"Elitism" vs "Casualism"

[Frosthaven]

The only thing I've really run into much is an increasing number of outgoing players giving genuinely bad advice. I try not to get involved, but it's baffling sometimes.

Otherwise, the majority of interactions I have with randoms are silent and uneventful.

[Veis_Alveare]

It's probably because I don't feel like I personally can make a statement like "I definitely know that the vast majority I play with in DF and uninformed and generally incompetent" because I honestly never feel or think that way so far. Yes people make mistakes here and there and occasionally wipes do happen, but I wouldn't then say that a vast majority of people I play with are 'uninformed and generally incompetent'.

But again, like I have said before, I have not accrued thousands of hours / years of experience playing this game, so maybe this is just me not playing the game enough to be exposed so thoroughly with these incompetences that I can with confidence say that the vast majority of people playing this game do not know what they're doing. Or maybe unknowingly, I too am a part of those vast majority of people--I don't feel like I am playing this game incompetently, but maybe I did.

Come to think of it, I remember something: the 1st time I played The Burn in MSQ, our party have had so much difficulty against the Mist Dragon that we wiped several times before finally won. Reading someone in this thread (or other thread? I forgot, I think this one) said that "Mist Dragon is extremely easy" made me pause a bit, because the first time I fought him I actually think he's quite challenging, and I got the sense that everyone in my party tried hard too, but we were just caught off guard by his various mechanics.

So maybe I do am a part of the "vast majority of people who are uninformed and generally incompetent"..... Ah well... all I can do is just practice more.

I'd love to be able to respond with like a "no I'm sure you're doing just fine" but in reality who knows - what I can say is that you're willing to have discussions and admit that sometimes the fault may lie with you and that's something that's very important at any level of gameplay. I've seen people removed from high-ish end statics because they can't reliably recognize when they're messing up and accept it.

I think the nail in the coffin (for me personally) was when I started to play with a friend who had ACT installed. I'd already been someone who cared about my personal performance and getting through things quickly but he would upload like everything we did whenever we played together and the disparity that I would see between the high and low end... and the frequency with which people performed at the low end! It was kinda mindblowing.

Until there are literal numbers in your face forcing you to recognize that someone on the same job as you did 1/3 or less of your dps without deaths or that as a support role you were bringing more damage to the table than the actual dps it's kind of hard to believe that it happens so often.

I will say that difficulty is relative and different things are hard for different people. I'm great at prog, I pick up mechanics quickly and see the patterns of how they interact really well but I'm trash at fine line optimization especially as a melee dps, my brain doesn't like positionals apparently. No one is going to be amazing at everything.

The mist dragon was relatively challenging for a dungeon boss. Personally I don't think it was so hard that it needed a nerf, I think it's healthy to have bosses that feel like bosses every now and then. Admitting it was more difficult than normal doesn't mean it needs to be brought down to the same level as other bosses and I think people conflate the two which leads to them being stubborn as to admitting the difficulty to begin with.

Anyways, I guess I'm glad you don't feel too jaded by the poor performance of others. I hope you keep trying to get better, whether or not you wind up doing it you've got a good mindset for raiding if you ever try to take that up!

[Lucy_Pyre]

Until there are literal numbers in your face forcing you to recognize that someone on the same job as you did 1/3 or less of your dps without deaths or that as a support role you were bringing more damage to the table than the actual dps it's kind of hard to believe that it happens so often.

This. When you have friends showing you hard numbers it's pretty eye opening.

[Puremallace]

I see..... huh.

Maybe we old timers should make abbreviations for us old people too, hahaha.

Anyways,

Reading through this thread, I get a distinct impression that many of you people in here are playing this game always with the mindset of "these people are inept and fools" when playing with others. Isn't that a tiring thing to do? Well...... I don't know, to me it seems real tiring for those who always feel themselves elite and more able than the majority to always feel that way every time they are engaging with others... but I guess some people love that kind of feeling.

Any MMO this many expansions out gets the Veterans vs New Players mentality and it is ALWAYS toxic no matter the MMO. Any veteran ARR player who has never stepped foot in WoW for example would get treated like new player trash at end game by the more experienced players looking for specific addons and gear but in FF14 the wall between casual and elitist lies in using ACT and knowing these magical unwritten rules of FF14.

It is beyond comprehension to me that people raid with statics in FF14 and not their Free Companies. This is a strange concept that in multiple other MMO's would get you kicked out of guilds for raiding outside of set hours and days but FF14 does it. Most people who think they are elite in FF14 would get chewed up and spit out in most top 100 WoW Mythic raiding guilds and laughed out of the game.

There are very few reality checks in FF14 that put these so called elitist in their place.

[HyoMinPark]

Any MMO this many expansions out gets the Veterans vs New Players mentality and it is ALWAYS toxic no matter the MMO. Any veteran ARR player who has never stepped foot in WoW for example would get treated like new player trash at end game by the more experienced players looking for specific addons and gear but in FF14 the wall between casual and elitist lies in using ACT and knowing these magical unwritten rules of FF14.

Not really. The mentality that’s actually being discussed in this thread—unsolicited advice is rude, giving advice = calling someone out/being toxic, etc.—exists between veteran raiders and veteran “casuals” (for lack of a better term). This isn’t a situation exclusive to new players versus vets. I’ve had more new players be receptive to advice than people who have been playing the game for a long period of time. Somehow, that “I’ve been playing since ARR Alpha” gives some people—some, not all—a superior mentality and a belief that they are God’s gift to any MMO. That they can do no wrong and they play perfectly. I actually had a friend who was just like this—played XI and played since ARR Beta, and she thought she was the best BRD ever. But honestly, her play could have used improvements.

People on the forums tend to define elitism as “players who parse or use FFLogs”, but they consistently ignore that “casual elitism”—or “casualism”—exists, too. And that form of elitism doesn’t use parsers or ACT. Instead, it survives off of a hug box mentality where everyone needs to be protected from the evil raiders; and, as this thread has shown, players must be protected from any and all advice, no matter how kind, respectful, or helpful it may be. Because feelings may be hurt—or their subs may be violated.

It is beyond comprehension to me that people raid with statics in FF14 and not their Free Companies. This is a strange concept that in multiple other MMO's would get you kicked out of guilds for raiding outside of set hours and days but FF14 does it. Most people who think they are elite in FF14 would get chewed up and spit out in most top 100 WoW Mythic raiding guilds and laughed out of the game.

I know that this may shock you, but FFXIV isn’t other MMOs. There are a myriad of reasons why players may or may not raid with their Free Companies. For myself, when I started raiding, the FC I was in at the time contained 4 friends, and only one of them actively raided (and he already had a static). The others just liked to log in, do dailies, level stuff, goof off with each other, etc.. Which was perfectly fine. I enjoyed doing that, too. But raiding with my FC wasn’t an option, and I wasn’t particularly interested in joining another FC at the time as I dislike large FCs and would rather be in an FC with friends, since I would spend more time around them than my raid group. Now, I’m in a duo FC with my best friend. We have both raided together and raided separately. There’s no “concept of guild betrayal“ or whatever other players in other MMOs might think to be had here.

Secondly, there’s now cross-server raid groups. Before Patch 3.4, cross-server wasn’t a thing, so players did have to move servers and, sometimes but not always, join FCs interested in raiding. That actually caused a huge problem, as people migrated to servers like Gilgamesh and left others barren. I still remember trying to clear Sephirot EX and waiting 2 hours in PF for the party to fill—during prime time, mind you—because Cactuar was much smaller back then, and very much on the more casual side of the player spectrum. Now I’d say we rank in the middle.

All that said, it’s not a crime in this game to not raid with your FC. Your post makes it sound like way more of a big deal than it really is.

And honestly, I don’t give two flying flips about WoW or how its raiders would view me as a FFXIV raider. Was that comment supposed to make FFXIV raiders feel ashamed or something? Like, who cares?

Considering I managed to play the game (WoW) for a grand total of 1 hour back in 2007 before completely losing interest, there’s no lost love here.

[NYCAcimStudent]

Exactly. If people don't want to play with 'toxic casuals' or 'toxic elitists', they can go make their own party. If you use DF or play in any way that doesn't involve curating exactly who does and does not get to play with you, you get what you get. Either deal with them or leave. Of course, they can also learn how to be nice and maybe find a compromise with the person they have an issue with, but one does have to consider what playerbase we're dealing with here.

Thank you, Doozer. You nailed it. I have a fantastic time playing FFXIV with my 2 real-life friends! We started a few weeks ago. They are new to FFXIV. I am coming back with a new character after being gone for a long time. We are trying to get a 4th real-life friend to join us. Once that happens, we will be able to do DF/PF without strangers. When there is no worry about toxic-anything, it totally changes the experience for the better.

Another thing: the tank/healer shortages disappear when it is a group of real-life friends playing together. There is no more fear of being harassed for being crappy. If we do end up being crappy at our roles and wipe, we laugh about it and then discuss strategies. If we still fail, we look up online strategies and install meters to see if we are under-performing on DPS. But nobody takes it as a personal insult, i.e., "You are wasting MY time!" if somebody is not great at the game.

[Laesha]

By that logic, if a tank didn't use any cooldowns on a tank buster yet didn't die due to the healers panic healing them up, you wouldn't suggest they use cooldowns next time since it's technically unsolicited advice. And if you ask first yet they say nothing. What then?

That is correct. I even said this in one of my posts. And if they ignore me/do not answer, I take it as a no.

And iono. I use Abacus-Counting-Technology all the time to make sure i'm doing a good job myself, and seeing other players putting up bad numbers just doesn't bother me. The other day I did a weekly E5 and out dps'ed 2 dps, the other tank (a warrior) and a healer on Dark Knight. The other healer was only a little bit ahead of me. It didn't change any part of my day other than make me smile to see i performed fairly well. I will just never get it. It's just so strange to me that this is so important to people.

[Daibunnie]

in FF14 the wall between casual and elitist lies in using ACT and knowing these magical unwritten rules of FF14.

Except having ACT alone doesn't mean anything since it doesn't take a parser to see a run is taking more time than usual because someone isn't playing properly. Not to mention, there are several competent ps4 players out there.

Most people who think they are elite in FF14 would get chewed up and spit out in most top 100 WoW Mythic raiding guilds and laughed out of the game.

How is this relevant in anyway? Not to mention, the raid scene in FF14 is nothing like WoWs. Don't think anyone even suggested that you must raid to be a decent player.

There are very few reality checks in FF14 that put these so called elitist in their place.

What constitutes as a "reality check" and how does it put elitists in their place? IMO, the reality check is the harder content, pointing out to the lazy/ignorant players that whatever they're doing isn't good enough to clear said content without getting heavily carried by said elitist.

It's just so strange to me that this is so important to people.

It's strange to you that several other's do consider their group's performance important? I suppose it doesn't really matter when the content is e5n or any other content that goes on repeat after its 10 minute mark.

[Lucy_Pyre]

Any MMO this many expansions out gets the Veterans vs New Players mentality and it is ALWAYS toxic no matter the MMO. Any veteran ARR player who has never stepped foot in WoW for example would get treated like new player trash at end game by the more experienced players looking for specific addons and gear but in FF14 the wall between casual and elitist lies in using ACT and knowing these magical unwritten rules of FF14.

It is beyond comprehension to me that people raid with statics in FF14 and not their Free Companies. This is a strange concept that in multiple other MMO's would get you kicked out of guilds for raiding outside of set hours and days but FF14 does it. Most people who think they are elite in FF14 would get chewed up and spit out in most top 100 WoW Mythic raiding guilds and laughed out of the game.

There are very few reality checks in FF14 that put these so called elitist in their place.

If you think that players who are in the top of what they do in XIV would magically be garbage at another MMO that they put the same time investment into you're deluding yourself. Really this post just screams to me that you're jealous of others who are better than you because you can't do what they do.

[Laesha]

It's strange to you that several other's do consider their group's performance important? I suppose it doesn't really matter when the content is e5n or any other content that goes on repeat after its 10 minute mark.

So which is it? Is it always important that everyone is giving their best? Or is it not important in normal raids and dungeons? If it's only important in the case of savage, then I always just use a static anyway. I still ask if i can offer advice in those cases just because usually other people are speaking. I'm relatively soft spoken, so simply speaking up in the middle of a conversation usually doesn't get me anywhere. Also, if one does elect to join a static they are subject to the static's rules. If those include constantly discussing performance then they already agreed to it. To me, the term "their group" refers to something more than playing with randoms in DF'er.

But yeah, to me it is strange. When i see that I out perform people in a random group, my thoughts are never "dang I carried that scrub." They are more like "wow! i contributed a lot!"