The toxicity starting to happen.

[Starflake]

Because I literally only started playing August 2nd when I got the game.And then took a break from MSQ to level other classes and play adventure squads and wait on friends to level. Don't assume people can't play just because they decide to grind other things or not power through the MSQ. There's also such thing as sleep and life. I also didn't say I was the best player ever. But I hold my own and don't make people have to carry it. So your assumptions are arrogant.

And there IS exploration of trial and error. To getting to that point. Dying a lot, and learning what skills work is trial and error. Rather than read some elitest who made a guide because they did just that trial and error before you. There's NOTHING WRONG with wanting to learn things yourself. What if Youtube didn't exist, and no one made a guide or video, huh?! Stop commanding people to read others work. They aren't god of the game, and the only ones that can define how things are done. Jesus.

Man, I love people like you. Always moaning about not wanting to be generalised while then proceeding to put other people in brackets. The guide writers I have met are some of the most patient people in an online community I have ever seen. The amount of work they put in, not only in their guide, but in keeping it updated and monitoring other people who wish to be monitored is nothing more than admirable. On the other hand, all you have done is being a hypocrite. I don't believe for a second you hold your own, because people with your attitude generally just don't. Can you be the exception? Sure, but I ain't buying it.

Not reading a job guide is just being stubborn because more often than not, these people do know better than you. Seems like you just have a difficult time accepting this reality. And even if by some chance you are such a great player that you figure out most optimal situations on your own, the chance of finding smaller optimizations still in job guides is rather large. But hey man, you do you!

[Nekaru_Infitima]

Not reading a job guide is just being stubborn because more often than not, these people do know better than you. Seems like you just have a difficult time accepting this reality

It's not stubborn. It's wanting to play a game like we used to play games before wiki and youtube was a thing. Again, did you go out and buy every damn strategy guide or look up walkthroughs every time that you turned on your playstation? FF9 remains my favorite FF to this day, and I refused to use a walkthrough, because it takes the fun out of it.

It may be multiplayer, and endgame raids you may want to improve your quality. But I don't see why you can't take the time and learn how on your own like any game, rather than relying on someone who has crunched it down to math formulas. IF THEY COULD DO IT, why can't anyone else? Why do we have to see how they did it? Why are they the only damn person allowed to take that path and learn how on their own? I'm not arguing not to learn your job. I'm arguing to want to do it on my own vs letting someone else do it for me and hold my hand through every damn thing.

So just because someone did it, discovered it and coined it. Now they're the only one to ever get that opportunity or to do it that way? FUCK THAT.

[Starflake]

Snip.

Single player games are a different experience as you highlight in your second paragraph. What you do with your time in them has no effect on me. How you choose to approach these games also has no effect on me. And you may take the time to learn your class, but doing so also involves looking up a guide. I would much rather have someone in my party who takes a while longer mastering his class knowing solid information from a guide that was discussed by multiple people than some freestyle player who learns completely on his own but actually doesn't know what he is doing. You see, in my humble opinion, you and all players carry a responsibility. It's an MMO, you come into contact with other people. You have a direct influence on other people their time. It blows my mind how someone earlier said that a slower run is "just five minutes". That's a lot of minutes if you count up these slow runs. Having played this game for six to seven years, I've probably had thousands of minutes wasted by players who just don't know what they are doing because they don't care or because they think they know what they are doing.

You see, if you don't look up a guide, you run a huge risk of playing this game in complete ignorance and you will be a hinder to any decent party instead of an asset. I myself was blown away by all the things I did wrong before reading a guide, on pretty much every class I ever played in this game. You can learn at your own pace, but it must include a job guide written by people who in all likeliness do know better than you. I know I can't do what they do. It's most of the time also not one person giving you the information you need. It's hard work through multiple people theorycrafting. I am grateful for these people using up their own time just so I can have mine and others their time saved in the game.
The people writing these days more often than not theorycraft early on in their leveling experience and they know what they are doing. If you can say the same, I'd be surprised. Already level 73 in a month of playtime. I doubt you took the time they did, which means you have been going through the story and dungeons figuring stuff out on the fly and you have no idea if what you are doing is actually correct. Now you run the risk I discussed earlier. Which class do you main and what is the highest level dungeon you have done, if I may ask.

Lisen, man. If you want to go in blind and teach yourself the ropes, you better make sure you teach yourself correctly. If you don't, do not be shocked that people will call you out in late game content for being a burden. That is a fair trade off. Learning early game is fine and encouraged. But trust me when I say there is only so much most of us can learn and know and that if you want to be a better player (and in some people's case have basic competence due to learning completely wrong), you may want to combine your own findings with those of the people who discussed them to death through mathematics in multiple areas (gcds, potencies, stat attributes, cooldown allignment, ...)

[Nekaru_Infitima]

I didn't claim to be great.. I just said I stay alive and hold my own without being a burden.

But again, let's try an example with this.

Let's say the game was brand new and the guide makers you worship so much just started out. Let's take a battle with mechanics.. since Ifrit hardly had any.. Titan or Garuda. NOW anyone can tell you to avoid getting pushed off the edge, or hide behind the pillars when Garuda does her one attack. And if you say first time in fight, anyone will tell you it. BUT when the game was new, and they went in blindly they didn't know that and they got to experience it, and probably went through it a million more times to learn it inside and out and then wrote their guide for others to follow...

If you want to use that guide, have fun.

I don't want to. I want to do what they did. I want to go into a boss battle and die, and learn why I died. And try the battle again and if I didn't figure it out the first time, die again. And keep dying until I figure out the mechanics of why I died, and get better until I live, and then go do that battle more times to learn how to do it more efficiently. Maybe it will never be as efficient as the pros. But at least I had the fun of learning how to not die on my own rather than WHAT I CONSIDER PERSONALLY TO MYSELF as cheating.

This game hardly has any penalty to deaths, other than mending your gear. So just because you die or wipe isn't the end of the world. It's a learning experience that they got to enjoy. So I want to enjoy too.

When I get mad enough to throw the controller, then maybe I'll look up a guide if I don't calm down first. But that hasn't happened yet. Joking.

[Starflake]

I also didn't make that claim in the first place. Once again, you have no conceptual idea that is grounded on solid information to know if you are being a burden or not. If you did not look up a guide made by the people who do know, there is no telling for sure. Even the people who do know have needed input from other likeminded players to get where they are. Having information all by yourself has a high risk of being false information for this game in particular. False or incomplete information.

I do not worship these guide writers, I do not even interact with them. However, I appreciate their efforts. Imagine trying to slur someone for that. It again show your character. You are a toxic player. Now we are also talking about two different things. I am talking about job guides and job complexity. If you want to go into Titan normal mode blind, nobody will care. You are apparently not even aware that Weakness and Double Weakness puts a dent in your stats causing you to do way less damage on top of making the person ress you have a dent in their mana management. But yeah, you have been shifting the conversation now from job guides to fight guides, a completely different topic. You also dance around the questions that I am actually asking you. What is the class you main (SCH or Summoner) and what is the highest dungeon you have done so far.

[Driavna]

While at this point I think "toxicity" has no real meaning and is generally used to shut down another person during a regular conversation, nonetheless we have all neccesary tools to combat it. And any real toxic player will have two options: learn their lesson and keep quiet or be banned at some point.

Is also good to remember that we all play with real players and certain rules of etiquete are involved:

- Be respectful to others and their time.

- Don't be a willing burden.

- Try your best.

- Cooperate with your party members.

And finally, if you want to have better control over your experience when playing with others then join an FC and/or make friends to play with. (This apply to everyone).

I will also say that I must be playing in another dimension or something because my experience has been pleasant most of the time. Some salt at high-end stuff from time to time but that's rare.

[Ashpd]

I didn't claim to be great.. I just said I stay alive and hold my own without being a burden.

But again, let's try an example with this.

Let's say the game was brand new and the guide makers you worship so much just started out. Let's take a battle with mechanics.. since Ifrit hardly had any.. Titan or Garuda. NOW anyone can tell you to avoid getting pushed off the edge, or hide behind the pillars when Garuda does her one attack. And if you say first time in fight, anyone will tell you it. BUT when the game was new, and they went in blindly they didn't know that and they got to experience it, and probably went through it a million more times to learn it inside and out and then wrote their guide for others to follow...

If you want to use that guide, have fun.

I don't want to. I want to do what they did. I want to go into a boss battle and die, and learn why I died. And try the battle again and if I didn't figure it out the first time, die again. And keep dying until I figure out the mechanics of why I died, and get better until I live, and then go do that battle more times to learn how to do it more efficiently. Maybe it will never be as efficient as the pros. But at least I had the fun of learning how to not die on my own rather than WHAT I CONSIDER PERSONALLY TO MYSELF as cheating.

This game hardly has any penalty to deaths, other than mending your gear. So just because you die or wipe isn't the end of the world. It's a learning experience that they got to enjoy. So I want to enjoy too.

When I get mad enough to throw the controller, then maybe I'll look up a guide if I don't calm down first. But that hasn't happened yet. Joking.

So, get ready to be kicked from party later. People not going tolerate (and its right choice) 80 lvl problematic player, who just "muh, i wanna explore myself". Because player don't wanna carry one dead weight party member.

[Nestama]

If people don't want to use a guide, that's fine. Just make a PF stating "doing this blind. Can join if you know what to do, but please let others learn by experience" or something along those lines.

Do not join farm parties or learning/progression parties asking for people to have at least watched/read a guide if you want to do the fights blind. That's being rude.

[DarkMasamune]

If people don't want to use a guide, that's fine. Just make a PF stating "doing this blind. Can join if you know what to do, but please let others learn by experience" or something along those lines.

Do not join farm parties or learning/progression parties asking for people to have at least watched/read a guide if you want to do the fights blind. That's being rude.

I second this.

While I completely agree that you have the right to want to explore duties, dungeons and trials blind, I think you should inform anyone involved of such. You can create a party asking for a blind run. That's fair and I see many people doing it. But you can't expect everyone to play this way. If someone creates a group demanding that a guide has been watched or something, you should respect that, as much as someone should respect your choice of doing it blind.

It goes both ways really.

[Hycinthus]

Everything just comes down to communication, communication, communication. Conflicts are arising because people just don’t talk and assume.

For examples:
1. You want to do dungeons blind. Fine. Just say “First time here, haven’t done it before”. Everyone will probably be fine.

2. You think tank is pulling too slow. Fine. Just say “you can pull more, we can handle it”. Everyone will probably be fine.

3. Tank is pulling too fast for your gear/ experience. Fine. Just say “im a bit new to healing, can we slow down the pull just a smidge”. Everyone will probably be fine.

4. You are dps/healer and want to pull more? Just say “i’ll grab a few more , i think we can handle it, i’ll bring em back here”. Tank will get the message and will probably be pulling more afterwards, and this will most likely turn out better than just running off ahead and pulling without saying anything.

5. You think someone not doing well in their job. Fine. Just say “you should be using/wearing/casting”. If it doesnt work, just say “seems the party cannot handle it with this setup at the moment”. Everyone will probably be fine. No bitter taste afterwards and separate peacefully and no one will be complaining to forums afterwards or report you for bad behavior.

6. As a tank you want to pull wall to wall. Fine. Make sure you checked the HP or gears of the party members and if adequate, Just say “pulling wall to wall. Seems party can handle it”. Most likely everyone will be fine, even for those who are not, they’ll be forewarned and forearmed beforehands.

Every conflict becomes a conflict because misaligned expectations. How to align it? Just communicate, even briefly, should alleviate most of the toxicity.