Final Fantasy XIV and a Culture of Enabling

[SturmChurro]

"D" is not frowned upon if all you want is to get a high school diploma. If you want to get accepted to a good college, then "D" would not be enough.

But that's different than playing FFXIV because there are no teachers trying to get you to do the harder content. In fact, it's the opposite, people don't care about you once they leave the party. If you are trying to do content where people are being picky about who gets to be included, then just like getting into a good college, there is a competitive scene where you can be "underperforming" even when you can clear the content. But in a content where you are just randomly grouped, that's largely irrelevant.

The real difference is in FFXIV is since this game is group based a player doesn't even have to be performing "passably", many players are regularly carried through content, they can literally be AFK (!), at the expense of other player's time. Just because they cannot be bothered. It's not difficult to use a combo (it lights up!), it's not difficult to use AoE - there is a reason these skills are included as a part of a player's skillset, they cannot be bothered to move out of mechanics - a healer will just raise them.. THAT'S the real problem, and the point of many arguments here in this thread is the FFXIV community - in general - enables this sort of play and behavior, instead of encouraging players to do better.

[linayar]

The real difference is in FFXIV is since this game is group based a player doesn't even have to be performing "passably", many players are regularly carried through content, they can literally be AFK (!), at the expense of other player's time. Just because they cannot be bothered. It's not difficult to use a combo (it lights up!), it's not difficult to use AoE - there is a reason these skills are included as a part of a player's skillset, they cannot be bothered to move out of mechanics - a healer will just raise them.. THAT'S the real problem, and the point of many arguments here in this thread is the FFXIV community - in general - enables this sort of play and behavior, instead of encouraging players to do better.

Hey, I said earlier that people should encourage others to do better, and one response that I got is that they'd rather kick if other players aren't already ready to be good when entering the duty.

So, yeah, maybe the community is to blame, but like you said, people can be carried through content, so that is where the game decides the minimum performance the party needs.

On more difficult content where the group will fail without better performance, that's where the community needs to help each other if they want to improve the overall experience of pugging. Or stick to whatever they're doing now and just let everything stays the same.