This game has serious free-rider problems and it's getting worse. A suggestion.

[Krotoan]

"Helping someone" or "offering advice" in-game at the possible expense of getting a strike on your account will never be worth it.

If you are risking getting a strike with your help or offering advice, then I have some perception on how you are phrasing or implementing that help and advice. If phrased correctly and you do not escalate (let bad responses go, you don't need to reply) , then there is absolutely no reason you should ever get a "strike".

In my experience anyway.

I think the toxic narrative of "Help and risk being reported" needs to die. It's very easy to stay within guidelines and rules AND still interact with people.

[Nethereal]

If you are risking getting a strike with your help or offering advice, then I have some perception on how you are phrasing or implementing that help and advice. If phrased correctly and you do not escalate (let bad responses go, you don't need to reply) , then there is absolutely no reason you should ever get a "strike".

In my experience anyway.

I think the toxic narrative of "Help and risk being reported" needs to die. It's very easy to stay within guidelines and rules AND still interact with people.

There's definitely a wrong way to help or offer advice to someone but you can't stop people from perceiving things a certain way. Like I said you're more likely to get 2nd hand reported than from the person you're actually conversing with.
There are people in this game who get offended for "teaching" sprouts and will say "you are the reason people don't like to tank" when explaining to sprouts that pulling mobs until you die isn't a bad thing, you won't know your limits unless you try, proceed troll your run by pulling mobs for the tank when they don't get their way and then not see the hypocrisy of their statements.

I personally don't find a reason for knowledge to be kept secret so I'm not going to go out of my way to whisper people after the fact.

It's not toxic, it's the reality of the situation. I wouldn't mind offering all the help in the world if strikes went away. But I don't know how long I'm going to play this game and I'm not risking a permanent strike on my account for nothing.
I have no strikes, and I refuse to give anyone a chance to give me one. That said it's not hard to converse with people casually on non-confrontational issues.

Teaching is confrontational in this game.

[Krotoan]

There's definitely a wrong way to help or offer advice to someone but you can't stop people from perceiving things a certain way. Like I said you're more likely to get 2nd hand reported than from the person you're actually conversing with.
There are people in this game who get offended for "teaching" sprouts and will say "you are the reason people don't like to tank" when explaining to sprouts that pulling mobs until you die isn't a bad thing, you won't know your limits unless you try, proceed troll your run by pulling mobs for the tank when they don't get their way and then not see the hypocrisy of their statements.

I can't stop someone from absolutely taking something the wrong way but I can make sure that objectively my statements and assistance are non-threatening, non-abusive, non-aggressive and use "clean" language. People CAN report you for anything but as those reports are investigated by human beings, it's exceedingly unlikely you will actually be dinged for something completely innocuous. 2nd hand reports don't count. GM's themselves have said unless the thing happened to you, the report doesn't count. People reacting badly is bad and happens for sure, but the important part is how you react back to that. As long as you don't escalate or break rules, you can just report them for being .. well.. jerks.

I personally don't find a reason for knowledge to be kept secret so I'm not going to go out of my way to whisper people after the fact.

I'm.. not sure what this means. You want to share the right way to do it but don't think you should have to "whisper" to make sure it's a 1 on 1 interaction?

It's not toxic, it's the reality of the situation. I wouldn't mind offering all the help in the world if strikes went away. But I don't know how long I'm going to play this game and I'm not risking a permanent strike on my account for nothing.
I have no strikes, and I refuse to give anyone a chance to give me one. That said it's not hard to converse with people casually on non-confrontational issues.

Teaching is confrontational in this game.

The reality of the situation is there are a few very weird narratives people run that affect how people interact. I say toxic because that's exactly what they do: they poison the minds of people who hear them and believe it. They make people afraid to even talk to anyone because "if you talk to anyone you'll eventually get banned". They make people confrontational because "the community is actually really toxic underneath and just limited by rules" so people assume the worst intentions. They make people choose certain servers because "Everyone on that server is an ERP-er and will try to drag you into it".

The list goes on.

Sure you can avoid ever being in a car accident by never driving anywhere (well.. realistically you can't cause people might still crash into YOU.. but .. metaphor) but you will miss out on the fun and convenience of driving by doing so. This is the same mentality behind never ever giving advice or helping people.

I'm not going to force you, but I will say that in 10+ years I've never had one conversation with a GM that wasn't because I personally submitted a ticket and I do my best to advise people when I see "problems".

Sometimes it's taken badly (sometimes surprisingly badly), but most of the time it's met with either silence or adjustment and rarely "thank you!". So far it's never been followed up by a GM conversation.

[Nestama]

I think the toxic narrative of "Help and risk being reported" needs to die. It's very easy to stay within guidelines and rules AND still interact with people.

For real. Its been used as a weapon to keep people who genuinely want to help from... well, mentoring (not of the BK variety) and also has the unwanted side-effect of making people enablers (whether they like it or not).

I've tried helping people in this game and so long as you don't say something that can fall under harassment (avoid using demeaning/offensive words, basically), you're golden. So far haven't been hit with a strike

[TeraRamis]

Honestly, I'm just so tired of this game's community defending UTTER ineptitude. I was just in a group that managed to somehow wipe on Behemoth in Labyrinth of the Ancients. I've never seen a raid come even close to doing that - typically it's an encounter that takes all of 35-40 seconds to clear. And yet people kept dropping the meteors in the very back of the raid - even when members were pleading with them not to.

When I just in general said 'wow, that's the first time a group has ever wiped on that in history,' suddenly it's "OH, YOU'RE TOXIC AF! IMAGINE BEING SO UPSET! - KICK THIS TROLL."

Frankly, if you can't handle the most faceroll encounter in the game, you deserve a callout. I wasn't naming anyone - I wasn't identifying the people who obviously wiped us. I wasn't screaming obscenities. I wasn't even mad. But you cannot criticize anyone in FFXIV's content without people reaching for their pitchforks. It's like an active battle against improvement - a fight to sustain below-average play. I'm not asking anyone to parse or some nonsense - it's a PUGed raid that's as old as the game itself. But to lose your minds in the defense of people who probably should have, you know, read a strat or just paid the most meager level of attention conceivable is just shameful. Just because this game is casual doesn't mean that a celebratory or protective tone needs to be taken regarding the pinnacle of incompetence.

And before someone says "oh, they were totally right - you need to cut people some slack" or "they were probably just sprouts" - you know what I don't do? Go into a raid the first time without any prior knowledge of even a single fight/mechanic and then expect people to carry my rear end to the finish. I may fail mechanics as I learn, but I at least knew what to expect. The information about mechanics - in the form of videos, detailed write-ups, or just simple one-sentence explanations - is out there. It's been out there for years. Educate yourselves - stop being a freaking leech.

[gotaname1]

Honestly, I'm just so tired of this game's community defending UTTER ineptitude. I was just in a group that managed to somehow wipe on Behemoth in Labyrinth of the Ancients. I've never seen a raid come even close to doing that - typically it's an encounter that takes all of 35-40 seconds to clear. And yet people kept dropping the meteors in the very back of the raid - even when members were pleading with them not to.

When I just in general said 'wow, that's the first time a group has ever wiped on that in history,' suddenly it's "OH, YOU'RE TOXIC AF! IMAGINE BEING SO UPSET! - KICK THIS TROLL."

Frankly, if you can't handle the most faceroll encounter in the game, you deserve a callout. I wasn't naming anyone - I wasn't identifying the people who obviously wiped us. I wasn't screaming obscenities. I wasn't even mad. But you cannot criticize anyone in FFXIV's content without people reaching for their pitchforks. It's like an active battle against improvement - a fight to sustain below-average play. I'm not asking anyone to parse or some nonsense - it's a PUGed raid that's as old as the game itself. But to lose your minds in the defense of people who probably should have, you know, read a strat or just paid the most meager level of attention conceivable is just shameful. Just because this game is casual doesn't mean that a celebratory or protective tone needs to be taken regarding the pinnacle of incompetence.

And before someone says "oh, they were totally right - you need to cut people some slack" or "they were probably just sprouts" - you know what I don't do? Go into a raid the first time without any prior knowledge of even a single fight/mechanic and then expect people to carry my rear end to the finish. I may fail mechanics as I learn, but I at least knew what to expect. The information about mechanics - in the form of videos, detailed write-ups, or just simple one-sentence explanations - is out there. It's been out there for years. Educate yourselves - stop being a freaking leech.

I agree with this. I've spotted this weird snowflake-ism as well and it is just... no... It is unironically a different kind of toxic and a way for the community to collapse in on itself.

As someone else pointed out on this forum (I can't find it atm to copy the quote): It apparently is toxic to expect people to know and do gamemechanics.

[Rinhi]

I actually love it when players in the CT raids are underperforming or straight up semi-AFK: I can see mechs I've never seen before!

[Snorky]

I am sorry I don't agree with you. Why can't people who have knowledge of this fight just say before it begins does everyone know about the mechanics. Would you say the same thing to people the first time this encounter was ever run? No, because part of the fun of doing something is in the discovery. If you are running with first timers and you have knowledge to share do it. I don't run to YouTube before each fight because I want to experience the fight. But if someone is willing to part with knowledge I will gladly listen because it shows a team effort and makes for a better team. Imagine if a NFL team never communicated and only went on the field for a game never to speak. Or any team sport for that matter. Don't get me wrong I have looked fights up, dungeon or trial runs but sometimes I don't and someone who has experience has spoken up and I have appreciated it to no end.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I am sorry I don't agree with you. Why can't people who have knowledge of this fight just say before it begins does everyone know about the mechanics. Would you say the same thing to people the first time this encounter was ever run? No, because part of the fun of doing something is in the discovery. If you are running with timers and you have knowledge to share do it. I don't run to YouTube before each fight because I want to experience the fight. But if someone is willing to lart with knowledge I will gladly listen because it shows a team effort and makes for a better team. Imagine if a NFL team never communicated and only went on the field for a game never to speak. Or any team sport. Don't get me wrong I have looked fights up and dungeon or trial runs but sometimes I don't and someone who has experience has spoken up and I have appreciated it to no end.

Personally I wouldn't want to mention the mechanic precisely because they're first timer. They deserve the first time experience without spoiler. A wipe? No biggie. We just redo the battle and at this point I will start some quick explanation if anybody hasn't without flooding the chatbox with wall of text.

Naturally not everybody will agree with this approach but this is how I operate. I just hate spoilers.

[Krotoan]

Honestly, I'm just so tired of this game's community defending UTTER ineptitude. I was just in a group that managed to somehow wipe on Behemoth in Labyrinth of the Ancients. I've never seen a raid come even close to doing that - typically it's an encounter that takes all of 35-40 seconds to clear. And yet people kept dropping the meteors in the very back of the raid - even when members were pleading with them not to.

Hmm.. so you got frustrated.. fair. For someone who's been playing for a LONG time. Like you or me.. But not everyone.

When I just in general said 'wow, that's the first time a group has ever wiped on that in history,' suddenly it's "OH, YOU'RE TOXIC AF! IMAGINE BEING SO UPSET! - KICK THIS TROLL."

So you insulted everyone and are surprised when they got hostile. How unexpected (/s) I understand how you seem to THINK this isn't insulting everyone. But it is. The fact they reacted being evidence to such.

Frankly, if you can't handle the most faceroll encounter in the game, you deserve a callout. I wasn't naming anyone - I wasn't identifying the people who obviously wiped us. I wasn't screaming obscenities. I wasn't even mad. But you cannot criticize anyone in FFXIV's content without people reaching for their pitchforks.

What people "deserve" or don't isn't up to us. It's up to SE to decide. The way the game is enforced and presented you were in the wrong here. You don't have to actually swear or BE mad (though I'm calling you on this, you were frustrated so you were at least a LITTLE mad). You didn't just criticize you INSULTED. If you cannot tell the difference no wonder you might be afraid of being reported for simply "helping" if this is your idea of objective criticism or a helpful hint.

It's like an active battle against improvement - a fight to sustain below-average play. I'm not asking anyone to parse or some nonsense - it's a PUGed raid that's as old as the game itself. But to lose your minds in the defense of people who probably should have, you know, read a strat or just paid the most meager level of attention conceivable is just shameful. Just because this game is casual doesn't mean that a celebratory or protective tone needs to be taken regarding the pinnacle of incompetence.

You're just insulting people with no helpful advice. You act like

"'wow, that's the first time a group has ever wiped on that in history,'"

is some sort of motivational assistance. I will admit it would be nice if people would learn an encounter before doing it and it is annoying when people don't do bare minimum rotations or listen to actual advice, but just like dealing with people that NEED to speedrun everything.. they're part of the game and yelling at them doesn't help and will likely end up with you on the receiving end of punishment.

And before someone says "oh, they were totally right - you need to cut people some slack" or "they were probably just sprouts" - you know what I don't do? Go into a raid the first time without any prior knowledge of even a single fight/mechanic and then expect people to carry my rear end to the finish. I may fail mechanics as I learn, but I at least knew what to expect. The information about mechanics - in the form of videos, detailed write-ups, or just simple one-sentence explanations - is out there. It's been out there for years. Educate yourselves - stop being a freaking leech.

And you can't expect everyone to follow your own standards. You can only EXPECT them to play within the rules and standards the game gives. The minute you start to react to them as if they're breaking your own private rules, is when you risk being reported.


You might not like what I said, but it's how the game is. I don't begrudge you trying to change it, but spreading misinformation like "any helping gets you reported" and "every single run has so many leeches" doesn't help anyone. Especially when it seems your perceptions of "help" and "leeching" are quite skewed from what demonstrably the majority of the population thinks.