Quote Originally Posted by EirolOcarrol View Post
Hard to beat the elitism of "don't play the game, you "s**k"".
In my opinion, we found a winner then. "This Final Fantasy game doesn't stand to my standards for Final Fantasy, ergo it doesn't deserve to be a numbered title" is, I feel, a bit more elitist than that because it's a sweeping condemnation, intended or not, against people who like those games. "You may like Final Fantasy, but you like the fake Final Fantasy."

It doesn't sound like the amount of effort the average player put into Final Fantasy V is nearly enough for XIV gamers. And XIV fans don't seem interested in that demographic playing, either. According to Final Fantasy XIV players, the average Final Fantasy offline player would seem to be a "you don't pay my sub toxic casual" who parses badly and didn't read a guide for Chrysalis while enjoying the story. It's hardly any wonder that such fans aren't so interested embracing Final Fantasy Online in kind.
My problem is, you've decided your conclusion (FFXIV players are toxic) and are working your way back from there. That's how bigotry forms, not educated opinions. You're free to dislike FFXIV, you're free to dislike the community, you're free to dislike every online community ever. What I don't like is seeing someone sling mud while they themselves are coated in dirt: "I'm starting to see why some think the online Final Fantasy games aren't worth being numbered titles" is probably the most elitist thing I've seen written all thread. Immediately, you created two groups, the "offline final fantasy players" and the "online final fantasy players," disregarding people who play both of course, and you set one as being more righteous (as in, able to decide what counts as 'real final fantasy') and one as toxic (those toxic online final fantasy players never appreciate what other people do!). Wanna know why this is more toxic than elite vs casual?

Because in one fell swoop, you created a scenario where anybody who disagrees with you is in the "other" group, the toxic online final fantasy player group, and because they're in the "other" group that you've predefined, and their opinions will be weighted in light of that.

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Splitting in two because the above was my main point, the rest is tangential but worth responding to.

And the offline games are very story and exploration focused(well, XIII isn't exploration focused at all). There are entire video series dedicated to how overpowered you can get early in the game.
So there are guide videos that you watch, that teach you the game's mechanics beyond what the game does, and following the methods shown helps one to more smoothly facilitate their experience in the game?

In Final Fantasy VII, it's easy to get to a point where you can blow past even Ruby Weapon without any effort via lucky sevens. And in Final Fantasy VIII, all you need to do is grind cards and AP. The rest of the game practically plays itself if you get the right cards and GF abilities early on.
So there are multiple strats for how to handle a boss that are well-documented and, through community memetic transfer, have become commonplace? I'll spell my gist out here: I'm not seeing anything that FFXIV guide videos wouldn't likewise be considered as. Knowing Lucky Sevens and exploiting it is metagame knowledge that the game itself doesn't teach you, and if you did intuit it and figure out to use it on Ruby Weapon then congratulations on that. Knowing optimal grinding methods (and, of course, in FF8 specifically, how grinding levels straight can actually make things harder for you because of enemy scaling) are pretty external. "If you get the right cards and GF abilities early on" is the key phrase here.

And in offline Final Fantasy games, there's no one there to tell you that you should stop playing the game because you're not good enough.
Nope, and likewise, there's nobody there who will pull you through a difficult boss fight unless you go out on your own to learn the strategies for progression in the game or the exploits in the game mechanics themselves. The onus falls solely on you whether you beat your head against a bossfight till it budges, research strategies to beat it, or powergrind past it.

But hey, we have "git gud or stop playing video games" right here in our very own thread!
Yeah, we do indeed have trolls. And if they actually believe that, then whatever, let them be off in their own world. We've seen how MMORPGs for the hardcore, like Darkfall or Mortal Online, have shriveled up and died. Given that this game is not a sandbox full-loot PVP MMO, and instead caters more to the casual audience, you should have no trouble avoiding people like them and building your own friend circle to run content with in FFXIV.

It's little wonder to me after reading such, why offline gamers, and offline Final Fantasy fans, have a lack of interest in MMORPGs and don't want to give Final Fantasy XIV a chance, either.
This seems silly. It's like saying "It's little wonder why Kingdom Hearts 2 players don't like Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Those Chain of Memories players are elitists!" No, it's more likely because it's an entirely different kind of game. That doesn't make Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories somehow lesser than KH2, but they are different games and thus target different audiences. Or, I guess more in line with the MMO genre as a whole, of course World of Warcraft didn't capture every Warcraft 3 player's heart, because World of Warcraft is a different genre of game altogether.