your control, and to what degree is as well.

No one's applying a negative connotations to criticism. I am explaining the already established negative connotation towards criticizing people in public. If the idea was to avoid criticism I'd be telling you not to do it at all; I wouldn't be telling you to simply do it in private.

And the issue that you keep stumbling over is that you keep conflating calling out, criticism, and advice as all being inherently negative if done publicly without request. Your position, in response to all this, is to not say anything at all in a public setting otherwise it is calling someone out or applying criticism/critique and is rude.

Again, quoting you: (In regards to my comment about advice vs calling out and criticism)

It actually does fall into the category of criticism. Not all criticism is offered with bad intentions or an accusatory tone, but that doesn't change the fact that it's rude to do it in public.

The issue with this stance comes down to two major issues: The intent of the speaker and the interpretation of the listener.

As I outlined earlier, by your own line of thinking, congratulating someone at the end of a run is also not allowed and rude because that tacitly implies critique of their performance. If you want to take that one step further, if you fail to say anything, you can be construed as tacitly disapproving their performance, or if you choose to congratulate one person but not another, you are giving approval to one and implied disapproval to another.

If you take a hot second to think about what is being stated, it's essentially a 'damned if you do, damned if you dont' scenario where your motives and intentions are decided by the interpretation of the other party and not you. This isnt a functional model to work by, particularly in a group co-op environment.

The other side of the issue, the interpretation of the speaker, undermines your basic logic - That it is less rude to do it privately. Offense is always taken, never given. While that little saying is a bit simple, the concept is that no matter what you do, it is ultimately going to be the receiving party that will decide if theyre offended or not. So whether you do it in front of your party through any means (criticism, critique, advice, callingout, whatever) or you do it in private through a tell, if the receiver thinks youre being rude, youve accomplished nothing. You have not done anything less rude, because the listener assumes your intent to be rude.

Quite literally "I didnt ask for your advice, so stop whispering me. It's Rude." The only thing you might be sparing, and that isnt even guarenteed, is the potential embarrassment a person in front of other people. But if embarrassment is what youre hoping to spare a person from, doing it in private doesnt solve that because at that point you are affirming that you knew the player was doing things that encouraged you to whisper them for advice. So now theyre embarrassed you noticed (or potentially so). Even if you couch the message with "Hey, did you want advice for 'x'", you get the implicit implication that you think something is up and they need help/coaching/advice.

It does not matter how you frame it, how you do it, how you go about it, by the way you suggest you encounter the very same problems - not avoid, and depending on the interpretations of the listener, your actions can come across as even ruder, possibly patronizing, because you decided to 'call them out' or 'criticize' them in private rather than giving them the dignity and fairness to assume that theyre a mature person who can handle advice and criticism fairly in front of others.


It's lose/lose by your metric.

[Tho-Much]

By pointing out that a large percentage of the playerbase is incompetent is simple objective facts. [...]

Any evidence? Except your very subjectiv opinion....

[Goji1639]

Been playing these types of games, since the 90s. This is the first mmo I played, where people got upset over advice I had given them. I don't call people names, and what I say is to the point. Tells don't help. They'll just accuse you of harassing them and not letting it go, if anything. People always assume I am angry and generally refer to me in a derogatory term, but that is not the case. And while I am blunt, I don't try to make anyone feel subhuman. I chose my words carefully. They don't.

It's not casuals that are the issue. Most casuals are great. But there are a few people that don't care about how their habits and attitudes affect others.

Honestly, this is the first MMO I've ever played where people are so adamant with advice, and become so immediately offended if their advice isn't taken.

Back when I played WoW I carried people all the time in easy content. Many people did. The only time people started caring about "bad" players was in difficult content.

Maybe it's the lack of actual difficult content in this game that makes people want to be all serious and critical in the easy stuff.

[Lucy_Pyre]

Any evidence? Except your very subjectiv opinion....

Yes, actually, it's called basic logic. If 50% is the breakpoint for what is 'average', and by sheer definition 50% will always be that breakpoint, then it simply falls to reason that the 49% below that breakpoint are 'below average'.