The toxicity starting to happen.

[Ftail]

People honestly forget that not everyone is competent in their technical skills. Recently, I introduced my friend to this game and he's a free trial player. This is the first MMO he has ever played, he's an absolute horrid typist and has to look down to see where keys are. I made him stream his game to me on discord while I was the same group with him to introduce him to playing an MMO as he has zero understanding of it. I discouraged him from playing a tank because I know exactly how toxic people are to newbie or bad tanks, he's playing a lancer/dragoon instead.

"Hey, you are going to want to use the tab button to target enemies instead of clicking on them."

"You don't want to use your mouse to click abilities, practice hitting your keybinds I set up for you instead."

"Practice weaving in your, oGCDs in between your GCD abilities."

"You need to upgrade your gear, this here is the vendor that sells gear."

"You need to learn how to move and attack at the same time."

When we think something is "easy" and when it objectively is, it's common for people to forget about empathizing with our fellow humans. It irritates me as well, but I curb my feelings and I always try to politely word things in a manner that won't upset someone else. Too often, if a tank is pulling slowly the DPS will run ahead and pull for the tank or a healer will demand rudely for the tank to pull larger if they aren't doing multiple packs. The next time you decide to start pulling for the sprout tank because he's going to slow or pulling other mobs to the tank to force him to pull larger, why not instead just try politely asking him to change his play style? Because it's a stranger behind a computer monitor we will never meet or interact with again, we too often allow ourselves to be rude when we are slightly irritated. I love this game, and I want new players to also love this game so lets do our best to control our own feelings and treat people with the respect we ourselves would like to be treated with.

[Mansion]

I'm going to say something brave yet controversial.
"Toxic" is not the suitable word for someone yelling at other players on a video game. This term is used to try to make it sound more complex, some kind of social or psychological issue when in the end, it's just about people being people (which means people behaving like dicks on the internet / irl).
That was my personal rant.

Back on topic, I'm on the general feeling that "it's just a game", in the broadest sense.
If you're getting mad at someone, yelling at them isn't going to help.
If you are anxious about playing whatever role in FFXIV, why bother? There is enough diverse content in the game to keep you busy for a while. "tanxiety" is not a thing.
If you are anxious about getting into some content like raiding, nothing is preventing you to create a "safer" environment so that experience can be more under control.
If people make you feel uneasy (whether it is because of criticism or behaviour in a broader sense), maybe playing a MMO is not a good idea.
If a tank is single pulling / a healer is not DPSing in your dungeon, you can politely suggest to pull more / DPS more. If they don't, move on with your life.

[VirusOnline]

I think we just get that it's not worth complaining or ruining someone's day to save 5 minutes in a random dungeon with people we'll never see again?

I mean I get being in top form to clear bleeding-edge content, but a random romp in Brayflox? Really? It's worth ruining the game for a newbie so your ePeen feels better?

You must be misunderstanding me here. I'm only saying that this wonder of keeping one's mouth shut is not in fact entirely wondrous. It's not without its downfalls, because the act of being ignorant when instilled from the from the roots of casual play has shown evidence of reaching into midcore to especially the endgame play. Though someone may outwardly complain, at least you're receiving some sort of feedback, negative or positive. This is also why the report button exists. Use it when negative complaints cross that threshold. Or as you have done, simply leave, votekick, what have you. The tools are there.

Also, not sure what you mean by a public server-wide blacklist, never heard of that here in Japan for FFXIV. Is that an American thing? Sounds like a lot of trouble to report on something so mundane.

Or are you talking the endgame community, because yeah that does exist, but it's more about being a crappy person in endgame community/being toxic in general. Not so much about those random bumps in casual play.

It is a bit mundane, isn't it. It's also a bit exhausting to act innocent of it when we all know what it refers to. Regardless of the context of the game in which it exists, the fact it exists shows that there is a con to this wondrous style of being quiet. Be aware, I'm critiquing both sides of silence and complaining to their own downfalls. Both have their pros and cons. It's simply tiring to hear "this doesn't happen on Japanese servers", JA good, NA bad. It's not a fact you're stating. It's a bias. It's the same tiring theme on EU servers that exists when concerning French players.

Since the start of HW, I also have very rarely seen a group that has been outwardly rude. Complaints, sure, but toxic ? I have no memory of pure toxicity. And save for a few times being on EU servers, I have mainly stayed on NA.

[Veis_Alveare]

Curious question for anyone that has played the game for at least a year: how many encounters with single pack pulling tanks out of those 365 days do you encounter?

Idk about you all but last year, that number couldn't have exceeded over 20 maximum. This over the course of expert and 50-60-70(and now 80) which I regularly used to do. If I had to look back in the last three months, yesterday was my second encounter with a single pack puller.

Now I will admit I haven't stepped in leveling roulette since this year began so obviously, my numbers are quite skewered but still, I'm genuinely curious which kind of roulette this is happening from an apparent regular basis for this type of topic rear its head many times over.

I think it's hard for me to weigh in on this specifically, although for different reasons. I often play with at least one friend and the one I do things most commonly with also happens to be an omni-tank main (well, lul WAR but still) so it isn't often I get a pug tank in level capped content.

That being said I did get a single puller in expert the other day (in Anyder of all places, so I didn't even know for sure until after the first boss because of the structure of the beginning of the dungeon) but oof. I'd say it's by far most common in leveling dungeons.

Leveling dungeons totally hit harder than capped ones so I'm not out there demanding full pulls all the time but I do think it's more reasonable to at least be pulling more than one pack (especially if one of the "packs" is just a wandering mob) so that people don't get into the mindset of stopping with each group which is infinitely more annoying in capped content.

So I guess if we include leveling dungeons I see a single puller once every two or three days? Far more than I'd like. Precious few of them are open to (or even seemingly aware of) attempts at communication about it too.

[Gula]

Point proven. This is exactly why tanking will always be, in every game ever, the least played role. Nothing encourages people more to try a role than being belittled and judged right from the get go.

Best post ITT and if it wasn't so long I'd keep it as a sig.

[Gula]

Nobody's belittling or judging anyone.

Says the person calling others scaredy cats and trying to enforce a playstyle they like onto others.

K.

[Wolwosh]

<- Main healer since ARR. I don't mind small pulls, they don't happen often, but where I draw my line is if thats an excuse for the tank to also not use cooldowns at all. Then I usually say something or just leave. Its the same with other jobs too, if I see you single target rotation when I pull 12 things I also say something.

[tdb]

When we think something is "easy" and when it objectively is, it's common for people to forget about empathizing with our fellow humans.

Also when we say something is "objectively" easy or hard, most of the time that's bullshit. There's no objective (i.e. independent of any human factors) measure for the hardness of performing some activity; it's always relative to the average skill level of some group of humans. And then there's this thing called the Dunning-Kruger effect which causes us to misestimate what that average is. Someone farming savage might consider themselves only a little better than average and think "this is so easy anyone can clear it if they want", when in reality they're in the top 5% and the majority of player just don't have the skills necessary to clear any synced savage.

[Kacho_Nacho]

It's 2020 and we're still arguing about tank pulls, huh.

Well, to be honest, it's been a tough year.

[Veis_Alveare]

Also when we say something is "objectively" easy or hard, most of the time that's bullshit. There's no objective (i.e. independent of any human factors) measure for the hardness of performing some activity; it's always relative to the average skill level of some group of humans. And then there's this thing called the Dunning-Kruger effect which causes us to misestimate what that average is. Someone farming savage might consider themselves only a little better than average and think "this is so easy anyone can clear it if they want", when in reality they're in the top 5% and the majority of player just don't have the skills necessary to clear any synced savage.

No one starts the game with the necessary skills to be a decent raider, they're learned over time.

Some people will learn faster, sure, but since paying attention and thinking things through is going to wind up performing well enough that no one will be complaining.

The issue I see with this community is a lack of a desire to improve. People are happy with just not timing out in a dungeon and that's... not okay.

You don't need to have farmed UcoB for every weapon to be perfectly fine at the game, just like... don't settle. Pretty simple.